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Operator
The conference call will be available on the company's website shortly after this call. I would like to turn the call over to Juliette Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations.
Juliette Cunningham
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for joining the Quidel Ortho First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. With me today are Brian Blazer, our newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Iskra, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer, and Joe Budke, Chief Financial Officer. Rob Budjarski, our EVP and Chief Operating Officer, will also join us for the Q&A session that follows our prepared remarks. This conference call is being simultaneously webcast on the Investor Relations page of our website. To aid in the discussion, we posted a supplemental presentation on the Investor Relations page that will be referenced throughout the call. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not strictly historical, including the company's expectations, plans, future performance, and prospects, are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Information about potential factors that could affect our actual results is available in our annual report on Form 10-K for the 2023 fiscal year and subsequent reports filed with the SEC, including the risk factors section. Forward-looking statements are made as of today, May 8, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. In addition, today's call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Tables reconciling these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings release and the supplemental presentation, which are on the investor relations page. of our website at quidelortho.com. Lastly, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-year revenue growth rates, including revenue growth ranges given on today's call, are given on a comparable constant currency basis. And now I'd like to introduce Mike Iskra.
Mike Iskra
Thank you, Juliette.
Juliette
In a few minutes, I'll introduce our new CEO, Brian Blazer, and then Joe will go into our quarterly financials in detail. First, I'd like to review our first quarter business performance and discuss the recent actions we're taking, which are to improve our cost structure and deliver increased shareholder value. Beginning with our first quarter 2024 performance, excluding COVID-19 revenue, total revenue grew by 6% in constant currency. with solid growth across regions. Excluding COVID-19 revenue, we saw particularly good growth in EMEA in China during the first quarter. Our labs business, which was about 50% of our Q1 revenue, performed as expected with approximately 4% growth, excluding the one-time third-party collaboration settlement in the prior year period. Transfusion medicine was 23% of Q1 revenue and grew by approximately 4%, driven by immunohematology reagent growth across regions in the OrthoVision-Swift and OrthoVision-Max-Swift instrument placements. Within transfusion medicine, our efforts to wind down the US donor screening business continue as planned. Point of care represented 26% of Q1 revenue, Excluding COVID-19 revenue, our point of care business grew approximately 38% year over year. Growth was driven by strong Sophia sales in the market, including our combo tests, flu, strep, and RSV tests. And lastly, molecular diagnostics was 1% in Q1 revenue. Excluding COVID-19 revenue, molecular grew approximately 15%, albeit from a low revenue base. On Savannah, We continue to work on producing a highly competitive respiratory panel for the US market, as well as many expansions with the STI panel and additional assays over time. We plan to provide updates as we achieve milestones and get closer to our target for full commercial US launch. Since our earnings call in February, the company has undergone a tremendous amount of change. While managing change can be challenging, we see this as an opportunity to build on our strengths and address the areas we need to improve. Over the past three months, we have implemented cost reduction initiatives designed to deliver better results in both the near and long term. Our focus areas include margin restoration, which includes headcount reductions expected to deliver approximately $100 million in annualized savings. Beyond those initiatives, we are actively looking for new opportunities to improve business efficiencies and realize greater savings as part of our continuous improvement culture. At the same time, while acting in our prior role as interim office of the CEO, Rob, Joe, and I prioritize maintaining business continuity and accelerating our margin restoration initiatives. To that end, I believe our first quarter performance speaks to our team's ability to navigate a transitional period while keeping our business momentum intact and forging ahead with purpose. We welcome Brian as our new president and CEO. Brian brings over 25 years of senior leadership experience in the diagnostic industry, including seven years of full responsibility for Abbott's global diagnostic business. His track record of strengthening operations and driving revenue growth to dramatically improve profitability makes him an ideal leader to guide quite a lot of work through its next phase of growth. On behalf of our global leadership team, I would like to thank our employees for continuing to serve our customers and deliver on our 2024 operating plan. We appreciate your dedication and ability to remain focused during transitional times. We look forward to a smooth transition with Brian, now at the helm to pave the way for a successful future.
