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Welcome to the BioMariu 2025 Third Quarter Sales Conference Call. The call will be structured in two parts. First, a presentation by BioMariu Group Management Team. Afterwards, there will be a Q&A session. During this session, you may ask question in two ways, by submitting a written question in the box below the player, or by joining the conference call and dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. I will now hand over to Emerick Fichet, VP Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Good morning. And thank you for joining this call. I'm with Pierre Boulu, CEO, together with Guillaume Vour, CFO. Please note that this conference call will include forward-looking statements that may change or be modified due to uncertainties and risks related to the company's environment. Accordingly, we cannot give any assurance as to whether we will achieve this objective. I also remind you that today's call is recorded and that the replay will be available on our website www.biomérieux-finance.com. I will now end the call over to Claire and then we will open the call to questions. Claire?

Good, hello everyone, good morning, good afternoon. So I start with giving you the highlights for the year 2025. So I start with the sales numbers. We've reached a very important milestone, 4 billion euro company now, BioMérieux, growing 6.2% organically, significantly outpacing a market that we're seeing growing around 1% when we look at the diagnostics results from most competitors. This growth would have been 7.8% excluding China. What is very positive within the performance for 2025 is we've made a very profitable growth, reaching 17.9% of our sales, contributing EBIT, and growing 16% organically. And finally, on the numbers side, very strong cash flow generation. reaching 460 million euros, growing 40% versus 2024. So now if we go into the commercial dynamics and the four growth drivers that we selected in the context of Go28, so if you put them together, they've actually been growing 9.4%. So let me start with non-respiratory biofire. What I'd like to highlight here is an increase of the net unit installations. As you know, this is an indicator that we follow very closely. We've managed to install an additional 1,800 units of BioFire in 2025, to be compared with 1,350 in 2024. So we have successfully grown our musical base by 7% in 2025 only, which is very consistent with the growth perspective that we project for the years to come. And we've done that, we'll come back to that, with very limited price erosion. The second growth driver, as you know, is Spotfire, a point of care system. So what I'd like to highlight here is a very significant improvement of the installation rate, 110%. We've installed 3400 instruments in 2025, with the successful launch of the nasal swab in the US in the summer. The third growth driver is microbiology, where we have a very strong leadership position. As you know, we've been impacted by the decline in China. Excluding China, we've managed to grow 6.3%. We are very satisfied actually with the instrument's growth in the region of 14% in 2025, growing 14% in 2025 versus 2024, so demonstrating a very strong momentum for microbiology solutions moving forward, and an additional 2% price increase in microbiology, which is also a very positive factor. Finally, industrial applications. What I'd like to highlight is a very strong performance on the pharma segment, where our launches are demonstrating a very strong impact in the market, and our pharma sales growing mid-teens, again, very strong level of reaction for the future, together with 2% point of price increase. Now the two additional areas of sales that are not growth drivers, but we still obviously monitor very carefully. Respiratory panels, we've actually managed to grow 1%, building on very strong performance already in 2024. the epidemiology was broadly in line distributed differently between quarters but broadly in line for the full year between 2025 and 2024 what is uh making us very positive on this one is again very limited price erosion below two percent and of course the install base increase that i was mentioning will also benefit the respiratory panels for the future In immunoassays, we've been struggling with immunoassays franchise, as you know, in the last couple of years. Minus 6% in 2025. A positive factor that I wanted to highlight here is the Vidas Cube, a new system for Vidas that we have launched now a couple of years ago. It's growing very nicely. There are replacements, obviously, there, but mid-teen sales growth in instruments in 2025. demonstrating that we are actively managing the replacement of the whole virus in the market. So, those are the comments on the top line. If we look at the bottom line, 16% as I was commenting, improvement of Cellbit. Together with the 6% of sales, so definitely a significant operating leverage, we are deploying a good 28 initiatives. We are progressing on the automation with regards to manufacturing costs, reaching 40% of