Danaher Corporation (DHR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

And I'm excited to host our next session. We're joined by Danaher. I'm joined by Rainer Blair, CEO. Rainer, thanks so much for being here.

Good morning. Thanks for having us, Mike.

Last session of the conference, but certainly not -- last, but not least, I also want to thank everyone for all your events this week and all your participation this week. It means a ton to myself and to the entire BofA team. Really appreciate it. I hope you found the conference helpful. We know that we have the aye-aye vote coming up soon. So I'm going to have 1 plug. I saved it for the last one, so would greatly appreciate your support in the aye-aye vote.

But let's jump in, Rainer. I want to kick things off, a lot of questions on policy, a lot of questions on changes in the last couple of weeks since you reported 1Q earnings has been certainly busy in the market. So can you give us an update on sort of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks, what's been going on?

Sure. So first of all, thanks again for having us. And we're really encouraged by our strong start of the year. We had a nice beat here related particularly to bioprocessing that came in nice and strong, and we upped our full year guide as a result of that. And I think after the first quarter, as you say, it's been a very dynamic situation, and we've tried to characterize that dynamic situation by talking about the tariffs, framing those up and pointing out to investors, our customers and associates that we're going to address those tariffs, and we're going to put those aside. And we knew from the outset that those tariffs would be dynamic, and they continue to be, as we've heard from more recent announcements and negotiations, and those negotiations continue. So from our perspective, we continue to focus on counter measuring those tariffs with a number of counter management tools that we have, on the one hand, and on the other hand, driving our business, keeping our head down and getting it done. And what does that mean? It means that we're deploying certainly surcharges. We're also adjusting our supply chain. We're moving manufacturing and not losing sight of making sure we drive towards our guide. And so as a result of all these changes, we have not changed our guide.

Okay. Maybe I'll just pick up there on the tariffs. The big update this week was some deescalation of the U.S.-China trade war with the tariff rate being moved down significantly to 30% and 10%. Those countermeasures, those mitigation factors you put in, are you going to be able to -- or will you toggle them down and adjust accordingly, meaning what you called out on the 1Q call of tariffs are here and here's how we'll respond. If tariffs are lower, are you going to maybe pull back on some of those countermeasures? Or will you still enact them to the full degree?

So I think we start with the proposition that we will countermeasure the tariffs, whatever they are. Should they be lower, that's certainly a short-term thing that we see here, although that's not been decided permanently then that's fine. If they should be higher, well, then we're going to countermeasure those. One thing is for sure, we are keeping our head down, and we are focused on executing on the countermeasures that we talked about and delivering on our guide.

Okay. Other question I want to touch on, you kind of called out in your prepared -- in your initial remarks was bioprocessing, strong start to the year. I think that was certainly encouraging to see you adjusted your full year bioprocessing guide. Can you talk about what you saw in the quarter, how it played out relative to your expectations, both for consumables and instruments, and how that frames your outlook for the rest of the year?

Yes, we were really pleased with what we saw here in the first quarter on the back of 7 quarters of sequential orders growth. We had printed a high single-digit bioprocessing growth in the fourth quarter, and we followed that up with the second print of high single-digit growth in the first quarter here. And that, together with the orders momentum, really gave us the perspective that we could increase that guide to high single digits for the full year. And that was really led by low double-digit growth in our consumables business. So we see really a strong uptake here in the consumable side of that business, and we expect that to continue here for the remainder of the year.

Okay. And you talked about the difference in terms of what you've seen from consumables and instruments. Instruments was a little bit weaker on the revenue side, but you had certainly expected that. Can you talk about your expectations for equipment in bioprocess for the rest of the year in terms of what you saw as orders last year?

Sure. So we really think, on the equipment side, orders bottomed out last year. And as a result of that, that's why we're seeing -- with lead times on execution of equipment between, let's call it, 6 and 12 months, we're seeing that weaker phase in revenue this year. Now on the other hand, we're starting to see an improvement in our order patterns in equipment, and that will play out here in the future. So while not up to normal levels, the equipment orders are improving, and that will play out here in the next 6 to 12 months. So we're also encouraged by that. And then lastly, we really saw a robust uptake in bioprocessing by our larger pharma customers and larger CDMOs that are manufacturing commercialized drugs, Phase III drugs, and that's really a strong underwriting of this industry and how well these biologic drugs are being taken up by patients around the world.

