Danaher Corporation

Good day, everyone. My name is Todd, and I will be your conference facilitator this morning. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Danaher Corporation's fourth quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, Simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Bedford, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Bedford, you may begin your conference.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call. With us today are Reiner Blair, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt McGrew, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call are all available on the Investors section of our website, www.danaher.com, under the heading Quarterly Earnings. The audio portion of this call will be archived on the Investors section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations and will remain archived until our next quarterly call. A replay of this call will also be available until February 7, 2023. During the presentation, we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Supplemental materials described additional factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Unless otherwise noted, all references in these remarks and supplemental materials to companies' specific financial metrics refer to results from continuing operations and relate to the fourth quarter of 2022, and all references to period-to-period increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. We may also describe certain products and devices which have applications submitted and pending for certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings, and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Reiner.

Thank you, John, and good morning to all of you. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. Our terrific fourth quarter results rounded out another great year for Danaher. Broad-based strength across the portfolio drove nearly 10% core revenue growth, strong earnings growth, and free cash flow generation. We're particularly pleased with the performance of our base business, which grew high single digits for the year and has now grown high single digits or better each of the last 10 quarters. our well-rounded results this year would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our more than 80,000 associates. The team overcame global supply chain challenges, logistics delays, COVID-driven lockdowns, and inflationary pressures to reliably support our customers. We believe the DBS-driven execution, coupled with our proactive growth investments over the last several years, contributed to meaningful market share gains in many of our businesses. Now, looking to 2023 and beyond, we see a bright future ahead for Danaher. Our portfolio is made up of leading franchises with durable business models and attractive end markets that benefit from outstanding long-term secular growth drivers. We're well positioned financially with our strong free cash flow generation and balance sheet capacity, allowing us to actively pursue strategic M&A opportunities. So this unique combination of leading businesses and financial strength, all powered by the Danaher business system, differentiates us and reinforces our sustainable long-term competitive advantage. So with that, let's take a closer look at our full year 2022 financial results. For the full year, we delivered nearly 10% core revenue and adjusted earnings per share growth, including 8% core revenue growth in our base business. We also expanded our core operating margins by 60 basis points and generated $7.4 billion of free cash flow. Our free cash flow to net income conversion ratio exceeded 100% for the 31st consecutive year. Now, our strong financial results allowed us to continue our cadence of high-impact growth investments throughout the year. In fact, our investments in research and development of more than $1.7 billion in 2022 enabled us to accelerate innovation across Danaher. New products such as the Leica Microsystems NECA, Leica Biosystems Automated Advanced Staining Platform, Bond Prime, and HOX, Headquarters Series Portable Meters are helping improve both human health and the environment while enhancing our growth trajectory. Our capital expenditures of over $1 billion included substantial investments to expand production capacity in our bioprocessing and genomics businesses. These investments have been critical to support current customer demand but they're equally important to support the long-term growth opportunities and security of supply in these markets. With several of our customers' biologic therapies progressing through the regulatory approval process, we anticipate the size of our bioprocessing and genomics businesses to increase meaningfully here in the coming years. Now let's turn to our order results in more detail. Sales were $8.4 billion, and we delivered 7.5% core revenue growth. Our base business core revenue growth was also 7.5%, as our core revenue growth contribution from COVID-19 testing was neutral year over year. Geographically, core revenue growth in both North America and Western Europe was approximately 10%. We saw healthy demand across our major end markets with customer activity and funding levels largely consistent with the third quarter. High growth markets core revenue was up slightly. China grew low single digits driven by robust demand in our life sciences instruments and acute care diagnostic businesses. However, the reopening efforts associated with the ending of zero COVID policies and subsequent increase in COVID-19 infections resulted in reduced patient and testing volumes in our clinical diagnostics business. We anticipate lower testing volumes to continue through the first quarter of 2023 before gradually recovering through the balance of the year. Our gross profit margin for the fourth quarter was 59%, and our operating