Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
NYSE:LH
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Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings
In the third quarter of 2024, Labcorp reported a revenue of $3.3 billion, marking a 7.4% increase compared to the same period last year. This growth was fueled by a robust organic performance, contributing 4.8% to the increase, alongside the effects of acquisitions. The Diagnostics Laboratories segment, in particular, showed remarkable performance with revenue rising by 8.9%, driven by both organic growth and acquisitions. This foundational strength in their core business underscores Labcorp's strategic focus and capability to expand within the laboratory services sector.
Operating income for the quarter stood at $254 million, representing 7.7% of total revenue. Adjusted operating income was reported at $441 million, slightly better than last year. However, the adjusted operating margin decreased to 13.4% from 13.9% due to various factors, including restructuring charges tied to acquisitions and impacts from the Invitae acquisition. Despite these pressures, the underlying business performance was notable, with a significant 120 basis points margin improvement anticipated if excluding Invitae and weather-related impacts.
Net earnings from continuing operations amounted to $170 million, translating to $2 per diluted share. Notably, adjusted earnings per share (EPS) grew to $3.50, up 4% compared to the same quarter last year. This consistent growth in EPS, along with an operating cash flow of $277 million, fortifies Labcorp's financial position, providing a strong basis for future investments and shareholder returns. Free cash flow for the quarter was also robust at $162 million, showcasing the company’s effective cash management strategies.
Looking ahead, Labcorp has reaffirmed its full-year guidance, anticipating enterprise revenue growth in the range of 6.6% to 7.3%. Specifically, Diagnostics revenue is expected to rise between 7.2% and 7.8%, reflecting stronger performance than previously forecasted, while Biopharma revenue is set to increase by 4.7% to 5.6%. Additionally, the adjusted EPS forecast has a range of $14.30 to $14.70, slightly adjusted due to estimated weather impacts.
During the quarter, Labcorp executed several strategic acquisitions to enhance its operational footprint. These included the acquisition of select assets from Ballad Health and LabWorks, aimed at bolstering laboratory capabilities in underserved regions. Moreover, the integration of Invitae is progressing well, with expectations of slight accretion to earnings in 2025 and revenue growth projected at around 10%. This integration emphasizes Labcorp's commitment to strengthening its genetic testing offerings, further positioning it in specialized medical fields.
Labcorp’s long-term growth outlook remains positive, driven by a solid business development pipeline and strategic improvements. The company expects organic revenue growth of 3.5% to 5.5%, alongside an increase in inorganic growth projections to 1.5% to 2.5%. Adjusted margins are forecasted to improve year-over-year, bolstered by the benefits of the ongoing LaunchPad initiative, which aims to achieve $100 million to $125 million in savings this year. These efforts demonstrate Labcorp’s proactive approach to enhancing operational efficiency and profitability.
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Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2024 Labcorp Holdings Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Christin O'Donnell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Labcorp's Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call. As detailed in today's press release, there will be a replay of this conference call available. With me today are Adam Schechter, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Glenn Eisenberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
This morning, in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.labcorp.com, we posted both our press release and an Investor Relations presentation with additional information on our business and operations, which include a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures, both of which are discussed during today's call.
Additionally, we are making forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the estimated 2024 guidance and the related assumptions, the spin-off of Fortrea Holdings, Inc., the impact of various factors on the company's businesses, operating and financial results, cash flows and/or financial condition, including the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic and market conditions, future business strategies, expected savings, benefits and synergies from the LaunchPad initiative and from acquisitions and other strategic transactions and partnerships, the completed holding company the organization and opportunities for future growth.
Each of the forward-looking statements is subject to change based upon various factors, many of which are beyond our control. More information is included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly report on Form 10-Q and in the company's other filings with the SEC. We have no obligation to provide any updates to these forward-looking statements even if our expectations change.
Now I'll turn the call over to Adam Schechter.
Thank you, Christin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we review our third quarter financial performance and progress against our strategy. Before discussing our results, we'd like to acknowledge the communities across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, including our home state of North Carolina, which continues to face the devastating effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Our thoughts are with those impacted, including our employees and residents of those communities across several states who are grappling with a long recovery ahead.
We continue to support relief and recovery efforts as a member of the American Red Cross Disaster Response program.
Turning to our results for the quarter. We continue to perform very well across both Diagnostics Laboratories and Biopharma Laboratory Services. Our results reflect strong growth in diagnostics and Central Laboratories, driven by strong volume and core performance and by advancements in science, technology and innovation.
Let's start by reviewing our financial results. Revenue in the quarter was $3.3 billion, an increase of 7% compared to the third quarter of 2023. Diagnostics continued to deliver strong revenue growth, up 9%, driven by organic growth of 5%, while Biopharma Laboratory Services revenue grew approximately 3% and driven by strong growth in Central Labs of 9%, partially offset by the expected decline of 11% in early development. We continue to expect early development to show year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter.
The trailing 12-month book-to-bill was 1.02. We expect the book-to-bill to grow sequentially quarter-over-quarter in the fourth quarter, but it's overlapping with a very strong fourth quarter last year. Overall, the book-to-bill remains healthy for continued growth. Adjusted EPS of $3.50 was up 4% year-over-year. Enterprise margins were down 40 basis points due to the impact of Invitae. We expect to finish the year with solid growth across both diagnostics and Biopharma Laboratory Services. Glenn will provide more details on our results in just a moment. We continue to execute well on our strategic priorities by being a partner of choice for health systems and regional local laboratories.
By harnessing science and innovation to expand our leadership in important therapeutic areas. And by utilizing data and technology to bring important services and capabilities to our customers.
