Lonza Group AG

2025 was a year of strong growth, robust performance and significant progress for Lonza. In the first full year of implementing our One Lonza strategy, we outperformed on our targets, while also achieving strategic milestones to further strengthen our position as the world-leading CDMO. In April we implemented our new target operating model, built around three business platforms that reflect our sharpened focus on our core CDMO business. This new structure is designed to enhance and strengthen collective and individual accountability, elevate operational excellence and ensure we are well set up to meet the needs of our customers and their patients. Turning to our facilities, we are continuing to complete the successful integration of our new Vacaville site by adding people, capacities and capabilities. Here we have already signed a number of large commercial contracts and continue to invest into the site CTMO offering, whilst improving flexibility to unlock its significant growth potential for Lonza and our customers. Within our wider network, we are continuing to fill our pipeline, sign new customer contracts across technology platforms and make measurable progress towards our sustainability goals. Looking to the longer term, our ambitious investment program is designed to continue to outgrow the market and to meet the future needs of our customers and our business. Today we share the details of our financial performance in 2025 with strong results that reflect our strategic focus, our disciplined execution and the early impact of our ongoing One Lonza transformation. Our performance and progress in the last year make one thing clear. Our business is a place of unique opportunity for our customers, our people and our shareholders. This is One Lonza.

Also a warm welcome from my side to all the ladies and gentlemen here in the room, of course also to the ladies and gentlemen joining us online to our full year 2025 conference. And before we actually dive into the presentation, please take a look at our Safe Harbor Statement, take note and feel bound to it. Quickly, we prepared a rich agenda for you today. And Philip, myself, I guess, are very much looking forward to present this strong set of numbers to you and later on in the Q&A discuss with you about what 2025 was to us at OneLauncer and actually what 2026 in the future will bring. So OneLauncer, full year 2025 performance, kind of diving a little bit deeper into the business platforms than the outlook 2026 and Afterwards, you shooting questions at us and us providing useful answers. So my five key messages for you today. First of all, the One Lonsa team delivered strong profitable growth in 2024, top line growth and constant exchange rates of above 21%. and an expanding margin to 31.6% plus 1.4 percentage points ahead of our upgraded CDMO outlook of July 2025. This business, of course, was driven by Vacaville, but not only. The underlying business actually expanded very nicely as well and at low teens, the constant exchange rate Sales and also in line with our city more organic growth model. We successfully launch our new operating model first of April to introduce new ways of working in a new way. How we actually present ourselves to the outside world to our customers and increase elevate the customer experience within one launch across all technologies and all business platforms. We actually saw and continue to see strong underlying business momentum and considering the things that actually happened last year in terms of how the future supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry will look like, we at Lonsa actually are very well positioned to also support our clients on that journey. And I'll speak to that later in much more detail. Then the outlook for 2026, we expect our top line to grow at 11% to 12% in constant exchange rates, and the core UHDA margin to further expand, reaching a level well above 32%. which means actually that we in 2026 will already enter the corridor of 32 to 34% that two years ago was given to you as a mid-term guidance for 2028. Briefly on the CHI business, which developed well as planned and has shown growth again in line with the outlook that we provided to you a year ago and will from now on, considering that we intend to exit that business, be accounted for as a discontinued operation. The exit process is advancing as planned. And with that, briefly, as a reminder for you, our vision, which kind of states our ambition, which is we are the pioneer and the world leader in the CDMO industry with cutting edge science, smart technology, and lean manufacturing. In short, what it says, actually, Lonza is in a position to outgrow the underlying market. create outstanding value. What does it take to create outstanding value? First of all, an attractive underlying market. That is the case in the pharmaceutical industry. It takes a strong business model, the CDMO business model, but in order to outgrow and create superior value, we need something special, which actually is what we introduced to you a year ago, a little bit more than a year ago, in December 2024, our unique one-launcher engine. consisting of five elements, high performance teams, leading scientific, technological, and digital ecosystem, unparalleled customer partnerships, end-to-end execution excellence, and plug-and-play investment and integration capabilities. While these are broad claims, highly abstract, I actually decided and want to share a number of evidence and proof points for our claims. First of all, high performance teams. We continuously try to hold ourselves true in terms of that what is in my mind as a CEO and in the minds of the executive leadership teams actually is in line with reality for which we actually do voice of employee surveys every six months. And among the top 200 leaders of Lonsa, 95% of them strongly support the new mission and purpose of Lonsa. In terms of engagement index, also above 80%, which is really an outstanding value. So full support of high performing teams. In terms of scientific support to our clients, Lonza and its GS system supported more than 100 commercial products. It is the leading cell line in the industry. Unparalleled customer partnerships with a new technology. As a new operating model and creating an elevated customer experience, we actually have been able, from an already industry-leading level in 2024, to further increase net promoter scores, I mean, twice, 100% for big pharma and 50% for small biotech within just 12 months. Our integrated offering is gaining momentum, significantly increasing in terms of us offering drug substances and drug product services. And last but not least, in terms of our ability to continuously add people, technologies and acquisitions. Cinefix is a great example. Acquired in 2023 and integration already done in the first quarter of 2024. And more notably, the integration of Vacaville mid of 2025. I'll speak to that in much more detail later. So in terms of outgrowing our market, what are the components which in the end lead to our ability, as proven in the past, 2025, and as we expect it to continue over the next year and years to come? First of all, it's the underlying market growth, 6% to 7%, available to everyone. Then there is the increase of outsourcing. So pharmaceutical companies decide not to manufacture everything in-house but rather go to trusted partners like Loncer and have their products developed and manufactured. They are adding 1-2% growth increment. Then there is active market selection. deciding where to play, which are the high growth, high value market segments in the underlying pharmaceutical market, adding another 1% to 2%, leading to an underlying, I mean, selected market growth of 8% to 10%. And then there is the Lonza engine, what makes us special, which is why people come to us, which provides for an additional upside, 2% to 3%. So overall yielding an underlying growth potential for Lonza of low teens, 10% to 13%. So I talked about market and us taking conscious decisions in terms of where to play and where not to play. Let's briefly break it down. The overall underlying pharma market is probably $1.2 trillion in US dollars, growing at 7%. Clinical pipeline. more than 7,000 molecules. Based on the technologies that we have chosen for ourselves, eight, and based on the positioning in the value chain, in the product life cycle from early phase development down to commercial manufacturing, we at Lonsa are able and operate within a 100 billion US dollar market, growing at eight to 10%. And we, in terms of future potential, are able to cover more than 90% of the innovative pharmaceutical pipeline to fuel future growth Quickly on outsourcing because there was a lot of discussion in the last year in terms of I mean will the world change and if so How and what does that change would that change mean for the CDMO business model first of all? And we should never