Brooks Automation Inc

LSE:0HQ1

Greetings, and welcome to the Azenta Q1 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Wednesday, February 5, 2025.

I will now turn the conference over to Yvonne Perron, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon to everyone on the line today. We would like to welcome you to our earnings conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. Our first quarter earnings press release was issued before the open of the market today and is available on our Investor Relations website located at investors.azenta.com, in addition to the supplementary PowerPoint slides that will be used during the prepared remarks today.

I would like to remind everyone that during the course of the call, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward-looking statements. I would refer you to the section of our earnings release titled Safe Harbor Statement, the safe harbor slide on the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website and on our various filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We make no obligation to update these statements should future financial data or events occur that differ from the forward-looking statements presented today.

We may refer to a number of non-GAAP financial measures, which are used in addition to and in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. We believe the non-GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance but when considered with GAAP financial results and the reconciliation of GAAP measures, they provide an even more complete understanding of the Azenta business. Non-GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the GAAP measures themselves.

On the call with me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, John Marotta; and our Chief Financial Officer, Lawrence Lin. We will open the call with remarks from John, and then Lawrence will provide a detailed look into our financial results and our outlook for fiscal year 2025. We will then take your questions at the end of the prepared remarks.

And with that, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, John Marotta.

Thank you, Yvonne. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We're happy to be with you in the morning rather than later in the day. And going forward, we will follow the same timing with the earnings release in the call before the market opens. This gives us more time for same-day interactions with our analysts, investors and other interested stakeholders. Before getting into the numbers, I want to give you an update on how I've spent my time the first few months at Azenta.

Since September, I've spent most of my time getting to know our business in the best way I know how. On the ground with our customers and our associates at our manufacturing sites and our lab facilities around the globe, including the U.K., China and the U.S. These meetings with our teams have been invaluable. They have given me a chance to see firsthand the incredible work being done and hear from those who drive our success every day. These visits have deepened my understanding of our operations, our opportunities and most importantly, our people.

I'm even more excited about what lies ahead. Alongside our highly talented teams, we've been making progress towards our accelerated goal of delivering profitable growth and long-term shareholder value. Our work is well underway to further enhance our competitively advantaged portfolio, differentiated products and services and strong market positioning. The Board aided capabilities of the newly created value creation committee have been working alongside me and my team to focus on and oversee our strategic initiatives. Portfolio optimization, operational excellence and value-enhancing capital allocation.

Our sample management solutions business is unique. I've had the opportunity to observe firsthand the highly differentiated products and services we deliver to our customers. To that end, we are excited that the U.K. bio center selected Azenta to expand its sample storage capabilities with the BioArc Ultra. . The BioArc Ultra will deliver significant operational efficiency and reduce footprint through high-density automated storage. The 16 million sample storage system includes our sample intelligence software solution with digitized library and warehouse workflows and the picking capability of up to 9 million picks per year. This is a clear testament to our market leadership position and reflects the trust and confidence that customers place in our capabilities and track record of delivering exceptional value.

In our Multi-Omics GENEWIZ business, I have clearly seen how much our customers consistently prioritize our high-quality offerings and trust the research expertise and consultative approach that our scientists provide to genomics analysis and scientific research Across Azenta, we have a talented team that is focused on enabling breakthroughs faster for our customers.

Now I'll shift my focus to the first quarter 2025 results, our full year outlook and then dive into key updates on the focus areas that I shared with you during the last earnings call. As a reminder, during the fourth quarter of 2024 earnings call, we announced our decision to sell B Medical Systems. Effective this quarter, B Medical is reporting new operations, and I will not be discussing the business performance in my remarks. I'm pleased to share that fiscal 2025 was off to a good start with positive momentum under our unique and differentiated offerings. On a year-over-year basis, organic revenue grew 4% and EBITDA margin expanded by 400 basis points.

In Multiomics, next-gen sequencing, Gene Synthesis and clinical services were strong. In Sample Management Solutions, we saw growth in our consumables and instruments, clinical bio stores, cryogenics as well as sample storage. We remain cautiously optimistic about the gradual market recovery. We are confident in our outlook and are reiterating our full year 2025 guidance of organic revenue growth between 3% to 5% and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 300 basis points. Lawrence will go into more detail in our quarterly financial performance. At the last earnings call, I shared with you that we're focusing on several key areas. The first is portfolio optimization.

