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spk02: Good day and welcome to the Hamanetics Corporation second quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Olga Gayet, Senior Director, Investor Relations and Treasury. You may begin.
spk01: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Humanetics second quarter fiscal 23 conference call and webcast. I'm joined today by Chris Simon, our CEO, George Strong, president of our global hospital business, and James Durecka, our CFO. This morning, we posted our second quarter and first half fiscal 23 results to our Investor Relations website, along with updates to our fiscal 23 guidance and analytical tables with the information that we'll refer to on this call. Unless otherwise noted, all revenue growth rates we'll discuss today are organic and exclude the impact of currency fluctuation, strategic access of product lines, acquisitions, and divestitures. Additionally, to help investors understand Humanetics' ongoing business performance, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures. These measures exclude certain charges and income items. For additional details about excluded items, comparisons with the same periods of fiscal 22 and reconciliations during gap results, please refer to our second quarter and first half fiscal 23 earnings release posted on our IR website. Our remarks today will also include forward-looking statements, and our actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. Please refer to the safe harbor statement in the earnings release and other filings with the SEC for a complete list of risk factors that may impact our results. Additionally, in order to protect customer confidentiality, we will not be able to discuss any customer-specific details except as disclosed previously. And now, I'd like to turn it over to Chris.
spk07: Thanks, Olga. Good morning, and thank you all for joining. Today, we reported second quarter organic revenue growth of 27%, an adjusted earnings per diluted share of 83 cents, an increase of 38%, compared to the second quarter of the prior year. Our second quarter and year-to-date results are evidence of the accelerating momentum in our businesses. The macroeconomic environment is challenging, but we have taken action and are well positioned to navigate the headwinds. Demand for our products and services has never been stronger. We are helping fuel growth in the plasma industry by setting the standard for plasma collections, enabling our customers to collect record volumes replenish depleted inventories the essential value of our hospital solutions combined with our investments are expanding our presence and accelerating growth our operational excellence program is driving new efficiencies and enhanced processes to help counter inflationary pressures through our agile flexible global manufacturing network and resilient supply chain we are consistently producing and delivering the products and technology our customers depend on. We are pursuing the goals we set in our long-range plan for transformational growth, diversification, and sustainability. In October, we welcomed Roy Galvin to Humanetics as President, Global Plasma and Blood Center. His leadership and vast experience in medical technology will help drive continued strong results and long-term value creation. Turning now to the business unit results and guidance. Plasma revenue increased 58% in the second quarter and 52% year to date. North American disposables represent 85% of total plasma revenue and increased 63% in the quarter and 56% year to date, driven by strong growth in volume and price as a result of our technology upgrades. We completed our technology upgrades ahead of schedule and the fully integrated bi-directional Nexus platform is now helping all of our long-term customers achieve effective and efficient plasma center operations while reducing their cost per liter of plasma. Volume growth was pronounced across all center types and geographies. In the U.S., volume growth was again driven by both new and mature centers with 38% growth in the quarter and 39% year-to-date for our long-term customers, and is now trending above pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, Europe delivered another quarter of double-digit growth. Our plasma business is a powerful driver of revenue growth and margin expansion, and our strong performance is a result of our market leadership. With more than 10 million commercial collections and representing nearly half of all U.S. Nexus collections today, Persona is playing a critical role in helping to drive plasma volume recovery. We are committed to providing our customers with the tools necessary to win in this competitive market, and we continue to advance our innovation pipeline to further increase collection center efficiency and plasma yield while maintaining donor safety. Encouraged by strong volume growth, In the market momentum we are helping to enable, we now expect our organic plasma revenue growth to increase from our previous guidance of 15% to 20% in fiscal 23 to a range of 30% to 35%. Moving to blood center, revenue grew 1% in the quarter and declined 3% year-to-date. Apheresis revenue declined 1% in the quarter and 7% year-to-date in both periods, This business was impacted by unfavorable order timing, lower revenue from convalescent plasma, customer staffing and donor shortages at blood centers across the globe, and geopolitical disruptions. Our technology plays a critical role in improving access to noncommercial source plasma. Consistent with our long-range plan, in the second quarter of fiscal 23, we partnered with one of our global plasma customers, to expand the network of plasma collection centers in Egypt with our Nexus PCS devices. As opportunities continue to emerge like this, we are in a strong position to advance our leadership in plasma collection around the globe. Whole blood grew 7% both in the quarter and year to date due to favorable order timing among distributors in Asia Pacific and the MEA, and additional opportunities in North America as our resilient supply chain enabled us to serve customers in need. We are confident in the continued durability of our blood center business despite the challenging macroeconomic environment and reaffirm our expectation of 2% to 5% organic revenue decline in fiscal 23. Now turn the call over to Stu Strong to discuss hospital results and strategic milestones. Stu?