forget that system all business model is a beautiful business model It's a sustainable business model because it adds tangible value and creates efficient and global pharmaceutical supply. This has been true over the last 15 years and will be true in the next 15 years to come as well. But let's be more specific with all the big numbers and the big headlines out there about large pharmaceutical companies investing in the US. We kind of just took from actually historic figures and also Bloomberg consensus forecasts what actually the world and the pharmaceutical companies themselves expect going forward in terms of their own capex behavior. And the outcome actually is in absolute terms, capex of the top 20 large pharma companies between 2015 and 2025 grew at a CAGR of 3%. And it's expected to grow at the same CAGR between 2025 and 2030, so no change. Kind of normalizing it for sales, same outcome. We will not leave the corridor of 4.5%, maybe 5% of revenues, so no real change in terms of the capex behavior of large pharmaceutical companies. What will most likely change, though, is where that capex will be spent. And it's just likely that more of it, which would have otherwise been spent one or two years ago around the world, might rather go to the US to a larger extent. So no change when it comes to large pharmaceutical customers. I mean, for small and mid-sized biotechs, actually there has not been the option anyway. to spend a lot of money into own captive manufacturing. They shouldn't, they can't, and they won't. And those small and mid-sized biotech companies are actually gaining traction. And we shared here for 2015 the share of innovation, so new clinical assets becoming available for small pharma, 60% versus 40% of large pharma, this increasing to 75% in 2025 and 25% for large pharma. So those companies will spend every dollar they have on the true value driver of their business, which is innovation. They will continue to rely on reliable partners like Lonsa to make their products happen, to turn their breakthrough innovation into viable therapies and true products. However, regionalization is most likely to stay with us and to further evolve going forward and here Lonza as the one global CDMO being able and having a track record to build and operate all around the world is very well positioned to support our clients on that journey as well. So, here's some evidence what it specifically means when I speak about the largest global manufacturing network in the whole industry. First of all, demand is kind of distributed one-third, one-third, one-third across the US, Europe, and Asia, rest of world. And we actually have significant presence, significant capacities in all those key regions. In the US, five sites, and in Europe, six sites, two in Asia. Looking back, in terms of how we have built that global manufacturing network from 2020 to 2025, we as Lonsa spent 10 billion Swiss francs in terms of capex, out of which 3 billion Swiss francs went into US capacities. With Vacaville and all those investments in the past, we have created the largest mammalian CDMO business in the US, very well positioned like no one else to actually help our clients for US supply, for US demand. And all that leads to an active business portfolio of more than 1,000 molecules at a given point in time. Approximately 10% of our revenue is related to early phase business, so preclinical phase 1, 20% phase 2, and the remaining 70% for phase 3 on commercial assets, which leads to strong revenue visibility, we have very low concentration terms of risk and us being exposed to individual products and we have a high level of diversification by technology, indication and company type. And with that, I actually continue with sharing what we believe have been the business highlights in 2025. Three topics. First of all, a robust sales momentum across all our key modalities, technology, so mammalian, small molecule, bioconjugates, drug product, and also the bioscience technology platform. had significant growth again in 2025, driven by mammalian small-scale assets and maturing growth projects across different technologies. We actually saw sustained high commercial contracting again across technologies and sites altogether. well above 10 billion Swiss Francs signed in 2025, of course, materializing over the years to come, including a fifth significant long-term contract for Vacaville, with further contracts for Vacaville being in late-stage negotiations. So thirdly, on CHI, we saw as planned, as predicted, the recovery of the business returning back to growth almost 4% and the margin expanding as planned. The exit process is also advancing as planned and as said before, we will actually report CHI as a discontinued operations as we should for business that we will not keep within our portfolio. So this is actually what we are currently doing to not only deliver the business as promised today, but to also prepare the company for future growth. Currently, the teams are managing 23 CapEx growth projects around the world. Again, no other CDMO actually can do it, has proven to be able to do it. Lancer can do it. Currently, 23 large CapEx growth projects worth $7 billion. 90% of it for commercial and mixed assets, so highly profitable, and 100% in Europe and the US. A few examples to point at. In FISP, a large-scale mammalian started GMP production in 2025 and will be ramped up with a tilt towards the second half 2026, going forward a large important project for Lonsa and for our clients. Commercial bioconjugation, it's a medium-sized CAPEX project, will actually start stepwise from 2029 and then reach peak sales in the mid-2030s, a large-scale fill finish in Stein, ongoing, start expected for 2027, peak sales also in the early 2030s. Type 1 diabetes cell therapy, cool technology science, CRISPR-Cas, together with Vertex in Portsmouth, start expected in 2027 and peak sales around 2030. And Vacaville. I mean, I thought about the headline, make it as crisp and as clear as possible. A great fit to Lonza coming at a great point in time, creating the largest CDMO mammalian network in the US in one go. So remember, we paid in 2024 1.1 billion for that asset. Closing was 1st of October and we expect the site to fully deliver to its full potential in the early 2030s. Some evidence why we are so happy and so confident and so optimistic for what we will be doing with that site and already start to do with that site. First of all, A very stable and strong team. I've been there after JP Morgan, doing town halls, taking investors there, and also talking to people. We have a retention rate of 99 point something, so essentially 100%. Great people willing to work for us and embracing the opportunity that Lonza actually gives to them. It's a high quality asset, as you can expect from Roche, and the investment that we started to do of up to 500 million is into the flexibility of the site so that we can even further increase operational efficiency. Customer interest is very high, remains high as evidenced by now altogether five large commercial contracts for the site, which will, by the way, be able to already now kind of substitute the Roche volumes going out by 2028 and will make the site deliver at the stable level that we have seen today plus minus. So very good outcome also in terms of the commercial development and the selling of that capacity. Also important, the first US FDA inspection under the new ownership in Q4 last year was very strong outcome, only minor observations which could be resolved almost immediately. for a successful tech transfer. So a side which actually didn't receive so many products over the past years had to prove that. And we have been able to execute that tech transfer in a seamless way. And the team actually lived up to the challenge of now operating within a CDMO business model. And I actually included a quote of the responsible external manufacturing head of that large pharmaceutical company, a truly seamless tech transfer into Vacaville. Execution at a level I have rarely experienced in my career. And I can tell you, this gentleman is not 21 years old. He has seen a lot. Last but not least, post-merger integration finalized successfully mid of 2025. So what we can actually say now and announce to you today is that this site is now a regular part of our global manufacturing network and will be managed as such and will start to contribute and continue to contribute over the next years. As a heads up and now that we actually can tell you that already with those five contracts in our business portfolio, we can actually substitute the Roche business and deliver a stable revenue plus minus at the current level until 2028. We will not further comment and report on individual contracts for that side as we don't do it for any other side in our overall manufacturing network. And with that, I hand over to Philipp, who will take you through our financial figures for 2025.

