Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. ($CRL)

All right. While I get myself opened up here. Thank you for attending the conference. Good morning. I'm Dave Windley with Jefferies Healthcare Equity Research here in the States. Identify that since it is a global conference. We're very pleased to have all of you here. Also very appreciative of Charles Rivers consistent and regular attendance through now multiple -- now we can do 2 leadership regimes. Jim was in the seat for an awfully long time, and now Birgit Girshick has taken over as CEO just recently. So thank you for being here. I think you're going to make a few remarks about recent performance. I'll let you do that.

Yes. Thank you. Thanks, Dave, for having us. Really excited to be here. Also really excited taking on the role of CEO. It's a huge privilege for me and particularly following Jim after all these years. So yes, I just wanted to update a little bit on what my focus areas are. What we are looking to do is making Charles River simpler better margins and better growth. We just rolled out our strategy Pathway to Purpose. I touched on that in our earnings call a little bit. And we are already executing. So we have divested 2 of our businesses. Our European early discovery businesses, that divestiture completed on May 22. And our CD Mall and Sell Supply business was divested on May 6. We have also started to execute or executing on cost savings that will us to improve margins. We are delivering this year over $100 million of cost savings cumulative over the last few years. That translates to $300 million. And this year, we are between the divestitures and some acquisitions as well as our cost savings. We will deliver 120 to 150 basis points improvement. Touching on some of the acquisitions. We have completed an acquisition of KF Cambodia, which is a nonhuman primate farm in Cambodia, securing the nonhuman primate supply for us and our clients, making us the only provider of safety assessment solutions for our clients in the Western world with our own private supply and the only one who can guarantee it and also provides us good margin expansion. We also acquired PathoQuest, which is a NAMs provider, supporting the reduction of animals, particularly in the in vivo lot release testing. A couple of other things to maybe touch on. We have continued to do stock repurchases. In Q1, we have done about $200 million worth of stock repurchases, translating to about $650 million since 2024. So an important and balanced capital allocation approach. And yesterday, we have reaffirmed our guidance. So with that, I'm handing it back over to Dave.

Excellent. All right. Fantastic. So I certainly noted in your first quarter results and the releases, I'll say, the first thing I noted was the deck was only 25 pages instead of 50 pages. But in the deck, some emphasis on a few things: speed, agility, maybe further integration of the business and more cost savings, and you just touched on some of those. As you think about those speed, agility, maybe particularly the cost savings, how do you plan to use those?

Yes. So you kind of framed it really nicely. So what we want to do is become simpler, faster, more efficient for our clients, more competitive because of our time lines and -- but also more automated and digitized. Use of AI, everybody talks about it is also second within Charles River. So we are driving a lot of it is competitiveness, time lines being a better and even more critical partner to our clients, but we're also looking to be a better margin company.

Okay. So we should -- I mean, very simply, you've got cost outs that if drop-through would improve margin, you want to do some of that, but you also want to redeploy that in a way to be more competitive in the market. Do you have a rule of thumb or an algo about how you're thinking about applying those or how to divide that bucket of opportunity?

Ye's. So for this year, we -- as I said, we have 120 to 150 basis point margin improvement. For the second year -- second half of the year, we have clear sight to about 500 basis point margin improvement. For our long-range financials, it's a little bit early to tell. We have actually an Investor Day in September, where we'll touch on that quite a bit more. For now, looking at the $300 million cumulative cost savings that we have done over the last recent years, think about 50% are durable and sustainable, 50% were more about taking volumes out. And if we grow as we grow and as we accelerate growth in the second half of the year, some of that will come back. So it's a mix of it, and we will give a lot more details and guidance on that. in September.

Okay. Let's move forward into the businesses a little bit, but focusing on technology. The -- to me, the AI debate in the market that is affecting so many companies and particularly CROs more on -- to me, it seems like the clinical end of the spectrum, maybe NAMs are the AI to animal testing. What's the competitive landscape there? And how do you think about who are the players to actually develop these NAMs?