Mike Iskra
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Brian. Thanks, Mike.
Mike
I'm very pleased to join the call today. And first, let me say that it is a true honor to join this exceptional organization. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with this leadership team and our talented colleagues across the company. And today, I'd like to share a few of the reasons I was compelled by this opportunity at this pivotal point in the company's history. First, I have always viewed Quidel and Ortho separately as highly innovative companies and formidable competitors. Combined now as Quidel Ortho, this business has one of the broadest product portfolios spanning the continuum of care, from reference labs to hospitals, clinics and urgent care, to retail and home testing. Quidel Ortho touches every stage of the patient care spectrum, including prevention, diagnosis, patient care and monitoring. This business has all of the underlying capabilities required to drive exceptional growth and profitability in a large and expanding market. There is work to do, and I'm excited about steering the company so it can achieve its full potential. In the short term, I will be focused on our highest priorities, which are unwavering attention to customer satisfaction and patient care, improving profitability, and cash flow while reducing our debt level and positioning ourselves to compete effectively in the highly competitive diagnostics market. I look forward to providing more details about our strategic direction as we move forward. I'm excited about the opportunity to engage with many of you in the coming months and answer your questions when I host our second quarter earnings call in August. Joe, I'll now turn it over to you. Thanks, Brian. I would also like to welcome you to and I look forward to the next chapter in our company's growth story. Let's begin with details of our first quarter results on slide four of the earnings presentation. As a reminder, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-year revenue growth rates on today's call are provided on a comparable constant currency base. Our first quarter of 2024 financial results were in line with our expectations and our underlying business trends remained solid. First quarter of 2024 revenue was $711 million on a reported basis, compared to $846 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year revenue decrease is primarily COVID-19 related. Therefore, excluding COVID-19 revenue, our total revenue grew by 6% in constant currency with sales growth across all regions. And if you also exclude the one-time $21 million third-party collaboration settlement from Q1 of last year, total revenue growth was 10% in constant currency. From a regional perspective in Q1, again, excluding COVID-19 revenue and in constant currency, we achieved revenue growth of 5% in North America. EMEA grew 6%, China growth of 12%. and the rest of world growth of 6%, which includes Japan, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. First quarter 2024 non-respiratory revenue was flat compared to the prior year period of $574 million. Excluding the one-time third-party collaboration settlement in the prior year period related to our labs business, non-respiratory revenue grew 4%. First quarter of 2024, respiratory revenue was 137 million, which included approximately 50 million in COVID-19 revenue. Respiratory revenue decreased 48% year-over-year, primarily due to lower COVID-19 revenue. Excluding the government-only COVID-19 orders, respiratory revenue grew 6%. And as Mike mentioned, our first quarter respiratory growth was driven by strong SOFIA sales in the professional setting. We leveraged our large global SOFIA install base with 70% of SOFIA customers purchasing multiple tests. This included our combo test, which accounted for greater than 50% of our blue testing revenue in Q1, and it's consistent with the past several quarters, demonstrating the durability of this product.
Mike Iskra
Moving down to P&L, non-GAAP,
Mike
Total operating expenses were essentially flat compared to the prior year period. Slide 5 shows that Q1 adjusted gross profit margin was 47.5% versus 53.8% in the prior year period. The change was primarily related to lower COVID-19 product sales, which are high-margin contributors, as well as one-time items made for an available year-over-year comparison. In summary, gross margin headwinds were comprised of three one-time items, 630 basis points related to the large government COVID-19 order in Q1 of last year, 140 basis points from the one-time third-party collaboration settlement in Q1 of last year, and finally, 230 basis points tied to an inventory reserve related to respiratory product expiration in Q1 of 24. Those three items were partially offset by underlying base business performance and cost-stating actions within manufacturing and supply chains, which were approximately 400 basis points of benefit to the margin.
Mike Iskra
Adjusted EBITDA was $132 million compared to $245 million in the prior year period.