spk08: Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to be here today to discuss our hospital business unit's results and the work we are doing to drive revenue growth and further strengthen our leadership position in the markets we serve. Hospital revenue grew 22% in the quarter and has grown 18% year-to-date. Despite continued macroeconomic challenges, including staffing shortages, hospital capital budget constraints in the U.S. and Europe, and continued geopolitical risk, we meaningfully grew our revenue and our market share. Hemispaces management revenue grew 11% in the quarter and has grown 8% year-to-date, driven by strong adoption and utilization of our TEG disposable products. As a reminder, in the first half of our fiscal 22, we won a large national European tender for ClotPro, The associated shipments of capital and stocking of disposables all took place in the first half of fiscal 22, which created a difficult year-on-year comp for this part of our business in the first half of fiscal 23. Vascular closure revenue grew 42% in the quarter and has grown 39% year-to-date, despite a more than typical adverse seasonality of this business during the summer months. Growth in the second quarter was disproportionately driven by new electrophysiology accounts within the top 600 hospitals, further increasing our U.S. penetration. We're excited about the newly granted CE mark certification for both Baskade and Baskade MVP that helped unlock additional attractive market opportunities outside the U.S. While there's still more work to do, We plan to begin commercialization of our vascular closure devices in Europe toward the end of this fiscal year. Our product development efforts also include inorganic investments in vascular closure, particularly in solutions for large-bore arterial closure, necessary for procedures such as TAVR and EVAR. This is an attractive global market that we estimate to be approximately $300 million and growing in the low teens. We have made strategic investments of 30 million euros into a clinical stage startup in Galway, Ireland, called Vivasure Medical, with an option to acquire the company upon completion of certain milestones. Vivasure Medical has developed a clinically differentiated percutaneous large-bore vessel closure device called PercuSeal, which utilizes a fully bioabsorbable patch that seals a 14 to 24 French arteriotomy from inside the vessel. The PercuSeal system delivers the patch with a simple, user-friendly approach while eliminating the pre-procedure steps required for current large hole closure devices. While still early stage, clinical data shows an impeccable safety profile, and we're excited about the long-term potential of this innovative technology and the meaningful impact it may have on improving healthcare outcomes. Moving on to transfusion management. Our transfusion management revenue grew 36% in the quarter and has grown 29% year to date. Growth in the quarter was driven by new software implementation in the US and in the UK. We will continue to leverage our commercial channels in the US and Europe to grow our market share strengthened by our recently announced agreement with Epic Software to offer our SafeTrace TX enhanced transfusion management software to Epic's global network of hospital customers. And lastly, turning to self-salvage. Self-salvage revenue grew 6% in the quarter and has grown 3% year-to-date, benefiting from favorable order timing among EMEA distributors and partially offset by last year's strong capital sales. Hospital is fully on track to become our largest and fastest growing business over the next few years. Our fiscal 23 revenue growth guidance remains unchanged, and we expect our hospital business to deliver 19 to 22% organic revenue growth versus the prior year. Thank you for your time. And now over to James to discuss the rest of our financial results and our guidance.
