Biotage AB

STO:BIOT

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Well, thank you and good afternoon, everyone, please turn to Slide 4. We appreciate you joining us on the Biotage interim reporting quarter one call today. I am Tomas Blomquist, CEO and with me on this very first webcast call is our CFO, Maja Nilsson. We will talk about the Q1 performance and that will be followed by a Q&A session. Let's take turn immediately to Slide 5, providing our executive summary details of quarter one.Our great momentum continues, we're off to a fantastic start in 2022 with the first quarter again, setting another record with revenues of SEK386 million, actually the fourth consecutive record revenue quarter in a row. Our excellent results are really a testament to our team's commitment to continuous improvement, our direct team structure set up and to our broad workflow solutions offering in all our attractive separation niches. Stars were aligned for Biotage during Q1, with double-digit growth in all revenue areas, including currency tailwind.During the first quarter, we continue to strengthen our competitive advantage through high-impact growth investments in sustainable evaporation innovation, our [ Cardiff ] consumables production capacity and extended our presence in our biologics and advanced therapeutics area in Silicon Valley, California, by taking on very much needed additional premises. This will allow us to expand our manufacturing capabilities for our Biotage PhyPrep and Biotage ZIP consumable product line.Our drug discovery development focused the last year has also paid off during the quarter with a strong growth in our small molecules and synthetic therapeutics area of 43% and a phenomenal growth of 56% in our biologics and advanced therapeutics area. It is very satisfying to see that our newly introduced system, Biotage PhyPrep, the world's first automated plasma purification system within Maxi, Mega and Giga scale already after less than nine months of launch now is a good contributor of our total business in this specific area.The team navigated a very challenging and dynamic operating environment to still deliver strong revenue, earnings and gross profit for the quarter. The first quarter of 2022 provided more challenges related to supply, lead times and material availability than at any other time during the pandemic. As Russia's war in Ukraine began in February, things deteriorated even further. Lead times for materials are continuously increasing.Continued cross-functional and cross-site activities did pay off well though and we had almost no shortages versus demand for the first quarter. Having said that, there are, of course, no guarantees that we will be equally successful in coming quarters if these supply challenges continue. The COVID-19 driven lockdowns in China that began in late March had a very modest impact on our first quarter results.I would also like to address the new long-term targets from the Board of Directors, which was press released on March 14th. The former financial goals were established by the Board four years ago. In that time, we did fulfill and exceed them. By reason of that successful achievement, the Board decided to adjust the long-term targets. The growth target was adjusted from 8% to 12% and the profitability target was adjusted from EBIT 20% to EBITDA 25%. Both targets are measured as an average over a three years period. Although we cannot expect to meet this target each quarter, it is with great pleasure I note that we did exactly that this first quarter of the year. All stores were aligned sales volumes, sales mix and currencies.If you could go to Slide 6, I would like to talk about how our customer focus is key for us at Biotage and one natural development of that is the introduction of our new customer focus areas, which we have built on so many colors namely White Tech, Red Tech and Blue and Green Tech. This will help us to clarify our human kind unlimited identity and strengthen our flexibility to grow this company further through our organic and inorganic strategy agenda. This journey started already two years ago internally and we have already benefited commercially and organization-wise from this.As we're now steering and organizing our business and teams through rather customer focus than product focus, we have, as a consequence, moved from four product focus areas into six, to further strengthen our focus, ownership, decision-making and reducing the risk of missing commercial and R&D opportunities, while simultaneously organizing our self for growth today and tomorrow. Starting with White Tech, we've split that into three various product areas.The first, we call small molecules and synthetic therapeutics. This is our biggest part of the total group covering 50% this quarter and it was formerly known as organic chemistry. It has been renamed to symbolize our strength within the first generation of pharmaceuticals, namely synthetically developed ones. We're proud to present the broadest portfolio within this area, offering both world-leading solutions within synthesis, purification, evaporation and peptide synthesis.The second part is called Biologics & Advanced Therapeutics and today covers what we formerly call biomolecules and gives us space to grow further within the second and third generation of pharmaceuticals, for instance, biomolecules, oligonucleotide therapeutics and cell and gene therapy. This today is 4% of the total group. The third and last area within White Tech is our scale of business today covering 40% on the total group, where we for instance, the past 18 months have benefited from our lipid nanoparticle purification offering to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.What about Red Tech? We're building upon our former analytical chemistry business, where we took out the analytical testing part focused on clinical, forensic and doping labs. It is today 21% of the total group. The other part is diagnostics, today, consisting of our newly acquired oligonucleotide business, AVD bio as the main bulk of the operations is focused on next-generation sequencing and PCR testing manufacturing of complex and modified oligos. The label diagnostics also supports our vision to become a natural diagnostic tool partner to the diagnostic industry in the future. It is today, 4% of the total group.Blue and Green Tech focuses on supporting our customers within our new product area, water and environmental testing, but also food safety and covers today 7% of the total