Mike
Adjusted EBITDA margin was 19% compared to 29% in the prior year period. diluted EPS was $0.44 compared to $1.80 in the prior year period. The year-over-year change in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted EPS was primarily due to the lower COVID-19 revenue from the government order. Our first quarter effective tax rate was 23.5%, which was consistent with the prior year and in line with our four-year expectations. In Q1 2024, we recorded a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $1.7 billion for the North America reporting unit due to the decrease in the estimated fair value, which was consistent with the decline in the company's market capitalization during the quarter.
Mike Iskra
Turning now to the balance sheet on slide six of the presentation,
Mike
We finished the quarter with $79 million of cash and $40 million drawn on the revolver. Note that during the quarter, we liquidated investments to avoid additional revolver borrowings. Recurring free cash flow of negative $13 million was driven by working capital needs. We do expect cash flow to improve in the second half of 2024 as margin restoration effects take effect, along with
Mike Iskra
seasonally higher revenue expected in Q4.
Mike
We continue to focus on executing our cost saving and margin restoration initiatives, which are designed to deliver improved performance and sustainable long-term growth. We expect the benefits from these initiatives to be realized in the second half of 24 and in the first half of 2025, with minimal impact in Q2 of this year. Taking all this in perspective, we intend to maintain operating flexibility as we implement these initiatives. In light of this, and in an effort to be conservative, we did amend our credit agreement in April to increase the maximum consolidated leverage ratios beginning in Q3 this year through the loan maturity in May of 2027. Importantly, we completed this amendment at a cost of 12.5% of the total loan commitment, and the loan pricing is unchanged. During the first quarter of 2024, our consolidated leverage ratio was three times, including performing EBITDA adjustments, compared to the four times maximum specified in the amended credit agreement for the first half of 2024. Based on current expectations, we expect our consolidated leverage ratio to be approximately three and a half times by the end of this year, including performing EBITDA adjustments, compared to the four and a quarter maximum specified in the amended credit agreement.
Mike Iskra
And lastly, we want to provide some relevant updates based on our current visibility.
Mike
Our prior expectation for COVID-19 revenue was approximately $245 million. Based on our current view, which is subject to change based on COVID-19 developments, we are now expecting approximately $150 million in COVID-19 revenue for the full year of 2024. Second, we also expect that Savannah revenue will be immaterial in 2024 with no expected U.S. respiratory revenue contribution from Savannah in the 24-25 respiratory season. And as a reminder, the COVID-19 public health emergency in the U.S. ended in May of 2023. However, we continue to see significant quick view COVID-19 test sales in the retail setting in the second quarter of 23. Hence, we expect year-over-year COVID-19 revenue comparisons to again be challenging due to of this year. And as a result of these changes to the COVID-19 and Savannah revenue, our current expectations are to be at or slightly below the low end of our previously communicated 24 guidance ranges for revenue adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. With our new president and CEO coming on board this week, we've decided send guidance to give Brian an opportunity to assess the business and evaluate our plans for the rest of 2024. We do intend to resume providing guidance later in the year when we are able to share our plans. I would now like to ask the operator to please open the call for questions.
Operator
If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by 2. Again, to ask a question, press star 1. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. We will pause here briefly as questions are registered.
Mike Iskra
The first question is from the line of Jack Meehan with Nefron Research.
Operator
Your line is now open.
Brian
Thank you. Good afternoon. And Brian, welcome aboard. Thank you. Just wanted to get your thoughts maybe to start on two topics. First, as you were taking the CEO, you know, as you were diligencing taking the CEO role at quite a worth though, can you talk about the work you did on Savannah and what your view is on just level of confidence to bring a competitive platform to market there? That's number one. Number two is, your view on what the right margin profile, kind of once you go through this transition period, like aspirationally, where do you want to get this business to?