margin of 27.4% was up 100 basis points, including 105 basis points of core operating margin expansion. This strong margin performance was enabled by the disciplined cost management, productivity measures, and price actions our teams implemented to help offset the impact of inflationary pressures across our business. While there continue to be supply chain disruptions and cost pressures, we saw modest improvement in component availability again this year and this quarter. Adjusted diluted net earnings for common share of $2.87 was up 6.5% versus last year. And we also generated $2.2 billion of free cash flows in the quarter. Now, before we get into the details of the quarter, I'd like to point out some updates we've made in our financial reporting. Due to changes in our organization resulting from the significant growth of our life sciences segment over the past several years, we have separated our former life science segment into two new reporting segments. Sativa and Paul Life Sciences, which include bioprocessing and our discovery and medical businesses, are now reported as the biotechnology segment. Our new life sciences segment is comprised of the remainder of the businesses in our former life sciences segment. The diagnostics and environmental and applied solutions segments are unchanged. Importantly, today's discussion reflects these changes. So now let's take a look at our fourth quarter results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end markets today. Reported revenue in our biotechnology segment declined 1% and core revenue was up 4%. In bioprocessing, robust customer activity across monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapies, and antibody drug conjugates drove another quarter of more than 20% growth in non-COVID revenue. Total core growth in bioprocessing was mid-single digits for the fourth quarter as customers continued to scale back their COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic programs. For the full year 2022, core revenue growth in bioprocessing was high single digits, which included non-COVID revenue growth of more than 20%. Looking to 2023, we expect customers to further reduce their COVID-19-related programs. Vaccination and booster rates have been significantly lower than initially anticipated, and the availability of alternative therapeutics has reduced the need for monoclonal antibody-based treatments. In light of these dynamics, we now anticipate COVID-19-related vaccine and therapeutic revenue will be approximately $150 million for the full year of 2023, down from approximately $800 million in 2022 and lower than our previous expectation of $500 million. Our non-COVID business, has averaged more than 20% growth over the past two years. Given these elevated growth rates, we spent the past several weeks speaking with our customers to better understand their planning assumptions for 2023. And based on these discussions, we anticipate non-COVID bioprocessing core growth will be high single digits for the full year 2023. This includes low single-digit core growth in the first quarter as customers repurpose inventory purchased for COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic programs to non-COVID projects. Now, there is a bright future ahead for the biologics market in our leading bioprocessing business. The number of biologic and genomic-based therapies in development and production continues to rise, and we expect to see significant industry-wide investments in research, development, and production capacity well into the future. With our differentiated portfolio, which is the broadest and deepest in the industry across upstream and downstream applications, Our best-in-class scientific services and extensive global reach were exceptionally well-positioned to support our customers as they undertake this complex, life-changing work. And moving to our life sciences segment, reported revenue grew 8%, and core revenue was up 13%. Strength was broad-based across instruments and consumables, with all major businesses delivering high single-digit or better core revenue growth. Our life sciences instrument businesses collectively delivered double-digit-based business core revenue growth, led by Leica Microsystems and Beckman Coulter Life Sciences. Demand remains solid across our major geographies and end markets, and we're seeing good momentum in our opportunity funnels as we begin the new year. Our genomics consumable businesses had another quarter of double-digit core revenue growth, driven by strong demand for our plasmids, RNA, and gene writing and editing solutions. During the quarter, IDT strengthened its next-generation sequencing portfolio with the acquisition of Archer DX NGS assays. These assays are foundational in researching novel cancer fusions and bring new capabilities including an enhanced bioinformatics platform to expand IDT's suite of sequencing solutions. Now moving to our diagnostic segment. Reported revenue was up 3%, and core revenue grew 7.5%, led by mid-teens growth at Cepheid. Radiometer grew double digits, led primarily by demand for blood gas testing in China. Leica Biosystems was also up double digits with growth across all major product lines. In our digital pathology business, we saw record placements of the GT450, Leica's best in class digital pathology slide scanner, as customers are increasingly realizing the operational and clinical benefits of digitization. In molecular diagnostics, Poor revenue across Cepheid's non-respiratory test menu grew more than 20%, led by infectious disease testing, sexual health, and hospital-acquired infections. The acceleration in growth this quarter was due in part to increased adoption of Cepheid's non-respiratory test menu across our nearly 50,000 instruments installed base, which has doubled since 2020. During the quarter, Cepheid expanded their