In terms of that low double-digit in consumables, equipment orders getting better, it sounds like bioprocess is on track for normalization, return to normal. This has been a multi-quarter recovery cycle. You have -- do you have increased confidence that, that recovery continues on track? And especially as we progress through this year, bioprocess will be sort of back to normal. Your long-term LRP, I think, is high single digit for bioprocess. You still feel like that's supported by the current data?

We do. We see that all indicators are showing that, that long-term growth rate of high single digits is coming back into view. And that's supported, again, certainly by the consumables, but once again, we see then improvement also in equipment, along with new product launches that are occurring around the world for monoclonal antibodies and other protein type therapies where we have a particular strength, and that's such an important part of the industry and the business.

Okay. And you touched on, you saw strength in the first quarter from larger pharma or large CDMO. One of the questions we've gotten a lot is, was there any pull forward or timing effects in the quarter from the perspective of your customers, maybe those pharma and CDMO customers trying to get ahead of tariffs themselves and maybe sort of ramping up going forward some consumables on bioprocess? Just how do you react to that?

We really didn't see anything meaningful there. We monitor that very closely, as you can imagine, based on what's transpired over the previous years around inventory builds. So we continue to be very close to our customers here. And while they're certainly looking at their own manufacturing footprint in terms of all the discussions that you hear in the marketplace and policy environment, we don't see any meaningful pull forward.

Okay. In terms of that manufacturing footprint from the pharma side, the other topic is a little bit more long term in terms of the reshoring or maybe near-shoring their manufacturing capabilities again in light of tariffs. What would the impact to Danaher be in that case? Can you walk us through how that could be implemented, where you would see it?

Yes. I mean, we're very encouraged by the number of announcements that are being made for the increase in manufacturing capacity, which is necessary really in 2 ways. One, there, of course, is the current reshoring theme; but two, the volumes, when you're growing at high single digits, do require continued investment in capacity over time. And there's been a lag in capacity construction here over the last years during the post-pandemic reset, and we're just starting to see an improvement. So this reshoring discussion is very positive, although it is early days, and it does take time to build new plants. We think we're particularly well positioned there. We have well over 100, 120 flex factories. So those are really end-to-end factories that we've constructed with our customers and pharma partners around the world. And so that positions us very well for fast execution of high performance manufacturing lines for our pharma partners as this reshoring unfolds. But in the shorter term, we're also seeing this improvement in equipment orders based on the need for more capacities just out of the base business that continues to grow. So it's really encouraging, and we think we're really well positioned there.

And so if and when that does come to pass, I take it you would see it in the equipment orders first, right, as they're building out the facilities. What's sort of the lag time between that and when you see the revenues and when you see the consumables flow through, so any visibility you have?

It really depends if these reshoring efforts are based on brownfield capacity extensions, which those can take, call it, 6, 12, 18 months, depending on the scale because all the permitting is in place already in brownfield investments. As you think about greenfield investment, and there are those as well, that's a multiyear process. So what we could imagine as we go forward here is, over time, an extended equipment growth as this reshoring strategy unfolds over the next years.

Okay. Maybe sticking with biopharma a little bit longer. The other key theme over the last just couple of weeks has been most favored nation status, potential for price reductions or pricing reform for pharma companies. How should we think about flow through to Danaher from that? Because it seems like tools are certainly caught up in that concern.

So this pricing discussion from the MFN, executive order and the press conference that was held, first of all, it's very early days, and it's unclear where that all ends up. But it's very important to note that Danaher is hardly exposed to the topic of pharma pricing. Why do I say that? If you look at our revenue exposure overall, about 35% of that is to pharma. But of those 35%, 500 basis points are related to research and development. I'll come back to that. And the full 30% are related to the manufacture of biologic drugs. So this is related to the manufacturing of drugs rather than research and development. And the whole point of what we do at Danaher is to help our customers build those products at higher yields, get them to market more quickly so that they can get those to patients more quickly. But of course, this helps their business model immensely as well. So we don't really see for that 30%, our pharma exposure, a significance to the pricing discussion and any discussion that increases the volume of drugs ultimately consumed because they are more accessible would be a tailwind for Danaher. Now coming back to the 500 basis points where we have R&D exposure, even there, the majority of that revenue is related to assays tests that are required for regulatory purposes and toxicology tests, GMPK and other sorts of very specialized tests that are required in the drug approval process. So once again, as it relates to this MFN discussion, that's really tangential to the positioning of our business.

