Qiagen N.V. (QGEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to our next deep dive. Today, it's all about QIAcuity digital PCR. We're going to answer questions around what this digital PCR, how does it compare with quantitative PCR and how does sequencing fit in? But before we begin a quick legal note, as with any investor event, this presentation includes a safe harbor statement. You're likely familiar with this from our other presentations, so I won't read it in full. However, please remember that we will be making forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected, and the factors driving those are detailed in our most recent Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A copy is also available on our web page. Let's now have a closer look into how DPCR, QPCR and NGS differ and why it matters. [indiscernible] our Head of Global Digital PCR and Francesca Di Pasquale, our Head of Digital PCR R&D are going to take us on this journey.

What are we doing here by the lake? I thought we're going to talk about digital PCR.

I know we are, but I thought this would be a great location to talk about it. Earlier, I collected this water sample from the lake here, but don't worry, German waterways are generally pretty clean but this water sample could still contain traces of wastewater.

Now I see where you're going. So let's assume we want to analyze this sample for traces of Norovirus for early signs of an outbreak similar to how wastewater was analyzed during the COVID pandemic.

Right. Good point. It was using the COVID pandemic. So this is a kind of sample where digital PCR can be really valuable. It's a complex sample. In the sample, there contains millions of different components, could be bacterial DNA could be viruses, could be human DNA, could be environmental material.

So how do we find a very small amount of genetic material from virus particles in all of that. There's different ways to approach it, right?

Exactly. And option #1, next-generation sequencing. -- don't look for 1 specific target like norovirus. We look for the unknown, we sequence or analyze all the genetic material in here. And at the end, we have a comprehensive overview of exactly what's in the sample and in what quantities like norovirus, bacteria, human DNA and more.

And with that, at the end, we have a very broad overview of what's in the sample.

Yes.

I know what I'm looking for, I could simply go with, for example, QPCR.

Yes. With QPCR, we don't analyze everything. We look for one known sequence.

And how does that work?

We specifically look for norovirus. We make many copies of it, and then we detect the signal and monitor that over time as it increases. The stronger the signal, the more norovirus is in that but we rely on a reference standard. We compare our sample to a sample where we know how much of the target is in the we use that comparison to make a calculation of how much norovirus in the sample.

And what about doing that in a complex something like that?

That's when it becomes more challenging substances in the sample can interfere with the reaction. And if our target is low concentration, it's difficult to detect the signal accurately and precisely.

And this is where digital PCR comes right?

Yes. Instead of looking at the whole sample at once, you divide the sample into thousands of different reaction chambers the so-called partitions.

So even with a very complex sample like this and at very low concentrations, we're able to get clear results.

Yes. And this is particularly important in surveillance, where we want to detect very low levels of target over time. for example, during the COVID pandemic, when we were looking at small changes in virus in the community, we want to be able to detect those signals early and with high confidence.

So how does this work in practice?

Detection quantification and confidence. Okay. Great. Let's go to the lab. Let's do it. So he and I, we just took a walk and we used this water sample to explore the difference between next-generation sequencing QPCR and DPCR. And now we need your health to go one step further and have a closer look into QIAcuity digital PCR and how it works in practice.

Sure. What is really interesting is that what you have been exploring now does not only apply to wastewater in both environmental and clinical samples, we are really interested in finding a tiny amount of signal within a very large background. In wastewater, it could be a trace of a virus. In blood, indeed, we could be interested in finding cancer cells or very few amounts of cancer DNA within a large background. Both applications are very different, but the principle remains indeed the same. In this latitude, we have millions of healthy cells. And the key question is, do we also have cancer cells in it? And if so, how many?

And where would we start to find that out?

The first step is always sample preparation. We extract the DNA from the sample. We load the DNA together with the required reagents onto the plate and we seal it. then the plate is put into the QIAcuity instrument and the one is started.

And what happens in inside the QIAcuity?

The sample is partitioned into thousands of single reaction chambers, the so-called partitions. In every petition, a PCR takes place, targeting the cancer markers that we are interested in.

That's right. Each individual partition gives a clear answer.

This is also the reason why it is called digital PCR. Every single partition gives a yes and no answer like the 1 and the 0 in a computer logic. By counting these, the software use statistics to calculate how many cancer cells were present in the original blood sample.

And how long does it take?

The whole process takes about 2 hours. Everything happens in only 1 instrument fully automated and plate-based. And actually, you can also detect more than 1 target at once, up to 12 in parallel, and this is multiplexing. No reference standards, no complex setup, simple, scalable and highly reproducible.

We've seen how digital PCR works and why it delivers precise and reliable results. In real-world applications, it's not about measuring once -- it's about generating consistent results across labs, across studies and over time. But what does it mean for our customers? And why are more and more switching from QPCR to DPCR, let's take a closer look. Now let's talk about our customers and their applications. So why do customers switch from QPCR to DPCR?