Good afternoon and good morning to people joining from the US, also from my side. Before I start, let me just give you one or two disclaimers. All numbers that I will present are for the Lonza continuing business, which means that they all exclude our CHI business. The CHI business, as was mentioned by Wolfgang, is now reported at discontinued operation according to the definition in IFRS 5. Further, as usual, our sales growth rates are in constant currencies. All other growth rates are in actual currencies. With that, let me go to the key financials. I need to click myself. So first of all, the Lonsa business delivered 6.5 billion Swiss francs in 2025. This is 1 billion more sales than we did back in 2024. So 1 billion growth, 21.7% of constant currency growth. This is ahead of the upgraded guidance of 20% to 21% that we communicated back in July last year. This includes roughly 0.6 billion of sales from our Vacaville site, so slightly at the upper end of the half billion that we had forecasted. We're very pleased, obviously, operationally. Wolfgang mentioned that we're very pleased with the site operationally. We are also very pleased financially with the contribution of Vacaville. Organically, the organic business, excluding Vacaville, contributed or grow at low teens, which is fully aligned with our CDMO organic growth model. Going to the margin, we delivered a margin of 31.6%, up 1.4 percentage points. Also very pleased about that. And this, as well, is ahead of the guided range of 30% to 31%. Three main contributors to the margin. One is, of course, operating leverage. When you grow the top line at that rate, of course, we are not growing our cost at the same rate. So administration costs, sales and marketing costs, research costs are growing at a much lower rate, providing leverage. Second, the maturing of our growth projects. Some of our projects are now getting close to higher utilization, therefore increasing their margin. And number three, several targeted productivity initiatives across the organization. One word on FX. You see that we had an FX impact of roughly 2.5 points on both the top line and the bottom line. This is coming mainly from the weakening of the US dollar back in the early part of 2025. Luckily, we have a very strong natural hedge. We are selling and having cost in roughly the same currencies. We're helping that as well with an additional financial hedging program to protect our margins. With that, let's go to the sales evolution. As you can see on this page, we had good performance from two of our large platforms. Let me start with the exceptional performance of our ADS business, Advanced Synthesis, with very strong contribution from both bioconjugates as well as small molecule assets, the platform growing 22% organically. We had several assets in both platforms growing and ramping up simultaneously and growing at a fast pace. On the INB, in integrated biologics, you see a growth of 32%, a large chunk of that obviously coming from the Wackerville site, but also the other organic assets ramping up nicely. Going to specialized modalities, this was probably or is the soft point of our performance in 2025. We had discussed that in the first half last year and in Q3. We saw soft operational performance from the cell engine business that actually continued during the year, but we're looking forward to a much better year in 2026. And then on the microbial side, where we experienced a phasing towards the end of 2025 into 2026, also here a better 26 is expected, the platform ended up with a small decline of minus 3%. Moving on to our core EBITDA performance. Here again, very pleased with the progress, reaching 31.6%, close to the 32%, but we'll do that in 2026 and beyond. So the three key reasons why we grew our margin, I mentioned that before, maybe a little bit more detail. Again, operating leverage. where we have very strong cost discipline across the organization now both at headquarters level but as well in the different sites. We have several maturing assets especially in mammalian, bioconjugates and small molecules that are allowing us to offset the dilution from the newer assets. And last but not least, operational excellence and high utilization in our commercial sites allow us to offset a slightly negative mix versus 2024. Maybe a few words to the platforms. We'll start with ADS, again, an exceptional margin improvement of five points, reaching margins of 42%. This is even slightly above the margins that we delivered in the first half of 2025. So here as well, again, very pleased. However, this is an exceptional year, and we will probably look at the normalization into 26. Looking at integrated biologics, a slight margin decline here of 0.9%, mainly due to unfavorable product mix and as well some new assets that have been coming online and growing in 2025. And then this is also the platform where we have the highest US dollar exposure. And so while we have hedging, there is some impact from the weaker dollar. On SPM, I think very pleased that the platform could almost hold their margin at 17%, only down 0.5% despite the lower performance. This is due to some profitable mix and as well some very high cost discipline across the platform. Moving over to our CapEx details, you see here that we spend roughly 1.3 billion in our CDMO business. Again, CapEx is a key enabler for Lonza's future growth and also a key focus for the organization now and going forward. The 1.3 billion was spent, most of it, on growth assets. 60% of the spend was for growth. This includes a diversified portfolio of the 23 projects that Wolfgang mentioned earlier. You see as well that the peak of CapEx is behind us. This was in the past year. You see in the middle of the page that we are on a slope to actually normalize our CapEx spend. In 2025, we reached 19.6% of capex, slightly below the guided range of low 20s, mainly due to some higher sales and some more discipline in maintenance spend. We're looking at high teens for 2026, and then over the midterm, normalizing in what we call our CDMO organic growth model for capex in the mid to high teens. The normalizing capex also allow us to do great progress on our free cash flow. You see for this year that for our continuing business, we delivered half a billion of free cash flow, 545, almost double the amount we delivered back in 2024. One of the key reasons, obviously, capex, which has been stable while the business has been growing, but also actually very strong management of inventories and trade working capital in general. You see that our trade working capital grew 200 million. This is much less than what obviously our business has been growing in 25. And so you see that our trade working capital in percent of sales has actually declined by almost five points. Our inventory coverage is also declining almost by a week. And this is something that we will focus a lot more to continuously drive down inventories to the right amount for our business. Moving from cash to our capital allocation framework, this is not new. We have not changed anything on that slide. This is more of a reminder for you, obviously, because a lot of people are asking us the questions about, what will we do with the CHI proceeds? Well, first of all, it's not sure that there will be CHI proceeds, depending on the exit route that will actually happen. But let me take you through our priorities in terms of capital allocation. Priority number one is the investment into maintenance, infrastructure and systems. Why? Because we need to make sure that our base assets and our growing base assets are future proof and are well maintained and will contribute to the future growth of the company. Priority number two, our progressive dividend policy, very important to us as well, and I'll get to that on the next page, which leads us to our discretionary cash. This is the cash that is available for investment into growth. This discretionary cash may be increased by proceeds from a CHI exit, should it be leading to proceeds. These proceeds as well will flow into what we call discretionary cash, will be invested into organic or inorganic bolt-on M&A investments. Now rest assured that we will be very disciplined in the way we allocate this capital. You know that for internal organic CapEx projects, we use very strict financial thresholds, 15% of internal rate of return and a ROIC at peak of 