group.Let's now turn to Slide 8 and look into our customer focus area revenue development. Total revenue was SEK386 million in the first quarter and we delivered 37% of reported revenue growth and 21.9% organic growth. All thematics were growing at double-digit growth rates. Let's take a closer look at what's driving our strong results and let's start with the White Tech, our biggest business, covering 70% of the total group, where reported revenue grew 37% and where we see our pharma and CRO customers accelerating their investment in research and production across all major therapeutic chemical modalities.We've had a very robust activity levels and are benefiting from the broadest medicinal chemist workflow solutions offering across all our geographies. Main volume growth drivers were among others, strong biomolecules performance, China and America system sales and EMEA scale-up consumable sales. Our second biggest customer focus area is Red Tech, covering 19% of the total group, contributed to the highest growth of own at 42%, also supported by our newly acquired Oligonucleotide Diagnostic business. The Americas and EMEA conformed agreed well and clinical diagnostic market volumes remained at healthy levels in most geographies, as patients are returning for wellness checks and routine screenings.Blue and Green Tech covering 11% of the total group grew 32% in the quarter, driven by environmental customers in the U.S. and a push in the food [indiscernible] segment in EMEA and Americas.So now let's turn to Slide 9, focusing on our product focus areas and its development. All product areas are growing double digits. Our drug discovery development to solutions to our pharma, CRO and academia customers had an all-time high quarter growing by 43% in small molecule therapeutics and this was driven by double-digit growth in all our global regions and sub-regions and by record flashes and sales. Our Biologics and Advanced Therapeutics grew by 56%, led by Team Americas and Japan, we spoke during the Q1 quarter accelerating our Biotage PhyPrep installations.The scale-up business grew 14% after another solid EMEA performance and some strong Japan orders. Analytical testing grew 21%, driven overall by region Americas, but also by strong extra hearing instrument and SP consumable sales from EMEA. The Diagnostics business is containing our complex and modified oligonucleotide manufacturing and R&D business and delivered almost SEK14 million to business and contributed positively to our operating and gross margin.Our water and environmental testing grew 32% in the quarter, driven by Americas and EMEA.So now let's take turn to Slide 10 and look into our aftermarket revenue mix and development. Again, we performed a double-digit growth in all three areas. Our aftermarket split ended up 53/47 for the quarter and our last 12 months' performance is the same. We had a very strong system quarter, which grew 40%, but was balanced through our good growth in consumables at 27% and our service area growing the most at 66% supported by our oligo business.Let's now turn to Slide 11 and look into the regional sales development. All APAC regions showed strong top line growth. Also, Americas had a very strong quarter. Americas delivered their third record quarter in a row. Japan experienced a high sales ever, while India showed the highest growth rate of all. The strength in EMEA business has been a steady profit contributor to the group in the past six quarters and also during this quarter.So now I will hand over to our CFO, Maja, to share some insights into our profitability performance and financial overview.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Thank you, Tomas. So let's go to Slide 12 to see our profitability performance, highlighted by our adjusted EBITDA development. In the first quarter of this year, we have had a tailwind and revenue FX rate, positive factory variances, a favorable aftermarket mix as well as favorable geography and product mix. This basic demand that all stars were aligned and contributed to one of the best gross profit margin for a single quarter ever for the Biotage Group.In this quarter, we could see a negative margin impact of the current global supply chain industry, with the cost increasing steadily on some levels, even dramatically in the first quarter this year. But I'm proud to say that our operation teams have done a tremendous job so far in finding a way forward to keep our deliveries to our customers despite the challenges. If we're able to mitigate in the coming quarters, if the supply issues linger remains to.Our OpEx were impacted negatively by the FX rates development and we are seeing activity and travel increase from the lower COVID-19 levels. However, with our cost control in place and a clear strategy to show profitable growth, we have been able to keep a healthy OpEx level. As we highlighted in the Q4 '21 report, we are seeing the impact from our acquisitions in our OpEx, both the amortizations of except values, as well as the deferred earn-out from the ATDBio acquisition impacting the comparison on EBIT level versus previous period.When looking at our adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted for these acquisition-related item, we see a one percentage point drop versus Q1 last year. When we're looking at the overall trend of the adjusted EBITDA margin, I am happy to state that we are showing a strong and positive development quarter-by-quarter.We can go to Slide 13, showing our financial overview. I believe that we have already touched upon most of this, so I will not be lengthy here. I would just like to share some insight on the cash flow development in this quarter versus last year. The cash flow from operating activities was impacted by an inventory build up due to the ongoing supply restraint, as well as increased AR due to the higher sales volume at the end of the quarter. And with the ramp-up of inventory in Q4 '21 came, of course, also increased AP. And now in Q1 '22, we see the effects of the AP payments from that.Also to remember for comparison purposes, there was no bonus payout for 2020 since performance targets were helped net in prudent times, whereas in Q1 '22, the cash flow was impacted by the 2021 billings payout. With our profitable growth of the Biotage business that we are delivering, I believe we will continue to see positive cash flow and the fluctuations between quarters is not a great concern.So back to you, Tom.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