competitively-advantaged test menu with the launch of the Expert Express MVP. The Express MVP rapidly diagnoses three distinct health conditions that cause overlapping vaginitis symptoms in women using a single sample. This addition to our sexual health portfolio enables physicians to quickly diagnose a patient's infection and prescribe a targeted treatment regimen. reducing the need for multiple office visits. Now, this is a great example of how bringing accurate, easy-to-use molecular testing closer to patients is improving healthcare outcomes and driving long-term growth at Cepheid. In respiratory testing, global PCR testing volumes continued to moderate, but demand for Cepheid's point-of-care PCR testing remained robust. Cepheid's respiratory testing revenue of approximately $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter significantly exceeded our expectation of approximately $375 million. The respiratory season got off to an earlier than anticipated start with a high prevalence of circulating respiratory viruses, notably COVID-19, flu, and RSV, leading to both higher volumes and a preference for our 4-in-1 test for COVID-19, flu A and B, and RSV. Now, based on discussions with our customers, we believe COVID-19 will enter an endemic disease state in 2023, and as a result, expect to ship 30 million respiratory tests and generate $1.2 billion of revenue for the full year. As hospitals and health systems begin planning for their endemic testing needs, we're increasingly seeing customers consolidate their point-of-care PCR testing platforms onto Cepheid's GeneXpert. Our customers' preference for the GeneXpert for both respiratory and non-respiratory testing is a result of the significant value the unique combination of fast, accurate lab-quality results and a best-in-class workflow provide clinicians. The combination of these advantages, the broadest molecular diagnostic test menu on the market, and our leading global installed base create significant opportunities ahead for Cepheid's point-of-care solutions. Moving to our environmental and applied solution segment. Reported revenue grew 1%, and core revenue was up 5.5%. Water quality core revenue grows with high single digits, and product identification was flat. At product identification, marking and coding was up slightly, while packaging and color management was down low single digits. Core revenue at VideoJet was up slightly, due in part to a difficult year-over-year comparison as the business grew low double digits in Q4 last year. In December, Pantone announced Viva Magenta as the 2023 color of the year. The color of the year and the billions of media impressions it generates solidifies Pantone's iconic brand and was one of the drivers of high single-digit full-year core revenue growth in X-Rite's color standards business in 2022. In water quality, HAAC delivered their third consecutive quarter of double digit growth. Chemtreat was also up double digits in the fourth quarter, capping its 54th consecutive year of growth, a remarkable accomplishment and a testament to the team's best in class execution and their commitment to continuous improvement. During the quarter, demand for analytical chemistries and consumables remained strong across municipal and industrial end markets, but we did see a slight moderation of larger project activity at Trojan. Throughout the year, our teams and EAS did a great job leveraging the Danaher business system to overcome supply chain challenges and manage inflationary pressures. They were at the forefront of identifying potential constraints and quickly deployed DBS tools like daily management to work with suppliers and ensure production part availability. They also use visual project management to rapidly re-engineer products and to reduce our reliance on hard to source electronic components. Also, strong price performance helped the team expand operating profit margins by more than 80 basis points in 2022, while continuing their cadence of growth investments. We believe this outstanding execution paired with our proactive growth investments drove market share gains and enhanced our long-term competitive advantage in both product identification and water quality. So with that color on what we're seeing in our businesses and end markets, let's now look ahead to our expectations for the first quarter and the full year. Beginning with the first quarter of 2023, we are updating our base business core revenue growth definition to exclude the impact of COVID-19 related testing and the impact of COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic revenues. In the first quarter, we expect core revenue growth in our base business to be up mid-single digits. We also expect total core revenue growth to decline mid-single digits as a result of lower demand for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and therapeutics. Additionally, we expect the first quarter adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 30%. Now for the full year 2023. We expect high single digit core growth in our base business. We also expect total core revenue growth to decline mid-single digits for the year as a result of lower demand for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and therapeutics. Additionally, we expect a full year adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 31%. So to wrap up, 2022 was another terrific year for Danaher. Our team successfully executed through a challenging environment to reliably support our customers and deliver outstanding financial results, all while investing for the future. As we look ahead, we believe the combination of our talented team, differentiated portfolio of businesses, and strong balance sheet, all powered by the Danaher business system, positioned Danaher to outperform well into the future. So with that, I'll turn the call back over to John.