In the third quarter, Labcorp continued to advance in these strategic growth areas. First, we maintained a leadership position as a partner of choice for health systems. During the third quarter, we announced an agreement to acquire select operating assets of Ballad Health outreach lab services. Ballad Health expands our comprehensive laboratory and testing capabilities, to rural communities in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. We also entered into a strategic collaboration with Naples Comprehensive Healthcare in Southwest Florida to manage the daily operations of its inpatient laboratory operations.
Turning to regional and local laboratories. We signed a new agreement to acquire select assets of LabWorks, an independent clinical laboratory located in Alabama. And we closed the previously announced acquisition of select assets of BioReference's Health Laboratory testing business.
We continue to have a strong business development pipeline, and we look forward to sharing more of those details in the future. We also made several notable advances in science, technology and innovation in the quarter through strategic acquisitions, investments and new product launches.
First, we completed the acquisition of select assets of Invitae during the quarter. Performance was in line with our expectations, and we continue to expect it to be slightly accretive to earnings for 2025, with top line growth of approximately 10%. We are excited about Invitae's complementary cutting edge science, their genetic testing solutions and technology, which aligns strategically with Labcorp's focus on specialty medicine and oncology. The acquisition extends our leadership in specialty testing capabilities and our ability to utilize genetic data to improve clinical trials and treatment regimens in oncology and select rare diseases.
By integrating Invitae's genetic testing technology with Labcorp's specialty testing capabilities, we can offer a more complete set of insights for each patient from testing to diagnosis to treatment. The integration is on track with our financial goals without impacting the great science and customer experience that Invitae provides today.
In July, we announced an expanded collaboration with Ultima Genomics, to utilize its sequencing solution and technology to explore new whole genome sequencing clinical applications. including MRD in patients with early-stage solid tumor cancers.
In August, Labcorp received De Novo marketing authorization from the FDA for our PGDx elio plasma focus Dx, the industry's only kitted pan solid tumor liquid biopsy test. This test enables laboratory to perform genomic profiling when tissue is limited or unavailable. Labcorp has an industry-leading comprehensive oncology testing menu, and we are uniquely positioned as the only company offering FDA-authorized kitted solutions for both tissue and liquid-based solid tumor testing.
We also continue to expand our Labcorp OnDemand offerings with additional consumer initiated tests in July and August, including Syphilis and Luteinizing Hormone tests. Subsequent to the quarter end, we announced an exclusive agreement with NowDiagnostics to distribute the first over-the-counter point-of-care Syphilis blood test granted marketing authorization by the FDA. We plan to make the test available to providers by the end of 2024, and directly to patients to Labcorp OnDemand in 2025.
In the quarter, we also made improvements to our customer experience, using data and technology to bring important services and capabilities to our customers. We introduced a new order tracking experience to our diagnostic customers, giving the majority of providers real-time visibility of test order status.
This new capability offers comprehensive sample tracking enhancing providers' ability to manage patient care effectively with clear up-to-date information on all test orders. Ovia Health by Labcorp announced the expansion of its women health solutions to include a personalized, comprehensive postpartum experience. This 12-month program is designed to help women manage multiple aspects of the postpartum period through personalized recovery mode, symptom tracking and alerts and mental health support. I am proud of our accomplishments and how we operate as an organization. We recently earned Ethisphere Compliance Leader Verification which recognizes organizations with an outstanding commitment to achieving a best-in-class ethics and compliance program. Ethics and integrity are at the heart of everything we do, and integral to our mission to improve health and improve lives. We were also proud to be named a Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion after earning the top score of 100 by the 2024 Disability Equality Index.
In the quarter, Commerce delayed the implementation of PAMA, removing a potential $80 million revenue headwind in 2025. While we are pleased with this further delay, we continue to work closely with our trade associations to seek a permanent fixed of PAMA as there is bipartisan recognition that long-term reform is needed.
In conclusion, we continue to execute well on our short-term financial commitments while also making progress on our longer-term strategy. I am confident in our growth opportunities, and we remain on track to achieve our long-term outlook.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Glenn.
Thank you, Adam. I'm going to start my comments with a review of our third quarter results, followed by a discussion of our performance in each segment and conclude with an update on our full year guidance. For reference, we've also included additional business information that can be found in our supplemental deck on our Investor Relations website.
Revenue for the quarter was $3.3 billion, an increase of 7.4% compared to last year, primarily due to organic base business growth and the impact from acquisitions. The base business grew 8% compared to the base business last year, driven primarily by organic growth of 4.8%.
Operating income for the quarter was $254 million or 7.7% of revenue or 13.4% on an adjusted basis. During the quarter, we had $105 million of restructuring charges and special items, primarily related to acquisitions and LaunchPad initiatives. In addition, we had $18 million of expense for the transition service agreements related to the spin off for Trio, with the corresponding income recorded in other income.
Excluding these items and amortization of $64 million, adjusted operating income in the quarter was $441 million or 13.4% of revenue compared to $424 million or 13.9% last year. The increase in adjusted operating income was primarily due to organic demand and LaunchPad savings, partially offset by higher personnel costs and the loss from Invitae. The 40 basis point decline in adjusted operating margin was due to Invitae. Excluding Invitae as well as the impact from weather and days, margins would have been up approximately 120 basis points.
Our LaunchPad initiative continues to be on track to deliver $100 million to $125 million of savings this year, consistent with our long-term target. The adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 22.8% compared to 24% last year. The lower adjusted tax rate was primarily due to the geographic mix of earnings. We continue to expect the full year adjusted tax rate to be approximately 23%.