It's all about confidence in your data. Customers are facing increasingly complex samples and demanding applications. They need to be confident they're producing reproducible data across different labs, across different operators and at different times. So our customers get more out of their samples. They generate higher confidence data and all that at a very similar price point per experiment.

But what makes the car QIAcuity really stand out?

It starts with simplicity. The QIAcuity is a fully integrated all in one system that reduces hands-on time and reduces complexity.

And it is also why it is one of the most user-friendly digital PCR instrument available. It really enables our customers to implement it easily and also scale it across different labs and it also fits seamlessly into the QIAGEN ecosystem starting from the sample technologies. And beyond simplicity and integration?

Flexibility and scalability. Whether you're running a few samples of thousands. We have a 1 plate system for low throughput users to a multi-plate system for the high throughput environment. And that's with all the same technology.

What else?

Speed at scale, QIAcuity is very accurate and highly reproducible across all different throughput levels. A good example is in biopharma, where you may have an R&D facility running many samples, screening many samples -- and then in the same system can be used in the manufacturing where quality control measurements need to be made at much lower throughput.

One system, different needs, right?

That's right. One system across all those different applications. All in all, QIAcuity combines performance with simplicity, ease of use, flexibility and scalability.

What about QIAcuity digital PCR in clinical and diagnostics.

Well, we have already shown that digital PCR brings a lot of value in research, but we do not stop there. With QIAcuity the X, we bring digital PCR to the clinical and diagnostic space.

It forms a strong alternative where sequencing can be too slow or complex and where quantitative PCR is really coming to its limits.

And this opens up important applications. doesn't it?

Yes. For example, in oncology, the QIAcuity DX is used to monitor minimal residual disease, where you're looking for very small signals to help guide treatment decisions. This is where digital BCR can really make a difference to make fast, high-quality measurements that support decision-making.

So this is how QIAcuity digital PCR is used today across research and clinical applications. Thank you, Hugh. Thank you, Francesca. QIAcuity digital PCR combines precision, reproducibility and ease of use across a broad range of applications. But what does it mean in a real clinical setting. Let's hear from our customer, Sean Monahan from Brown University Health, who is tackling one of the most critical challenges in health care. Sepsis. He's going to tell us more about how QIAcuity digital PCR is supporting decision-making in a clinical environment.

As a trauma and critical care charge at [ Robin ] Hospital, I spent much of my clinical work hearing for very, very low patients. My research is to wait to understand accept as a definitive diagnosis of that infection can take days. and you have this period where you think the patient may have sepsis but you don't know for sure, so you give them [indiscernible] and hope that they improve. The issue is that every delay in appropriate antibiotics for those patients, we have an increase in our mortality rate. In my research lab, we have been studying RNA sequencing data from sepsis patients for about 7 to 8 years. We identified a method where we could identify RNA from pathogens of interests that are causing the infections. However, we knew we couldn't wait the days to weeks that takes for RNA sequencing data to come back for this to have it. We decided to translate or transition to a digital PCR machine, and that's where we decided to use the QIAcuity DX with a QIAcuity DX digital PCR in general, is that we're able to get this level or copies per microliter for those pathogens. With this level, it's no longer just say yes, no. Instead, we have a level that can correlate with the patients' outcomes. When we get a sample from the patient, we can go from sample to result in about 5 hours. We know that with the QIAcuity DX, we have a very high sensitivity down to 5 copies per microliter, which is very small amount. I would have to say the most beneficial aspect of the QIAcuity DX for us is having this level of the result for the PCR that's very different from QPCR or any other really molecular techniques that are out there. And in our research, we're able to show that those copies from regulator have correlated with different clinical outcomes such as whether the patient can be discharged from the ER to the home and the patient as to the ICU or even if the treatment is working. The QIAcuity DX has allowed us to make our process from sample to actual moment much quicker with the QIAcuity DX we have a process where there are a few touch points with a faster diagnosis will be able to tailor those antibiotics directly to those patients so that we don't have to use multiple antibiotics and we can narrow it down to 1 and see if that antibiotics are working.

We've explored the QIAcuity technology, some applications and customer use cases. Now let's have a closer look into the business perspective. And with that, let me hand over to Nitin Sood, our Head of Product Portfolio and Innovation and Fernando Biz, our Head of Global Commercial Operations.