Mike
Well, yeah, let me answer generally, you know, kind of, you know, why I took the job and some first impressions on the business. And I've been here three days, and the amount of information that I had available to me as I did my due diligence was somewhat limited. But let me say first that I've been around the industry for a long time. I'm still in the very early days of learning the details of the business. But I am very familiar with the market landscape, the business models here in this case. And, you know, I've had the opportunity to work with some really talented teams in this space to drive a lot of change and have been able to do, you know, things and work on projects to expand into new markets, a lot of product development and launching complex new systems, manufacturing and supply chain optimization, optimizing commercial models, and that sort of thing. You know, in my assessment of the business prior to taking on the role, you know, and now, as I said, now having been here a few days, you know, I like what I see here. I think there are clear opportunities to improve the performance of the organization in all of the areas that I just mentioned where I have experience. Many of the opportunities that I mentioned here have already been identified by the interim office of the CEO and are in flight or moving along. I see the opportunity to do some more, particularly in the areas of product development, productivity, commercial excellence, and just productivity improvement in general. I think the leadership team sees those opportunities as well. And I'm excited to work with the team here on these things to improve our performance. So I look at this as a great opportunity. To your second question about aspirationally, I don't want to get too far over my skis here, but certainly operating margins in the high 20s would be something that I think would be very
Brian
know reasonable for a business like this and and um and and certainly we're going to do everything we can do to achieve that and do more if we can great and then wanted to ask about guidance so appreciate the color joe around kind of where you're shaking out relative to the prior guide um can you just give us a timeline when you expect to reinitiate
Mike
guidance do you think with 2q or could it come before then well uh jack first of all we wanted to be as transparent as possible so we did provide those updates uh on our expectations for covet revenue in savannah because we know that they've been open questions for investors and we did suspend the guidance to give brian a chance to assess the business a little further and evaluate our plans for 2024. And we will resume guidance at some point in 2024. I think it's too early to say specifically what that date is, though. Yes, and let me just add, this is Brian, let me just add to that a little bit. You know, there was an investor day that was postponed as a result of the things that happened. And, you know, I'm anxious And, you know, we haven't defined definitively when we might do an investor day, but certainly we're thinking before the end of the year. And again, I'm anxious to get out there and interact with everyone.
Brian
Okay. Thanks for the questions. Appreciate it.
Operator
Thank you for your question. Next question is from the line of Andrew Brackman with William Blair. Your line is now open.
Andrew Brackman
Hi, everyone. This is Maggie Bowie on for Andrew today. Thanks for taking our questions. Joe, I appreciate the color you provided us on COVID and Savannah based on, you know, what you're seeing this far. But with the full respiratory season under your belt at this point, can you talk about what you view as realistic endemic revenue levels from here? Thank you.
Mike
And Maggie, before I answer, you're specifically asking about COVID revenue, correct?
Andrew Brackman
Yes, just COVID and respiratory revenue.
Mike
Yeah, got it. Okay, so let me just hit on the COVID first. We did take the full year COVID revenue down to $150, and you guys have probably heard me say this before. The truth is no one can accurately predict the COVID market size or the timing, but we do use customer, industry, and as well as we've accessed some proprietary research as well to try and relate data points and come up with the projection that we spoke about. We don't believe it's zero, to be clear. We don't think that's the right number. We did 50 million of COVID revenue in Q1, as we said in the scripted remarks. And we continue to see COVID sales in Q2, although at lower levels. And we do expect COVID revenues in the second half to be higher given the typical respiratory season in the third and the fourth quarters. And we will carefully continue to monitor all the leading indicators and obviously we'll adjust expectations as things evolve and the year progresses. As far as respiratory revenue outside of COVID, as a reminder, following last year, we did put in place a new methodology for forecasting the flu revenue. And that methodology was based on market share, market size, number of tests, when I say market size, and mix of products, specifically mix of combo versus, you know, flu only test. You know, I would have to say that, you know, the Q1 numbers turned out pretty much as expected based on that new methodology. And so, as you think about the balance of year for us, as you move into the second half, we do expect a typical flu season of roughly 50 million tests. And remember, we've said that we think that the range of volume for size of market is 40 to 60 million. And so, we think we're going to land somewhere in the middle. That's where we've pegged it. And we haven't seen any changes in distributor inventory levels or any other leading indicators that would materially impact our forecast. So, maybe I'll stop there and see if that answers your question.
Andrew Brackman
Yes, that's great. Thanks so much for all that color. And then maybe just another one on growth margins. You know, I can appreciate the couple moving pieces we saw in Q1. Just how should we be thinking about those on a quarterly basis as we go throughout the rest of the year? Thanks so much.