Net earnings from continuing operations for the quarter were $170 million or $2 per diluted share. Adjusted EPS were $3.50 in the quarter, up 4% from last year. Operating cash flow from continuing operations was $277 million in the quarter, which included an expected use of cash from Invitae compared to $276 million a year ago.
Capital expenditures totaled $116 million in the quarter or 3.5% of revenue. This compares to $105 million or 3.4% in the prior year. For the full year, we continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately 3.5% of revenue.
Free cash flow from continuing operations for the quarter was $162 million. During the quarter, the company invested $458 million in acquisitions, paid down $61 million in dividends and repurchased $75 million of stock. At quarter end, we had $1.5 billion in cash, while debt was $6.8 billion. These higher balances are due to the prefunding of maturing debt.
During the quarter, the company raised $2 billion of long-term notes to prefund $2 billion of maturing debt. The company expects to use cash to pay down the remaining $1.4 billion of debt, maturing over the next 4 months. Our current debt leverage is 2.4x net debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA.
Now I'll review our segment performance, beginning with Diagnostics Laboratories. Revenue for the quarter was $2.6 billion, an increase of 8.9% compared to last year, with organic growth of 5% and acquisitions net of divestitures contributing 4%. The base business grew 9.8% compared to the base business last year, driven primarily by organic growth of 5.8%. Total volume increased 5.1% compared to last year. Base business volume grew 5.6% compared to the base business last year as organic volume increased 2.7% and which was negatively impacted by approximately 40 basis points from weather, while acquisitions contributed 2.9%.
Price/mix increased 3.8% versus last year due to organic base business growth and acquisitions that was partially offset by lower COVID testing. Base business organic price/mix was up 3% compared to the base business last year due to mix as we benefited from lab management agreements, an increase in test per accession and esoteric testing growing faster than routine.
Diagnostics adjusted operating income for the quarter was $387 million or 15.2% of revenue compared to $386 million or 16.5% last year. Adjusted operating margin was down 130 basis points due to Invitae and the unfavorable impacts of days and weather. Excluding these items, margins would have been up around 80 basis points as the benefit of organic demand and LaunchPad savings was partially offset by higher personnel costs.
Now I'll review the segment performance of Biopharma Laboratory Services. Revenue for the quarter was $738 million, an increase of 2.6% compared to last year due to an increase in organic revenue of 2% and foreign currency translation of 0.6%.
The revenue growth was driven by continued strength in central labs, which was up 9%, while early development was down 11%, primarily due to higher-than-normal cancellations in prior periods. However, early development revenue increased sequentially from the second quarter, and we continue to expect it to grow year-over-year, beginning in the fourth quarter.
Biopharma adjusted operating income for the quarter was $121 million or 16.4% of revenue compared to $109 million or 15.2% last year. Adjusted operating income and margin increased due to organic demand and LaunchPad savings, partially offset by higher personnel costs.
We ended the quarter with a backlog of $8.1 billion, and we expect approximately $2.6 billion of this backlog to convert into revenue over the next 12 months. The trailing 12-month book-to-bill was 1.02.
Now I'll discuss our updated 2024 full year guidance, which assumes foreign exchange rates effective as of September 30, 2024, for the remainder of the year. The enterprise guidance also includes the impact from currently anticipated capital allocation, including acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends.
We expect Enterprise revenue to grow 6.6% to 7.3% compared to 2023. Versus prior guidance, the midpoint is unchanged and as a benefit of 20 basis points from foreign currency is being offset by a negative 20 basis points from weather. We continue to perform well in Diagnostics with revenue expected to be up 7.2% to 7.8% compared to 2023. This is an increase at the midpoint from our prior guidance of 10 basis points due to the improved outlook within Diagnostics.
The acquisition of select assets of bio reference that was previously only included in the enterprise guidance until the transaction closed is benefiting diagnostics growth by 30 basis points. This is being offset by the unfavorable impact from weather of 30 basis points.
We expect biopharma revenue to grow 4.7% to 5.6% compared to 2023. The midpoint of our guidance increased 80 basis points due to the favorable impact from foreign currency of 100 basis points, partially offset by a slower recovery in early development of 20 basis points. We continue to expect early development to grow revenue year-over-year beginning in the fourth quarter.
We expect enterprise margins to be slightly down year-over-year with Diagnostics margins constrained by Invitae and weather. We expect biopharma margins to be up year-over-year. Our guidance range for adjusted EPS is $14.30 to $14.70. We have decreased the midpoint of guidance by $0.10 due to the estimated impact from weather of $0.15. Our free cash flow guidance range is $850 million to $980 million.
In summary, we expect to drive continued profitable growth and strong free cash flow generation that will be used for acquisitions that support our strategy and supplement our organic growth, while also returning capital to shareholders through our share repurchase program and dividends.
Operator, we will now take questions.
[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Ann Hynes with Mizuho.
Good morning. Just heading into 2025, is there any specific headwinds and tailwinds that you would like to call out? And then secondly, I'm sure you're seeing some of the late-stage probably traded peers have not done really well this quarter. Revenue growth is declining or I should say, accelerating, but it seems like the opposite is happening to your central lab.
How should we think about the impact of what's happening with some of your customers from a timing perspective? Do you expect that to impact revenue? Is there a lag 6 months, 12 months? How should we view it in the future?
Sure. I'll start with 2025. And so first of all, I feel great about the momentum that we have in both our Diagnostics and Central Laboratory business, and we expect early development is going to go in the fourth quarter and will grow as we go into 2025.