So to wrap up, we put behind us a steady quarter and we're very pleased with the overall performance of the whole Biotage team, not the lead since we are in a very dynamic environment with more or less new daily challenges in the supply chain. We're now looking forward to build on this great foundation of the first quarter as we move further into 2022. Our first quarter results are a testament to the dedication of our outstanding team and their commitment to executing and delivering for the best of our customers, partners, the environment and our shareholders.The strong Q1 results also reflect the unique positioning of our diverse and balanced portfolio and the exceptional collection of high-quality global center of excellence sites that comprise Biotage Globally today. We believe the durability of our businesses where consumables now represents 41% of revenue, position us well in today's dynamic operating environment. So this powerful combination of our talented global team, the strength of our portfolio in attractive niches and the focus on direct phase and recurring revenue differentiates Biotage and reinforces our sustainable long-term competitive advantage.Thank you for being on the call today and we now look forward to taking your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Karl Noren of Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Yes, good morning, a couple of questions from my side, maybe if we start with the Small Molecules & Synthetic Therapeutics. I'm just wondering if there were any larger deals delivered throughout the quarter that may be explain the extremely strong growth seen in the first quarter, I mean it seems very strong. So I'm just wondering if there's some kind of one-off effect or if this is a broad-based or let's say demand that you're seeing right now? That's the first question.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Good afternoon, Karl. No, this is a consistent and steady contribution from the broad group of operations across businesses, wish so to highlight, the team America and China that did extremely well and contributed heavily to these great results.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Okay. And then maybe a question on the PhyPrep launch. I mean it seems like it's mainly the U.S. that is up 100% year-over-year and is driving the strong growth. Can you say anything of how the launch is progressing in EMEA or APAC or is the main focus on the U.S. right now for the launch of PhyPrep?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Well, indeed, Americas did amazing job and contributed the majority to these results. However, we have built not only strengthened capabilities of production, but also commercial capabilities across the group. So Japan also did really well to also highlight another market, except from the U.S. But indeed, we have the majority of the customers there and -- but we're still following our soft launch approach that we have discussed before. So very pleased and with the performance of Q1.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Yes and then a question for Maja maybe on the gross margin side. If it's maybe possible to quantify how much the higher freight and maybe raw material cost impacted the gross margin negatively in the quarter?

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

No, I don't think we should go into that granularity, Karl, but it is impacting that much I can tell you and we are seeing that effect really in the first quarter. We have seen evidence of that impact already during 2021, but I would say that it's really coming becoming visible now in the first quarter.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Okay. Thanks you. That's were all my questions.