Digital PCR is one of the fastest-growing areas of molecular testing and QIAGEN's QIAcuity is designed to make this technology more accessible. QIAcuity bridges the gap between traditional QPCR and NGS. It has the sensitivity and accuracy of NGS and combines it with the speed and simplicity of QPCR. The digital PCR market itself is $600 million and growing robustly at 15% CAGR through 2028. In addition, there are opportunities to convert selected applications out of the NGS market applications that require less number of targets. On top of that, we have the QPCR market and applications in there that can be converted to digital PCR that require more sensitivity and more accuracy. We're executing against our growth strategies and seeing strong momentum across the business. In 2025, we did $89 million in revenue and are expecting to do about $100 million in revenue in 2026. We're winning because we are the easiest platform we use on the market. QIAcuity's workflow is as simple as that of traditional QPCR workflows. We also win because we cover low throughput labs and high throughput labs. And we cover a wide variety of applications in life sciences as well as in diagnostics. And lastly, we're making inroads into gene expression, the single largest application for traditional QPCR. Since we launched QIAcuity in 2020, we have focused on serving a broad range of customers and applications. For our academic customers or customers that are just starting out with digital PCR, we have QIAcuity1, which serves on plate. As our customers scale their applications, particularly in translational research or in biopharma or in clinical diagnostic labs, we have QIAcuity 4 in QIAcuity serving 4 and 8 plates. To support a wide variety of applications, we provide more than 2,700 QIAcuity digital PCR assays. In addition, if customers have need for novel applications or assays. We provide GeneGlobe where they can easily design new assays. All these applications have resulted in over 1,100 publications that reference QIAcuity in 2025.

Our momentum in digital PCR is clearly driven by differentiation with an installed base of more than 3,200 systems, which is a CAGR of 75% and also as a result, we had a revenue CAGR of 55%. And this differentiation is clearly visible. One of the attractive unique selling points in our digital PCR solution is the throughput today 1,500 samples per day, we can process, thanks to the variety and the scalability of our platform. At the same time, our multiplexing capabilities are continuing to increase so that we're able to test up to 12 targets in one single reaction. That differentiation is not only about performance metrics. What also matters is the feedback of our customers. from food testing to biopharma to wastewater testing, digital PCR represents, and this is the customer feedback, the next generation of PCR testing. What we achieved with all our engineers across these years with the breadth of the portfolio was to make it as easy as QPCR. City is part of a larger ecosystem, which serves from R&D down to quality control. And I had the opportunity to meet a large biopharma customer who was using our QIAcuity DPCR solution and viral sector analysis. And this enabled them to apply our digital PCR solution, QIAcuity from sample to insight. This is where we come in as QIAGEN. And this is also our offering, how we can enable our customers to grow, and we can customize the solutions for their needs from quality control down to research and development. And this is another example on how QIAGEN expands and grow customer relationships across applications and workflows. One of the biggest opportunities for CI equity is gene expression, the single largest application within the $2.7 billion QPCR market.

What is gene expression? Gene expression is a foundational tool in disease biology that measures what genes are on and what genes are on. QIAcuity builds on the strength of QPCR and the fact that it's easy to use and it's fast but it overcomes the limitations of QPCR by being more sensitive by being more accurate and more reproducible, allowing researchers to uncover disease-specific gene expression signals that QPCR may miss. In 2025, there were over 17,000 publications in gene expression. And this number is growing by 35% annually. To serve this very important market, we're launching a series of products. First, we're launching assays in mouse, rat and humans. In addition, we're launching the high multiplex mix that allows our customers to interrogate 12 targets in 1 reaction. Our new solutions will enable researchers to detect subtle changes in gene expression and their high sensitivity will enable researchers to find the needle in a haystack. When customers work with QIAcuity, they get access to the breadth and flexibility of our ASI ecosystem. Customers can go to GeneGlobe our assay design platform where they can gain access to 10 million predesigned assays and unlimited customization abilities. We as QIAGEN, we achieved to bring the simplicity, the control into digital PCR and the ease of use, the adoption, the scalability, the capability of multiplexing, you get this all in that platform. furthermore, expanding into G expression furthermore into expanding into other applications, be it in the clinical field, be it in life science, be it in applied, be it in translational acuity digital PCR solution is covering this breadth of the field. It is designed with the customer in mind across all these segments. And furthermore, we are stepping into companion diagnostics.

We at QIAGEN believe in digital PCR, one of the fastest-growing markets in molecular testing and our QIAcuity platform is leading this market. QIAcuity ease of use and performance wins the customer. Escape keeps them and our continuous innovation expands our customer base. With the QIAcuit Equity ecosystem, we're well positioned for future growth.

Thank you, Nitin and Fernando. We now know what acuity is all about. But there is 1 important aspect of our QIAcuity story that we haven't touched today, and this is our pharma partnerships. Before my colleague, Hugh went into his digital PCR role, he was part of the companion diagnostics team. And he had the chance to talk to Jonathan Arnold, Head of partnering for precision diagnostics and Richard [indiscernible] from the business development for companion diagnostics team. Over to you.

Okay. Thank you, Dominica. Jonathan, let's start simply. For those who are not familiar with the topic, what is a companion diagnostic? And why is it needed?