We're not giving any 2025 guidance today. But as you look at our longer-term guidance, where we have organic revenue growth of 3.5% to 5.5%, plus another 1.5% to 2.5% growth for intergenic growth, we remain on track, and we're going to be entering 2025 with real momentum and strength.
As I think about the Central Laboratory business, it continues to perform very well. Central laboratory had very strong growth year-over-year of 9%. I would say that, that's based off of an easy compare last year because as you recall last year, there was a lot of sites that didn't have the ability to enroll patients. They have staffing issues and so forth.
But as we look forward into the future and I look at the longer-term guidance for BLS, I expect Central Labs will be consistent with that guidance and show continued growth. If you look at the Central Lab books, we have solid orders. We have good, consistent win rates. And we are a leader in that field. And in that field, the majority of our business is with large pharma. It's much less with the smaller biotechnology companies.
Our next question comes from Lisa Gill of JPMorgan.
Just wanted to follow-up on Invitae and the margin progression. So you talked about the impact in the quarter. As I think about going into '25, like how should I think about, one, that margin progression? And then secondly, is there anything to call out when you think about the mix in the Diagnostics business? And we look at the price per rec coming in much better than what we had anticipated in our model.
Yes. So let me start first with Invitae. So we continue to be really excited about their science genetic testing solutions and technology that they have. And it really aligns with us strategically.
The integration is going extremely well. We're on track with all the integration metrics that we have in place. If you look at the financial metrics, we're performing as we expected based upon what we provided guidance last quarter. And as you look at this year, we expect that there'll be an impact of about 40 basis points negative. But as we go into next year, we expect Invitae to be slightly accretive. So you can assume if it's negative in the first 2 quarters of the launch, and it's slightly accretive for the full year that it will take us a little bit of time as we go through the year before you see that accretion occur.
But overall, we remain very bullish about that acquisition and the revenue growth will be about 10% as we think about next year as well. And then in terms of mix, I'll ask Glenn to provide some comments.
First, just also just wrapping up on the Invitae as well as Adam commented that yes, we would expect margin improvement sequentially going forward. So each quarter that we have as we integrate the business, it will improve will still show negative comps on margin year-on-year through the first half of next year just until it annualizes.
And then Lisa, once it's annualized, you'd expect to see that margin improvement or be a tailwind to margins beginning in the second half of next year. With the price mix, we actually had a good top line growth within Diagnostics overall. If you look at our base business organically, we grew around 6%, and that was pretty evenly split between utilization. Volume was up around 2.7%, and even that was constrained by weather of around 40 basis points. But to your earlier comment, the mix impact, we were up around 3%.
And really, what drove that this quarter more than anything was the in-hospital lab management agreements, which we continue to do, and we treat that as price mix but we've also seen a steady increase in our test per session, which we've seen over time that continues to progress and we continue to see growth in more of our esoteric business growing faster than our routine. So really, the combination of those 3 things is what drove the favorable mix this quarter.
Our next question comes from Michael Cherny of Leerink Partners.
Maybe to comment the margin question a different way. I know it's hard because moving pieces, especially stuff I would say out of your control, obviously, Invitae. But as you think about the savings that you've been able to generate on the cost side, as you think about where you've landed, I think you heard 120 basis points of underlying margin expansion in your view, ex Invitae, ex weather, et cetera.
Where are you thinking been the most successful sources of margin expansion? How do we think about the pull-through on what still remains an elevated revenue growth level on incremental pull-through versus restructuring? And I guess, it's a Lisa's question a little bit, how do we think about the cost-cutting impacts of over and beyond Invitae playing forward into '25, both within LaunchPad and outside?
Yes. So Michael, I'll take a first cut at I may want to add as well. But we actually do feel very good about the underlying performance of the company. And to your point, we have a bunch of headwinds that we've identified that we call obviously, would be more nonoperational, the strategic acquisition that we did with Invitae, the impact of weather and this quarter and actually will also have a quarter impact in the fourth quarter from just days, so kind of timing related. And so that gets to that 120 basis point expansion that you commented about.
But the underlying business, when we take those out and also we obviously still have a little bit of a headwind from COVID testing, that's now leveled off, but still year-over-year, it's a negative impact. But the underlying business, we're benefiting from the top line growth. We're benefiting from our LaunchPad initiatives. We're still on track to $100 million to $125 million of our LaunchPad savings.
So as we think about operating leverage, ideally, we target kind of around a gross margin. When you kind of peel out those unusual items, if you will, or the headwinds that we had, we're operating in the high 20s, and frankly, a little stronger even in the third quarter. But we're kind of in the ballpark of our gross margins.
So we think underlying our business where we need to be. What's interesting as well is a lot of the headwinds that we're having this year in 2024 will become tailwinds to our margins next year. So we still expect our underlying performance to be good. But then when you think about invite, when you think about days, obviously, if we would have normal weather, all those 3 headwinds that we had this year will become tailwinds to margins next year.
And the only thing I would add to that is when we talk about LaunchPad, it really is continuous improvement. And we know as we go into the future, we're going to have to continually find ways to reduce costs to improve margins.
And I think with all the work that we're doing with technology, with some of the work that we're doing with artificial intelligence, we see other opportunities now above and beyond what we've talked about in the past to continue to find ways to reduce costs moving forward. So that's just something built into our DNA as a company, and we're going to continue to find ways to reduce costs where we can.
Our next question comes from Patrick Donnelly of Citi.
I wanted to just ask on the Diagnostics business. Just the core utilization trends you guys are seeing, obviously, again, the weather impact moves things around a little bit. But what you're seeing there and just the expectations going forward, certainly, looking eyes are turning towards '25, as you talked a little bit about here. Any reason why you would kind of be inside that LRP as you think about utilization rate and heading into next year?