Mike
Yeah. So, yeah, this is no different than what we've seen in prior years. You know, you're going to have some seasonality within the quarter. So Q2 will be our lowest quarter for gross margin. as the revenue is typically our seasonally lowest of the year, and there's a certain amount of fixed costs within the gross margin line that will bring that margin down. So Q2 will be the lowest, and then Q3 and Q4 will go back up, again, based on the seasonally higher respiratory revenues and even the labs seasonality you see in Q4. So we would expect that the margins would go back up in the second half of the year.
Andrew Brackman
Great. Thank you so much.
Operator
You got it. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Next question is from the line of Andrew Cooper with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Andrew Cooper
Hey, everybody. Thanks for the question, Brian. Good to have your first earnings call underway. Maybe just first, you know, thinking about margins and the trajectory for the year, can you give a sense for maybe just where we are in terms of the cost saves that are in motion and in flight already? versus maybe what's identified to get to the 100 million target and not quite started, and what maybe you need to go out and find in the base as it fits today.
Mike Iskra
Yeah, I'll take that question, Andrew.
Mike
How are you, by the way? So you will recall that on the last earnings call, we did talk about a headcount reduction in the range of 5 to 6% headcount and 100 million annualized. And, you know, I'm happy to say that we've completed the majority of those headcount reductions, and we are continuing to look at ways to, you know, continue to improve the organization. We expect to complete the majority of these headcount reductions, which is going to be around 500 positions that we announced by mid-year this year. And again, we expect to see about 50 million of that benefit in the second half of this year, primarily in SG&A, and the other 50 million of the benefit will be in the first half of 2025. It's probably also important to note that these headcount reductions were a little more focused on higher-level individuals within the organization. So even though the position reductions are 5 to 6 percent of headcount, it's closer to 10 to 12 percent of our total compensation and benefit, again, because we did focus on taking out higher-level management positions. And again, we're not done. We're going to continue to look for ways to make this company more efficient.
Andrew Cooper
Okay. Helpful. And maybe just one more on the gross margin since we just talked about it a bit as well. But just to be clear, when you talk about 2Q being the lowest, I assume that's on a sort of an adjusted basis absent the inventory write down that you called out for the quarter? Is that a fair way to think about it, at least from a typical trajectory perspective? Or just how should we think about that piece, which obviously we're hoping won't repeat?
Mike
Yeah, that's true. And so, as I said in prepared remarks, the Q1 margin was impacted by that 200 basis points due to an inventory reserve, you know, since we overhauled Q4 of 23. and so you still would see Q2 be seasonally low, and we don't expect a significant inventory reserve right off in Q2. I guess that's the question.
Andrew Cooper
Okay, thank you, and then if I can sneak one more in, maybe just for Brian. I think Jack tried to ask it, but maybe it got lost in the shuffle. Just what's your views on a product like Savannah in the competitive molecular kind of marketplace? How do you think about the actual kind of ability to go out and compete with that kind of midplex product and what's attractive about that platform in particular as you think about the path forward?
Mike
I think it's an attractive, competitive product, you know, quite frankly. And to the point, our challenge is menu. and uh you know my focus is uh getting the the menu of tests on that platform as quickly as we can so that we have a competitive offering in the field get it i'll stop there thanks everybody thank you for your question next question is from the line of connor mcnamara with rbc your line is now open
Joe
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question, and welcome to San Diego, Brian. Joe, can you just comment on how involved you were in the forecasting of respiratory and flu sales when you guys gave Q4 guidance? And I know you talked about some of the assumptions that go into how you guys do that, but how involved were you then versus kind of the way you looked at it?
Mike
now because it looks like you kind of took a pretty big haircut to some of the assumptions i'm just curious what your involvement was prior versus now yeah hey connor how are you um you know i i don't know that i want to rehash too much through q4 other than to say that as we've said in in the past you know we we over called covid and flu revenue um in q4 of 2023 unfortunately um and You know, as I said on that previous response to a question, we did put in place a new methodology because of, mainly because of what happened last year that forecast flew. And we feel pretty good about it. And again, using those three variables that I mentioned, market size, market share, and use of products. And we're going to continue to use that methodology and refine that methodology.