30%. This is for the organic investments. For bolt-on and M&A, it's not that easy to put a formal threshold. But we will remain very disciplined and basically look at two things. One, attractive returns. And second, is there a strategic fit with our Lanza engine? And if you look back at the last two acquisitions, being Cinefix and Vacaville that Wolfgang also shared with you, you can see that these were very disciplined and very attractive acquisitions. Looking at our dividend, as you can see, this dividend policy is fully in line with our capital allocation framework. The board of Lonza is actually proposing to increase the dividend by 25% to an amount of 5 Swiss francs per share. This reflects, obviously, the strong earnings performance and will let shareholders benefit directly from our growth of earnings. Our progressive dividend, just to be very clear, means that we will maintain or grow our dividend per share on a year-by-year basis. And you can see on the chart that we have proven this over the last 10 years. Now let me finish with a quick update on our ESG performance before handing back to Wolfgang. We've made strong progress in 2025 on our ESG agenda. I'd like to drive your attention to the top two pie charts. One is the greenhouse gas emission intensity, and on the right, the waste intensity. Both of these targets have actually been met in 2025, five years ahead of schedule. We are planning to halve the intensity by 2030, and we have achieved that already in 2025. We are therefore deciding to rebase and to now look at cutting by 50% the 2021 base, which is aligned with the signed base target initiative. So great progress on greenhouse gas and on waste intensity. Also great progress on actually renewable energy. As of January 2026, all our electricity in the US, in Europe and in China will be renewable sources. Our progress is also well-recognized externally, and we've been, for the first time, awarded the ECOVADIS Gold Rating and have been named, again, by Etisphere as one of the world's most ethical companies. So again, great internal progress and great external progress. And with that, I'd like to hand back to Wolfgang, who will take you through the business platform performance and our outlook for 2026. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Philipp. And indeed, let's take a brief look at the three business platforms before then turning our heads towards the future. So integrated biologics, robust sales and margins driven by strong demand and operational Here, Vacaville, as discussed before, kind of contributed more than we expected at the beginning of last year. We also saw a margin accretion from strong operational execution, however, was kind of more than offset by growth project dilution and unfavorable portfolio mix, as already mentioned. before by philip and also here it's kind of clear i mean the significant amount of contracted business of above 10 billion swiss francs is a major part of it comes from our integrated biologics business platform so ads sorry or advance into this business um an exceptional year in terms of sales growth driven by rapid and at the same time occurring ramp up of growth assets, which was great to see and actually great to see how well the teams in small molecules and also bioconjugates actually made it work and delivered according to the expectation of our clients, outstanding profitability above 30%, which is probably plus minus what we can expect going forward from that business in terms of profitability. Our specialized modalities business, which is in terms of strategic importance relevant to us, and an area from which we expect significant future growth over the next years to come and also significant contributions to our profitability. However, it's still suffering from this whole universe being small and limited and as a consequence of that also our own business portfolio being much smaller than for the other modalities and as a consequence of that also more volatile. However, We are one of the very few CDMOs actually having five commercial assets in our network and essentially each of our manufacturing sites now has one commercial asset. So bioscience briefly on that which is our media business plus some other smaller businesses also returned on a very attractive growth trajectory which supported that business platform. And with that, I actually turn our heads towards the future outlook 2026. What can you expect from us? What do we expect from us in 2026? First of all, continued high demand for the services of OneLonsa. So stronger in constant exchange rates, stronger relative growth in the first half as compared to the second half. However, in absolute terms, the year will be balanced and it's more a baseline effect how 2025 looked like. Regionalization of supply chains will be with us also going forward, however, will not apply to existing businesses, to existing products, in existing assets, because typically no one actually changes a winning team and changes an existing well-functioning supply chain. It's more about where will we allocate new business going forward, and this will be in line with the expectation and the desires and preferences of our clients, probably much more supporting regional demand, by regional supply, which will then in turn also further help our already strong natural hedge. Core WTA margin expanding from mature and growth projects, productivity, a topic which is very close to my heart, cost discipline and obviously operating leverage. I mean, key priorities for myself, for the whole OneLonsa team, of course, continue to elevate the OneLonsa customer experience already evidenced by the significant increase in net promoter score. But the journey goes on. A base business execute with rigor and deliver constant, I mean, through grinding of our business, our assets, constant margin expansion. Cash is going to be important this year or last year actually was an important step forward. We will continue on that journey and we know how. In terms of growth, execute this 23 growth projects and of course, kick off new ones and also on top of that, being agnostic to doing it organically or inorganically, driving our M&A agenda. Group functions are elevated in their role and their impact on the businesses, which is around standardization and also making us work in a more consistent way. CHI is going to be an important topic in 2026, driving the exit process and executing it at the appropriate time in the best interest of our shareholders and stakeholders. And with that, I want to close with actually reminding all of us of the financial model that we are applying here at Lonza. Based on our Lonza engine, there's an underlying market opportunity in terms of growth of low teens every year on average over time. In order to translate those opportunities into tangible business, we need to continue to add capacity, invest. And this investment, as long as the growth opportunities on average over time are in the range of low teens, this capex requirement will be around mid to high teens of sales going forward. This then delivers our CDMO organic growth model. which is a constant exchange rate sales growth of low teens percentages on average over time and the core EBITDA margin growing ahead of sales growth. Specifically for 2026 it means our constant exchange rate sales growth is expected to be between 11 and 12 percent and a further core EBITDA margin expansion to a level above 32%. So already entering the corridor that was two years ago predicted to be achieved only in 2028. So what have been the key messages that I re-shared with you today? First of all, Lonza has delivered in 2025 and is well prepared for the ongoing journey of transformation and growth in 2026 and beyond. We have made progress as promised. and are set up for success in terms of consistently delivering our business and also the project in Wackerville and further evolve as the global one-launcher team. We expect, again, significant profitable growth and will continue on that journey. And for the longer term, we actually defined a clear strategy and the capital allocation framework to deliver in line with our CDMO organic growth model. We are OneLonsa, the pioneer and global CDMO market leader, manufacturing the medicines of tomorrow for our customers and their patients worldwide. I thank you for your attention and look forward to your questions.