Yes. Patrick, as you look at utilization rates, we certainly see acceleration in healthcare overall. And the question is with what hospitals have seen and other parts of healthcare, will that continue?
I would expect at some point that will slow down a bit to more historic levels. But at the same time, with our business, I believe we're seeing share increases in particular, as we do more of these hospital deals and the local regional laboratory deals.
So when you look at our longer-term guidance for Diagnostics, we expect organic revenue growth of 2.5% to 4.5%. And then on top of that, inorganic, which we've actually increased our longer-term inorganic growth expectations.
Historically, it was 1% to 2%, now we have it at 1.5% to 2.5%. And when you look at those numbers, I would tell you that we expect continued strong momentum as we move forward with the business.
Our next question comes from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley.
You spoke to some of the pricing dynamics in ASPs, but I guess, how would you characterize just underlying kind of current payer relationships in the pricing environment around those? And I think you have a new Blues relationship. I guess anything else to call out? Or what does that add for you or anything else to call out from a payer relationship standpoint?
Yes, sure. No. We continue to feel very good about our managed care discussions and the contracts that we've negotiated. We're very confident that the renewals that we've secured are good terms. And if you look across everything we've done this year, we believe, as we move forward, net-net, we're neutral to slightly positive, which historically, that has not been the case. So I feel great about the different managed care discussions that we've had this year.
Our position as we go into 2025 is strong. I don't see any major contracts that I'm concerned about. So I think that the momentum will continue.
Great. And then on early development, I guess, can you parse out a little bit more how you're thinking about the quarterly progression from here? Just given some of the lumpiness across kind of that business, I guess, how are you thinking about the longer-term performance across early development? Has anything changed in terms of your long-term goals and then how you get to kind of that fourth quarter ramp?
Yes. So I'll give some comments and I'll ask for Glenn to jump in as well. If you look at our early development business, we certainly saw sequential positive growth in terms of revenue. We saw less of a decline in third quarter as a percent that we saw in second quarter.
As we move into fourth quarter, we have good insight to the studies are underway. It's not like we have to get new studies to understand what fourth quarter is going to look like. Based upon what we see today, we expect that there will be growth in early development in the fourth quarter. Now to be fair, it's off of a relatively easy comparison versus fourth quarter of last year. And as we go into next year and the book-to-bill continues to build and the cancellations continue to hold then we would expect to see growth as well, but also based upon an easier compare because this year, it continued to struggle for several quarters.
So over time, we continue to have good expectations for that business. We are a leader in that field. I believe that the biotechnology companies with interest rates should continue to do well. And over time, that business has had some cyclical ups and downs, but over time, it's a very good business.
Yes. The only thing I'd add is as you think about even just the segment, the implied guide for the fourth quarter is revenue growth of call it, 9.5%. So obviously, a lot stronger, around 6 points higher than what we had for the first 9 months.
Currency is around 2 points of that. But the underlying 4% really the strong improvement is being driven off of early development. You would have seen that on a, call it, the 9 months, we're down around 11% in early development business, but we expect positive year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter.
And as Adam said, we have a soft comp in the fourth quarter. But more importantly, we saw sequential growth in ED in the third quarter from the second. We expect to see sequential growth again in the fourth quarter. Obviously, given the time of the year with the fourth quarter, we're effectively now executing on our backlog where this is in the business a little bit more difficult to forecast because of the short nature of the studies. So you count on the new business coming in to turn into revenues in the same quarter.
So we feel pretty good about the outlook, the growth. And as Adam said, the long term for biopharma, we're looking kind of at the midpoint of our growth rate of 6%. So we're already there and doing well within Central Lab. ED, obviously, is now going to be positive, and you would expect given the lower comp, there to be even a little bit higher growth rates over the next couple of years coming from ED, including from the margins.
Again, one of the benefits of the tailwinds as we think about '25 just with that top line growth we'll also get positive margin improvement there as well.
Our next question comes from David Westenberg of Piper Sandler.
So just another one on the LRP and as we look into next year. I mean, it sounds like you have a lot of favorable things in the environment. You raised your inorganic outlook because of lab acquisitions, PAMA looks like it's on hold for next year.
Biotech funding is at least not getting worse.
Is there anything else to flag in the industry or LabCorp specific that would -- might be a surprise into the LRP? And then can you just remind us the factors associated with the high end and the low end of the LRP because it definitely seems like all of the macro factors are working kind of in the favor.
Yes. So again, without giving specific 2025 guidance today, which we'll give in February of next year, we have momentum. And you can feel the momentum you've seen over the past few quarters. Diagnostics business continues to perform well, both organically and inorganically, central laboratories performing well and ED will be back to growth.
As I think about PAMA, we still have an impact of PAMA in the longer-term guidance. And we just pushed it out a year. There's another year. So if PAMA were to be pushed out again, obviously, that would have a positive impact on our longer-term guidance. But until such a point I'm confident that there won't be an impact of PAMA in 2026. We continue to keep it in our longer-term guidance and model. We continue to watch the broader trends, the utilization rates the business development that we're doing and the trends remain strong. So barring surprises, we remain confident as we look at the momentum we have.
Yes. No, I would agree. The other thing, as you look at normally the upside on ranges in the downside, obviously, is demand driven to get to the upside or maybe some unforeseen headwinds.