Thanks, Reiner. That concludes our formal comments. Todd, we're now ready to open up the line for questions.

Thank you, sir. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and 1 on your touchtone phone. If you would like to remove yourself from the question queue, please press star two. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one. We'll take our first question from Derek DeBruin with Bank of America.

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Morning, Derek. Morning. Hey, so a couple of questions to start. I guess the first one would be, just on the inventory situation and sort of like how we should think about that working through and just sort of your expectations on the bioprocessing front, on the non-COVID bioprocessing, just some sense of timing. Is this a 1Q, 2Q phenomenon? Just general thoughts there.

Eric, as it relates to the inventory situation, let's think about sort of our Q1 guide here as a starting point and the context for that. We expect for our overall guide to have a base business growth of mid single digits, and we expect COVID testing, including now vaccine and therapeutics, to have high single digit and low double digit headwind, giving us that decline of mid single digits in the first quarter. Now, let me come back to the base business because, of course, that's where your question resides. And once more, we have to be clear that we have now excluded vaccine and therapeutic revenues from the base business, right? So our mid-single digits uh base business is down from the comparable low double digit core growth we saw in q4 and most of 2022 and that's due mainly to bioprocessing xcovid and i want to dig into that a little bit but also because we're expecting lower patient volumes here in china as zero covid policies are ended so that's uh you know what's happening there in that face business in q1 now if we look and we dig in a little bit deeper into bioprocessing, we anticipate that our non-COVID bioprocessing business will be low single digits. And that's really for two reasons. One, we're coming off of 30% growth in Q1 of 2022, but we're also working through the inventory pockets that we spoke about that were related primarily to COVID programs. And we do expect Q1 to be an inflection point there that we work through the majority of that in Q1.

And then after that, continue to see improvements. Got it. Okay.

And I have to ask the obligatory analytical instrumentation demand, SIEX demand, coming off of some really strong growth this year. What are your sort of expectations on instruments? And I would expect you would see some slowdown in the back half of the year, as embedded in your numbers.

I think that reflects our perspective. We saw, you know, low double-digit plus core growth in our instrument businesses here in 2022 and believe that we definitely took share there. And frankly, our funnels are still very strong here going into the new year. But as we look to the total year, we would expect that low double-digit plus to moderate to the more normal growth of mid-single-digit plus, certainly towards the back end of the year.

And what's embedded in sort of like an overall pricing expectation, just to sort of give sense of.

So, as you know, in the fourth quarter on pricing, Derek, we came in over 400 basis points with the teams really executing very well. And that represents, you know, roughly where we were for all of 2022. As we look forward then into 2023, We continue to expect some cost pressures there, and, you know, we'll look to have pricing of, you know, 200 to 300 basis points, probably closer to 300 basis points.

That's for – Derek, that's for total, Dan, or not just – Yeah. Instruments. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it.

I like that. Okay. I think I'll get back in the queue. I've got some other ones, but I need to digest some stuff. But thank you. I'll get back in the queue. Thanks.

Thanks, Derek.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rachel Battenstall with JP Morgan. Morning, Rachel.

Morning. So first up, just on China, so you mentioned that you're expecting some softness there. Can you just dig a little bit deeper? How much of the softness on that one Q is going to be pressured there? And then what do you expect for China on total for the year as well? Thanks.

So as I mentioned, China is, you know, and of course everybody knows coming out of the zero COVID lockdowns and that's affecting patient volumes here. And we saw that in December in particular and have taken that as an indicator for how we should think about the first quarter in China, which we expect to be down around high single digits here in the first quarter, but then moderating as, you know, the Chinese population gets through sort of the various infection waves that are expected. And we expect that patient volumes then improve throughout the year and are expecting low single digits for the full year in China.

Great, that's helpful. And then just to follow up, you mentioned that Western Europe was 10% core during 4Q. Can you just talk about your expectations for Europe with this year? Have you seen any softness related to any budget constraints in your conversations with customers there? Thanks.