Many thanks Wolfgang. I'm David Carter, I'm the Global Head of Communications and I'm going to be hosting the Q&A session. I'm going to ask my two colleagues here to just slightly rearrange the setup for us so that our leaders can relax. Philippe's back on the stage and I'm going to ask anyone who's got questions in the room, we're going to start with you. If you could say your name, your institution and ask. I know it's ambitious but if it's at all possible, no more than two questions. We will also, for people that are online, flick over to you at a certain point and make sure that you have a chance to ask questions too. But first and foremost, are there any questions in the room? Let's start over here.

Thanks a lot, Daniel. So to the 70 million hedging gain, which is booked in the top line, I'm not an auditor, but shouldn't a hedge gain be booked somewhere in the financial expense or below the EBIT? I don't understand the mechanism, if you can clarify. And then I ask the second question.

Yeah, no, this is fully in line with hedge accounting. So this is normal. We've been doing this all along. It's just this year, or last year, 2025, given the volatility in exchange rates, this has been higher than in previous years. But this has always been booked at the same place. Now, to be clear as well, this is not accounted for in our constant exchange rate growth. So we remove it from that.

OK. And the second question, when I do my calculation in integrated biologics, excluding lactamyl, you must have had an organic growth of 8% in the second half, quite a slowdown from the first half, which was 17%. Why was that? Was that maybe some batches which were not booked in December, but in January, that's why you're guiding for a strong first half 26? Just to understand the picture.

Yeah, no special reason. I think there's always volatility between the halves. We've seen this in the past. So I think it's more of a mix rather than kind of batches that would have been blocked in December. Nothing special to notice. It's the different phasing of assets coming online and mix. Nothing different.

Are there any more questions in the room? We have a quiet house today. We're usually more challenging that. Do we have any more questions online at the moment? We're going to hand over to Sandra online in that case. Sandra, if I could ask you to host the online question session, that would be great.

The first question comes from Ibrahim Zain from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi there, thanks for taking my questions. I'm Ibrahim Zain from J.P. Morgan. My first question is on the advancements of business and growth momentum sounds, it was really strong in 2025, but 2020 growth momentum going forward and 2025 benefited from two growth projects at the end and you'll have further. project contribution in 2026. Margins sound like 40% plus minus, as you said, but any further commentary that would be helpful. And my second question is just on the cell and gene therapy business, where you indicated you expect an improvement in 2026. And just the question is, what underpins that confidence?

Hi, Zain. Thank you for the question. I take the first one I propose. If you understood the first one, yeah. But Zain will tell me.

I got the second one, so I'm happy to take this one.

Yeah, I actually didn't understand the second one, so I pass it on. But either way, on ADS, indeed, in terms of profitability, it probably will hover around these 40%. And that's what we expect going forward in 2026 and the years to come. The growth obviously was kind of exceptional in 2025 due to many positive events coinciding. But it will be a growth engine going forward as well, but in 2026 and not at the level that we have seen in 2025. And maybe Philipp has made up his mind in terms of the second question in the meantime. But you give it a try, I guess.