And as Adam said, where we sit today and is, again, we'll comment more about '25, which would be the second year into our long-term ranges, if you will. We feel's very good about the ranges just even from a just general profile of kind of that mid-single-digit top line growth organically, margin improvement, capital allocation that will help fuel top line growth through acquisitions as well as strong cash for free cash flow to get to a double-digit earnings per share kind of growth profile.
So we feel very good. And even with some of the headwinds, tailwinds, as Adam said, we got the benefit from PAMA being delayed, but still within the range from a margin profile and revenue. And the flip side is on Invitae, a strategic deal we did, but that would be call it, dilutive to the margins, if you will, relative to our general profile that we would put in there. So overall, net-net, we feel pretty good about the ranges that we have.
Our next question comes from Jack Meehan of Nephron Research.
I wanted to start with Invitae. For Glenn, within the M&A contribution in the quarter. Can you just call out how much of the sales came from Invitae? I penciled in $45 million. Is that a good bogey?
And then for Adam, the hereditary market is pretty competitive, just any perspective in the early days of the deal how any share shifts are going?
Yes, I'll take the Jack, the first one on Invitae. And Adam, I think I mentioned it in his opening comments, we're pretty much in line with expectations. So we originally said that for the year, we pick up around 120-ish revenues, and it would be weighted kind of 50% and 70% between the third and the fourth. So your number for the third is in line with what our expectation is. But across the board for Invitae, we feel very good about the integration that's going on, what was expected and continue to drive to get that to be obviously positive from an earnings and a margin standpoint next year.
And Jack, with regard to the Horizon market, and we've been competing in that market for quite some time. Invitae was an additional way for us to be a larger competitor in that market. So we know it well. We know how to compete in it. We know how to win in it.
It's still early days, frankly, when you look at revenue, but so far so good. And our customers seem to be pleased to now have Labcorp testing capabilities available to them. we're continuing to work on the customer experience, so it could become much easier for the customers over time to order directly all the tests that they might want for a patient for women's health or for oncology.
So I think over time, we're going to continue to do very well. The 10% growth that we expect in revenue is almost what the market is growing. So my hope is, over time, we'll be able to accelerate that. But in the meantime, we're basically saying we're going to grow at about the market rate.
Awesome. One follow-up for Glenn. Just with all the debt refinancing underway. Could you just share like -- and sorry if I missed this in the opening remarks, what your forecast was for interest expense this year? And is there any color you can share online what the moving parts would suggest number might be for 2025?
Yes, Jack. I think on our last call, when we knew we were going through the financings at that time, we kind of talked just in line of around $210 million of interest expense for this year, growing to $240 million.
We did all of our financings, and we actually feel good about where we came out. We raised the $2 billion of debt. We actually had a book, an order book of over $8.5 billion. So we were able to get tighter pricing, and we hit the market at a good time.
So directionally, I assume that we're coming in a little bit better on the interest expense this year. And therefore, and next, obviously, the bulk of it will be annualized for next year, but the year-over-year change should be comparable, but the overall -- the absolute number should be a little bit favorable to what we shared before.
Our next question comes from Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank.
If I could ask a managed care question, slightly different than Erin's. A competitor this week is talking about expanding a deal with a large national payer in 3 states, where it looks like you had an exclusive deal and then losing a state or it looks like you won. So looking at the total volumes with managed care for 2025, Will they be headwinds or tailwinds with the contract movements that is occurring for next year?
Yes. So Pito, as you look across all of our contracts that we negotiated as we went through this year, net-net, I think it looks really good. And in fact, it's going to be neutral to slightly positive for us.
If you look at areas in general, I prefer nonexclusive contracts overall. And I've been saying that for 5 years now. Because I think when you have exclusive contracts with managed organizations, it just leads to price erosion every 3 or 4 years. Where you have open contracts, I think you can compete in the marketplace, and we compete very well in the marketplace.
And when exclusive contracts open up typically, the rate structures change as well. So there's not significant downside in many ways in that case also. So I feel very good about our managed care position. I feel very good about the momentum that we have in managed care as we go into next year.
And our next question comes from Andrew Brackmann of William Blair.
Adam, maybe just following up on your comments related to the oncology offering. You guys have expanded that portfolio nicely over the last few years. So can you maybe just sort of talk about the trends you saw this quarter in those advanced cancer tests? And just how are you sort of thinking about future growth there over the coming quarters and years?
Yes. No, thank you, Andrew. And if you look at oncology, I mean, we really do have a very broad menu of oncology offerings. Whether it be the basic testing and routine testing that you need for oncologists or it be the more esoteric testing, whether it be liquid biopsy, solid tumors, we continue to have a very strong broad portfolio.
When I think about oncology, I don't look at any one test as the answer for how we're doing. I look across all of the oncology business that we have. And if you look across our business, we're seeing that business grow faster than our underlying routine testing business. In general, esoteric testing is growing faster.
And I think what you want to make sure of is that when you offer a very high esoteric oncology test, a physician has the ability to order all the other tests that they may want. And we can put yourself in a physician shoes and you say, do I want to go to multiple different ordering systems to order all the different tests that I might need for an oncology patient? Or do I want to have one system and get one report with all the results on it versus getting multi-reports across different systems.
I think the advantage that we have over time is the full portfolio of oncology offerings. So what I look at is not only the individual offerings that we have, but how do we do across the entire portfolio, including routine tests that you would do for oncology patients, like white blood cell counts and so forth.
So overall, it's a very good franchise for us. I expect it to grow faster than the overall underlying rate of diagnostics, and it will continue to be an area of focus.
Our next question comes from Kevin Caliendo of UBS.