No, I would tell you, if we think about non-COVID, we continue to see good demand in Western Europe. We have seen the cycle time of deals. So, that period of time between lead capture and capturing the order extending here in the fourth quarter. And we would expect that to continue. As you think about Western Europe, including COVID headwinds, we would expect that to be flat here in the first quarter and then up low single digits. But once again, that includes some COVID headwinds.

helpful. And then final question for me just around bioprocessing. Can you just walk us through kind of the order book and how book-to-bill is trended within bioprocessing, given some of the puts and takes there, getting us to that low single digits in first quarter and rounding out the year at high single digits on the non-COVID side?

Sure. So, as it relates to orders and I've talked about this in the past, as well as book to bill. In fact, we don't really look at book to bill for the bioprocessing business because it may not be the best way, and we don't think it is the best way to really understand the underlying health of the business, particularly given the extended lead times that we had here in the prior periods. So we've been looking at orders really on a two to three year horizon to take out the lumpiness as well as the extended lead times. And over the last three years, both orders and revenues have grown at a mid-single-teens average rate. Now, from a current trend perspective, in the fourth quarter, our order rate improved by over 500 basis points sequentially. but was still down mid-teens, which was as expected as customers continue to adjust for our shorter lead times. Now, to be clear, our full year 2023 guide anticipates Q1 being the low point at low single digits for the bioprocessing non-COVID core growth. And that also takes account to any inventories that might be with some of our COVID program customers, which are now being repurposed. We're working with those customers to repurpose that inventory. So whatever these order dynamics are, revenue forecast for bioprocessing non-COVID in first quarter low single digits, we expect that to be the low point of the inventory work-off or burn-off, and then move forward to what is high single-digit bioprocessing non-COVID core growth for the full year.

Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question. Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI.

Good morning, Rainer. Thank you for taking my question. Hi, Vijay. Fantastic. So I had my first question on bioprocessing here, just to clarify some of these numbers here. I think a couple of months ago, Rainer, I think the expectations was for base bioprocessing anywhere from high signals to key inputs. you know, when you look at that high single, if it's at the low end of the range, did anything change? And when I think about that cadence throughout the year, I think first half is somewhere in the mid-single digits, and it implies second half and double-digit range. Is there any risk out there in the back half? What gives you the visibility in the back half acceleration in that bioprocessing?

Thanks, Vijay.

So as early as the JP Morgan conference, we did talk about the bioprocessing growth range being from high single digits to mid-teens range. And, you know, as I mentioned then, and I'll, you know, confirm now, we've spent the last several weeks talking to our customers to understand their planning assumptions for the year. And the clear message is, the underlying demand remains robust and unchanged. So we continue to see monoclonal antibodies, cell therapy, and gene therapy activity continue to be strong, and we're even seeing more work on mRNA on the back of its success with COVID vaccines. So while the demand is remaining solid, customers are actually not anticipating a step-up in activity. So activity remains strong, and as we've seen in prior quarters, but they're not anticipating a step-up versus what we've seen here in the last couple years. And so as you look at the two, three, even four-year stacks here, we've seen mid-teens growth caregivers for bioprocessing non-COVID. So coming back then, if you take our high single-digit bioprocessing non-COVID full-year guide on the back of, you know, an approximately 30% comp from 2022, it's right in the mid-teens range, both on a two- and a three-year basis. So we think that's especially strong in light of the fact that in Q1, we do expect to burn off some inventory, and we'll start with low single-digits. In fact, if we had assumed the mid-teens, so the higher part of the range for 23, that actually would have implied an acceleration of demand to over 20% on a two-year stack. And frankly, that's just not supported by our customer discussion. So as we think about burning off these inventories, You ask about the confidence in, you know, the later part of the year. And that confidence is based on our discussions with customers, the backlog that we have, the continued order activity that we see and that has improved over prior periods. And so we feel very good about the high single-digit non-COVID bioprocessing growth for 2023.