Sure. Thanks, Hugh. Great question. And I would probably take it from a -- let's take it from a patient clinician perspective. At the most basic level, what I consider a companion diagnostic is essentially a patient has been diagnosed with cancer typically. Physician has assessed that patient is make it a determination about therapies and essentially needs to diagnostic to determine if it's -- if the patient is eligible for the therapy. And so to me, this is the perfect example of precision medicine, finding the right patient with the right drug at the right time. Well, from a pharma perspective, so they're running a therapeutic program. They've developed a drug the clinician is making a determination about what drug is right for the patient ultimately. And essentially, the pharmaceutical partner is going to have to invest in the diagnostic to ensure that we are selecting the right patients. And so the pharmaceutical company really needs a partner that they can trust that has the competency capabilities to develop the diagnostic because without the diagnostic, there is no drug prescription.

Where does QIAGEN come in? And what's your role in the process?

So QIAGEN really acts as a trusted partner, and we are that partner because of our competence across the requirements that pharma needs. So if you think about our leadership in PCR technologies, both QPCR and DCR and the CAD is really resonating with pharma. We also have more than 30 mass collaboration agreements with global pharmaceutical companies. And this is important because it really establishes as repeat customers. And this is what I take most pride in, not just the absolute number. but it signifies that these partners trust us and they want to do repeat business with this.

So I think when people first look at companion diagnostics, they often think about developing the test as you've described there and just getting paid for that from pharmaceutical companies. But is that really the right way to be thinking about it?

Well, it's true that essentially, we are a commercial contract development business. So they are paying us to develop the diagnostics, which is great. It's a very important business to us. But that's not really what I think about the strategic value of our precision diagnostic businesses to CIG. The strategic value of our precision diagnostic business is developing innovative differentiated content for QIAGEN platforms. And so the pharmaceutical companies are engaging with us to develop these novel innovative diagnostics. We own the diagnostic we then launch it on to QIAGEN platforms, especially the QIAcuity DX. And this, in turn, make those platforms more attractive. So it's a very virtuous cycle. So we're launching novel content that no other company typically has access to, which then makes our instruments more attractive to our customers. It sounds like you're working with a broad range of pharma partners.

How should we think about QIAGEN's position within the space today?

So I think of it, we really have a leadership position. We've been doing this for a long time. As I mentioned, those 14 PMAs over roughly the last dedicate is testimony to that. Companion diagnostics is a tough business. If you think about these programs that we're supporting for our pharmaceutical partners, they're often billion-dollar programs. And so really, that concept of our risk is their risk and vice versa. We take very seriously. But we execute on time where we make commitments to these partners, we deliver.

I guess there's been recent interest in the field of ESR1, for example, as a biomarker, a companion diagnostic biomarker. Maybe Richard, could you explain why that is?

Yes. Sure, Hugh. So in breast cancer, ESR1 mutation in the estrogen receptor endocrine therapy. [indiscernible] a key therapy that delays the progression of disease. Endocrine therapy is a treatment such as aromatase inhibitors. Those robots inhibitors do a great job but over time, patients start to develop resistance and progress the disease. With ESR1 mutations progressing the disease, the biology isn't detectable in the image. And so is one mutation status needs to be characterized at the molecular level. And how does this play out in the patient journey that explain a little bit. So if a patient is diagnosed as I mentioned, with HR-positive, ER positive breast cancer, then that patient is given endocrine therapy. And then the patient is then monitored on a 6- to 12-month basis. is when that patient starts to progress when we start to see the disease developing resistance that we need to check to see if the ESR1 mutation is present or not. And that's where QIAGEN can step in with decentralized testing at the local level to help the oncologists make treatment decisions based upon analyzing blood samples taken from patients to determine if the ESR1 mutation is present.

How could a acuity digital PCR be good for SR1 blood testing?

So the QIAcuity DX and the application of digital PCR is really a magnifying glass to the molecular pathology world. It really allows us to go exquisitely sensitive into the analysis of the circulating tumor DNA that could be present in that patient's blood sample.

So that's how it works today, how CDX is working today. Where do you see this evolving going forward?

Well, the analysis of circulating tumor DNA is really a paradigm shift in oncology and treatment decision making. We're looking for the detection of what we call minimal residual disease. The application of digital PCR is being applied in conjunction with next-generation sequencing towards MRD detection generally speaking. So it's a paradigm shift that's opening a new form of treatment that can be given to patients to extend their life.

So maybe going back to you, Jonathan, beyond oncology, how far do you think this model could extend?