No, second question, I think. Thank you, Simon. It's Philippe. So I think we're confident in terms of the growth rate for Celengene in 26 versus 25. As we mentioned, I think, in the first half, we had some operational challenges in Celengene in one of our sites during 25. This is being resolved and so the business will kind of continue in a more normal fashion in 26. So from that point of view, yes, we are confident. On top of that, actually, we keep on ramping up commercial products in all of our sites. So all the cell and gene sites in the world for Lonza have a commercial product, which is of course helping. to stabilize somehow the utilization of these sites. So yes, we are much more confident for 26 than what you've seen in 25.

Before we move on to the next question, if I could just ask anybody who's joining online to speak as slowly and clearly as possible. The line is not quite so clear at this end. So the slower and clearer you are, the more easily we can understand you. Sandra, I'll hand back to you for the next question.

The next question comes from Charles Pittman King from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, just on Vacaville, you're targeting stable 0.6 billion CHF sales now for FY26 versus prior 0.5. Can you just confirm that this is going to remain stable around 0.6 to 0.28 now? And with these five contracts in place de-risking that target, can you confirm you're still targeting 30% utilization? provide a little bit more detail around the predicted phasing of the contract and just confirm whether they all need to be fully ramped by 28 to offset that loss those lost contracts then just secondly could please go on sorry just secondly could you confirm what current form 483s are currently outstanding for longer facilities and what advice rectifications are required and how this is expected to impact any ongoing operations and just confirm there were no impacts in FY25. Thank you.

Let me indeed start with the second question. Thank you, Charles. This 483, and there has been rumors around that and around other topics as well, on which I will briefly comment in a bit. This 483 actually was a huge success. Not that it wouldn't have been even better to have a clean sheet, but a 483 with only three, I believe, minor observations which could either be immediately in a short term closed out or a few weeks later actually is a very good outcome and receiving a 483 is more the standard outcome that essentially across the pharmaceutical industry is yielded. It is not to be also clear around that and has nothing to do, in this case, with a warning letter. The sequence from the process of the US FDA is, I mean, A bad 483 with major observations, official action indicated, can turn into a warning letter. But it's actually typically not the case. But what typically is the case that you get this form with your observations. And in this case of Vacaville, it actually was a very good outcome with only three minor observations, which have been immediately been addressed and closed and are all addressed and closed right now. There was no impact. nothing on the ongoing operations and actually nothing of concern. I think that's important to say. There are of course also, I mean at least you're telling us that, because not brought to us ourselves, other rumors around Vacaville not being a high quality asset, not being capable of being run in an efficient way. as a CDMO asset and all that, obviously coming from other market participants. I actually won't comment on that in detail, but I would like to let the evidence that we shared with you today speak for itself. Just two thoughts, maybe. First of all, and that is kind of my take of it, as long as our competition continues to speak about us and can't help itself to speak about us, I take it as reconfirmation of Lonza being the market leader in the space. First thought. A second thought on Vacaville, and I don't know, but one way of looking at it, of course, is that people might be concerned from a competitive standpoint what great things we at Lonza can do with that great assets over the next years. But I would like to leave it there but wanted to address that because I think it's important. What you should take with me is what I shared with you today and A great asset, a great acquisition at a great point in time with business secured until 2028 and beyond to keep, actually to substitute the Roche volumes going out and to keep the revenue at the level of where we are today, plus minus 50 million maybe over time. And that actually leads to the first question of you, Charles, which is on first of all phasing and ramping up. First of all, now having five contracts, we of course will continue to sign contracts, right? We don't stop, even though we will stop talking about it and reporting it because we don't do it for individual sites, which in the end are run as an integral part of the global network. So we will continue to add business because interest is very, very high. Those five contracts, which are large, I mean, they will only come to full fruition after 2028 because that's the time you need to actually tech transfer and ramp it up. So this is already feeding growth beyond 2028. And all the other business that we actually will win over the next days, maybe even weeks and months, will then take us further for this site to come to its full potential, come to full fruition in the early 2030s. I think what is still open from your question, Charles, is the utilization. Yes, it's plus minus that because a rush business going out, new business coming in, keeping us stable at around where we are today, plus minus, and us having the time to invest into the flexibility, into the operational efficiency of that asset to then, from 2028 onwards, be able to actually run at full steam and make it a billion revenue and way beyond a billion revenue side within the global network of OneLonsa. I hope that makes sense, Charles.

Can I please just double check on the Natcha 483 as well?

I actually don't have the details to the degree as I had them for Vacaville, but same here. I mean, what I heard, and that's actually the feedback from quality, is that this has been actually a successful inspection and all observations have been minor only and have been closed out in the meantime. So also nothing which would worry me or anyone within Lonza and nothing that should worry anyone outside Lonza or anyone holding Lonza shares. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you, Charles.

The next question comes from Charles Weston from RBC Europe. Please go ahead.

Hello, thanks for taking the questions. So my first is back on cell and gene therapy. You've indicated that perhaps you could have grown faster should there have been no operational issues. So I just wanted to get a sense of how much those issues may have held me back. and what the state is of the relationship with any of the customers where they may have wanted more product. And my second is on the EBITDA margin. As you highlighted, you've already hit or you intend to already hit the low end of your 2028 guide two years early. Can you help us understand whether there's anything to prevent margins, even excluding Vacaville, continue to grow at similar rates, particularly given there was some negative mix in integrated biologics in 2025 that perhaps gives you a nice start.

Thank you, Charles. Maybe Philip starts and I take the second question.