Okay. That's helpful. Going back to that, you called out the 30% of your -- out of 35% within pharma is manufacturing, bioproduction specifically. Can you help us think through how to think about what Danaher sees versus what pharmacies on the revenue side or maybe on the COGS side? So we're starting with pharma gross margins going down to your COGS line, going down to your bioprocessing composition of that?

Sure. I've talked about this before. As you think about what Danaher and more generally the industry does in bioprocessing is we typically represent about 8% to 12% of the cost of goods sold. So if you want to look at what that implies then for a pharma company, have a look at the gross margins. Many people will do that. Let's take an average gross margin of roughly 70% to say a number, then you can see that puts you into the low single-digit percentage of the total revenue of pharma. So that's the relevance and the input we have on the P&L of a pharma company on the one hand. And then please keep in mind, the entire function that we have is to help improve yields, accelerate time to market and to reduce the ultimate total cost of ownership of manufacturing for pharma companies. So we're really part of the solution, and that's how we engage with our customers as they face whatever headwinds there are, which is how can we help you in making processes more efficient, yields better quality, more precise. And so we think we're on the right side of that discussion.

Okay. No, that's really helpful. Maybe just to round out biopharma, let's talk about smaller biotech that, just from the funding data and from what you and others have commented on the last couple of quarters, hasn't been stellar. Remind us, what are your expectations for that part of the market for the rest of the year? And what's your exposure?

So our exposure in the bioprocessing business is about 10% to 15% for what we call emerging biotechs. So those are biotechs that do not have a commercial product or these small CDMOs that also are not yet in commercial production. And what we see there is a high concentration, high focus on compounds, on biologics that have excellent data in -- first in toxicology in Phase I and then moving on to Phase II. That's really where the focus is. And other programs that are not showing that data, there's less intensity around those, or, in some cases, they get canceled. When you bring that all together, what we're seeing is stability sort of at a lower activity level in that part of the business. And what it will take here going forward is a sustained funding improvement as we move forward.

Okay. And so you're not expecting any of that in your current assumptions?

No. I mean we think it's stable at the current level. And as equipment improves, that's another tailwind that is helpful. And this smaller segment that we just talked about, that will require more funding to get to the next level.

Okay. All right. Let's pivot a little bit to China, especially, let me start with VBP. You talked about this a lot at the end of last year and earlier this year. Kind of gave us a road map for how VBP is going to play out this year. We're halfway through May? Is it sort of consistent with your expectations? Any surprises there [indiscernible] months?

It is. So volume-based procurement, along with the reimbursement changes that we saw late last -- very late last year, you recall, we characterized those as a $150 million headwind for 2025. And that characterization remains intact. That's essentially what we saw play out here in the first quarter. There is no additional news as it relates to that. That's in full implementation in China, and we continue to see strong patient volumes in China and the business is developing there as we expected.

Okay. Outside of VBP, maybe sort of remind us what your expectations are for the year? And if we take what happened with the tariff situation being scaled back, could that be a possible tailwind outside of tariffs, but just sort of for the underlying China business, if maybe it helps the economy a little bit, helps most of the markets recover a little bit in the new tariff environment?

Well, so for China in our guide, we're assuming China still to be down this year about mid- to high single digits, and that's on the basis of this volume-based procurement. The underlying business is growing based on patient volumes. The bioprocessing business is starting to show growth. Similarly to consumables growth than equipment growth, but nonetheless, encouraging. And then the Life Science business, we see stabilizing where the demand contraction is offset by some of the government support that we see some of that stimulus. So that, all in all, we see China probably down mid- to high single digits for the year. Now as it relates to the change in the tariffs, it's very clear that China is recognizing that putting tariffs and inputs to their own health care increases the cost to their own government programs as well as to the private payers in their country, and they're looking to reduce the impact of that. And so while that's certainly favorable here in the short term, that can change at any time. And as a result of that, we continue, as I mentioned, with our tariff countermeasures per the original design, and we have our head down, and we're executing against that, which does also include finalizing the localization process that we kicked off several years ago, along with the regionalization of our global footprint. So several billion dollars of investments here in North America, which we've talked about. European -- Europe has a strong manufacturing base and the same will happen, and we'll come to a conclusion here shortly in China for us.