spk06: Thank you, Stu. And good morning, everyone. Let's discuss our business results. and some additional updates to our fiscal 23 guidance. Second quarter adjusted gross margin was 53.7%, an increase of 110 basis points compared with the second quarter of the prior year. Adjusted gross margin year-to-date was 54.4%, an increase of 80 basis points compared with the first half of the prior year. Adjusted gross margin, both in the quarter and year-to-date, benefited from volume and particularly due to strong volume growth in plasma and hospital, price, and additional savings from our operational excellence program. These adjusted gross margin benefits were partially offset by inflationary pressures, higher depreciation expense primarily related to finishing the conversion of all U.S. customers to our Nexus devices, and some of the recent investments in our manufacturing and supply chain network. Adjusted operating expenses in the second quarter were $99 million, an increase of $17 million, or 20%, compared with the second quarter of the prior year. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating expenses decreased by 100 basis points and were at 33.3% when compared with the second quarter of fiscal 22. Adjusted operating expenses year-to-date were $198.5 million, an increase of $29 million, or about 17% compared with the prior year. The increase in adjusted operating expenses in both periods was primarily driven by increased freight volumes and costs, continued growth investments, including research and development and sales and marketing, a return to normal spending levels, and higher performance-based compensations. which was partially offset by savings from the Operational Excellence Program. Adjusted operating income was $60.6 million in the second quarter and $105.5 million in the first half, representing increases of $17 million and $24 million, respectively. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating margin was 20.4% in the second quarter, and 18.9% in the first half, up 210 basis points and 140 basis points, respectively, when compared with the same periods in fiscal 22. Our Operational Excellence Program is on track to deliver additional gross savings of approximately $26 million in fiscal 23, and total cumulative savings reaching $96 million by the end of this fiscal year. We expect these savings to help generate additional efficiency in both cost of goods sold and operating expenses. The macroeconomic environment remains challenging and continues to put downward pressure on adjusted gross and operating margins. Both in the quarter and year to date, inflation had the most pronounced effect on our financials, followed by foreign exchange. Additionally, Due to the continued global supply disruptions, combined with strong demand for our products, we have had to use less efficient resources, in some cases to ensure uninterrupted and timely supply, resulting in an adverse impact to our margins. We remain confident in our ability to offset these pressures and reaffirm our adjusted operating margin guidance in the range of 18 to 19%. The midpoint of our adjusted operating margin guidance includes higher performance-based compensation and about 350 basis points of impact from macroeconomic headwinds. The adjusted income tax rate was 22% in the second quarter and 23% year to date in fiscal 23, in line with the adjusted income tax rates for the same periods in fiscal 22. We expect our fiscal 23 adjusted income tax rate to be approximately 23%. Second quarter adjusted net income was $42.7 million, up $12 million, or 39%, and adjusted earnings per diluted share was 83 cents, up 38% when compared with the second quarter of fiscal 22. Year-to-date adjusted net income was $72.9 million, up $17 million, or 30%, and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $1.41, up 29% when compared with the first half of fiscal 22. The combination of the adjusted income tax rate, interest expense, and FX had a negative 3 cents and 4 cents impact on adjusted earnings per diluted share in the second quarter and year to date, respectively, when compared with fiscal 22. We are updating our fiscal 23 adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance to be in the range of $2.70 to $3. The midpoint of our adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance includes an approximate 14 cent headwind from volatility in foreign exchange, higher interest expense, and adjusted income tax. Moving to balance sheet and cash flow. In the second quarter of fiscal 23, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement to buy back $75 million of common stock under our previously announced $300 million share repurchase authorization. This share buyback helped offset solutions from existing share-based compensation programs in fiscal 23. Additionally, As you heard from Stu, we made investments in VivaSure Medical. Because of the timing of these investments, they had minimal impact on our cash on hand in the first half of fiscal 23. Cash on hand at the end of the second quarter was $241.2 million, down $18 million since the beginning of the fiscal year, primarily due to the $75 billion accelerated share repurchase program and $32 million in earn-out payments related to previous acquisitions, partially offset by a $50 million revolver drawdown that was fully paid off subsequent to the end of the second quarter. Free cash flow before restructuring and restructuring related costs was $66.3 million, compared