I think I'm not going to quantify, but let me make sure and reassure that there was no customer issues related to that. Of course, this is our first concern when something doesn't go as planned, but then we work very closely with the customer. So on this one, there was no impact on customer. And the issues are resolved. And we just need the time to restart everything at the regular run rate. So from that point of view, I think things are fixed. And we're looking forward to return to normal operations in 26.

and charts on margin expansion. That's our commitment to grow EBITDA ahead of sales and our organic growth model, our commitment, what we want to do with this company to constantly expand margin. And you will see that already this year. And that's how we guide it. And you will continue to see that over the next years to come through different measures. Of course, it's expansion of our gross profit margin through pricing, through efficiency when it comes to productivity. Again, very close to my heart, cost discipline. It's also about keeping SG&A costs growing at a much lower pace, so operating leverage and a number of growth projects maturing and then contributing rather than diluting our profitability. That's what you can expect from us going forward and that is our commitment.

Thank you very much. I guess I just wanted to ask, has your confidence on hitting the upper end of that now increased given the strong performance you've had in 25?

Yeah, Charles, I would like to leave it there because, I mean, while this margin, of course, sorry, this guidance has been put out before me joining alongside this, of course, rightfully so, still in your hands, which is why I actually used it and kind of went back to it to tell you that actually what we are doing is in line with what has been promised to you before. But we're not going to guide again. specific margins for specific years, but thought that actually the city organic growth model is a much more useful framework for you because it's not guiding for a specific point in time, but rather providing for a trajectory in terms of both top line growth, how margin will evolve, and what it takes to make that happen in terms of capex. So I actually would like to leave it there, but hope that I've been able, we have been able to create confidence that this is a serious ambition that we will make happen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Charles.

The next question comes from James Wayne Tempest from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one on free cash flow, please. Very helpful to have what the business is now and obviously comparing to what that looked like in 2024 at a group level, excuse me, including the CHI. So last year, you disclosed networking capital was 13.7% of revenues. I guess now we have trade working capital of 34% showing a reduction. But from memory in 2024, working capital went up, I think, by around 45 million with vacable inventories and receivables into year end. So my question really is underlying free cash flow for this year, because if it's 545 with this new definition you've got, is 500 more like the right number on an underlying basis to how to think about for this year, just so we can understand what the underlying improvements have actually been? Thank you. You start, Philipp.

I start. Take the end. I'll probably finish. James, there is no change in definition in our free cash flow definition. So the comparators to last year is fully comparable to what we do this year. The only thing we have changed is to give you a much more precise view on what our trade working capital, which we believe is a number that we should all track and also be aware for to remind everybody trade working capital for us is inventory AR and AP and so in the past in networking capital you had a lot of other things which included early payments also discounting liabilities etc which were partially also even non-cash which is correcting from the EBITDA EBITDA line. So no change in free cash flow definition. So the improvement that you see in free cash flow versus 24 is the true underlying free cash flow improvement of the business, of the CDMO business. You'll find in our reporting as well the cash flow from the entire group, including discontinued operation, which top of my head is 674, I think, if I remember well. So that's the full group. But in terms of CDMO, this is true underlying performance.

And adding to that, I mean, this financial engine, if you would like to call it like that, so top line growth, profitably, expanding margins, decreasing capex as shared by Philip, not because we would build less capacity, we need the capacity, otherwise we wouldn't go, but more discipline in terms of how we execute capex, I mean, has the ultimate goal of delivering ever more cash year over year. So that's what we are committing to with that CDMO organic growth model.

Sorry to come back, but I guess maybe just to ask the question in a slightly different way. I mean, in 24, it was highlighted that there was much stronger lack of inventories, which contributed to the free cash flow decline. So my question is, looking at the growth, is it a clean number, the 545, or does it kind of benefit from perhaps some working capital, which was pulled forward into Q4 24, rather than actually seeing that in 2025?

Yeah, I think it's usually the case that our trade working capital is higher in the fourth quarter. I think this is nothing new. So from that point of view, I don't think that the number is anywhere significantly or materially influenced by what you're describing. But please, if you're not satisfied with the answer, that's probably something you can pick up with Daniel. So we make sure you fully get the answer you need.

Thanks very much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

next question comes from james quigley from goldman sachs please go ahead excellent thank you for taking my questions i have two please so the first is on on the contract signing so you said well above 10 billion swiss francs in contract signings in 2025 that follows 10 billion in 24 and 13 billion the year before um does well above mean between 10.5 or 10.5 or does it mean between 10 and 13 And how do you use this figure? You said before it could be quite volatile. How are you thinking about it in terms of targeting and future signing contracts and driving future growth? That's question one. And question two, you gave some good details on the shift in number of molecules in development by pharma and biotech. How do you think about M&A impacting that commentary around outsourcing and outsourcing trends? As it stands, as we look at the pharma industry, it looks like there is quite a big need for M&A. We've seen a pickup in M&A recently. So what happens when that shifts over time and what have you seen when your customers, your biotech customers or even your larger pharma customers have been acquired in the past?

Thank you, James. To start with the contract signing value. It's not even a KPI, it shouldn't be a KPI, because what is it really? It is an addition of value based on signed contracts, which might distribute over 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 years, right? And you just don't know. I mean, our recommendation, first of all, we will not make it a KPI. We will share it from time to time, but we don't believe that it's actually a meaningful KPI for which you should create or can create in a meaningful way a time series which will actually tell you anything. On the other hand, it's also clear that, I mean, high contracting will translate into future business, which is why we share it as a qualitative information, right? So I would, while being relevant, useful, providing confidence, reassurance, it's actually, I wouldn't even call it a KPI, which is kind of also already the answer of let's not talk about, I mean, digits after the comma because it's actually not precise science around that. And maybe one further thought, while signing with a certain customer, a 10-year contract, which might even be in the interest of that customer as opposed to signing a five-year contract. The five-year contract, even though the value in terms of contracted value, of course, is lower because it's just five years instead of 10 years, it might be commercially more attractive because it offers opportunity to speak about pricing after five years rather than being locked in for 10 years just as an additional thought how to think about that figure not being a useful KPI. In terms of M&A and pharmaceutical assets being acquired by large pharma through M&A takeover of small biotechs, actually we have seen it all. We actually have seen the molecule just staying where it was with Lonza and the new owner of that asset being super happy having a robust proven global supply chain. for this acquired asset, we actually have seen also the case where Lonza wasn't involved. But for example, when that pharmaceutical asset came from China, it was important for the Western acquirer to build a robust Western supply chain, calling us and Lonza creating that robust supply chain. And there have been cases and will probably always be cases where if there is capacity and technology and capability available for that asset, within the acquirer that this asset might actually be in-sourced or partially in-sourced. So it's kind of business as usual and nothing where we would actually see any trend or any shift in behavior. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, James.