The second is operational excellence; and the third is value-enhancing capital allocation. Each quarter, I will update you on the progress we are making in each area and portfolio optimization to be medical sale process is underway, which will help simplify our portfolio and will allow us to focus on driving revenue growth and profitability in our remaining businesses. We've engaged external advisers but are still in the initial stages. We will update shareholders as this process develops, but won't be commenting further at this time.

More broadly, our priority will always be to strategically review the portfolio on an ongoing basis and to ensure we are maximizing our full potential in creating value. We have made some early and positive strides in operational excellence. The efforts we are making will build the foundation for long-term value creation, reducing complexity and simplifying what we do and how we work. I am confident that by focusing on operational excellence and transformation, we will deliver best-in-class growth.

Specifically, we're starting on our business system and operating model. We brought together our top leaders for a 2-day training on the business system and the implementation plan. The level of engagement, enthusiasm for the teams to learn a new way of doing business was encouraging. To understand the need for change, they demonstrated interesting curiosity and lean tools. We are being our leaders with the skills and the knowledge through participation in Kaizen events to become experts in the field, empowering them not to only excel individually but also to lead and mentor others and amplify their impact deep into the organization.

We're working on continuous improvement and simplification is the way we work. A change in mindset will be modeled at the top and methodically cascaded throughout the organization. It will be challenging and sometimes bumpy, but we have a strong culture with winning instincts. The business system model will help drive our performance and further unify our culture. I'm excited about the road ahead.

To measure our performance, we have carefully selected our key performance indicator, which we call core value drivers or CBDs. These align our daily management and operating decisions with our strategy. These CBDs are broadly focused on revenue growth, profitability, customer-facing metrics for quality and on-time delivery, employee metrics on internal advancement and voluntary turnover as well as working capital and cash management. We are starting to better utilize our information systems to provide more timely, visibility and insights across the organization.

Recently, our team quickly developed and rolled out a weekly automated sales report, which provides a visual dashboard to help focus deeply on running the business. To see where we're on track in red and where we are on track in green. This new tool will allow us to prioritize and focus on addressing issues, identify countermeasures where necessary and save valuable time and resources and enable better, more consistent performance. This example illustrates the low-hanging fruit available to us. We have many opportunities like this that are highly achievable and can have rapid and meaningful impact on our performance. We will be programmatic in how we spend our time.

We are prioritizing customer on-time delivery and products and services quality, which will lead to gross margin improvements, indirect savings, inventory reduction and importantly, improved customer experience and satisfaction. This will have immediate positive impacts on our profitability and how our customers see us and organic growth acceleration will follow with a lag. In line with our priorities, we have scheduled 3 kaizens for the fiscal second quarter, 2 are in sample repository solutions, 1 focus on sample management workflow automation that will efficiency and scalability and the other on simplification of order-to-cash process to shorten cycle time and improve process quality.

The third Multiomics for improved payment capabilities to shorten the cycle from study inquiry to scientific results. These Kaizens will identify areas that will identify the need for more Kaizen starting the flywheel of continuous improvement. In January, we executed a separate restructuring plan to rightsize our G&A cost structure and reposition our resources. Simplification of corporate and operating company functions is critical to provide clarity and accountability while empowering our employees who are closest to the customer to make the right conversations.

We have restructured head count and pushed R&D, quality, sales operations, finance, human resource and other functions into the 2 operating companies. Each operating company will undergo an organizational transformation in the coming weeks to ensure an optimal go-to-market and commercial structure. We are freeing up capital that will be redirected to the highest impact growth investments in sales, marketing and R&D. Sense of excitement and optimism in the organization towards the changes and increased clarity around decision-making.

To help implement standard procurement processes, we are in the process of standing up in new global procurement organization. This group will drive direct material and indirect cost savings, optimize inventory levels, streamline our supply chain and optimize our preferred supplier list. More to come on this. Finally, on the capital allocation, the Value Creation Committee of the Board was created in November. I'm working closely with the committee to establish the monthly framework, where we will review progress on our financial performance, working capital initiatives, margin improvement as well as evaluate potential investments.