the pouches fully manufactured now on the automated lines, which is good news, bad news, but the good news is we keep improving and we still have an opportunity to grow this in the next years and further improve our costs with regards to biofire and spot fire pouches. We are also progressing in M&D, following the decision to close the Sandro Desai, we are moving forward with having one unified team for microbiology and we are progressing also with the transformation of a global customer service that we translate into a better service to our clients and efficiency improvement. Overall, we've increased our account around 2% in 2025, so to be compared with the 6% sales growth that we are posting. Finally, on 2025, I wanted to give you an update on a very significant progress on a CSR agenda. We are actually for nearly all KPIs, either at or above target. I'd like to highlight especially the CO2 greenhouse gas emissions that has been reducing close to 30% since 2019, while our sales have been growing 50% since 2019, so a very significant improvement, and we're talking absolute emissions, which by the way, I'll come back to that, will lead us to preview and upgrade our CSR ambition for the years to come. So before handing over to Guillaume, we'll give more granularity on the information on the financial performance. It's been two years now that we've communicated a Go28 plan, so it's a good opportunity to step back after two years. So if we look at the different dimensions of the Go28 ambition, after two years we've been growing sales 8% on average in the last two years. So significantly, very much in line with the plan. We've grown the head base by 20% in 2024, 16% in 2025. So overall, an improvement of 260 basis points versus 2023, very much in line. In terms of team engagement, we wanted to be the top quartile of the industry at the end of 2025. A new engagement survey shows we're in the top 5% of the industry, and as I said, I want to come back to that, 29% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions versus 2019, very much in line with the ambition to reduce by 50% by 2030. So with this, I hand over to Guillaume. We share with you more insights on 2025. Thank you, Pierre. Hello, everyone.

So let's look at our financial performance. Pierre already explained very well the commercial dynamics of our different ranges. So you see actually a wrap-up on this page. The only thing I can highlight is that BioFire overall, without SpotFire, represents 37% of our total sales as our first product range. And we take everything together, grew 5% in 2025. And of course, our second range is Microbiology, which represents 33% of group sales. Now looking at maybe some colors by geography on the next page, So, North America grew an organic plus 8%. Of course, it's our first region for spot fire, so fueled by spot fire super high growth. Also, very good performance of industrial applications in North America, as well as non-respiratory panels. Latin America, as you can see, is super dynamic, quite a stunning plus 18% organic growth. And it's actually very solid on all product lines in this region. EMEA delivered a 5% organic growth in 2025. We can see notably a double-digit growth of BioFire non-respiratory. And I remember we always have questions on the internalization, meaning outside of the U.S., the push outside of the US for BioFire, so I think this is also pretty visible here in the figures. In EMEA, we should mention a solid performance of industrial applications, as well as microbiology being a mid-single digit. Asia-Pacific, maybe let's stand there, had a contrasted overall 1.5% organic. Really contrasted because, of course, we discussed China all over the year. Just to remind everyone, China declined. So for us, minus 40% is a market downturn with a lot of pressure from authorities to decrease the spend of hospitals, which actually translated in our field, which is mainly microbiology in China, in a volume decline in 2025. So down 14% in China, but very dynamic actually in Asia Pacific outside of China, plus 11% overall. We can mention India, which is 12%, so both double digits. And of course, Japan, which is now delivered above 30% organic growth. in 2025 with great success of BioFire and SpotFire, noting that there was the exceptional instrument sales of SpotFire in Q1, but yet a great dynamic in this country. With that, let's turn to the P&L. So with 6% organic on the top line, we have delivered a solid improvement in gross margin. You can see 8% like-for-like growth of gross margin, which is actually a 90 bps improvement in the margin itself on the like-for-like basis. How do we explain that? We have a product mix effect. As you saw, we had a higher share of BioFire, SpotFire, which I remind everyone is a slightly higher margins than the rest of the group. And we also have in gross margin a number of Go28 efficiency that Pierre illustrated earlier that improved our cost of goods sold. We had notably really nice procurement savings in 2025 and supply chain international transport savings. And this