Yes. Obviously, a very important scientific and ethical question and direction. And something that Charles River is utmost committed to implement and to lead. So we have utilized NAMs for literally 2 decades. It's been part of our 3R program: reduce, refine, replace. In 2024, we actually formalized AMAP alternative methods advancement program, which was our signal to the outside world that we are heavily investing new technologies, methods technologies, digital technologies to make an impact on the reduction of animals in search. In 2025, we have established a Scientific Advisory Board. We have brought in a fantastic high-level leader from the FDA, Dr. Bumpus, who leading our Scientific Advisory Board and leading our strategy that includes development of names. So we actually playing in that field, but also the in-licensing, partnering and M&A. And I already touched on PathoQuest one example, a great example of NAMs technologies that just acquired. If you look at the industry itself, there are probably what we found over 1,000 companies that are focusing on the development of NAMs. Many still in the very low majority stage, many not validated, many what's a very narrow context of use and many with great promise. We have broadened technologies, and we're using them for our clients as in-licensing. We have done other M&A. So for example, we have brought the Retrogenix technology platform in. So we will continue to evaluate that landscape and often work with those companies to if we can validate and scale up that technology. To me, and I think that's really the reality, eventually, it will not be about technology. The race who is competing best in will be all about integration. And there's no other company that is really well positioned other than a large-scale safety assessment provider like Charles River. So we will lead that space.

So Birgit, let's hover on the integration. So when you use that word in that context, can you bring that to life a little bit in terms of what you mean?

Yes, happy to. So think about NAMs not as a straight replacement of an animal. So it will never be a technology where you're saying this technology will replace a rat or a mouse. What it is NAMs technologies will provide us answers that we can use to assess a risk or an outcome and then decide if we an animal study thereafter or if we -- our clients will go back to the drawing board and trying to find a better molecule -- better compound before they take it ahead. In some cases, like in virtual control groups, for example, that we are developing. We have certain studies where virtual control groups can be applied and thus reducing the need for animals in the study itself. In other cases, it will give us additional information, making the scientific outcome may be better, more translational and allowing the clients to move their programs into the clinic and managing their clinical trials better and start having a better effectiveness and better success rate. So NAMs will need to be integrated into the safety assessment workflow. They need to be part of a safety assessment study. They need to be run under the regulatory framework. They need to be validated that they give you the same results or better results than using other methods. And that's when I talk about integration. There is never going to be a NAMs business unit at Charles River, and there's never going to be a competitor that offers names, but not safety assessment solutions.

Got it. Very helpful. So I do think you hit on the point really well there that we who have never run an animal study don't understand all the nuance to it. And so the thinking tends to jump to, well, a NAM will replace a full study. And I think what you're suggesting in actuality is it replaces a part of the continuum, not the full battery.

Yes, you're completely right. It will answer some questions, a question. Sometimes you need several technologies to answer a question. But the technologies will become better. And we will have kind of a surrounding in vitro or in silico environment that is part of the safety assessment continuum.

And then another vertex on this is kind of the service line impact or applicability where, for example, in PathoQuest, I think that one is more of a manufacturing environment application, right? And so a little not as core to your animal testing focus. How should we think about breadth or where your focus is in trying to bring these capabilities in?

Yes. That's a really good point. So animals are used not only in safety assessment. They're used in early research in the lead-up to safety assessment studies, but also in large release. So meaning every batch that is manufactured that goes into a human in either clinical or commercial has to be tested for being free of contaminants such as viruses or bacteria. Some of the conventional methods are using animals. And this is an area that we are utmost focused on because there is a lot of animals being used space. And so what we have done over time, actually starting with the introduction of our end to save franchise, finding better ways of making sure that those drugs that are manufactured free of those contaminants. So the PathoQuest technology is the next-generation sequencing technology, and that will replace eventually the use of animals for this specific use case.

Got it. Let's move into perhaps some more traditional questions in your core business, DSA. So demand seems to be -- there are indicators that would suggest that demand should be improving. I think you're seeing some of that, but describe what you are seeing in the demand environment right now for DSA.