Juliette
Joe, if I could, this is Mike. How are you? Look, I think on both fronts, right, if we take the traditional respiratory season, as Joe said, you know, we have a new methodology with them coming into this year, and we feel very good. You know, the market demand and how big the flu season is is to be determined, really, outside of our control. But what's in our control is what are we doing to drive market share gain? Are we driving the right mix of product leveraging our combo test, which we decided differentiating to get the right mix? And are we able to compete and hold price? So not only do we have a good method for forecasting, I think we have very specific KPIs for how we operationalize that and how we see how we're doing. And so that's the traditional respiratory. On COVID, what I'd say for this year coming in is we spent a good deal of time trying to triangulate on the right number. And the question was asked earlier, you know, outlook on COVID-19 testing. I think, look, there's still more information to come, but we feel that we've done a pretty wide range of analysis covering material from our peer group, from the industry, from the market, from other experts. And I think that the number that we've shared with you today, the 150, is well thought through. But, you know, what we also learned from last year is we can't just take one number at the beginning of the year and then not watch. So I think the other piece that's important to know is we've set up maybe what we would call early warning systems to make sure we're watching proactively some of the KPIs, monitoring the market so that we can react more quickly than we have before.
Joe
Great. Thanks for that color. And then just a follow-up on Savannah. You took revenues out. So, you know, you took respiratory revenue out. Is the thought that if you guys do get approval for a respiratory panel, you would still wait until you have multiple panels before you launch into the market? Because, Brian, it sounds like that's kind of what your commentary was leading to. Or is there a chance you would still launch it in 2024 with just respiratory?
Juliette
Yeah, Connor, good question. So look, I think we are all absolutely clear on two things. One, the guidance we gave you is around financial expectations for Savannah. Let's not confuse that with operational expectations. We have a very aggressive plan to move as quickly as we can, not just on respiratory, but as mentioned, STI, and as Brian mentioned, the rest of the Savannah menu, which is critical. I think what we will be careful to do is set expectations too early, but what we don't want them to be confused with is sort of an unrelenting effort to get products improved out in the market as soon as possible.
Joe
Great. I appreciate that, Collin. Thanks for the questions, guys.
Operator
Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Your line is now open.
Patrick Donnelly
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Joe, maybe just on the leverage side and some of the covenant restructures you guys did, I think you bumped the number all the way up to four and a quarter, but the guidance here, I think it's for three and a half. So how do you think about just the trajectory on the leverage piece as we work our way through the year here? Is that just the EBITDA moving around, or just how do you think about the leverage progression and the debt load there?
Mike Iskra
Yeah, hey, Patrick, how are you?
Mike
So, again, I just want to make sure, and I know I said this, I think, on every earnings call for the past several quarters, just to make sure everyone's clear that there's, you know, there's a financial statement leverage ratio that comes straight from the face of the financials, and then there's the credit agreement leverage ratio that allows pro forma EBITDA savings to be included in the calculation. And when you run that credit agreement calculation for Q1, it allows the pro forma EBITDA adjustments where at three times versus the credit agreement covenant of four times at Q1. Based on the seasonality of the business, you know, where I've said before Q2 will be seasonally low for us, I do expect that the the leverage ratio will likely creep up a little bit in Q2, and then it will start to come down slightly in Q3 and Q4. And as I said in the progress remarks, I would expect from a credit agreement calculated ratio, including the pro forma EBITDA adjustments, will be around three and a half times at year end, again, versus a leverage covenant of four and a quarter.
Patrick Donnelly
like you know we've got we've got plenty of cushion there um and obviously we're going to be as brian said earlier we're going to be very focused on margin restoration and bringing that leverage ratio down as quickly as possible okay that's helpful um and then maybe on on the uh kind of core business in china um you saw some decent growth there can you just talk about the trends you're seeing In that business, you know, obviously there's been a lot of questions about the potential impact of some of the various legislations over there.
brian
Maybe just kind of pull the curtain back a little bit, what you're seeing, and then expectations as we work our way through the year in that region would be helpful. Thank you, guys.
