Certara, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CITAR fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on the listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, to Mr. David Dutkler, Investor Relations. You may begin.

David Dutkler Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for participating in today's conference call. On the call from Sartara, we have William Ferry, Chief Executive Officer, and Andrew Schemick, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, Sartara released financial results for the quarter ended December 31st, 2021. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements contained in this call that relate to expectations or predictions of future events, results, or performance are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. For a list and description of the risks and uncertainties associated with Sitara's business, please refer to the risk factors section of our Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 1, 2022, which will be filed shortly after this call. We urge you to consider these factors, and you should be aware that these statements should be considered estimates only and are not a guarantee of future performance. Also, in their remarks or responses to questions, management may mention some non-GAAP financial measures. reconciliations of adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, and certain other non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in the recent earnings release, which is available on the company's website. The conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today, March 1st, 2022. Sitara disclaims any intention or obligation except as required by law to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. And with that, I will turn the call over to William.

Thank you, David. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Sartara's fourth quarter and full year earnings call. Andrew and I will start with prepared remarks, and then we will take questions. 2021 was a milestone year for Sartara. It was our first full year as a public company, and we made progress on a number of key priorities and initiatives. We are very excited about the opportunities ahead, and as we continue delivering on our mission to accelerate the drug development process with our proprietary biostimulation software, technologies, and services. At Certara, our strategy is to transform the drug R&D process with our end-to-end platform, powered by innovative technology and our global team of leading experts. We not only speed up the process, but also helped to advance safety and efficacy of drugs for millions of patients worldwide. For the full year, we reported total revenue of $286 million, growing 17% year-over-year, including Pinnacle 21, and 15% excluding Pinnacle 21's contribution in the fourth quarter. 2021 revenue growth was in the double digits in every region of the world, Fourth quarter total company revenue was $75.3 million, growing 17% versus the same period a year ago. Pinnacle 21 contributed $6.1 million in the quarter. Excluding Pinnacle 21, revenue was $69.2 million, growing 7% compared with the same period a year ago. Excluding Pinnacle 21, fourth quarter software revenue was in line with expectations, growing 13 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2020. But technology-driven services came in below our expectations, growing 6 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2020. Our technology-driven services performance in the fourth quarter was driven by two issues, both of which impacted the timing of work being executed. First, as we commented in our third quarter earnings call in November, We have been experiencing variability in the timing of our regulatory services projects due to COVID-related delays. We did not have cancellations, and our bookings in regulatory services projects continue to be strong. As you recall, in Q3 2021, we experienced significant growth, 28 percent year-over-year in technology-driven services due to the recognition of delayed regulatory services projects. In Q4, the COVID-related slowdown in closing out clinical trials impacted timing of projects and revenue recognition in regulatory, which resulted in a shortfall in Q4 in services. In the back half of the year, technology-driven services revenue grew 16% year-over-year, and we expected to continue growing in the mid-teens in 2022. We expect these delays will moderate in 2022, and we will recapture most of this regulatory services revenue over the course of the year. We continue to work hard to manage consistent conversion of our bookings and billings to smooth out our revenue recognition throughout the year. Second, the surge in COVID-19 cases resulting from the Omicron variant reduced the capacity of our employees and clients in the back half of the fourth quarter. We believe that these are transitory factors that we are well equipped to manage in 2022. As we look forward to the coming year, we remain optimistic about activity returning to more normal levels as the year progresses with conferences coming back and more people back in the office. Turning to software, we were pleased with our performance during the fourth quarter, which grew 46%, including Pinnacle 21, and 13% excluding Pinnacle 21. The growth was driven by a 96% software renewal rate and strong demand for our proprietary biostimulation software, our Phoenix and SIMSIP platforms, and Pinnacle 21 also delivered according to our expectations. As we mentioned at our December Investor Day, we see a number of compelling opportunities ahead for Sartara in software, And we've increased our investment to support those R&D activities in 