Yes. topic, I much rather talk about. So demand has been stabilizing for us. We're seeing good signs of improvement. So our biotech bookings in the last 2 quarters have been the best in over 2 years. We are seeing midsized to large biotech and later-stage programs getting really good funding. Some of that, even mega funding, which indicates that there's a lot of cash out there. Where we still would like to see some improvement is in biotech company formation. So that indicates that the funding in early phase and small but isn't quite there yet, which impacts one of our business units specifically, which is CRADL. But overall, we are quite happy what we are seeing so far. Pharma for the most part is through the restructuring, reprioritization of pipeline. We saw quite a bit of an uptick of bookings last year that has very much stabilized. Revenue is up for global biopharma in the first quarter. And very happy to say that our proposal volume is up in both segments, high single digits. What I'm most excited about is that our KPI trends indicate a return to growth for our DSA segment. So seeing really good momentum there. And that is something that we are building on.

That return to growth, can you give us a sense of the trajectory? So you're seeing this build. Is that a return to growth that you think happens by the end of '26 pushes out into '27? I think guidance maybe implies that, that happens kind of at the tail end of this year.

Yes. So a little early to talk about 2027, but we are seeing a gradual improvement in our segment. So we're looking at growth for H2.

Yes. Within this global construct, China has become a more active geographical participant in global drug development. You have your Vital River acquisition from years ago and your participation in the models sale market in China, but not in your services businesses for the most part. How are you evaluating entry into the China market with services? And what are the pros and cons of doing it?

Yes, a really good question. [indiscernible] being fully under Chinese leadership. It is a provider for Chinese biotech pharma, government, academia and CROs. So a very high reputation in China, very strong franchise for us and a foundation that we feel we can build on. You're absolutely correct that our services portfolio is not represented right now in China and with the uptick in innovation in China was the emergence of really good growth in a biotech industry that is growing and bringing out a lot of innovative drugs in -- has a good portfolio. It becomes a market where we feel that it's an addressable market that we feel that we should potentially play in. Now we are evaluating the market. We're looking to see making sure that we understand all the challenges in there, looking to see what our competition is, who the clients are, getting them to know and a little bit early to tell, but obviously, is interest from our side, and we will eventually build on our foundation in research models in this marketplace.

It's interesting to me to think back like the foundation of the company was in research models. I mean that's where, I guess, the elder, Dr. Foster, started the business and then through a period of kind of '90s and acquisitions added on the services business. And so China kind of sets up in the same way. Do you think it's -- given the experience that the company now has in services, is it a market that you could add that organically? Or do you think it makes more sense to acquire -- to add that capability?

Yes. So we're obviously evolving potential for both. But because it's a regulated space, it requires quite a bit of capabilities. So drug development, safety assessment is extremely complex with a very high amount of different protocols and expertise needed. It takes quite a bit of time to build something organically. We have done it a few times in different locales. So M&A goes a lot faster. So we're about in both, but obviously, M&A would give us a quicker entry.

Okay. If we move on to NHP supply as a topic, you mentioned the KF acquisition. CRL has now done a couple of deals in that market with Noveprim as well. How do you -- how should investors think about your ability to supply your volume of trials with your vertically owned farms? Is that 100% less than 100%? How should we think about that relative size?

Yes. So we did acquire the farm in Mauritius a few years ago and then KF Cambodia just earlier this year. Our goal and where we currently are is that about 80% of the supply of nonhuman primates that we believe we require for safety assessment studies comes from our own farms. This gives us the ability to scale up and scale down, gives us also the ability continue to work with trusted and contractually negotiated third-party providers to really give us all the different sources that we require for the studies, but also the maximum amount of scaling up, scaling down, flexibility of when animals are coming in. So we are at that goal, and we believe that gives us the best ability to execute our studies and guarantee supply for our clients.

And Birgit, can you quantify or give us a range, a window of the difference in cost structure for you sourcing in the open market versus breeding and raising your own?

Yes. So it's a little more complicated when you look at our the Noveprim acquisition because they were a JV before, so there were some benefits that we had previously, what we had sized back then and now with KF is that we will have a consolidated margin improvement of about 50 basis points for the deals. But most importantly, again, for us is to secure supply, the ability to invest in those farms, making sure that we have animal welfare standards that Charles River is requiring, the logistics, the compliance. So the cost benefits are nice to have. The security of supply and over those farm is the ultimate goal here?