We take now the last question for today's call from Odysseus Manesiotis from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on the WISP large-scale mammalian ramp, your 2030 peak sales assumption seems a bit pushed compared to earlier comments. Could you explain why that is? Was there some movement with contracts from WISP to Vacaville and so on? And did you manage to deliver commercial batches within 2025 from that facility? And last one, quick one on the FX, given the moves we're seeing today. Can I confirm with you that the two percentage point headwind you're assuming for the guide takes into account January average rates rather than something closer to spot? And would an around four percentage point impact be reasonable if we take into assumption today's moves?

Philipp, you want to start with the last question? I take the two first questions.

Thank you for the FX question. So obviously, I think if you read the small print, our forecast of 2% impact was based on mid-January rates. So I think if you take into account what happened Friday, Monday, I think the number is probably closer to 2.5 would probably be the rate if you were to use that. So I think 4 is probably too high. But we'll provide you an update in Q1 and in half year again. So I think rates are more volatile nowadays than they were in the past. Rest assured that our financial hedging and natural hedging works to stabilize margin. But we'll provide you an update as rates evolved.

Yeah, and thank you for the two first questions. My main assumptions are not lower, to be clear, so no. unchanged and in 2025 that large-scale asset in FISB actually started GMP production with, let's say, commercial ramp up starting in 2026 and especially towards the second half of 2026. Thank you. Thank you, Odysseus.

I would now like to turn the conference back over to David Carter if you have more questions in the room.

Any more questions in the room? We have one just over here. I'm aware that we are slightly running over time, but I'd like to give the room a chance to have a few questions if we can.

Thank you very much. I have a question about the CapEx 2025. You had 38% maintenance CapEx. I expected it to be a little less. Could you give us any advice about the next years? Will this be the same level or will it come down a little?

Yeah, if you look at our CDMO growth model, it actually tells you roughly how much we want to invest in growth, which is roughly low teens in terms of growth, the rest being mid to high single digit actually in system infrastructure and maintenance. So that gives you the ratio. I think the ratio this year is... probably normal. I think the majority of our investment go into growth. This will be the case also going forward. But this is, you know, this changes year over year depending on the different assets that are planned. But I think the CDMO growth models give you a fair way to kind of value the amount of capital that we're going to maintenance system and infrastructure.

And the second question is about one facility you moved from small molecules to the capsules business to be divested. Could you explain what kind of business it is and why you moved it? Thank you.

This is a small site in Florida. They actually do fill and finish for clinical and very small batch sizes. This is a business that actually came with Capsugel at the time that we moved into small molecules because there were some synergies in what was being filled. I think we felt that this is a better fit with the CHI business overall and in terms of providing growth opportunity for CHI and synergistic, so we moved it back into the CHI parameter.

For clarification, when Philip said fill finish, it's not aseptic sterile manufacturing, it's OSD. So oral solid dosage forms. And especially in the case of TAMPA, it's filling, and that is where the fill finish probably comes from, of capsules, which actually is a nice fit as a kind of a business extension of the capsules business itself. And again, came with Capsugil, and we thought it makes sense to go with Capsugil, because it's not going to be a strategic focus to do OSD for Lonza. Talking about that, And kind of as a reminder, What CHI is today is not the same that CHI was when acquired in 2017. So certain businesses which are strategic for Lonsa will actually stay within Lonsa. For example, Bend in Oregon, where we actually do really high tech around particle design and spray drying. So it's not going to be the same scope that we acquired at the time that we are actually exiting in 2026.

Any further questions in the room? One just here.

Thank you. Yes, hello, Laura. Octavian. I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the Vacaville profitability in 25 and also maybe the outlook for 26, given that you will have new products being transferred there, so a little bit of put and takes, please.

Yeah, I think profitability for 2025 was better than we said. I think it was operationally dilutive, as expected. And I think going forward, again, probably 2025 was still an easy year. That's why we called it for Vacaville, because I think they produced the same products. Now we are starting to introduce new products. We will have also shutdowns for construction. construction work that we also explained in the past. So I think the margin will improve over time. I think it's not the linear path that will be getting better every year in the same increments, but I think we can confirm that by 2028 the site will be in line with the group at that point in time, and therefore neither dilutive nor accretive at that point in time. But it's not a straight line, but I think we were happier in 2025 than we had expected.

So while it's adding in a relevant way already until 2028, the rocket we will actually start in 2028 in terms of being ready, having done our capex into operational efficiency, new products at attractive pricing, then creating true volume. And that's actually where we will see the full benefit of the site and then reaching peak probably in the early 2030s. Thank you.

Very good. We are over time now. So thank you all for your engagement, both in the room and online. And I will pass back to Wolfgang to share some final words.

Yeah, thank you, David. And thank you all here in the room, ladies and gentlemen, and also those joining virtually for spending the time together with us, listening to actually a strong performance of the Global One Launcher team delivering and even over delivering on our promises and also listening to the commitments that we actually made for 2026 and listening to how we think about a great future for OneLonsa which should include first and foremost our customers and their patients, will include our shareholders and of course ourselves as members of the global OneLonsa team. So thank you for coming. All the best and looking forward to stay in touch with you the latest for the half year in July. Thank you so much and have a great day.