2022. Specifically, we're focused on expanding the use cases of our SIMSIP simulator, which continues to grow in adoption to reduce or waive drug-drug interaction and bioequivalent studies, as well as support better dosing for special patient populations. Looking to 2022, we expect strong momentum in software to continue, and we believe that transitory headwinds experienced in regulatory services projects during the fourth quarter will subside over the course of the year. Bookings trends in both software and technology-driven services remain strong. Fourth quarter bookings grew 30 percent year-over-year, and trailing 12-month bookings grew 18 percent over the prior period, including the contribution from Pinnacle 21. As such, we remain well positioned to achieve our long-term financial and strategic plans. Moving to performance for the year, in 2021, we drove strong growth in new customers, and we now serve more than 2,000 customers, including more than 350 additional software end customers who engage with us through our distributors in Asia-Pacific. Our land and expand strategy has also delivered solid growth among existing customers. We ended the year with 299 customers with annual contract value of more than $100,000, representing growth of 15% year over year. The integration of Pinnacle 21 into our software group was an important focus in the fourth quarter. We are now beginning to execute on the promise of the compelling opportunities identified when we acquired Pinnacle 21. In December, we released the latest version of the Pinnacle 21 enterprise software, which offers immense value to experts in biostatistics and biometrics in ensuring that submissions to regulatory agencies comply with data standards requirements. The feature-rich release proactively supports the new Define XML 2.1 data standards, This is the first of many growth milestones we expect to emerge from the Pinnacle 21 platform. Updating Sertara software remains a top priority for our team, and we continue to innovate during the fourth quarter with the release of SimSip Simulator version 21 and D360 Scientific Informatics Software version 21.5. The latest update to the SimSip Simulator aligns with recent regulatory guidances. and it includes other updates to support customers' development priorities, including additions to the compound library to facilitate drug-drug interaction analysis and updates to our renal and hepatic impaired population models. The latest version of D360 software increases efficiency in analyzing and guiding the design of small molecule drugs and biologic. We remain very encouraged by the growing pipeline and opportunity for our software to advance discovery research. During the quarter, we announced that the FDA has renewed and expanded licenses of SIRTAR's biostimulation software, with more than 400 user licenses of SimSip and Phoenix platforms across 12 divisions and offices. The FDA also recently licensed our immunogenicity simulator for the first time, to research and evaluate immunogenicity and regulatory submissions for biologics. Immunogenicity, or the tendency of protein-based therapeutics to trigger an immune response, is a major problem in drug development. Our immunogenicity simulator predicts the immunogenicity incidence of therapeutics to guide dosing and study design for better clinical outcomes for patients. It continues to be a privilege for us to provide software that global regulatory agencies can rely on to inform their reviews of regulatory submissions. 2021 was also the eighth consecutive year that Sertaris customers received 90% of the novel drug approvals by the FDA, excluding diagnostic products. The SimSib simulator was used in 13 of these approvals to inform the drug labels. We are excited by the recent launch of the FDA's Project Optimist Initiative, which aims to reform the dose optimization and dose selection paradigm in oncology drug development. This is important for drug developers and patients because the current approach of maximum tolerated dose may lead to a selection of a dose that provides more toxicity without additional efficacy. So, Tara is well-positioned to address these upcoming changes in dose finding and the evolving regulatory landscape with our extensive experience in oncology, as well as dose optimization, trial design, regulatory strategy, and submissions. As outlined in our strategy, we continue to invest in the business and add to our expert team worldwide. Toward the end of the year, we experienced an increase in attrition due to a variety of factors. Our attrition was fairly low in 2020, so now we're getting back to more normal levels of attrition that we had experienced pre-COVID. We continue to prioritize adding top talent, and in 2021, we hired leading scientists and subject matter experts to support our ongoing growth. We ended the year with approximately 1,100 employees, including more than 350 employees with doctorate degrees. Sartara's culture and commitment to innovation and customer partnerships continue to attract top talent in a competitive hiring environment. We remain focused on making Sartara the employer of choice in the industry. In summary, I'm pleased with the performance of the company in 2021, delivering double-digit growth in software and services, advancing the adoption of BIOS simulation, and acquiring and integrating Pinnacle 21. While revenue from our regulatory services business in the fourth quarter did not meet our expectations, our bookings growth and our momentum remain strong. I am confident in our Sitara team to execute our plan. I will now turn this over to our CFO, Andrew Shemek, to discuss the fourth quarter and full-year financial results in more detail.