Sure. No, great question. And it's one thing that I think of our companion diagnostic business at Cigna as so much of a platform. So it allows us to look into the future. So I often say, we don't have to be smart. We just have to follow the money. And so we're able to see where pharma is investing biomarkers, technologies. And if you think about how we apply that, this is what I mean by innovative testing. We're always ahead of the curve because pharma is looking across the horizon as well. And so in partnership with and we see these things, they basically contract with pharma or with QIAGEN to develop them and then we launched them on these platforms. And so I really think of our CDx business as a platform enabling QIAGEN instruments and consumables.

Fantastic. Thanks very much, Jonathan. Thanks, Richard. Thank you, Jonathan and Richard. This is clearly an exciting opportunity for our QIAcuity digital PCR. Now let's hear from our CEO, Thierry Bernard and how QIAcuity is positioned for future growth.

Thank you, Dominica, and good afternoon to everybody. I have 2 key messages. You have seen Nitin and Fernando presenting the value of our solution, QIAcuity. You have seen multiple testimonies from customers. Research companion diagnostic, but also clinical customers. My 2 key messages are very simple. First, digital PCR at QIAGEN or digital PCR by QIAGEN is not just a technology anymore. It's a full ecosystem, a sustainable ecosystem where QIAGEN fully masters the instrumentation the consumable, the reagents, applications menu antibioinformatics. Second, we are just at the beginning of what we believe to be a revolution in molecular biology, digital PCR. We believe that QIAGEN is already a leader but we want to continue that leadership and continue to invest to provide everyday more solutions to our customers, be them research, academia pharmaceutical companies or clinical labs. If you think about it, what do customers want today? First, they want reproducibility. Second, -- they want scalability. And third, they want to be able to detect more pathogens into one single sample simultaneously. Many companies are able to provide customers with reproducibility, with scalability with multiplexing. But there is something also very important that customers want. It's simplicity. And I think it's fair to say that QIAGEN is the only company to be able to offer and provide customers with reproducibility, scalability, multiplacing, but also simplicity Digital PC but QIAGEN, as you have heard from Nitin from our customers from Fernando, it's one sample in and the result out. It's a fully integrated box. So this unique feature of digital PCR by QIAGEN of QIAcuity translating numbers today. You got it. We launched it roughly 4 years ago. In 4 years, we took more than 12% of an estimated market already at $600 million. More than 3,200 systems placed since we launched that solution. 1,100 publication to support the value of QIAcuity. This is probably unprecedented. We are already the #2 in this market, and we are on our way to become the clear number one. But there is no way we are going to stand still, and we want to continue to invest to enhance that leadership. And I see 3 ways or 3 priorities for those investments. First, obviously, continue to increase the potential applications available for customers. We started with a lot of application at the beginning for research and academia. We extended it to pharma companies. but we want to move also to new fields, think about human identifications for [indiscernible] Second, companion diagnostic is probably 1 of the major growth field for QIAcuity and digital PCR. We are extremely well placed at QIAGEN because we already can leverage more than 30 million pharma partnerships to push that solution to our pharma partners. And the third major investment for our company in the month, the weeks, the years to come, is to be the leader converting the gene expression market into digital PCR. Gene expression is probably one of the major applications in QPCR today all over the world. But think about it, customers will continue to look for more targets for speed, for accuracy, but in a simple workflow QIAcuity is ideally positioned to answer those needs. I'm not saying that tomorrow digital PCR, we fully replace QPCR, that's not the point. And by the way, digital PCR will not fully replace next-generation sequencing either, but see it that way. Digital PCR is allowing our customers to find more targets in 1 samples in a fast way than traditional QPCR, and this is very important, without the complexity of next-generation sequencing. And so when I think about equity for the future, I see a double-digit growth potential for our company. I see QIAGEN clearly taking the lead in this market. I see QIAGEN clearly converting more and more QPC application into digital PCR. I see QIAcuity leading the move of PCR in gene expression for QPCR to digital PCR. And I see it as a very major investment for our company. And now back to you, Dominica.

Thank you, Terry. Before moving on to the Q&A, we're happy to share more customer voices and their experiences with the car acuity.

My name is Paul Ramachandran, and I'm the CFO and Co-Founder and Tracey Bio. For decades, imaging has been the mainstay of how we monitor cancer patients minimal residual disease is an attempt to go beyond that and measure microscopic amounts of in patient blood that are not detectable by imaging. This allows us to more quickly assess whether a patient is responding to therapy when we need to switch therapies and catch recurrence much, much earlier. At the large point stream of MRD, we want to be able to detect a single molecule from the tumor in a blood sample from a patient. This requires every step in the process to be perfect. From sample collection to DNA extraction and then ultimately, detection of that single molecule using digital PCR. When we first started working with the QIAcuity, we, I think, like many others, so QIAGEN is the maker of kids that come in blue boxes and reagents. When we started a race it would take one technician, a ton of manual work, what that meant was it would take them approximately day to build an assay for a single mutation for a single patient. But the simplicity of the QIAcuity workflow, we've been able to automate all the pieces around this. Now the technician doesn't have to do any of the work. It's all done [indiscernible] and the robot can build assays for 10 different mutations for 20 minutes. This has yielded greater than 100x speed up [indiscernible]