with $31.2 million in the first half of fiscal 22. the higher free cash flow before restructuring and restructuring-related costs was mainly due to higher cash flow from operating activities. These include significantly higher net income, lower inventory, and higher accrued liabilities, including higher performance-based compensation. Partially offsetting these benefits was an increase in capital expenditures as we completed the conversion of our U.S. plasma customers connect this and continue to make improvements to our manufacturing and supply chain network as part of our operational excellence program. We believe in our ability to generate strong cash flow and update our guidance for free cash flow before restructuring and restructuring related costs for fiscal 23 to be in the range of $150 to $180 million compared with our prior guidance of $100 to $130 million. The updated guidance reflects higher net income and additional benefits from the net working capital in fiscal 23. Our earnings and cash flow are exposed to interest rate risk. As part of our risk management strategy, we use interest rate swaps to mitigate our exposure to volatility in interest rates. which we believe is especially prudent in this economic environment. In our second quarter, we refinanced our existing credit facilities and entered into additional interest rate swap agreements that extend through mid-June 2025. These interest rate swaps secure an average blended fixed interest rate of 3.57% plus the applicable spread on 70% of the notional value of the unsecured term loan until mid-June of 2023. Thereafter, the average blended fixed interest rate increases to 4.12% plus the applicable spread on 80% of the notional value until mid-June of 2025. Our net leverage ratio at the end of the second quarter was 2.7. In summary, I'd like to conclude with a few closing thoughts. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and remain focused on our short-term and long-term goals, including delivering robust revenue and adjusted EPS growth and strong free cash flow generation. Our second quarter and first half results show continued strong demand for our products and resilience of our supply chain, despite the challenging macro environment. In our collections business, Plasma and Blood Center, our technology is playing a vital role in helping our customers address critical blood shortages and depleted inventories. In hospital, in addition to delivering breakthrough results across all of our product lines, we continue to make organic and inorganic investments to further strengthen our leadership and expand our share. The Operational Excellence Program is fully on track and is expected to generate $115 million to $125 million in total gross savings by its completion in fiscal 25. And finally, our balance sheet remains strong with ample liquidity to support our short and long-term capital allocation priorities. Thank you. And now I would like to open the line for Q&A.
spk02: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 11. Our first question comes from Anthony Patron with Mizuho. Your line is open.
spk03: Great, and congratulations on a very strong quarter here, and I hope everyone's doing well. The first couple will be either for Chris or Roy on plasma. and just the numbers for the quarter, obviously North American volumes up substantially, but maybe just the optics of the overall number for this quarter. How much was contributed by price versus volume? That would be the first question. And when we think about the volume gains here, maybe a little bit on the recession and inflation tailwinds to the plasma business. And when did the company start to see those come into the mix here? And what would be the expectation for how long those tailwinds could last? And I'll have one quick follow-up.
spk07: Hey, Anthony. It's Chris. Welcome back. Great to have you in the mix. In terms of plasma, yeah, we have now collected more in the quarter than we did in the equivalent quarter prior to the pandemic. So recovery is fully underway. The outperformance in the quarter was a mix of both volume and price, the price being associated with the completion ahead of schedule of our technology upgrades to Nexus and now fully half of our collections happening on our persona technology. So volume was by far the major driver, but clearly our mix is helping as well. In terms of what's happening in the macro environment, as we said in our prepared remarks, all centers participated, mature and new alike. It's important to recognize that we have twice as many new centers as a percentage of our total support at centers than we had pre-pandemic, and they're growing at exactly the historic rate. So it feels good. Southern border is back, not to its pre-pandemic levels, but the trajectory actually is more robust than we had anticipated at this point in the year. Really feels like we're hitting on all cylinders. I do think this is a bit of a contrarian story, regardless of what happens in the macro environment. The combination of inflationary pressures, potential recession, consumer sentiment being at all times low has really motivated the donors to return. And our customers are doing everything in their power to take advantage of that and to grow. not only to meet current patient need, but to replenish inventories for the ongoing growth that they see in IgE-based therapy. So it's a robust time for sure, and we expect that tailwind to continue for the foreseeable future.