We will prioritize investment opportunities across the 4 levers, which are gross margin productivity, organic growth offerings, inorganic growth through strategic tuck-in and M&A and repurchasing our stock. We will make our capital allocation decisions through a standard and robust returns-based process. As I mentioned before, we will compete for resources internally to unlock long-term shareholder value. I'm excited about Azenta's potential and confident in our ability to drive long-term sustainable value to our customers, our employees and our shareholders. I will keep you updated on our progress.

With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Lawrence. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm honored to be here with you for my first earnings call as the Chief Financial Officer of Azenta. Before we discuss our financial performance first quarter of fiscal 2025, we want to take a moment to acknowledge the trust that you placed in me to help lead this great company. Additionally, I would like to recognize the dedication of our entire Azenta team who demonstrate every day their commitment to delivering value for our customers, fellow employees, shareholders.

I want to share my initial reflections following my 90 days on the job. These past 3 months have been insightful and energizing as I work to immerse myself in learning the business, understanding the dynamics of our operations and engaging with the talented individuals across the organization. I couldn't be more excited to be here. Azenta has a history of delivering value and innovation, and it's clear that the team is deeply committed to our purpose of enabling breakthroughs faster. I've been impressed by the resilience and adaptability demonstrated across the organization particularly in navigating challenging market conditions.

At the same time, after spending time with the team, it's clear to me there are numerous opportunities to enhance our financial performance. Streamlining our operations to work simpler and are deploying technology more fully to automate and build robust capabilities will enable improved cash flow generation and accelerate profitability. These initiatives will not only help us address immediate priorities and challenges, but also sets the scalable foundation for sustainable, long-term value creation. Now as a reminder, the results we are referring to today, unless otherwise noted, excludes B Medical Systems, which is now reported under discontinued operations.

I am pleased to report all continued organic growth in our combined Sample Management Solutions and Multi-Omic businesses. The strength of our portfolio and our ability to better address the needs of our customers in an ever-evolving and uncertain and still difficult market environment. In addition, continued focus on cost optimization and driving profitable growth is positioning us to improve margins to deliver strong and consistent results for our shareholders. To supplement my remarks today, I will refer to the slide deck available on our website.

Turning to Slide 3 for some highlights. First quarter revenue was $148 million, up 4% year-over-year on an as reported and on an organic basis. Both the SMS and Multiomic segments performed well in the quarter, given the continued challenging market environment. With growth in next-generation sequencing, gene synthesis, consumables and instruments, store systems as well as sample store. Non-GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.08. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 9% in the quarter. This represents a margin expansion of about 400 basis points versus last year demonstrating the impact of our transformation initiatives as well as our strong focus on improved operational efficiencies.

Our results were impacted by certain onetime costs, including those related to executive compensation in connection with the recent restructuring of our management team. Free cash flow $2 million for the quarter, driven primarily by lower accounts receivables and increased billings related to our source projects. We ended the quarter in a strong position with $530 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities which includes $27 million of cash held in discontinued operations.

Now let's turn to Slide 4 to take a deeper look at our results in the quarter. Total revenue was $148 million, representing a growth of 4% within organic. In the first quarter, non-GAAP gross margin was 47.6%, up 270 basis points year-over-year. The improvement is largely a result of higher revenue, favorable sales mix, operational efficiencies and certain nonrecurring items already in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter was 9%, up 400 basis points year-over-year. Again, non-GAAP EPS was $0.08 per share.

With that, let's turn to Slide 5 for a review of our segment results, starting with Sample Management Solutions, or SMS. SMS revenue was $81 million, up 3% year-over-year reported and up 2% organic. Driven by growth in Sample Repository Solutions and core products. Consumables and instruments clinical and cryogenic store systems and sample storage were the drivers of growth which was partially offset by year-over-year decline in large automated stores due to timing. SMS first quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 47.8%, up from 60 basis points year-over-year mostly driven by operational efficiencies, sales mix and the impact of certain nonrecurring items recorded in the same period last year.