Okay. Sticking on the diagnostics side, I want to talk about Cepheid for a little bit. 1Q came in ahead of expectations, I think both on the respiratory, but also nonrespiratory. Can you talk about how both of those dynamics are playing out through the rest of the year and just sort of again, the normalization of that to post-COVID normal?

So we had a strong performance at Cepheid here in the first quarter, right? We beat quite significantly here. And that's really related: one, to the strong flu season that we saw as well as the strong competitive position that Cepheid has. You may know that we've more than tripled our installed base in -- since the pandemic. We are seeing consolidation of molecular testing platforms in hospital systems, and that consolidation is skewed towards Cepheid. We're also seeing that our strategy to not only have the larger installed base, but also have more tests menu available, the launches of new tests is playing out. So for existing tests, you see that rather than just doing respiratory testing, you see now Strep A as one example of very many being used in coordination with that. And then we have new tests such as the MVP that we launched last year for women's health taking off and showing very, very strong growth. So the entire strategy of: one, leveraging our respiratory position and the installed base growth that we did during the pandemic and the continued placement of the GeneXpert is really playing out. And then you add the expanded menu and the new menu items, and it's really a very compelling value proposition, and that explains the share gain. And as you think about the nonrespiratory, I mentioned some of those, Strep A as well as MVP and hospital-acquired infections and so forth, these are right in the sweet spot of what the IDNs need in order to protect their patient population. And the ease of use, the quick turnaround of these tests and getting the correct answer for subsequent therapeutic intervention is exactly what they need. And so this is what's driving Cepheid forward and explains the continued and sustained share gain we see there.

Okay. Can we touch on the Life Sciences business a little bit, both maybe on the instrumentation and your expectations there? Maybe touch on some of the funding environments from the academic and government, even though a small part of the business, just how that's played out the last couple of weeks since the quarter ended?

Sure. So we were slightly ahead of our expectations in the Life Sciences business here in the first quarter. And then we did see a softening here as it relates to academic and government funding particularly. Now let's size that up briefly. At the overall Danaher level, our revenue exposure to academic and government worldwide is a low single-digit percentage. Our direct exposure to the NIH, as an example, is well below 1%. So this is really not a large part of our business. Keep in mind, our positioning is in pharma, just as I spoke of, clinical, the reference point being there Cepheid and diagnostics and the applied markets as well. So we're really focusing on a very small part of our business. Nonetheless, we did see some softening in the market based on what you've been hearing in the news, certainly here in the United States. And that's one reason why we tweaked our guide down there for the full year. And of course, that was offset by the increase in the guide that we did in bioprocessing. So we see this softening here in the short term. It's contained to a very small part of our business. And of course, we're looking to see how this all plays out in the policy environment over the next months or so.

And maybe on the more consumable side of Life Sciences, whether that's Abcam or Aldevron, you called out some specific moving pieces, just any updates to give there on their performance?

So some of the businesses there also support academic and government. Generally speaking, we are very happy with the positioning of those acquisitions whether it's Abcam or genomic medicines. These are highly attractive, very well-positioned franchises. And while they are -- do have some exposure to the government and academic segments, we are very pleased with the long-term outlook for those businesses and the very, very strong competitive positioning that they have.

Okay. I have a couple of more topics I want to hit on. I want to touch on some of the cost outs and cost savings initiatives you called out. I think via your 10-K, you called out $150 million of cost outs, or more than $150 million of cost downs this year to sort of offset some of these broader macro challenges. And for 1Q, you said you already saw $50 million. Can you give us an update, sort of going through the rest of the year, how are those initiatives going? Just where that -- the upside to that is coming from?

Just to provide the context, we talked about in our K the $150 million plus, so at least $150 million cost savings that we're targeting. We saw $50 million of that already in Q1, and we're well on track to deliver on those throughout the year. And I would see the remaining $100 million plus to be split approximately evenly over the subsequent 3 quarters. We're well on track there. Our -- this is also now a part of our total view of the offsetting of tariffs. And we believe that we're very well positioned. We have our head down, and we're getting after that.