And maybe, Vijay, just to give you a bit of Sorry, I'll just give you a bit of kind of numbers to it, because I know we've talked about this a lot recently, but just so that we kind of repeat it here. If you look at bioprocessing ex-COVID growth, right, over the last four years, inclusive of our 23 guide, you have 7%, 8% type growth in 2020, as we are sort of moving into and away from the core bioprocess and doing more COVID work. And then in 2021 and 2022, we grew ex-COVID 20% plus in each of those two years. And so now this year in 23, the high single-digit guide, it's sort of kind of an inverse barbell, if you will. But if you look at kind of high single digits to start in 20, high single digits as we get through the last of COVID in 23 with 20 and 25%, growth in the middle in 21 and 22. That's sort of the period that we're looking back and over because I don't think you can look at just any one period or quarter given everything Reiner said that happened in 21 and 22 with the extended lead times and what was happening with COVID. So just so that we're all on the same page on sort of the numbers historically on how we have sort of arrived at that mid-teens growth rate. in discussion with our customers who say, hey, look, if you look back over the last three, four years, my demand is about the same. My order pattern is going to be slightly different, but my end demand is about the same.

That's helpful, color and perspective. And then one last question here for me, perhaps Matt, this is to you. The high single-digit guide for bioprocessing implies like the non-bioprocessing, that's nearly 75% of Dan Hurd revenue is That's also up high signals. That's a strong number. Again, any concerns here? I think there's been some concerns around capital order trends. So what's the order book shaping up for instruments? In margins here, 31%. That's a step down from Q4. Given that high single digits, I would assume the pricing commentary or volume leverage and pricing contribution should be pretty strong. So maybe if you could just comment on the non-bioprocessing high single-digit assumptions and margins assumptions.

Let me take margins, and I think we sort of covered the high single-digits a bit, but maybe Reiner can kind of wrap it up on bioprocessing. Sorry, non-bioprocessing.

Non-bioprocessing.

Non-bioprocessing. Oh, I'm sorry. So COVID?

No, no, no, ex-bioprocessing, the other EAS diagnostics. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Okay, everything outside of bioprocessing. Gotcha. So let me start with the margin question first, because I think that's one that's topical here, too. So if you think about margins for the full year, and then I can kind of touch on Q1 as well. When you look at margins, we're talking about kind of 31% adjusted margin. And that's going to be a bit lower than we were in 23 on the margin, if you will, with the biggest factor going to be the volume leverage, like you alluded to there. We're going to lose, call it $3.2 billion of COVID headwinds in the year, $700 million from the vaccines and therapeutics as we go from call it $800 to a little over $150 or a little under $150. And then we're going to have $2.5 billion of testing fall off as we think we get to a more endemic state on Cepheid testing. And so the margin profile on that stuff, on the headwinds, is basically the fleet average. I'd say that probably falls through at 40%, so kind of in line with our normal fall through. But that volume is pretty meaningful at $3.2 billion, as you talked about. So we will offset some of that. High single-digit core in the base business is going to be $1.7 billion and change, let's call it. uh falling through 35 to 40 but just not enough to fully compensate what's happening you know with uh with our coveted headwinds here so um i think you combine that the volume with sort of an overall macro backdrop, DJ, that I still want to kind of be prudent here from a planning perspective as we head into the year. I want to see how the inflation supply chain kind of progresses through the year. China's still a bit of an unknown on how that bounces back. And I like to start the year with a cost structure that's in the right place. And let's see how some of these things sort of play out. And as the year goes on, you know, We'll obviously try to do better, but that's sort of how I'm kind of thinking about the margin for the year. And really, the only difference between Q1 and Q2 from 31% for the full year in Q1 is FX in the first quarter. That's it. We'll have a $225 million FX headwind in Q1. And so I would say that the same drivers, if you will, for the full year are for Q1.

That's helpful, Matt. Yeah. And then, Vijay, just coming back to your question regarding, you know, the base business without biotechnology growth here for 2023. You know, we talked about life science instruments going from, you know, the low double digit or to the mid single digit plus here, as we expect that to moderate during the course of the year. But in our life science businesses, we also have our genomics businesses. which are growing at double digits. So when you look at our, under the new definition, life sciences business, so that would be the instrument businesses and genomics businesses, we expect high single-digit growth for the year. As it relates to our diagnostics business, without COVID testing, we also expect high single-digit growth there. If you think about the growth in Leica Biosystems, Radiometer, And as patient volumes normalized, supported also by solid growth at Beckman. Diagnostics, once again, without COVID testing, high single digits. And then as it relates to EAS, we would expect that now to normalize after having had just banner growth here in the last couple years to be more, you know, the low to mid-single digit growth probably skewed more to mid-single digits for the year. That's extremely helpful right now. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Davis with Mellius Research.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Hi, Scott. Good morning.