[Operator]

Our next question -- thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Odysseas Manesiotis of Berenberg. Please go ahead.

[Odysseas Manesiotis, analyst]

Hi, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the impressive results. So may I rephrase Karl's question a bit, the first one. So I mean, it does look like the growth in the small molecule business was the one that surprised the most. Just wanted to get a sense of whether that's more driven by accelerated growth in Europe base market or more from, let's say, a switch from small molecule producers from HPLC equipment to flash chromatography?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Well, I think it's -- this again speaks for the strength of Biotage, more adopting to the workflow solution that we're providing. So we see a lot of benefit by being an offer within both synthesis, purification and evaporation and we win a lot of deals based on that. So that's the key message. And then we are also succeeding -- part to your question there on also taking some space on the HPLC market, so that strategy is also paying off.

[Odysseas Manesiotis, analyst]

Great. Thank you. And just to get a sense, I remember you were working on transferring some of your air freight to shipping. So how do you complete this transition yet sort of just to get a [indiscernible] see a full quarter of the profitability impact on this?

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Yeah, no, I mean, during this situation that we are faced with right now with COVID that's one thing and then we have on top of that Ukraine situation and then also the Chinese lockdown currently. So the strategy is not -- we're not able to fully implement it at this point.

[Odysseas Manesiotis, analyst]

Okay. Great. And last one, so your aftermarket and system split has been a quite a similar level the past few years despite you targeting a bit higher. And I understand this is largely because you had quite a few instrument launches in the past couple of years. But when do you think you'll be able to see it getting closer to 60% perhaps is next year the year? Or you don't want to put a target to it?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Well, all I can say is that we have high ambitions at Biotage and have also consistently progressed well. Our take is more that we are happy with 1 percentage at a time and we put also some consistent programs across the business to also drive this in the right angle. So work in progress and good results so far and we intend to remain performing well in this area.

[Odysseas Manesiotis, analyst]

Okay. Great. Thank you both for taking my questions and again congrats on the impressive results.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Thank you.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Thanks a lot for your recognition.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Mattias Haggblom of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

[Mattias Häggblom, analyst]

Yeah. Thank you so much. I don't say this from public calls, analyst tend to be a bit inflationary with such statements, but I think this was except also congratulations from my side as well on a very impressive part of the year. So maybe start off with the cadence of the strength that you're experiencing. I'm trying to understand what is still recovery post the pandemic vis-a-vis the strength linked to vaccine-related orders for scale up versus other things. As an example, you changed the need for product areas in this quarter, maybe it's time to underlying growth rates as well, Small Molecules & Synthetic Therapeutics grew [ 43% ], I think historically, this is a market that's been described to grow by 4x. So help me understand the dynamics here, please?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

So yeah, I'm not sure I'm catching your question on this one, Mattias and thanks for your very nice starting works. If you also see the scale up, though, you can see that, that was also the lowest performing and still double-digit growth rates within that area. But if you please could repeat, I didn't catch your question.

[Mattias Häggblom, analyst]

I think I'm trying to figure out post the very weak second quarter 2020, of course, labs closed down during the pandemic, we could understand that there would be a recovery. I'm just trying to understand if we're still in the recovery phase or if this is back to normal business? And in particular, the historical organic chemistry appears to be growing much faster than the market growth has been described to historically. So sort of along the same lines as a previous question here, if there was anything exceptional with one-off orders for that area, trying to figure out what is it and what is sustainable and what is perhaps in a market that is exactly behaving perfectly?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Yeah, so again, team Americas was the major contribution within the analytical testing phase. And yes, we start to see normal activity levels when it comes to screening and health checks. So we see an overall great performance, it's more from a commercial team perspective and we see that actually strength also from EMEA that is coming very strong. So it's confirming for us that the trend is that we're getting back to some normal testing. We also have some very good starting tractions with some of the major labs also in the America space.

[Mattias Häggblom, analyst]

Next question would be, there was a build up of working capital in the quarter, mainly receivables and if so inventories that have backed cash conversion in the quarter. Can you talk about any particular market, maybe Russia or something else where we see most grew or were just late shipments in the quarter that explain this?