Okay. I want to touch on capital deployment, M&A. Danaher has certainly been active for years and years. And you've commented a number of times, I remember during COVID, you made a point of whenever there's uncertainty and volatility in the market, you see that as an opportunity to strike. You see that as an opportunity to pick out weak targets or maybe businesses that are underappreciated in the market and sort of absorb them and win from there. Certainly feels like there's a lot of volatility in the market. Could you give us an update on sort of your balance sheet, your thoughts on that sort of how far are you willing to go?

As you know, we pay a lot of attention to maintaining a really strong and, if I can call it, action-ready balance sheet to provide us the optionality that we need in pursuing our bias and capital allocation of M&A. And whenever there are moments or periods of dislocation, we view that as an opportunity and a moment where we are on the front foot, ensuring that we take full advantage of that. And so in this period, of course, we're maintaining that optionality here to deploy capital towards M&A, and we're observing as we always do with keen interest what's transpiring. And we're well positioned, as I mentioned, from a balance sheet perspective. And if you look to past moments of dislocation, we have done some of our best and most attractive deals in that period of time. And so that's how we're viewing it and that's how we're positioned. We feel good about it.

Is there any particular vertical, whether it's bioprocesses or life sciences, diagnostics or more private versus public, where you see more opportunities, more dislocations?

We are looking to strengthen the portfolio that we have, especially along the fantastic end markets that we're positioned in. And whether the opportunity is public or private is immaterial to us.

Okay. Given everything we've talked about, we touched on bioprocess, instrumentation, life sciences, diagnostics. If you could just sort of bring it all together and give us an updated view on the tools market longer term, beyond the near-term headwinds, how you see the market recovery and normalization going in 2026 and 2027? Just broad comments on the LRP in the markets...

I think in moments like this, we have to keep our view on the long term. And there is no doubt that health care is a global pursuit of humanity. We are all looking together, it doesn't matter where we live in this world, to improve the quality of our lives and improve the quality of health care and the world and certainly in the United States has been willing and will continue to invest in that pursuit. And when we look at the end markets that we are positioned in, and this has been the result of a thoughtful portfolio transformation that we've been on now for several years, we have really dialed ourselves into the most attractive parts of these health care end markets, acquired and grown organically some of the most attractive franchises in those markets. And when you add that to our balance sheet and to really the incredible talent that we have and grow at Danaher, together with our ability to execute with the Danaher Business System, we really feel very positive and very optimistic about the future, and we feel we have the ability to deal with whatever the short-term brings. So we're very, very optimistic about the future and the long term.

What do you think -- I mean, that's helpful. But what do you think needs to happen to get us back there? Is it really all policy, is it really all sort of macro? If we think about, again, all the near-term headwinds we talked about, how do we get past that and go back to that sort of longer-term tools?

Well, we're in a bit of a policy and geopolitical reset here, but there will be a mean reversion to stability. And what that stability implies is that we have more predictability and less uncertainty. So as -- in the coming months and perhaps the next year, depending on how long this reset takes, as the degree of uncertainty declines, the amount of investment in these really important pursuits of curing diseases will ramp up again and start to normalize.

Okay. Great. We got about 30 seconds left. So Rainer, I'll end with our customary closing question of what do you feel is most underappreciated or misunderstood about Danaher?

Well, I would start with that this portfolio transformation has rerated our growth and earnings profile. That is visible and demonstrable every day. And we will continue with the strength of our balance sheet, which is exceptional and differentiated, continue to invest in these end markets. And then I think it's also very important to note that our business models are very attractive in not just mission-critical, but nondiscretionary applications. So if you think of bioprocessing and specking in there, if you think of diagnostics, which are necessary for clinical decisions, and if you think of the life science research, where we're trying to get drugs to market quicker and improve that pipeline yield in the drug development industry, that's incredibly important. And then if that wasn't enough, you add what I think is the critical differentiator on top of what we talk about. And that's our talent in the Danaher Business System and the culture that we continue with for 40 years to maintain and grow to execute at scale. And you put that together, and that's truly a unique and exciting company.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Mike.

We'll end it there. And thanks, everyone, for joining us. That concludes the 2025 BofA Healthcare Conference. Thank you.