Thank you, William. Hello, everyone. Total revenue for the three months ended December 31st, 2021 was $75.3 million, representing year-over-year growth of 17%. Excluding Pinnacle 21, fourth quarter revenue growth was 7%. Full year 2021 reported revenue was $286.1 million, which represents 17% year-over-year growth. Excluding Pinnacle 21, full year revenue grew 15%, in line with our long-term plan, despite the unexpected performance of our technology-driven services business in the fourth quarter. We are very well positioned for 2022, with trailing 12 months bookings coming in at $341.7 million, up approximately 19% year-over-year on a reported basis, and up approximately 16%, excluding Pinnacle 21. I continue to look at trailing 12-month bookings as a predictor of forward 12-month revenues. Book-to-bill has been stable, ending the year at 1.19 times, and the annual bookings in 2021 as a percentage of forward revenue supports the visibility into our guidance for the year. Software revenue was $25.5 billion in the fourth quarter, which increased 46% over the prior year period. Excluding $5.7 million in Pinnacle 21 software revenue contribution, year-over-year growth was 13%. The growth in the quarter, excluding Pinnacle 21, was driven by our biosimulation software, SimSip and Phoenix. For the full year, software revenue was $86.8 million, representing 18% growth as compared to 2020. Excluding Pinnacle 21, year-over-year growth for the full-year software revenue was 10%, driven by SimSip, Phoenix, and Integral. Software bookings were $32.3 million in the fourth quarter, which increased 54% from the prior year period. Pinnacle 21 contributed $8.2 million to software bookings in the fourth quarter, so 4Q year-over-year software bookings growth, excluding Pinnacle 21, was 15%. Trailing 12-month software bookings were $94.5 million, up 29 percent over the 2020 software bookings. Software aggregate renewal rate was 96 percent in the fourth quarter and 92 percent for the full year in 2021. Services revenue was $49.8 million in the fourth quarter, which increased 6 percent over the prior year period. As William mentioned, Relative weakness in technology-driven services was due to delays in closing clinical trials impacting regulatory services projects and lower employee utilization rates in technology-driven services towards the end of the quarter. For the full year, services revenue was $199.3 million, representing growth of 17% year-over-year. And looking at the second half of the year, services revenue was $104.4 million, up 16% over the same period last year. Technology-driven services bookings in the fourth quarter were 80.2 million, which increased 27% from the prior year period. Services bookings for the full year were 247.2 million, which increased 15% as compared to 2020. Moving further down the P&L for fourth quarter results, total cost of revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 29.3 million. a decrease from $34.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, primarily due to a $7.2 million decrease in stock-based compensation expense. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $42.6 million, a decrease from $83.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. The components of operating expenses are as follows. Sales and marketing expenses were $6.7 million compared to $10.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, lower due to a $6.7 million decrease in stock-based compensation, partially offset by employee-related costs resulting from increased investments in the commercial operations and Salesforce expansion. R&D expenses were $6.5 million compared to $10.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. The decrease in R&D expenses was primarily due to a $5.7 million decrease in stock-based compensation, partially offset by increases in employee-related costs resulting from headcount growth. G&A expenses were $18.7 million compared to $52.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. The decrease was primarily due to a $34 million decrease in stock-based compensation expense. Intangible asset amortization was $10.2 million compared to $9.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, higher due to acquired intangible assets. Depreciation expense was $0.5 million down slightly compared to last year. Continuing down the P&L, interest expense during the fourth quarter was $3.3 million compared to $5.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, a decrease due primarily to lower average outstanding principal balance on our credit facilities. Income tax expense was $9.5 million as compared to an income tax benefit of $5.5 million in the prior year, due primarily to the relative mix of domestic and international earnings, as well as the impact of rate changes in foreign jurisdictions and the impact of non-deductible items. Net loss for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $9.7 million compared to a net loss of $54.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Diluted loss per share for the fourth quarter was $0.06 as compared to $0.40 in the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $28.2 million compared to $22.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, representing 27% growth. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was 103.7 million, representing 18% growth over 2020. Adjusted debt income for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 1.4 million, compared to 10.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, a decrease due to the increase in provision for income taxes and acquisition amortization. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2021 was 1 cent, compared to 7 cents for the fourth quarter of 2020. Now moving to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $185.8 million of cash and cash equivalents. As of December 31st, 2021, we had $295 million of net outstanding borrowings on our term loan and full availability under our revolving credit facility. We are making an adjustment to our guidance based on what William discussed earlier around transitory COVID-related impacts to our regulatory services business. We are lowering the top end of the range for revenue from $370 million to $360 million and lowering the top end of the range for EBITDA from $135 billion to $131 million. We are maintaining the low end of the ranges for revenue in EBITDA, reflecting our continued confidence in the strong growth in bookings and our dedication to delivering on our strategic and financial plans. Revenue in the range of 350 to 360 million, which represents growth of 22 to 26 percent year-over-year, and 15 to 18 percent year-over-year growth, excluding Pinnacle 21. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of 127 million to 131 million. Adjusted EPS in the range of 48 cents to 53 cents per share. Fully diluted share in the range of 156 to 159 million, gap tax rate in the range of 40 to 45% and cash tax rate in the range of 20 to 25%. Thank you. Now we will open up the line for questions. Operator, can you open the line?

Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your touchstone telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Please stand by while we provide the Q&A roster. I show our first question comes from the line of Luke from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. Thanks for the questions. Um, I guess given the duration of the business and the visibility you guys have, um, you had to step down in three queue and the bookings, and then kind of that, I guess that flowed through into four queue. I'm just wondering, um, you talked about getting this business back throughout the year. Why wouldn't it come back earlier? Are you still seeing some weakness due to Omicron? I'm just trying to get a better understanding of the dynamics.

Yeah, Luke, thanks for the question. We saw weakness pop out quite suddenly at the end of the fourth quarter. It continued into January, although it seems like we are through that now. So, you know, our view is that, you know, Two things happened to us in the fourth quarter. One was due to Omicron with our own internal capacity. And then the other one is this, you know, we saw some lengthening of time between when particularly regulatory customers have booked our, have done bookings with us and actually have gotten the data ready for us to do work. So, you know, all things considered, As we look forward to the year, based on what we know for the first, you know, two months now, we think, you know, we think our guidance of 350 to 360 makes the most sense.

Yeah, and I just kind of, just to follow up on that, I mean, because it's really early in the year, and it just, to not think that you're going to get it back, what give you the, like, what's the, Is it getting pushed out to 23 now due to the regulatory stuff, or is this business that was lost?

No, we didn't lose any bookings, but we have seen this lengthening of time, particularly from a number of customers from their database lock, which is really what kicks off this type of work for us. It's possible this will reverse during the year, but We kind of have to call it the way we see it with the two months of data that we've got so far. I don't know, Andy, if you want to comment on any of this.

That's consistent with my view.

Okay, thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.

All right. Thanks, Luke.

Yep.

Thank you. I show our next question. It comes from the line of John Kreger from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks very much. Just following up on that, Andy, can you remind us, what's the percent of your revenue that is regulatory services related as opposed to the other buckets? Maybe now that you've got another full year, if you could just sort of give us some of those main categories as you have in the past, that would be helpful.

Sure. Thank you for the question. The mix this year in terms of revenues was 30% software, 40% software, BioSIM services, 30% regulatory and access services. So it's fairly consistent with last year. Slight mixed shift towards BioSIM services.

Got it. Thank you. And then should we be thinking about the slowing that you had in Q4 as sort of a push into Q1? In other words, would you assume your Q1 might be even a little bit elevated, or should we assume that kind of given that the Omicron surge carried through a chunk of January, Q1 would be sort of slower and then the momentum would build as you move through the year?

In putting together our guidance, we incorporated the second point of view. Given the data that we've seen so far in January and mid-February, we're starting to see some pickup, but certainly not a push into Q1.

Got it. Thanks. And then one more, Bill, this might be for you. There's been a lot of anxiety about kind of smaller biotech-oriented clients being under pressure and not having the same sort of funding momentum. Can you remind us how big of a chunk of revenues come from biotech, and are you seeing any change in behavior from them to date?