Turning next to the Multi-Omic segment. Multi-Omics delivered revenue of $66 million with a growth of 6% on both and as reported and organic basis, demonstrating our strong execution in the face of several market headwinds. Next-generation sequencing grew 11% year-over-year. This was the third quarter of price stabilization and double-digit volume growth. Key large deals also contributed to the significant year-over-year gains, specifically in the North America and Europe regions. China delivered organic growth of 7%, once again outperforming a market with macro challenges.

Gene Synthesis grew 5% compared to last year with great execution by our teams in China in what continues to be a tough market environment. Sanger Sequencing revenue was down 11% year-over-year as we continue to see the impacts of the shift of sequencing technology. This pressure was offset by growth in Plasmid-EZ, our ONT product, which continues to be strong and gaining ground. Multi-Omics first quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 47.4%, up 30 basis year-over-year, driven largely by the growth in NGS volume as well as labor and material productivity gains that helped to offset price headwinds.

Let's turn to Slide 6 for a review of the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $530 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. Excluding discontinued operations, the balance was $503 million. We had no debt outstanding. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $8 million, of which $7 million was investment for growth and scale in our Sample Management Solution and Multi-Omic businesses.

Turning to guidance on Slide 8. As you saw in our press release, we are reiterating our guidance for 2025 as we expect organic revenue growth of 3% to 5% for the full year, with Multiomics to grow low single digit and Sample Management Solutions to grow mid-single digits. We are reaffirming our commitment to 300 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion year-over-year. In closing, my priority as CFO is to ensure that we deliver value to our customers, employees and shareholders. This includes maintaining transparency, enhancing shareholder returns and aligning our financial strategies with our long-term vision. I look forward to engaging with you regularly and sharing updates on our progress.

This concludes our prepared remarks. Now I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Jacob Johnson with Stephens.

Maybe a couple of questions on recent headlines. First, John, you mentioned the U.K. bio center, BioArc. Is there any way to frame up the size of that opportunity, maybe the timing of the revenues and whether this is something that was contemplated in guidance? And then I guess along the same lines, I'm just kind of curious these kind of BioArc Ultra wins could be out there?

Jacob, thanks for your continued support here. Things on our BioArc Ultra, as you know, that's our ultra-low high-throughput warehouse management system, sample management system and biological management system. So it's got a lot of versatility on these end markets. From our perspective, that was in our guidance, and so that was contemplated there. We're really excited about the implementation of that. As you know, it's a POC business. Highly customized and multimillions of dollars. We have -- just for some context here, I mean, we have 7 quad banks in this facility already. So it's a continuation of our partnership with bio center, an important customer for us going forward.

Lawrence, do you want to talk about phasing of this?

Yes, I think the accounting process a percentage of completion, Jacob, I'm sure you're aware, we expect the bio center to be operational early in 2026.

Got it. And then yesterday, there was a headline about Illumina being added to the unreliable entity list in China. I know it's probably early, but we're getting questions on it. So can you talk about any impacts that you could see from that headline to your NGS business in China or maybe another is there any way to frame up how large the NGS business in China is for you all?

So the team has done a nice job of anticipating this for quite some time in China do not own any Illumina products in NovaSeq specifically in China. We do have a few Illumina products internally. Most of our NGS business, we actually partner with BGI in China specifically. We run 2 platforms in particular on NGS. And the Illumina platform, and the MGI platform from BGI. As you know, BGI was put on the list in biosecure and a Pentagon -- a list at the Pentagon as well. Those -- our partnership is only in China with that and so we have the ability to move customers over to the MGI platform, if needed. But again, we've been -- the team in China has been anticipating this for quite some time. The risk is low.

I'll let Lawrence quantify that in general, but we've been anticipating this for quite some time.

Yes. Jacob, as you mentioned, really, when we look at the revenue for NGS particularly in the region of China, it's roughly about 7%-ish to 10% of Multiomics. So again, what John mentioned is we see no material risk due to the Illumina issue.

And your next question comes from the line of David Saxon with Needham.