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Yeah, yeah, I would say it is very much just driven by the high sales volume, especially at the end of the quarter, so that's where we see -- it's a volume push and it's spread out evenly overall. And then just on that note, I would also like just to highlight, as you mentioned, Russia here. We took a decision early on in the same day as you mentioned, just to stop any deals with Russia. So we are not selling anymore there. So -- and that has -- as we have explained before, I think that has also very limited impact on our business currently.

[Mattias Häggblom, analyst]

Thank you for that. Last question from me. I can understand that what visibility you have on orders in scale up linked to COVID-19 vaccines in a scenario where such orders or such demand for vaccines would come down, maybe second half 2022 or into 2023. Help me understand the contraction to certain end market products will scale up.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Yeah, so we're following the trends to the same diligent manner as you're doing and the rest of it, we're in daily conversation. As you know, we have some great partners. So all we do is that we're happy to provide great instrumentation and services to these customers and we're also discussing with them whether we can broaden our business going forward.Still, if you see then the scale-up business, we were growing 14%. So it's signalizing what we have tried to repeat in the previous quarters that's where coming more to stabilization and that is confirming, yeah, these figures. So it's difficult to forecast and we don't provide more further guidance than that. So thanks for a great question, Mattias.

[Mattias Häggblom, analyst]

Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Josefine Persson of Nordea. Please go ahead.

[Josefine Persson, analyst]

Thank you very much for taking my questions and congratulations on a fantastic quarter to all of you. So my first question is whether you could elaborate a bit on the success of PhyPrep this quarter, the PhyPrep rollout. Have you done something differently? And is this something we can continue to expect ahead?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

No, it's just, yeah, repeating that the words related to the soft launch. So we build capabilities both from a production level, but as well as commercially. And we have went into the year also with a nice backlog. So even though we -- so maybe we were hurt somewhat in Q4 and we benefited from that in Q1. Still always look for trend marks when it comes to Biotage and you will see the trend levels. Still, we are extremely happy and pleased with a nice progress. So it's today contributing to a major part of the business already, only nine months even less after we launched the product. So -- thank you.

[Josefine Persson, analyst]

Thank you. So the next question is a bit follow-up on Mattias's questions regarding scale-up. So how much is driven this quarter by your [indiscernible] customer and the LMP purification business? And have you signed any new contracts in this type of application?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Well, we are not disclosing that kind of information. But again, we're very happy with the partners that we serve in this space. We also have a very strong seller team from both -- all continents, actually, yeah, servicing this space.

[Josefine Persson, analyst]

Okay. Thank you. And my last question would be that you mentioned that flash chromatography was strong in China for instance and that you're a bit worried about the shutdowns ahead. Can you elaborate a bit more on how the shutdowns will burden you in the coming quarter and the upcoming year?

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Yeah, it's again too early to predict. All I can say is that we feel for our great colleagues in China. By the way, we're also trying to servicing them by providing food packages because the majority of the team is actually stuck now in lockdowns in the Shanghai area. So all I can say is that we're in daily contact and that we're hoping for the best and no additional lockdowns. So, thank you.

[Josefine Persson, analyst]

Okay. Thanks a lot. That was my last question. Congratulations again.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Thank you so much.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Thank you so much, Josefine.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Karl Noren of Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Yes, just a clarification and I'm wondering if it's possible to get the quarterly figures for 2021 restated as reported now in the new segment, I think it would be quite helpful. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to release that anytime soon.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Yes, we will provide you those details.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

I mean basically, if you look in the interim report that have been published, there is a -- in the Note 5, I think we have described this and you can see the change also in a table in there. So...

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Yeah, I'm speaking for Q2, Q3 and Q4 also, maybe it would be, I think, helpful when trying to estimate the future, so to say.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Yeah, absolutely. We will continue to do so in the following quarters. Absolutely.

[Karl Norén, analyst]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And there are no further questions. Please go ahead, speakers.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Okay.

[Tomas Blomquist, executive]

Okay. Thanks everyone for your interest and support in Biotage. Please stay healthy and safe.

[Maja Nilsson, executive]

Thank you very much.