spk03: The follow-ups will be there, Chris, just on the notion on inventory build. Fractionators clearly went through a period of record low levels of inventories out of the pandemic. any way to sort of estimate where they are in replenishing inventories and safety stock, how long it may take for them to get back to a pre-pandemic level. And then the last question for Stuart, just quickly on Cardiva, received the CE mark in September. Any color on the early launch days across Europe for Cardiva, that would be helpful. Congratulations again. Thanks.
spk07: Thanks, Anthony. So on inventory levels with our customers, they hold that close to the best as you can appreciate, so we're going to respect and honor that as well. But I think in the current environment where the demand for IG-based therapies is so strong, the end market demand for their products, I think inventory winds up taking on a real strategic role. It allows customers to bid for contracts and tenders that they might not otherwise be able to. And I think, you know, Inventory matters a lot to all of our customers. They're at various stages of recovery. I think all of them have aspirations to grow their inventory levels from where we sit. And, you know, we'll watch closely, number new center openings and donor remuneration, but we don't see any abatement near term for sure. Stu?
spk08: Yeah. Hey, Anthony. Thanks for the question. We're excited about the CE mark that we got. We plan to begin commercialization in Europe toward the end of this fiscal year. The CE mark, as you've heard from me before, represents a huge opportunity for us, particularly in EP in Europe. It's about a $1.3 billion TAM globally. Europe's a significant part of that, so we're excited about that launch. Right now, we're going to target the markets that have the best conditions for launch. That comes down to volume, comes down to clinical and economic value in the country, as well as pricing and reimbursement. So those are the countries we're going to go after first. But just like we did in the U.S., we're going to take a very disciplined approach to the launch in Europe and make sure we focus on the areas that are most opportune for us to launch in. Thanks for that.
spk02: As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Our next question comes from Drew Ranieri with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
spk00: Hi, thanks for taking the questions. Chris, maybe for you, and I know you don't necessarily want to get on specifics for pricing, but as you're thinking about the guidance rays and plasma, could you just help us maybe parse out a bit of what the expectation is for pricing now that Nexus has kind of fully rolled out earlier than expected? And I think you mentioned Persona was now 50% of collections. So how should we maybe think about that being a benefit into the back half of the year. And I have a couple follow-ups. Thank you.
spk07: Thanks, Drew. Appreciate the questions. The technology upgrade has gone exceptionally well. There's clearly value to our customers from the combination of Nexus and Nexus with Persona, and that's reflected in the contracts that we've entered into. There's an annualization, and some of that is occurring as we speak. But when you look at where we are year-to-date this fiscal year, Halfway through, both volume and price have been meaningful contributors. We think persona is the answer across the board. Originally, we're targeting an enhanced safety profile by tailoring in more of a personalized medical way how we do the collections. In addition, you get a 10% to 12% gain in yield, which is significant as all strive to replenish, as we talked about already on this call. So Yeah, we'll continue to lean into that. There's a number of things that have to happen for our customers, remaining customers to adopt that. But we feel quite good as the year goes on that the Nexus conversions will annualize. We're cautiously optimistic that we'll see additional opportunities for persona over the next year and a half. And as that comes to fruition, we'll guide accordingly.
spk00: Got it. And then just with expectations actually for 2024, are you still confident of delivering top line and bottom line growth? And just in plasma, kind of given all these tailwinds that you now have at your back, could you see another 30% year looking ahead at next year? And with vascular closure, just with the C mark, how should we kind of think about that as supporting or enhancing kind of the growth rate trajectory that you're currently on? Thanks for taking the questions.