John and Lawrence, congrats on the quarter. So just a few for me on Multiomics, maybe I'll start. So the guide stayed at low single digits. You did send organic this quarter. It sounds like there were some orders that came in, in this quarter. But just given that guidance implies the deceleration in the back half of the year, or the balance, I should say, what's driving that? I think NGS comps get tougher, but like anything you're seeing in Sanger or Synthesis that would drive that deceleration.

Thanks, I appreciate your comments here on the morning as well. It's good to be speaking with you in the morning. Let's talk about, first, the way we're thinking about this. I mean we're looking at the full year. We're not looking at the quarters right now. Second thing is we are in the middle of a transformation. So we're holding that guide right now. We are going to be coming back to you in the summer with an Investor Day and kind of view of our LRP in general.

I want to hand this over to Lawrence to talk to you about phasing and what this looks like quarter-on-quarter.

Look, as John alluded to, it's mainly a timing issue here. We had a really solid quarter to your point, right? NGS was up 11%. So we're really pleased about that. As John noted, I think as we get closer to Investor Day, more to come here now. But right now, we're just kind of -- we've got a lot of change that's happening, and we're looking at the phrasing as well.

Okay. Great. We'll stay with you on margins, just really strong improvement or it does seem like the guide implies EBITDA kind of margins kind of plateau in the back half. I don't know if it's just how you're thinking about the year versus the quarter early, but any comments around like how much of that is conservatism versus any timing from the Ascend '26 initiatives? And then just on B Medical, I don't know if this would be for John or Lawrence. I think last quarter, you talked about potentially closing that in the fiscal first half. It sounds like this morning, you're talking about still in the initial stages. So is the message essentially that it's going to probably take longer than that?

David, I'll take the margin one, and maybe I'll pass it to John on as on the B Medical. First just kind of ground ourselves a bit. EBITDA for the first quarter was 9%. I did mention during kind of the prepared remarks, that we had some onetime events. Excluding some of those onetime events, we're north of 10% EBITDA. So it gives us a bit of a pathway towards kind of what we're looking at 300 basis points. As we step through the balance of the year, John noted that we did it of the corporate function. That will also -- is within our guidance and it is a couple of million dollars on the balance of the year. We've got some more to come, but we feel pretty confident right now in our guide based on some of the actions we're taking this quarter. But more importantly, what we've got in queue for the second and third.

David, a few other comments here. So on research about 17% of corporate, we restructured. We're going to continue that transformation in the operating companies and making sure we've got the right structure to go forward. So it's -- the way we're framing this is it's around structure, process and then our people is the framing of how we're setting the company up. In regards to Ascend 2026 this is just going to be a way of life in how we run our business going forward. So we're going to -- I mean we want to keep G&A at a very modest level in this company and then accelerate around sales and marketing and R&D in these growth investments. Right now, we're trying to -- we're getting our resting heart rate in the organization to figure out what steady state looks like.

We're really pleased with the teams have been making. Restructuring at corporate was very well done, have soft to our HR team and the rest of the leaders that executed that. And our operating companies are entering their transformational phase as well. As it pertains to the one-timers that Lawrence discussed, I mean we're pleased about our trajectory financially on the bottom line right now. I mean those one-timers, if you back those out, we're pretty confident in where we're moving the bottom line right now and more in control there.

In regards to B Medical, what I can tell you is our value creation committee, Board members are involved in that process. We're going to help accelerate that. We're very pleased about maximizing -- well, let me say it differently. We're focused heavily on maximizing the value of that sale, and we're pleased that the committee members are involved in that. Specifically, I think that's going to really help us partner with our outside advisers to maximize value. Listen, the funnel in regards to inbound and in our outreach, I'm pleasantly surprised at how many party involved and interested in this business. So that's the update on that one, David.

And your next question comes from the line of Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI.

A couple of maybe macro-related questions on recent noise around tariffs. Can you talk about your exposure to China, Mexico, Canada in any risk related to tariffs?