I'm an associate professor at Florida State University. My lab works on developing methods which can reliably test for presence of Salmonella in poultry presence of Eli in red meat samples so that the companies can reproducibly test their food and protect people. I started working on digital PCR assays in 2023 was having a conversation with the stakeholders that we don't need to only do present us and testing of salmonella. We also need to count how many [indiscernible] are present in the food -- if they have a higher sale load in the fluid sample that product should be also eliminated or stock from entering the comp working on food samples for the last 10, 15 years, I know that relative quantification will be always challenging the food samples because food samples are high in protein high in fat and high in all BCR inhibitors you can think of. And that's why I chose DPCR for quantifying salmonella and wholesales. What I value most about the equity digital PCR platform the one unit does everything from partitioning the bleeds, doing the PCI and also imaging the plate. Everything done in 1 bond. Second part, it quantifies this presence of target DNA. I also very much appreciate its ability to put detect to or more targets in within 1 sell of that period.

Thanks, Gopal and [indiscernible] You've seen today 3 customer voices. And we've prepared 3 more for you, which you can see after the deep dive on our web page coming from Novartis, BelinaBasa Batiba, and Zalaris. Now we come to the last point of our session today, which is the Q&A and if you haven't done. [Operator Instructions] Today, together joining the Q&A session with me in the studio are Daniel Wendorff and Hugh [indiscernible] . Welcome and we also have more speakers for today's Q&A that you can see on the screen, which are Thierry Berna, [indiscernible] Perfect. Thanks a lot. I think we're ready with the first question, Daniel.

Yes. So the first question is what differentiates QIAcuity most strongly when customers evaluate competing digital PCR platforms.

Well, I think we can be several of us. When we launched QIAcuity 4 years ago, the main differentiation were coming from the -- was coming from the simplicity. I mean it was the first time that the company was launching a digital PCR system fully integrated, 1 box, sampling, resort out. And this for 3 kinds of different throughputs. And clearly, in the recent years, some competitors have tried to also integrate their solution. But our plate based technology makes it simpler and much more cost-efficient than any other competitive solution at the moment in the market. And this is why notably on the American market, anytime we are faced with competition. Our heat rate is above 70%. That's quite remarkable. [indiscernible] meeting or if you want to complete that differentiation.

Yes. I mean I think I'd add a couple of points, Thierry. One is that in addition to being much easier to use. It's one platform that scales from 1 play to 8. So when a user gets used to our software, our ecosystem, they can very easily scale and the second is that scalability extends from research all the way to diagnostics. So they can start out on our research use platforms and as they move into the diagnostic application, they can use the DX platform, again, the same underlying technology platform, same software. And then lastly, we have the gene globe ecosystem where there are tens of millions of assays to choose from lots of customizability available to our customers and then 2,700 validated assays for them to pick from. Anything to add, Hugh?

I think you've captured everything there and in it, and I think I can't add anything else. It's perfect.

Perfect. Let's go to the next one, which is you mentioned that customers are increasingly switching to digital PCR where in that transition curve are we? And do we expect the majority of our PCR installed base to switch to digital PCR? Or will we have customers that use both Q and PCR.

I think we need to be very clear here. QIAGEN in many different situation has repeatedly said, cannibalization is not what is going to happen. Digital PCR is not going to fully cannibalize total. Digital PCR is not going to fully cannibalize next generation is. But by combining the fact that we are giving more answers with digital PCR than with [indiscernible] without the complexity of next generation sequencing and the turn to result of next-generation sequencing, we have created a new need. So we are also opening new frontiers from our customers, be them pharma company, clinical live Research Academia. So there will be some conversion, obviously, on both sides, both from QPCR and also from engines, but it's not purely cannibalization. For us, as we said in the presentation, 1 of the major potential for conversion will be around gene expression. We all know that gene expression is one of the key markets currently in year with that all the market in expression will move to digital PCR no, clearly, but we want to convert a big partner. As for the transition from our own portfolio, to digital PCR. It's very fair to say that in the coming years, QIAGEN will invest much more in digital PCR than in PCR. But what is important is that being a leader in molecular biology. As of today, QIAGEN is the only company in the market to offer valid solutions in QPC, in digital PCR and in next-generation and to offer those solutions both to research, academia, clinical customers, Irma and many other applications.

Perfect. So let's take one on clinical and then we move on to gene expression. So can you speak about some more of the applications in the clinical setting that we see our customers moving to digital PCR and what are the fastest-growing areas of the clinical market and which applications do we think provides the biggest opportunity for us.