Juliette
I'll cover that. Yeah, Patrick, thank you for the question. Yeah, Charlie, we're very obviously very pleased with the results here in Q1 and Credit 2. our team there. Appreciate all that they're doing. I think as we share China as a focused market for us, it's changing quickly. It's maturing quickly. Lots of different drivers there. But in the end, I think the team is executing well in our business across the portfolio. We're seeing leveraging the direct team we have there. We're seeing some increases in point of care in placements and in the general the rest of the business is going well. As you may recall, we have somewhat of a unique position in China where we're pretty prominent in stat labs. I think that has not excluded us from things like VVP, but some of the major VVP efforts so far really have not been in our wheelhouse. In fact, we've participated throughout and have won in all rounds of VVP. And so I think while we've done well so far, we'll continue to keep an eye on that, as well as some of the other challenges in China. But again, I feel very fortunate that we've got a team on the ground that's very in tune with those things. And then I think the other positive thing for us is a lot of our efforts and investments in China around localization and instrument manufacturing, as well as some R&D projects, are all starting to take shape. And these are things that we think are going to help us as we go forward in the future.
Mike Iskra
Great, thank you.
Operator
Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Casey Woodring with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Morgan
Hi, great. Thanks for taking my questions and welcome, Brian. So first, can you guys touch on customer conversations around SOFIA ahead of next respiratory season? You know, you placed a number of SOFIAs under two to three-year contracts during COVID. So, you know, those are likely in renewal negotiations now, I would imagine. So maybe just walk us through. how you and your customers are both approaching that renewal process, especially now with the headcount turnover and SG&A that you've called out increasing. And then, you know, as a follow-up to that, can you just talk about any expectation for a 510 submission for the SOFIA combo test?
Juliette
Well, I think the first part, maybe we can talk about the 510 submission. So Casey, the first part of the question I think is around our base and what are we doing. You know, I go back probably more than a year ago. We put in a concerted effort to get back in front of our customers, reevaluate where they are in their contract status, be proactive in extending agreements. I think one of the data points Joe shared in the prepared remarks was around 70% of customers ordering more than one task. something that shows the efforts of getting back in front of customers, not only maintaining the business we had, but showing them what other tests they could put on that platform helps make us a little more sticky, right? It creates more value for the customer, and we're harder to displace. And so I think that's a good number that shows our efforts there. So, look, I think we're in good shape. You know, I know going back, gosh, a couple years ago, there were a number of placements that maybe were COVID-only, and as COVID went away, they went away. I think we're seeing probably a more stabilized base and one that we're trying to leverage for additional tests.
Joe
Thank you, Casey. On the second part of your question, we anticipate being in trials during the 24-25 season on the combo test.
Morgan
Got it. That's helpful. And then just, you know, on the headcount reductions between the February call and now, you've doubled your expectations from 50 million to 100 million. Can you just walk through how you arrived at that number and if that's kind of the last adjustment to that number? Thank you.
Mike
Hey, Casey, we actually did not change that number. Maybe there's some confusion about the impact in 24 versus the full annualized impact. The 100 million annualized was always the target that we had talked about on the last call. And we're right on track with that to get $50 million in year 24. And then the second half of that, the $50 million in the first half of 25. But again, as I said, we're going to continue to look for efficiencies in the business. I don't want you to think we're going to stop at that number, but we have gotten really far in executing on that first $100 million.
Morgan
Okay, great. And maybe if I could just fit one more in. Did you give what flu was in the new guide here? You gave the new COVID number. Just curious if you're holding the flu number here.
Mike
Thank you. Yeah, Casey, we did not. Again, in the spirit of transparency, we wanted to give everyone an update on Savannah and COVID because we know those were two open questions that the street has, but we didn't give any other updates because we have suspended guidance until Brian gets a little further into the business, and more to come on that. More to come.
Morgan
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you for your question. There are no additional questions waiting at this time, so that will conclude the conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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