Sure. Let me talk about -- just give you the high-level context and then Lawrence will jump into the they'll dive into the details of our -- if there's a materiality there or not. As it pertains to Mexico and Canada, we have minimal risk. Again, our businesses in Multiomics specifically are set up regionally. It's a local-for-local model. We do have some global overlap around our synthesis business. In regards to SMS in that business unaffected, in China specifically, as you know, there's a 6.5% tariff right now at 10%. I'll let Lawrence get into particulars of that in terms of materiality or not.

In terms of China tariff, looking at kind of the step up to 10%, we believe the impact of Azenta is really immaterial. Potential incremental probably $1 million maybe $2 million at most that will be at the upper end. Really, as you think about this is -- we kind of known this was going to be happening. So we've really factored a lot of this into our guide. As you know, this is a pretty fluid situation. So we're kind of monitoring the developments here. And if the situation evolves adversely and the underlying understanding changes, we will communicate that to you. But right now, we feel pretty good that it's a very immaterial amount for us.

Understood. And then maybe 1 on the SMS, it looks like it was off a slow start. I know the guidance mid-singles for Sample Management Solutions. I think stores, you said low singles. So maybe talk about your orders, backlog. Was this just a timing element or some cautiousness from customers, perhaps which we're seeing here in the numbers?

Yes, Vijay, you're absolutely right. It's really around timing. Our large stores in the first quarter was down 13%. However, we have a pretty robust pipeline and backlog and continues to build for '25, '26, just to provide a little bit of context around that. We've got a good line of sight for the next 12 months here. And we've got 75% of the 2025 revenue secured. So feel pretty good. Sometimes these capital projects do kind of move on us quarter-to-quarter, as you saw similarly to what the U.K. came up, but we feel good. And on top of that, as you look at C&I, we continue to see strong demand up in the quarter about 9%, particularly.

Instruments. So again, mainly timing here, Vijay.

Vijay, similar color here. So we were at [ ASCO ] last week. As you know, that's the biggest trade show in that segment of the market. We had a lot of inbound, over 300-some leads. We're pleased with the activity during that trade show. I think the other thing that we've learned, and we spoke with a lot of customers last week, I mean, personally, we spoke a lot of customers in. There's some uncertainty in these end markets right now illustration but we think that it's more of a wait-and-see instead of canceling projects. Our sales leaders and our sales reps feel pretty confident with the -- with where we are in these programs, they're not seeing cancellations at all or delays. It's more of a wait-and-see approach we're seeing right now in these just first couple of months. But we feel pretty confident in our back half in general.

Understood. And maybe if I could squeeze 1 more in. Gross margins, nice share. It looks like there was some timing moment in stock comp here in Q1 that's depressed operating margins. When you think about the back half margin ramp, should gross margin sustain at these levels and visibility into the back half operating margin ramp?

Yes, Vijay, honestly, in terms of gross margin, really pleased with the results in Q1. We saw a similar profile last quarter, but a couple positive things, right? We saw better margins within stores and the SMS business. Multiomics, we saw stabilization in NGS price coupled with favorable sales mix and really operational, if it's right. And in general, we feel good about the gross margin trajectory here and then the investment opportunity.

And your next question comes from the line of Matt Stanton with Jefferies.

Maybe sticking with the theme kind of recent noisy headlines. Could you guys just remind us what the pro forma mixes within your academic and government exposure. And then within that, it's directly tied to NIH. And any kind of impact you've seen and I know it's early days in the last few weeks, but then kind of a choppy backdrop from a headline within the administration, anything you're seeing kind of in terms of activity levels at customers or things being pushed out? And then I assume that's kind of contemplated within the [indiscernible] , the 3% to. 5% guide. But if you can just confirm that as well?

It is contemplated in the guide. From an end market perspective, in general, so about 45 pharma biotech, about 16 academic, about 15 medical, government. And we've got about 15 in emerging markets. The way I would look at this, Matt, is we've seen some pausing or delays in some projects that are government funded. We believe those are going to come back online once some decisions are made either on the NIH front or side of funding, government funding of some of these projects. So again, we're able to respond to whichever way the markets are going based on the fact that there are always projects and programs going. We toggle our call points based on that. I mean the teams can move over to more pharma and biotech in the event there is a pullback, slight pullback on research and other areas. We're comfortable, but we're also monitoring in general in these markets. So that's kind of our view of it right now.

Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe shifting gears a little bit. Can you just talk about what you saw in the cell and gene therapy side in the first quarter? I think the last few quarters have started to see some improvement funding still may be a bit challenged, but there's some later-stage programs ramping up. So I just love to see kind of what you're hearing and seeing from your customers on the cell and gene therapy side of things.

Last year, we saw our auto cryo business increased about 67%. We've delivered about 11 units this quarter against that. So we're seeing good progress in cell and gene therapy. I mean that product is specifically sits under that value stream in cell and gene therapy as well as our Barkey products. We're pretty bullish on that end market, and we're seeing good traction there as well this year, and that trend is continuing.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Knight with KeyBanc.

First question I have would be the company has been even before your tenure buying stock, we really didn't know what the margin target was, and I don't understand why there was such an aggressive share repurchase program when there was no clear metrics out there on what business performance should be. So the question really is, as you are now on Board, is there still a share buyback program or will we wait to see what the business can return first. And then is there a likelihood that we could go back to what I think was a consolidator of the industry or are you still out on that? So 2 questions there.

Two good questions, Paul. We were at -- last year, we were with investing in our Q1, and this topic came up quite frequently. And capital allocation work is alive and well in the organization right now. And first, it's around gross margin improvement. And we're really focused around that specifically. The second is around growth initiatives in R&D and expanding our business lines and geographies. Third is around M&A and tuck-in and last is share buyback. And I wanted to share that framework again really focused around that. We're focused around that in the value creation committee. And so when I say share buybacks are last, everything competes against that fourth lever specifically.

Right now, as we sit here today, we think there's much more opportunity in levers 1 through 3. We see those opportunities. We're investing in those now. There are strict ROIC metrics around that, and we're head down and focused on that specifically. I think we're excited to get us into the steady-state model where we can come back with a clear eye view on what is the algorithm of this business, what does it look like from a returns perspective. There's still work to be done there, Paul. But in general, that's the way we're thinking about it.

And once we have that, then we can come back with a better answer around that. I don't view -- I've been pretty candid around this. I don't think that the shareholders hire us to do share buybacks. And I think the opportunity we have in front of us, specifically around SMS and SRS and some other business lines in Multiomics really excites us around our investment opportunities, but also at a certain point around M&A and when we get us into a good place to start to do that type of work.

Great. And then last question, I guess, has been asked about, but it seems like this post-COVID era of overcapacity and ultra cold temperature and even cold storage in general, it seems like we're starting to get past that blot of material and capacity that did emerge during COVID. So are we kind of 1 step past it now? Or what's your feeling on where we are with this post-COVID hangover?

No, we have some experience in the ULT market from my prior life. But thankfully, we've ever -- I understand how the investment community lumps us into that. And I don't think that's the case. The more I get into the business, the more I'm kind of scratching my head wondering why we we're being kind of lumped into that end market. And here's -- and let me be more helpful here, Paul. So if we think about our stores specifically, those units are basically asset management units or warehouse management units for a pharma and biotech, specifically around compound management, specifically around sample management is around antibodies and using these as warehouse management systems and pick systems for shipping of these products.

Those are 3 different applications that a ULT just -- I mean you may get some support there, but it's very manual process. I mean we're not seeing that overlap in particular. So we're pretty excited about these other applications and how they sit in other end markets that maybe you wouldn't see it on a broad macro chart, but will to meet the needs of these customers very uniquely because of our inventory management at the facilities, at providing that service to our customers. Really excited about that.

I mean these are highly sophisticated 12 access automated robots that are inside negative 80 degrees Celsius that what sits on top of that is a highly sophisticated software program that you can access your inventory very quickly, whether that's in compounds, monoclonal antibodies, antibodies and/or samples. So pretty excited about that end market, but this ULT glut I don't think we've been parted to that because we've been growing well over the glut on the ULT side.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Cooper from Raymond James.