I appreciate it. I just wanted to make clear up a couple of things that I have questions on. The 80 basis points margin that you called out for Diagnostics ex-weather and Invitae. That's a fantastic number. Wasn't there also a negative impact from calendar and sort of payroll days and the like as well? Like would the margin have actually been better like-for-like?
Yes. No, Kevin, when we gave the 80 basis point improvement, excluding we did include the days. So Invitae, weather and days combined for, call it, 210 basis point headwind. So we would have been up 80, but that's still absorbing, call it, 30 basis point impact from COVID as well.
But that's why when we talk about the underlying improvement in our margins, we feel good about how the business is perform, and we just have these headwinds that again next year, we'll totally turn to tailwinds.
Well, that was sort of my first follow-up was fourth quarter, we should have a little bit of this. And then next year, can you sort of quantify what the calendar, at least in the payroll might be like in terms of a positive? Is it a couple of days? Is it -- like how should we think about that?
So we had -- the big impact this year was we had 2 days of unfavorable payroll. Next year, we'll have one day of favorable payroll. So it will be a positive year-over-year in 2025.
Great. Okay. That's super helpful. And just one thing on Invitae. I wanted to clarify. I understand that there's accretion. Is that in absolute dollars, meaning next year, if Invitae was just the stand-alone, it would actually be AOI-positive? Or is the accretion just on a year-over-year basis versus the dilution that you're seeing in the third and fourth quarters?
Yes. No, Kevin, when we say that Invitae will be accretive in 2025, that's on a stand-alone business funded fully burdened with the cost for the acquisition. So slightly accretive last year where it's -- or next year were dilutive this year.
When we talk about margins, similarly, we expect to have, obviously, positive margins, generating positive earnings. So in the first half of the year, margins will still be, even though that they are positive, there'll still be a headwind to overall margins. They're not back up to Diagnostics margins in the first half.
But then once we get into the second half of the year, they'll start to be positive for Diagnostics year-over-year because we'll be comping to negative margins where now they're positive margins, but accretive to earnings in absolute terms.
Perfect. That's great. And one last quick one. LaunchPad versus inflationary pressures. I know there was a period of time when LaunchPad wasn't necessarily able to keep up. Was it able to keep up in 3Q? Do you anticipate LaunchPad hitting its targets being at least being able to offset the wage and inflationary pressures?
Yes. We've actually been tracking pretty good. That $100 million to $125 million of your of LaunchPad savings is comparable to kind of a 3 -- a little bit over 3%, call it, merit increase. This year, again, personnel costs were higher in part because of the days. But when you take out days, you just focus on the merit launchpad does track and help offset those costs.
Our next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore ISI.
I have a question about your consumer business. Obviously, that continues to show some nice momentum. Can you talk about sort of your expectations for that as we sort of round out this part of the year and sort of where we should think about out from sort of a margin contribution perspective?
Yes. So if you look at our consumer business, I'll focus on Labcorp OnDemand. We continue to add testing options on the OnDemand system. So we announced 2 new ones in the quarter, Luteinizing Hormones as well as Syphilis, and we launched a couple of tests last quarter, and we're going to continue to look for a new test to bring into that platform.
We don't break out the revenue for OnDemand because it's still not of a material amount that makes sense for us to break out. But the growth rate of that business is pretty substantial. And if it does reach a point or when it does reach a point where we think it's worthwhile to model and to provide for your models, we'll break it out at that time. But we're going to continue to add test. It continues to grow well. It's just not a critical mass yet.
Okay. And then just from a margin perspective, is that -- is it sort of -- like how do we think about those margins like vis-a-vis the corporate average? I know, as you said, it's still small, but just think.
And again, it's kind of like that, Elizabeth. Given the size of it relative to the big business we have, it doesn't round really on the margins. Obviously, we're making investments in that part of the business that will help fuel the growth, but you won't really see the impact on the margin.
Our next question comes from Eric Coldwell of Baird.
So if you'll allow me to squeeze in two quick ones. First, just Street is a little bit focused on your relationship with Walgreens. I don't think you've mentioned that on this call, but obviously, Walgreens is closing a number of stores over the next few years. And I think you have about 400 units in those stores today. So just any comments on that and where that relationship is?
And then second, on the employer testing-related business, I know you've been reluctant to really highlight some of these kind of nitpicky things that are smaller. But that's obviously been a headwind, and I think masking some have been better growth, but when will those comps possibly normalize? When do you when do you think you get to more of a basal rate in the employer testing facing businesses? And might that also be a favorable comp for 2025.
Okay. So let me start with the Walgreens question first. I mean we continue to have a good relationship with Walgreens. We started the relationship back in 2017, and it continues to be a very good discussion between our teams.
Obviously, they're making some strategic decisions. The good news for us is that we've increased our capabilities at our stand-alone service centers. So if you look at the technology we've added, the ability for people to check in ability for people to check in remotely. We've done a lot.
So the NPS scores of our standalone PSCs have actually increased over time and they continue to increase. So at this point, we do have about 400 PSCs, service centers in Walgreens. We expect that many of those, if not all of those, will continue as we make their decisions. If we have to stand up so stand-alone PSCs, it's not a problem for us to do it. We know how to do it. We do that all the time.
With regard to employer testing. For us, it's still a relatively small part of our business. We do continue to see strain in that business and the comps are still difficult, but it's so small. It's not worth for us to break it out. In terms of overlapping, it's hard to say, Eric. It's hard to say what the bottom could to be on that, to be honest. But I don't think it will add much positive or negative as we think about 2025.