It's a market in the making, but you might want to take this one. And also what we presented today in companion diagnostic is a good answer .

Yes. Thank you very much, Thierry. Absolutely. It's a great question. And we see -- we do see an expansion in clinical applications, anything where you may want to take repeated time points, samples of the repeated time points. for example, the ESR 1 example Richard talked to us about, that's classically strong for digital PCR. You get the precision in the measurements between time points is a critical point. So anything in that oncology space is going to be important for clinical applications, but also something like transplants. We're seeing quite a lot of opportunities in transplant monitoring of patients who have had a transplant.

Daniel, do you want to continue with gene expression?

Yes. One question which came quite often is how important really is gene expression as a future growth driver for the QIAcuity platform.

I think [indiscernible] could give some indications here.

Yes. Gene expression is a really important market, as you heard in the presentation 1,000 publications in gene expression growing at 35% year-over-year. So it continues to be an extremely important tool in another of diseases. And where QIAcuity shine is finding the needle in the haystack, finding the gene expression signals the traditional QPCR will miss. And that's going to uncover more disease by to help obviously develop better diagnostics and better drugs. Today, 10% of our instruments go into gene expression and with the launch of new kids that we just announced, we expect that to increase. And then we're not just stopping there. You've heard us say we're launching -- working on our second generation platform, and that will further accelerate the penetration into the gene expression market. It's a very important market.

Perfect. And we have one on the EUR 600 million total addressable market in 2025. How much of that was clinical versus research and also similarly for our growth outlook through 2028. How is the break between clinical and research.

The majority of the market is still in research and academia. As we said, the clinical market is in the making and QIAGEN strategy is to boost that evolution via our passenger car time companies partners and our companion activity. But it also, for us, the strategy is to put that technology in the hand as many applications and customers as possible. You saw the example [indiscernible] for example, is developing is [indiscernible] approach in Rhode Island and thanks to our technology, what is developing it, we are supporting, obviously, but there are many applications that this way we want to push customers in HID and for ASIC in agri business in food control, for example, to try that technology because we know it brings value. So it's fair to say that the market is probably at the moment, still 70%, 60% to 70% Research academia, but the clinical applications are moving fast.

Yes. We have one more question. What are the biggest barriers preventing broader conversion from quantitative PCR to digital PCR today?

Hugh as the Head of Marketing, would you want to take that.

Pleasure. Thanks,. I think in the past, many customers were, let's say, fearful of digital PCR because of the difficulty with the workflow. It's a challenging workflow with the CQT that's gone now. It's an ease of use. It's just like key PCI. You're using a plate-based system, you're setting up basically a key PCR reaction using digital PCR. So I expect customers will adopt this because of the ease of use.

Okay. Perfect. Then I would say let's move to companion diagnostics. And what's the real status of the 3 partnerships for the QIAcuity CDx?

Sure. So I can't comment directly on any individual program. These are highly confidential for our partners. But I can confidently say they're on track. We're expecting launches in the next 12 to 24 months. It's always hard to precise a time line because essentially, we're married to the clinical time lines as well for the therapeutic. I'm also very, very bullish on our pipeline as I see the progression of digital PCR into our pipeline with farmers in the medium term, it will be the primary technology for our companion diagnostic business. So things are going very well on the companion diagnostic side. Pharma understands and appreciates the value proposition of the QIAcuity DX as we look at those monitoring applications, we see it as a nice complement to NGS. NGS will always be the primary diagnostic in my mind for oncology. But there's other applications where it's not the best, and we see that's where DPCR is resonating right now. So things are good.

Yes, I have 1 more. where within the approximately $2.7 billion PCR market, do you see the greatest opportunity for digital PCR conversion.

Fernando, Nitin, you want to come back to this one?

Yes. I mean, I think we talked about this. We expect, again, the gene expression market, which is about 50% of that $2.7 billion market to be the most exciting opportunity. But broadly, wherever you require high sensitivity, accuracy, precision and you want to do repeat monitoring we expect digital PCR to make inroads into the QPCR market. Fernando, anything to add?

Easy for our future customers for regards to reproducibility easiness, multiplex, you heard up to 12 targets, which is coming up. And on top of this, more than 2,700 sets available and the large liability of customization opportunities. So we want make it easy for our customers and future customers to convert pretty easily.

Perfect. Then let's give additional color on the revenue mix across different applications, gene expression, cell and gene therapy, liquid biopsies, mentioned, quality control and so on but also on end customers, academia, the clinical field, where are we with that conversion?