Maybe just one into a little bit of a nitty-gritty on Multiomics. I just want to make sure -- you made a couple of comments about stability on NGS pricing, but there was one in there about price headwinds as a drag on margins. So maybe just help adjudicate or confirm, was that just, hey, you're a handful of quarters through stability and the comp is a little bit difficult? Or is there somewhere else in that segment where there's a little bit of pricing pressure we need to make sure we're thinking about?

Andrew, just to clarify, we are seeing price stability in NGS. Just to reiterate, we had a great quarter there, 11% growth. So overall, that's kind of where the NGS businesses at Sanger, you're going to -- we have challenges in Sanger, but that's kind of a shift in technology, right? We're down about 11% there and the big thing is, though, it's a shift in technology. We are seeing a significant kind of upside technology called Plasmid-EZ and that is up significantly. I believe almost 300% year-on-year in the quarter. So well, that's helpful.

Andrew, some color here. So our Sanger business is seeing some headwinds. But I'll tell you, with 2,500 drop boxes in the United States, just alone, I'm not even going to speak to Europe in our infrastructure there. In the United States, we've got drop boxes. Sanger's being disintermediated by the ONT Plasmid-EZ product, we're going to double that business this year because of our infrastructure. We're very excited about the growth of this in general. And I think the team has done a really good job of responding to that we're investing in it.

Great. That's helpful. Maybe just 1 more on that side of the business that in at the same time as well. But just in terms of Gene Synthesis, 1 area that you guys have talked about has to be and needing to add some in Indi, I think, and more kind of coming out of China there relative to other parts of the business. So just to be clear, is the takeaway on the China tariff response that even that business you feel relatively comfortable with kind of the moving parts there? And where are we in that capacity expansion you've talked about before? And then lastly, just, John, what you made on getting in that right spot where it's time to execute on M&A and tuck-ins again. What do you need to see in the core business to feel like you're at that point where it is time to get a little bit more kind of forward-looking and aggressive on the M&A front? I appreciate it.

Yes, you bet. So let's talk about Synthesis, then we'll go to capacity in an M&A piece. So the Gene Synthesis business has been a mid-single-digit grower for us. Very steady because our customer base is biotech and pharma specifically. I mean that's the lion's share of our customers, less academics and I want to share that overly because I think there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of misrepresentation out there in the market, specifically around Synthesis. We compete in a very niche part of this market that no 1 else does and the needs of those customers are very unique because they're looking at very complex long reads.

And that takes a bit of automation, which we have. We're about 40% automated on that and I'm sorry, almost 400 PhDs that support that business, both in the U.S. and in China. And so we've got great capabilities there, and we meet those customers' needs very uniquely. There's a competitor out there that operates highly automated on a chip and so it's high volume, lower quality, but it's a different segment of the market. Again, we're positioned very nicely in that market from a high quality, high complexity very high margin. It's a very high-margin business for us.

So that's not a Gene Synthesis in general. As it pertains to capacity Andrew, we're very early innings there. I mean we're trying to figure out, in general, we go back to Paul's question around discipline, around capital allocation. We're not going to rush into decisions around areas of the business quite yet until we've got absolute clarity there. The easy wins for us around growth in R&D and some commercial investments we're making those today. And as it pertains to capacity, we're increasing capacity, and we're -- the team is doing a nice job. We'll come back to you when we've got a clear line of sight into that specifically.

Regarding M&A, I mean, I think this is a case where we have to demonstrate credibility and capabilities. And in all candor, we haven't done a good job of that in the past. And so we're trying to change that specifically about doing what we say we're going to do and showing those results and doing that. At the end of the day, we own these results. And when we show a track record on quarter-on-quarter what those results are, we've got stability in the bottom line, very tight controls in the bottom line, and we're chasing the upside, meaning we've made those appropriate investments in strategic areas, then I could come to you and say, I think we're ready for some M&A.

As I sit here today, we're not sure when that is. We may see some tuck-ins that are -- we're opportunistic around strategic parts of our business. We're not going to let those go. We have capacity to bring on some tuck-ins, but more to come on that, Andrew, as we go forward here.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to John Marotta for closing remarks.

Very good. Thank you so much, and thank you again for all your support. I want to thank our 3,000 employees that make us every day and appreciate your time this morning here.

Thank you, presenters. And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all. You may now disconnect.