Yes. Yes, I'd agree that it's definitely -- when you think about the strength of our organic demand and volume this year, that's with the headwind of Employer Services. So again, it speaks to -- it's not a big headwind, but similarly as we go next year, even though we would hope and expect to see improvement or you're not going to see a big tailwind from that as well.
I'm not overly worried about the Walgreens situation. But if I could just ask, would it not make sense that perhaps you're in some of their better and higher traffic stores, i.e., those less likely to be facing closures?
So when we work with them to the size of the stores that we choose, we do choose stores that are mutually beneficial to them and to us. So areas where they see a lot of volume stores where they know that if they have a service internet, they'll get more volume in a high-volume store.
So when we first choose those and chose the 400, we were very deliberate. We worked very closely with them to strategically choose those stores. That's why I feel pretty good about where we are with them.
And also, Eric, from that, to the extent it would be a store would be impacted where we would have a patient service center we'll have the opportunity to find another store with them to go into that we're not that could be in close proximity or we'll also have the option of just setting up a patient service center in that location that would be outside of where they are.
But to your point, it's -- we're not expecting many to be impacted, but frankly, we just don't know yet. And once we do, we'll adapt from it.
Our next question comes from Stephanie Davis of Barclays.
I was hoping we could dig into BLS again. There has been some noise in the market around pricing from some of your peers. So I was hoping just given the upside you comment on what you're seeing in pricing, maybe why it differentiates. And any further color you can give around some of the metrics around orders and cancellations?
Sure. So let me start with the second question first. So if you look at our trailing 12-month book-to-bill is a 1.02. That's with the quarter being at 0.96. So we had a relatively easy compare versus the same quarter last year.
The book-to-bill remains healthy for both businesses. We have good, consistent win rates. We have solid orders across the businesses. So I feel good as I look into the future for those businesses.
The thing I would say is the quarterly book-to-bill changes. So it was an easy compare this quarter versus last quarter. In fourth quarter, we expect to have sequential growth versus this quarter in dollars and also in terms of the book-to-bill for the quarter, but it can be a very rough comparator versus fourth quarter of last year. Then if you look at the first quarter of this year versus 2025, it will be a much easier comparison.
So what I would say is, overall, the book-to-bill remains healthy, but you do see fluctuations quarter-over-quarter, and that's going to continue for the next couple of quarters and moving forward.
With regard to pricing, I'll start with our early development business. In general, when capacity is not fully utilized, you see some pricing pressure. We see some pricing pressure. But at the same time, because the price of NHPs have come down pretty significantly, and the NHP prices don't impact us because it was just a pass-through for us. Our customers are seeing a price decrease just based upon the cost of the NHPs, which I think helps us with some of the pressures that they're feeling.
And in Central Laboratories, we continue to have some longer-term contracts over time. We have lots of long-term agreements. So there's always going to be pricing pressure there. We're going to always look for ways to discuss as we face those pressures. But overall, net-net, the momentum in Central Lab is very strong and we expect the early development business to be back to growth next quarter.
And our next question comes from Michael Ryskin of Bank of America.
This is John Kim for Michael. So Invitae seems to be progressing well. So looking ahead, you talked about the M&A contribution to still be 1.5% to 2.5% here. where will your priorities lie? Is there perhaps like any geographical exposure that you would want to increase?
What I would say is we continue to have a very deep business development pipeline. The vast, vast majority of it is in hospital and health systems, local and regional laboratories. And that's where our focus is when it comes to deals. We're looking for things that are accretive in the first year, return our cost of capital in 2 or 3 years that we know how to integrate really, really well.
What I'd say is something like Invitae is not typical. We don't typically do a deal that would be dilutive in the first year. Those are not the types of deals that we would typically be interested in. If it's strategically aligned and a one-off we'll consider it. But in general, what we're really looking for are those hospital regional, local laboratories.
Got it. Understood. And then also great to hear that the LaunchPad savings are on track to offset the wage inflation, but wanted to ask how the frontline work over to an over rate has been like.
The -- again, the LaunchPad is being very effective in helping offset the wage rate. We have seen improved, call it, attrition, especially within our biopharma side, kind of back to normal levels of pre-pandemic. We've seen nice progress within the Diagnostics side of our business.
But to your point, in select areas, especially the frontline workers, it is more competitive. They have a lot of other choices to try to find higher hourly rates at different industry, even not necessarily just what we do here.
So we continue to work hard on making it a good inclusive experience. We are focused on our teams. Obviously, the longer we keep people working for us, the more loyalty and the more likely they stay. So overall, it's being managed. It is part of the overall increase in the labor environment costs, but we continue to make progress on it.
Our next question comes from Brian Tanquilut of Jefferies.
This is Meghan on for Brian. Can you guys just speak to your M&A pipeline? You guys obviously had a lot of deals over the last year. We'd like to just know kind of if you have any visibility on what that's going to look like in 2025.
Yes. Meghan, so it'd be very optimistic about our pipeline of deals, particularly in a hospital local regional laboratory businesses. And if you look at what we've said that's going to happen in our longer-term outlook, we've actually increased the revenue growth that's going to come from the acquisition strategy that we have.
So we expect historically, the inorganic growth to be 1% to 2%. We've actually raised that in our longer-term guidance where it's now going to be 1.5% to 2.5%. Historically, it was 1% to 2%, now it's 1.5% to 2.5%. I think that just shows our confidence in the pipeline of deals that we have. It's impossible to predict the exact timing. So I look forward to talking about those in the future.
This concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn it back to Adam Schechter for closing remarks.
Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And I hope you see we continue to advance our mission to improve health and improve lives, and we look forward to updating you on our fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results as we get into the new year. I look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.