Yeah, we've been aware of a lot of comments about that, but... we haven't seen it in our business. So our biotech business was, you know, grew quite nicely through 2021 and even in the fourth quarter in terms of our bookings. And I think our view is that, you know, there was a couple of quarters of slowdown in biotech funding that came after a couple of years of quite healthy biotech funding. So, you know, You know, there's just a lot of well-funded companies out there that are great customers for us. And I think there may be some aspect of, you know, when funding gets a little bit tighter, then maybe people get even more interested in becoming more efficient by using biosimulation.

Great. Great. Thanks. And then can you give us a number about roughly what percent of revenue come from small biotechs without sales?

Yeah, we don't disclose that number, but it's a small percentage of the overall company revenues. Fifty percent of the revenues come from the top 20. So it's not a major fraction. A healthy biotech, that's having some success given the type of work that we do becomes a more significant customer, but early stage is a small fraction.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. I show the next question. It comes from the line of Dave Windley from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi. Could you talk about your success? You talked about, Bill, the enterprise industry. release on Pinnacle 21, and I think part of your strategy was to see what conversion you could encourage from the free accounts, the freemium accounts, to enterprise customers. Could you just give us an update on where that stands and what your outlook is for that?

Yeah, thanks, David. Pinnacle 21 performed in the fourth quarter almost right down the fairway with what we had expected when we did the acquisition. Um, we, uh, you know, obviously spent the quarter, you know, getting to know each other and integrating. Um, and as we go forward this year, there's opportunities for, you know, cross selling with each, with, with each other's customers. Um, we still have a strong freemium, uh, customer base, uh, you know, particularly as some of the small biotech customers start going, you know, start becoming successful in filing for the FDA, some of them have converted over. But, you know, I think there's a combination of, you know, in terms of strategy there, in terms of what you're talking about is how do we convert some of the freemium, and then we have a pipeline of some, you know, some new products that will be coming out over the next couple of months. And, you know, we'll come back and, you know, sort of stay tuned. But, you know, throughout 2021, we have some new things coming out in Pinnacle 21 as well.

Okay. Thank you for that. A little bit of a corollary, I suppose, or another version of John's question on mix of client. Could you – I think it's logical to us that you're – biotech clients or your, you know, mid to smaller clients lean more towards services. Services are going to naturally be lower margin than a pure software purchase. But if you look at apples to apples, is a pharma service, a larger client, services client versus a small services client, similar margin? Or would there be differences apples to apples on those bases?

So, Andy, how do we want to disclose this?

Yeah. I would say that for a small biotech, it's profitable in terms of the value that we're bringing to the biotech. For a large pharma company, we can run the projects more efficiently. So I don't see a mixed shift in terms of margins from shifting from what we look at as the top 50 versus, or the tier one versus tier two and tier three.

Okay, and the last question for, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, go ahead, David, thank you.

I was just gonna say, related to Project Optimus and maximum tolerable dose changes in philosophy at the FDA, Do you have any thoughts on, I mean, I listened to your webinar the other day that your colleagues put on, how quickly can this have an impact or an influence over customers' changes in the way that they pursue their early stage oncology work and dose escalation, and that then result in potentially some bookings for your products in trying to triangulate on those optimal doses?

Yeah, so the FDA has already started to encourage this. And as you said, we had a quite large webinar talking about it the other day. We have already started projects related to Optimus. So I guess the answer is that, you know, the – half of, you know, maybe half of drug R&D spending goes into oncology overall, and, you know, probably a similar fraction of our effort in Sertara is associated with that because, you know, we tend to mirror the pharma industry. So as those customers are moving over, that presents, you know, sorry, as those customers are implementing Optimus, that presents, you know, an increasing opportunity for us, but it starts now.

Okay, and would you view that as new revenue, that's incremental revenue, not, say, cannibalizing something else that you do for those clients?

Yeah, no, we see this as a new revenue opportunity for us. You know, look, a lot of bias simulation focuses on optimizing the dose between safety and efficacy. And oncology customers have been on one end of the spectrum for a long time, right? So they, you know, if you're going to give the maximum tolerable dose, then sort of the dosing calculation is easier. Now this is a little bit more complex, and we have a lot of, you know, our services and our software are quite valuable, I think, for this. So it should be a good opportunity for the company.

