Neogen Corporation

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the NeoGen4Q26 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Scott Gleason. Scott, please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us this morning to discuss our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 results. I will briefly cover our non-GAAP and forward-looking disclosures before turning the call over to our CEO, Mike Nassif, our CFO, Bryan Riggsbee, and our CCO, Joe Freels. Earlier this morning, we issued our fourth quarter and full year results and accompanying presentation, both of which are available in the investor relations section of our website. During today's call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe provide useful insight into our performance. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and presentation. Please also refer to slide two of the presentation, which contains reminders regarding forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risks are described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and in other filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Scott. Good morning and thank you for joining us. We operate in a highly attractive market supported by strong growth drivers. Customers increasingly require a true industry leader who can innovate and solve complex challenges. Food safety and security are critical and growing global priorities, and we believe Neogen is uniquely positioned to lead this industry. We closed fiscal year 26 on a strong note. Core growth improved sequentially across both our food safety and animal safety business units in the fourth quarter. Our fiscal 2027 financial guidance reflects a measured outlook consistent with our historical approach. While my confidence in the trajectory of our business entering the year is high, we believe our macro fundamental backdrop is improving, we have restored our product portfolio, and significant progress is underway in enhancing our commercial operations. We exceeded our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. At the same time, We are intentionally investing in Neogen's future, and this will remain a key theme through fiscal year 2027. We're funding innovation, technology solutions, enterprise systems, and marketing capabilities that are designed to meaningfully enhance the company's long-term growth trajectory. We're prioritizing these investments to position Neogen to win while also driving profitable growth. I would also highlight that food safety core growth reached 5.8% in the quarter, the highest level since 2023, going back to the period immediately following the 3M acquisition. In addition, our animal safety team successfully resolved the majority of the global supply issues, returned to a year over year positive core growth, and saw a 7% sequential growth from the third quarter. I'm proud of our teams and want to thank our employees for their dedication to our mission and the effort that made this progress possible. This is a real turnaround from the negative core growth in fiscal year 2025, and we're just getting started. Our ambition is clear. Build Neogen into the undisputed global food safety category leader. To accomplish this, we are focused on three major strategic initiatives. First, commercial prowess. You'll hear from our Chief Commercial Officer, Joe Freels, on how we're enhancing our capabilities and building a best-in-class global commercial organization in the food safety channel. Our teams are moving decisively from a defensive posture to offense with increased focus on share gain. This includes enhanced targeting and customer segmentation through our new go-to-market strategy, a shift towards selling solutions rather than products, and deeper, more strategic engagement with our most important global customers to partner in ways we haven't in the past. Second, high-impact innovation. Our largest area of investment for fiscal year 27 will be in our research and development team led by our Chief Scientific Officer, Jeremy Yarwood. Beyond our previously announced Petri Film line expansion, we're evaluating technology licensing deals to further solidify our market-leading position and solve customer pain points. Additionally, we have teams working on next-generation platforms in our most critical markets. Our R&D efforts are fully anchored in customer needs, focused on developing solutions that directly address their most pressing challenges while clearly differentiating Neogen from our competition. And finally, operational efficiency. We're simplifying and fortifying our processes. As we look ahead to fiscal 27, our investments in innovation, technology, and commercial capabilities will be largely funded through disciplined cost management and enhanced operational efficiency across the organization. Thank you for joining us. Our petrofilm manufacturing transition remains on track to manufacture sellable product and begin a planned multi-quarter manufacturing transition beginning in November 2026. We're close to completing full validation of our first petrofilm SKU, which we expect to complete in August, a major milestone for the company. In parallel, we will be making a series of targeted transformation investments aimed at increasing productivity across the organization. Thanks, Mike.