Well, first, I think -- the first thing I'm going to highlight is that digital PCR QIAcuity is clearly 1 of our pillars in growth. As a result, basically also received one of our highest investment into research and development. We have dedicated people on the fee who are selling on it to this year. We have a dedicated team for companion diagnostic who's focusing also on pushing this technology to our farmers. So you know the numbers, Nitin has given you the numbers for 2025, the target for 2026 as well. We are not splitting those numbers into clinical or research academia or into gene expression, QC and so on. What is clear, the key messages are the following. Since we launched this QCPR we have developed the number of applications to fuel that go. We started for research and academia, and we also to sell and gene therapy and move to also QC control. We are now moving into gene expression in the second half of 2026. Since the launch of QIAcuity, again, at the beginning, research and academia.

We brought that solution to regulatory authorities, IVDR, FDA, we blow that solution to our pharma apartments. That's how we invite you to see. We have a target which is to become the #1 in this growing market. We see digital PCL at a double-digit growth product in our portfolio. . This market is growing. We have a good solution. We have a different differentiated solution. We have a cost-efficient solution. We have people dedicated to market it and nearly, as I said, many, we will be #1 in digital PCR. And if we don't, it won't be because of the so. It's because of management, I would say. It's just a matter of execution [indiscernible]

Perfect. And we have a couple of questions on conversion NGS to digital PCR. So can we talk about -- more about digital PCR when digital PCR would be used over a next-generation sequencing particularly as in the oncology space. So when you can get more genetic information from NGS alone by going with digital PCR and if not completely used over NGS specifically, how is this used in a tandem with NGS?

Insisting again on the fact that it's not about cannibalization, but providing customers with a new divided solution. I will invite who are needing to take that question. But again, it's not about cannibalization. It's basically bringing value compared to what NGS brings to clinicians and patients and compared to what QCPR brings to clinician and [indiscernible]

Absolutely. Thanks, [indiscernible] And you hear from Jonathan as well. In oncology, NGS is going to be the primary diagnostics most of time. where we see, as Thierry said, digital PCR is a complement to NGS. And actually, often they're combined together to give more information -- in oncohematology, we see a lot of digital PCR being used because often onco-hematology is defined by a small subset of genomic alterations. So you don't necessarily always need NGS, and you might need speed to these patients are extremely sick in an answer quickly. So digital PCR fits very nicely there.

On the Hamilton integration, what percentage of customers would benefit from Hamilton integration and what are good examples of potential use cases.

Nitin, do you want to take this one? .

Yes. So one of the primary applications we are targeting with this integration is really in the cell and gene therapy QC space. as our customers are moving from sort of method development and moving digital PCR from that space into QC of released drugs, they need higher throughput. And as a result, they will benefit from automation and higher scale. And likewise, as we scale out our customers are scaling out in applied testing as well as in clinical diagnostics. Those are another category of customers that would benefit from more automation.

And we have time for one more, I guess. What products are you launching to target gene expression in the second half of 2016 and already 10% of instruments today? So what's changing?

Nitin on the assays that we are going to launch in the second half of the year?

So we're launching 2 categories of assays for us, as you heard, we are launching panels that target various pathways in mouse, rat in human. These are miles on ramping motor organisms and of course, human being a very important category. And then we're launching the one-step 12 for multiplex in kit and gene expression. One step, meaning you will be able to do a generation of CDNA from RNA and amplification in one step in the instrument itself is making the workflow simpler and I just want to remind everyone that at QIAGEN, we also have our bioinformatics solutions, our IDA, which does pathway analysis, which also contains the latest greatest information about the new pathways that arenas covered. So we'll continuously add new pathway specific gene expression panels. And so that's going to drive growth. And then as I've mentioned, we continue to innovate, and we have more things in the pipeline that will help us [indiscernible] penetration gene expression

And with that, we are almost at the end. Before closing the session, I would like to hand over for some final remarks.

Yes, well. Thanks again all of you for your attention night. Continue to be did, I hope that you appreciate this format of one hour investor relation and deep dive. I would like to thank Dominica and the team for the preparation of this event. Obviously, we remain open to your questions if you are questioned by Email. The final message for me would be very simple. For a molecular biology company that QIAcuity moving into digital PCR was clearly a natural step. What we have executed have achieved over the last 4 years is nothing short of remarkable is probably the fastest growth of an installed base in tools, life science and diagnostics achieving more than system is such a quick time is remarkable. But as Nitin said, Jonathan and [indiscernible] we don't want to stand still already in our pipeline is a new instrument. We could leave at the moment dequity version 2 or generation to. Obviously, we will update you as we go, but see that investment are a clear proof that one QIAGEN is definitely a digital PCR company; and two, that we are going to fuel our ambition to convert the market of PCR. And any time we can also the market of NGS to this new technology. Thank you, and talk to you soon. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, we are at the end of the QIAcuity deep dive session. Thanks for your participation and for all the questions that we received. And with that, have a great day. And if you have any further questions, always feel free to reach out to us. Happy to help and see you then. Bye-bye.