spk07: Yeah, thanks, Drew. I know there's a lot of interest in Our ability to continue to grow, and I think earlier this year when our guidance was a little more modest, I think there was a question about 22 versus FY23. I think now with the revised guidance that James communicated this morning, the midpoint would suggest double-digit growth off of 22. Within that, we're guiding 30% to 35% revenue growth on plasma. Our long-term customers are growing in excess of that, closer to 40%. So it's coming together nicely. In short, while it's way too early to guide for FY24, we don't have any confidence about our ability to continue the growth trajectory that we're on. And we'll continue to watch this. Macroeconomic factors loom large. And in the main, they're a positive for us. And I'm happy to break that down if it's helpful. But there's also a cost side of that where our teams are battling inflation and supply chain and FX. as every company is. They're doing an outstanding job of mitigating those factors, but it's expensive, and that's reflected in our guidance as well.
spk02: Our next question comes from Andrew Cooper with Raymond James. Your line is open.
spk04: Great. Thanks for the questions. Maybe first, just starting with the investment in Devoshare, Can you give us a little bit more of a sense of, is that something that could be added as a technology when you think about bringing potentially Vascade and that capability together? And maybe a little bit around the thinking of why not acquire outright earlier, what the structure of your right to buy later is, and just how synergistic that could be to add large board to what you already have as well.
spk08: Yeah, so it is very synergistic to the Vascade platform, Andrew, so When we think about Perky Seal, that will round out our closure portfolio and really complement VASCADE and VASCADE MVP. It will give us a closure option for large bore that we currently do not have in the VASCADE platform. So that's a key element to the purchase of this company potentially. It also adds to the TAM that this large foreclosure is for TAVAR and EVAR. It's about a $300 million global total addressable market, so it opens up more of an addressable market for us for large foreclosure. And then I would say, as it relates to the option to purchase, we can exercise that option as early as we'd like to. However, we're choosing to wait until we see the results of their IDE trial before we move forward with the potential to exercise the option.
spk04: Okay, great. And maybe just one more attempt at sort of slicing this, just trying to get a sense for maybe when some of the persona contracts went online and how we should think about the impact on growth moving forward in terms of the step up of getting everybody on Nexus, getting everybody on Persona. Can you, you know, when we think about the volume growth versus price, just is there any other flavor you can give us for timing and how we should expect that to roll on in the back half of the fiscal year? And I'll stop there. Thank you.
spk07: And you're happy to do that. And I'm going to add a comment about the VivaShore question and M&A more broadly, if I might as well. In terms of Persona, Nexus, we have completed the Nexus upgrade cycle. We got it done in mid-August, fully ahead of schedule, and feel great about that. So the process will play forward. As we upgrade a center, the pricing follows. So we feel good about the trajectory we're on. As I said, it's included in our guidance. For Persona, we don't include anything in our guidance that's not already fully contracted. We're having discussions with all of our customers about the technology. different customers are at different stages of assessment. And we'll play that forward and be as supportive as we can for customers as they do that assessment and ready their supply chains and their organizations for the changes that are associated with that increased 10 to 12% yield. So stay tuned, additional guidance. We're not going to break down, as Olga said at the outset, for reasons of customer confidentiality. We're not going to talk specifically about price versus volume, but it will be included in our guidance. We'll try to give you a sense for that. You can certainly see it passing through in our gross margin. The point I would add to Stu's answer is we are really focused first and foremost about building out our presence and our relevance to the customers that we serve. We're committed to programmatic M&A. VivaShore is an example of that. Our general preference is real company with real revenues that's substantially de-risked. Unfortunately, that's everybody's priority. So in this case, we went earlier because we have a good sense for the potential of the technology. And as that potential becomes reality, we have the option to act. We are strategic investors. We're not financial investors. So this is about building out our portfolio, augmenting R&D with inorganic growth through M&A.
spk04: Great. Appreciate the time.
spk02: Our next question comes from David Turkley with J&P Securities. Your line is open.
spk09: Hey, good morning. I'll give my shot here at this contribution. So you said, I think, that your disposable North American volume was up 63%. And I think you called out 38% volume. And mathematically, if we take the difference there, the 25, I mean, is that sort of a ballpark of what we're talking about as a price contribution, you know, in terms of how it impacted the number in the quarter?