Lots of detail already discussed here, so I'll try to go back to a little bigger picture. What assumptions are you guys using for kind of labor and material inflation for 2023? I assume this is mitigated a little bit from the high labor inflation you've had the last couple years, but curious on your view there.

Yeah, Scott, I think when I think about price-cost, kind of back to that 200 to 300 basis points of price, we have been positive on price-cost the last, you know, I guess year here and probably a little bit more. So I think we, you know, that guide of 200 to 300 basis points would keep us at positive price-cost. We are seeing, I would say that we're seeing some things, you know, from a supply chain pressure come down. Freight lanes is probably the biggest one that I can think of from a cost perspective. I would tell you that other parts of the supply chain, we probably are seeing availability be better, but not necessarily seeing costs come down yet. So I think we're sort of still in that, you know, 200 to 300 basis points of price to help offset what is still out there. But there are early signs that things may be turning.

Is that price, Matt, is that pretty much already out in the system, or is some of that still to be?

No, it's out. Yeah, it's already out there.

Okay.

And if we need to, we can go for more as we've done here, Scott.

You saw that as we built through the year this year.

And can you guys remind us, what are the remaining steps you need for the EAS separation? Is there any kind of upside to getting that done earlier than planned?

I'd love to say that it's easy to do, but there's quite a bit of work to get through it, Scott. I mean, we're still in the early days of the audits, getting the audits done. And after that, we've got a lot of work, obviously, to do and a whole work stream of people who are working on it. I think we are still very much on track. for a Q4, the ability to do something here in Q4. Anything earlier, I think just between the audits, the work that remains, and the tax ruling, it just takes time for these. So I don't think that's probably, you know, a base case scenario for us right now, Scott. I still think Q4 is the way to think about it.

Okay. I'll pass it on. Thank you, guys, and best of luck in 23. Thanks, Scott.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Brennan with Cowan.

Great.

Thanks. Good morning, Ryan. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for taking the question here. Maybe first one would just be on China. I know there was a question that's earlier, but just wondering, some peers have commented that obviously there's a headwind right now as, you know, the COVID rates have spiked, but that as the year plays out, you could see China actually turned out to be stronger than maybe you were anticipating or, you know, than peers were anticipating. Excuse me. given the benefits on the economy. So, kind of, what are you assuming in that low single? Is that, do you think you're leaving some cushion in there, or just, you know, how do you contemplate China playing out for the year, you know, given the change of policy?

Dan, so, I mean, the near term, just to recap, is, in fact, that we saw, particularly in our diagnostics business, lower patient volumes related to the hospitals in China being overwhelmed with patients COVID-infected patients. And we expect that to continue here in the Q1. It's currently, you know, the Lunar New Year holiday where we expect, you know, infections to spread here in the next, you know, 30 days or so. And then over time, that that would start waning, you know, reducing. With It's kind of unknown as to how many other waves follow that, but we do believe that during the course of the year, especially as it relates to our business, patient volumes start recovering. We've seen this again and again after severe lockdowns of large cities in the previous years. And so we expect that to be pretty resilient. And that's why we end up then with a full year China guide of low single digits. Now, could there be upside? You know, potentially there's clearly some pent up demand in the Chinese economy. And it just depends now on how quickly people can get back to work and some normalcy returns to the markets in general. So we think from where we sit today, low single digits for the full year is a good way to think about it. And, of course, we'll continue to update as we go through the year here. But it's a good starting point, and there may be some upside should, in fact, that pent-up demand be released here in 2023.

Great. And then just on the M&A environment, we've heard from some commentary in kind of recent weeks that there seems to be a more willing seller environment, maybe just a reflection of macro and interest rates. So there seems to be maybe more folks coming to the table. How would you characterize, obviously, it's impossible to time M&A, but, you know, how would you characterize the current environment and just, you know, any color in terms of the, you know, the outlook, whether it be from private targets or public targets? And, you know, obviously, I'm sure, you know, all the remaining businesses post the EAS, excuse me, are, you know, candidates for M&A, but just how would you characterize kind of the interest level, you know, by your business? Thank you.