Okay. That's great. I appreciate the perspective. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Riskin from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. It's Derek Brown from Mike. Just a little bit of clarity on how should we think about the step-up in revenues from Cube. or are you expecting flattish? I mean, historically, I mean, given the two quarters, it's usually like a low single-digit step-up is what you're seeing. Is that, you know, is that something, is that similar or are we looking more flattish or down Q2Q?

The, well, we have, we're looking at, I would say, more like low single-digit step-up. Great.

Thank you.

And, As we look at OpEx, you talked about, you know, retaining people and doing like that. Is there any incremental headcount spend, OpEx spending, SG&A spend that we need to sort of incorporate relative to what you had said on the analyst day?

We continue to, you know, invest in our commercial organization, our sales and marketing efforts, and we also continue to invest in our corporate infrastructure in terms of OpEx. However, no difference from the assumptions that we provided at the investor day.

Got it. And just some other cleanup, interest expense for the year?

Interest expense for 2022? Yes, sir. $15.3 million? Great.

Thank you.

And just one other one.

I mean, just reiterating, no cancellations. It's all push out, and you're just being very conservative based upon what you see at this point in the year.

Yeah, we had really no significant – we had no cancellations. We had actually quite healthy bookings in Q4. We did see some of the same slowdown that we saw in December and early January. As we move into February, that seems like things have picked up, though. Great. Those things are healthy, and we didn't lose any significant business. Thanks.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you would need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. I show our next question comes from the line of Vikram Kesavabhotla from Barrett. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to follow up on some of your comments around the workforce. I think you mentioned that there was increased attrition towards the end of the year. Could you just give us some more color on some of the drivers behind that dynamic and what you're seeing so far this year? And then I guess going forward, I'm wondering if you can just put a finer point on your expectations around headcount growth in fiscal 22 and maybe what parts of the business or what geographies you're most focused on from a hiring perspective.

Yeah, thanks, Vikram. So we saw quite low turnover in 2020 and through the first half of 2021. Like a lot of companies, we saw some increased turnover in the second half of 2021. If you average it over 2021, though, it was probably at or maybe even lower than our historical average. So I think it might have been a, you know, maybe a delayed reaction to people hanging on in the beginning of the year. Um, you know, our turnover rate is always a, something we pay a lot of attention to because, you know, we want search hard to be a place where software developers and drug developers come and, you know, innovate and do some really amazing work. And so, um, you know, we do pay a lot of attention to this. Um, We've seen it, you know, we've seen it probably improve as we've gone into the first half of this year, or the first part of this year, rather. For the second part of your question, maybe I'll ask Andy to comment around the budget for this year.

We've seen, you know, the delays that we've have referenced earlier also had some impact on Q4 bookings. So we're seeing healthy bookings going into the year this year. And in line with that, we're looking at expanding our billable headcount by around 18% in 2022.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then I apologize if I missed this, but could you clarify what the fiscal 22 revenue guidance assumes for growth rates across biosimulation, market access, and regulatory. I think you gave some color on those different components at the investor day, and I just want to make sure we understand the new range appropriately. Thanks.

Sure. In terms of growth rates, it would be, you know, high teens, mid to high teens for the biosimulation, and low to mid teens for the regulatory. Okay. the difference being historically they would grow at similar growth rates, but the delays are having the greatest impact on the regulatory side. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. I'm sure no further questions in the queue. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. William Seary, CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. So thanks, everybody, for joining tonight. I think that the message I'd like to leave everybody with is, you know, we had some temporary lengthening of some regulatory projects, coupled with an unfortunate timing around Omicron. But fundamentally, we believe the company is very healthy. And, you know, to support that, I look at the strength of our bookings, which were quite good, both for a full year of 2021 and as we finished the year. We've seen, you know, as I said earlier, we saw a continuation of the Omicron delays in the first part of January, but that seems to have been ameliorated and things have been picking up as we went into February. Our guidance changes, you know, based on, you know, what we see right now in terms of, you know, We haven't lost any work. You know, some things have stretched out and they've slipped, but fundamentally we think as we go through 2022, we should see an acceleration. The overall market is healthy, the company is healthy, and we feel quite excited about our future. So I'll wrap up now and say thank you to everybody for joining us tonight.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Good day.