spk07: Yeah, I think the difference, Dave, and I realize we threw a lot out there in the prepared marks, we are separating long-term customers out, and that's what the breakdown we gave you, so it's not as straightforward as the math you're trying to do. And as I said, I just don't want to get into that much more detail around it, but I know There's ongoing questions about robustness, sustainability, given the steep trajectory that we're on. And that's why we wanted to give you the long-term number in addition to the overall market number.
spk09: Got it. And then just to clarify, you made a comment about the new centers. Maybe there being twice as many from maybe pre-pandemic. I was wondering if you could give us any color on sort of the mixed split there between the mature versus the new. How big are each of those? in terms of the total business today?
spk07: Yeah, so historically, you know, the mature centers reach a practical capacity and substantially all of the growth in the industry has been driven by new center openings. And there's a three to four year ramp depending on the company as those centers come up to speed. What we observed during the pandemic was the rate of new center openings was double what it was in the prior years as customers leaned in and did what they could to reach more donors in more geographies. In particular, we're seeing smaller centers in terms of the number of devices, number of beds, and in slightly smaller metropolitan areas and surrounding metropolitan areas. Today, there are roughly 250 new centers somewhere on that three to four year trajectory, and they're performing at least equivalent to what new centers have always performed at. In addition, as I said in the prepared remarks, we're seeing growth from mature centers They're not back to pre-pandemic levels. There's more opportunity there. But in totality, because of the significant upstep in new centers, we actually collected more plasma in the second quarter than we did in the second quarter of 2020, which was our peak year prior to this. Thank you.
spk02: Again, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Our next question comes from Mike Madsen with Needham and Company. Your line is open.
spk05: Yeah, thanks. Just a few on gross margin. So I know you gave guidance for or reiterated the guidance for the operating margin, but just looking at kind of where you're at in the September quarter here, for the second half of the year, is it reasonable to assume the gross margin kind of being like that 53% to 54% sort of range?
spk06: Yeah, thanks, Mike. Yeah, we typically have it guided here on gross margin. But yeah, if we're going to hit our operating margin guidance, those gross margins that you see will have to be in that continued area. So I mean, gross margin for us has improved mostly because of a mix. pricing gains that we've had. But the flip side of it has been what I spoke about in my remarks in that, you know, because the volume of growth has been much greater than we initially planned this year, it's caused some inefficiencies for us in the supply chain. So, you know, it's less timely notice to vendors, you know, more use of air freight, and overall less efficient utilization of resources like sterilization capacity and so forth. So all those kind of take you back a little bit, but on balance, yes, you'll see those gross margins, I think, hanging in there.
spk05: Okay. And then at your investor day, you got into, I think, like a high 50 to low 60% range for fiscal 26, and I know that that's a ways off still, but I'd imagine that some of these pressures probably continue into your fiscal 24. So do you still think you can reach those targets in 26? Yes, we do.
spk06: That will come from selling higher profitable products. That's going to continue no matter what as we go on here, as we grow. But also, You know, on the macro level, we are assuming that, you know, once we get out to 25 and 26, that we do have some easing of those inflationary pressures that we experienced so significantly during the early part of the pandemic here.
spk05: Okay, thanks. And then I know you said you're not going to comment on specific customers, but I'll ask one on CSL anyway because you have quantified that in the past. So is that still a – are you still expecting them to do $88 million with you of sales this year? Or, I mean, just given the tremendous demand in plasma reliance, is that going to end up being higher than that? Or are they locked in at that amount?
spk07: Yeah, Mike, I appreciate the interest here and, you know, getting to the core of the sustainability of our outperformance. The $88 million is a minimum contractual agreement. That hasn't changed. CSL and all of our customers are experiencing robust growth, as we've said, across centers, you know, mature and new alike. Certainly, CSL is doing their part and driving accordingly, and we're benefiting from that as well. Okay, thanks.
spk05: Sorry, I didn't realize that was a minimum. All right. All right, thank you. Thank you.
spk02: There are no further questions at this time. This concludes our questions. For your participation in today's conference, you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
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