So our perspective on M&A remains unchanged here. First of all, our funnels continue to be very active. As you know, our balance sheet, which is now at one and a half turns, is in great shape. We're starting to see in the marketplace some recognition and I'll even say some acceptance of the lower valuation levels that we have now seen for a good period of time. And I would say it is early days, but the environment for M&A continues to improve. And as you know, in the past, when there have been these kind of situations, Danaher has been able to deploy capital Um, in a really value creating way. And of course, uh, it's our intention to do that, uh, here, uh, in the, in the future as well.

Great. Thanks Ryan. Thanks Matt. Thank you. Our next question.

I'm sorry. Our last question will come from Patrick Donnelly with city morning, Patrick.

Hey, good morning, Reiner. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe one on, you know, back to the diagnostics business. On Cepheid, can you just talk about the non-COVID piece, you know, what you're hearing from customers in terms of utilization, usage, particularly those who bought instruments during COVID. Obviously, you saw the install base, you know, double over a couple of years there. We'd love just some perspective in terms of what you're seeing as COVID comes down a bit, respiratory comes down here shortly, what the expectations there are.

I mean, Patrick, we're very encouraged by what we're seeing. As you mentioned, over 50,000 instruments placed within Dublin. We've had well into the mid-20s in the number of tests. Now, as you can imagine, here in the fourth quarter and sort of the beginning of the first quarter, our customers have been busy with respiratory testing. No question about that. But we're very encouraged by the fact that, you know, even in the fourth quarter, we saw that non-COVID testing growing at over 20%. And I think that's indicative of a couple things. First of all, we were very strategic in how we thought about placing our instruments. in the sense that we really stayed at the point of care with customers that would be able to standardize their larger IDNs around the GeneXpert architecture, as well as leverage subsequent to the pandemic, the broad testing menu that we offer. And we continue to see that. Not only do we continue to see that, but we see continued consolidation of point-of-care molecular testing onto the GeneXpert platform, which is likely also another driver for us seeing the continued adoption of the non-respiratory menu. So, very positive outlook here. We're encouraged, and it's still kind of early days.

Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe just a follow-up on Dan's capital deployment one there. Can you just refresh us on kind of how you think about leverage ratios and if the current rate environment changes your perspective at all in terms of what size deal you guys would look at?

Yeah, Dan or Patrick. Yeah, I mean, from a leverage perspective, we've been, I think, a couple times in our history, we got to a little bit over four. So, I mean, I think we've always said we don't have much of an appetite to be rated any lower than we are, for sure. So I think that's sort of the outer boundaries of what we kind of think about. But, you know, we've been all over the place historically. You know, we don't really have a target of two or three. It just sort of moves around with the deal activity, and we sort of take our time to it. I mean, as far as the current rate environment, I don't think it changes anything for us. I think we still think about you know, sort of returns in the same way that we did. You know, we've been doing this a long time. We've been in rate environments like this before. We've been in rate environments that are worse. The last 10 or 12 years, obviously, at close to zero was a very different time, but I don't think we have fundamentally any changes here given where we're at.

All right. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Ryan.

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to John Bedford for any additional or closing remarks.

Well, first of all, thanks again, everybody. We are thrilled with the way we closed out 2022, and we see a strong 2023 ahead. With all the numbers, maybe just a quick recap. For 2023, we see our base business, growing at high single digits. And in the first quarter, we see that base business, despite the fact that we're working off some biotech and bioprocessing inventories at mid single digits. Now, we've talked at length about COVID testing and vaccine therapeutic headwinds. And I think, you know, those are real. But despite those headwinds, we feel great about the important role that we played in the pandemic. Keep in mind, we have reinvested COVID-related cash flows to create lasting annuities with acquisitions and breakthrough innovations while further strengthening our balance sheet. And so we exit the pandemic much stronger than we entered with higher growth and higher margins in our base business.

So with that, we thank you for the call. Wish you all the best for 2023.

Thanks, everybody. We're out for follow-ups all day. Thanks.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.