So I want to take a minute to go back to the to invoke the earlier commentary about your cost saves and how that affects competitiveness. So you now have the ability through supplying your own NHPs to probably have a competitively differentiated cost structure. You mentioned certainty of supply is also a factor. Is the certainty of supply, strong enough in the clients' mind that, that is a competitive differentiator and you win business for that reason? Or do you use the cost structure benefits to also be more price competitive to win more market share?

Good question. So our clients, what they need most is a guaranteed supply. They need the animals when they need to run the studies, they need the flexibility. And they also need to make sure that the animals come in at the right health, the right weight and with the right compliance. So our -- again, our focus is on delivering to our clients, the best and most critical research animal possible, and that's the focus.

Okay. So in terms of -- maybe before I leave DSA, in terms of your interest in participating in the D part of DSA. You divested as part of some of the recent deals you divested pieces of discovery. Help us understand where you do and where you do not want to compete in discovery?

Yes. So we divested certain European discovery assets that deal was actually completed this May. What we were looking at is businesses that are -- where the market has either structurally changed where we are underscaled, where our clients have a lot of choices and we are not necessarily the #1 choice. So those are the areas such as chemistry, but also a few other ancillary business. We are refocusing into the space of more regulated work where we have the highest dependency and highest value solutions for our clients. So we are here to answer their most complex and most time pressing questions, and that will be our focus.

Okay. Moving on to RMS. That business is expected to be down low to mid-single digits in FY '26. Within that portfolio, can you help us understand which are the under and overperforming businesses within that perspective.

Yes. So our Research Models and Services business because of where the industry is going in terms of us has a gradual decline of volumes for decades, and this will continue. This year, the -- I should also say this business is -- has historically is still now getting good pricing, which offsets a lot of the volume declines. Plus, we always have been able to add on solutions in which we are very competitive and very attractive to our clients, such as the CRADL business, where we're providing a vivarium solutions business or adding to our research models portfolio and bringing in higher value, more complex animal models that will drive the revenue growth. This year, this business is impacted by 3 discrete areas. Number one is our North American research models volume, mostly impacted by academia and government. The volumes are stable, but not growing where we normally see that. We are relating that back to the uncertainties in academia and government. And even so we believe that these will resolve itself, and we're already hearing that, our forecast and our guidance right now assumes that we have stable volumes there but not growing. Another area I already touched on is our CRADL business. CRADL business is focused highly on biotech startups, companies that may not even have a company name yet that need a space to do their research and our demand in that area has been lagging. So we have consolidated a lot of the space. We are rightsized, but we're not seeing that revenue uptick. And then thirdly, by nonhuman primate volumes. From some of our own farms, we are actually selling animals directly to third-party customers. because we either cannot use the animals like in China ourselves or because we have contractual obligations and that volume fluctuates at times, and this year is a little bit down on the volumes compared to 2025. We do believe that RMS structurally is going to be growing again eventually. So -- but this year, we are guiding down.

Okay. In the time we have remaining, let's move to manufacturing and touch on that a little bit. That business pre CDMO was a very attractive margin business in the mid-30s. CDMO Now divested. We are still waiting to see what that profile looks like. We don't have a clean quarter yet. Can you help us with what the manufacturing margin should be -- is and should be, in other words, can it continue to grow?

Yes. Happy to. So it's a critical mission division for us, very important great margins and great reoccurring revenue stream, which was really good growth opportunities. The remaining 2 businesses, our Biologics Testing and Microbial business have not structurally changed at all. So you will see, even in Q2, a margin uplift, and we expect this business to go back to historical margins. So again, it's a great business to have, and we're looking forward to the time post CDMO in that margin profile.

So to attempt to pin you down a little bit, we would -- I would look at historical margins in the late 20 teens in the 34% to 35%, 36% range. Is that what you think of when you call it historical margins?

Let me say, above 30%.

Okay. All right. Very good. I think we're out of time. Thanks, everybody, for your attention.