is all despite the impact of tariffs, which we had in H2, of course, in this gross margin part. Below, we have the SG&A in, let's say, I should say, at plus 4%. That also includes some of our Go28 efficiency initiatives, and you had examples earlier from Pierre. R&D is up 3% on the like-for-like basis, so we continue to invest strongly in R&D at 12.5% of total sales. and we deliver innovation, and yet we have innovation powerhouse initiatives to make R&D more efficient overall. So SEBIT, our main indicator, is a contributive EBIT, is up 16% like for like, as Pierre said. SEBIT margin, as you can see, improves to 17.9% on a reported basis. which you can break down as 160 basis point improvement on the like-for-like, FX and scope compare, constant, plus impact of foreign exchange, which was actually a negative 33 million euro, due to the strength of the euro currency against many other currencies. We'll come back to FX later in this presentation. And also a second effect, which is the effect of acquisitions, mainly the impact of Spinship, in which we invest a lot of about 20 million euros. So all together, we publish 100 basis points of margin improvement on the reported basis. With that, turning to the rest of the P&L. So the operating income, the reported one, was impacted by biotech reveal impairment that we had already reported and explained in the first half this year. Just to remind, it's lower than expected commercial start of this fast AST product. Yes, we still believe in this product. We believe there are high unmet medical needs on this product and we continue to invest. But we also decided in H2 to close the site of San Jose of specific reveal and to combine the teams under our microbiology franchise in St. Louis in the US. And we took the associated charges, let's say impairment and restructuring charges that you see in the non-recurring line for 40 million euros. Our net financial results improved from minus 9 to plus 4. This was mainly linked to the positive impact of Euro increase on our internal cash flow, so more technical topics. Income tax is at 24.5% effective tax rate, down from 26% last year, but very stable when you look at the recurring part of effective income tax rate. And so overall our net income group share reported is down 8% due to the revealed impairment and associated charges. We have decided with the board to publish for the first time an adjusted net income and therefore an adjusted EPS. We decided that to align with market practice and actually some of our investors were asking for that. So basically, the adjusted net income excludes the amortization of acquired intangibles and the non-recurring, but we are very tight on the non-recurring. So with that, adjusted net income and adjusted EPS is up 9% in 2025. By the way, the decision of the board is to propose a dividend to be voted at the AGM of 0.98 euros per share, which is exactly a 9% increase in line with the increase of the adjusted EPS. Turning to free cash flow, and Pierre said it earlier, we had a really strong free cash flow generation in 2025, up 40% at 462 million euros. Driven first by an increase in EBITDA, pretty close to a billion of EBITDA for BioMario now, 960, up 5%. Working capital was a negative consumption of 66 million. linked to mainly activity actually, a small increase of inventory, almost 30 million increase of receivables. So we collected better when we look at days or overview, we collected better from our customers, but of course we had a higher activity at the very end of the year. So at the end of the year, it is higher receivables. And in other working capital, we had more, in 2025. Tax, so I commented on the P&L tax with no major change of the tax rate. On the cash tax, there is a major positive impact of the changes of US tax regulation. It's a bit technical, but basically more acceleration of R&D expense deduction, which drives significantly lower tax payment in the US in 25 and probably more of the same in 26 and then it will come back to more normal in 2027. In terms of capex, we will zoom on it in the next page, but 328 million euros and 8% of sales. So overall, 462, again, free cash flow that you saw, you see, we invested about 155 in business development and financing activities. So business development was a Spinship, Neoprospecta and Desiro Diagnostics acquisition. And overall, Bayou Mérieux turned now officially into a net cash positive situation on the balance sheet at 108 million euros net cash. With that, we wanted to give you a zoom on CAPEX. So this 328 million euros is split just to remind everyone between about two thirds in what is the usual Manufacturing CapEx, as you can see, which supports capacity increase for future growth. Automation, that Pierre mentioned for especially the manufacturing automation in Salt Lake City. And we saw internalization. You see here I have a photo of our ongoing work of a new building in Marcy, so in Lyon, for enzyme manufacturing that were previously built outside. One third of our capex is actually instrument placement. So it means it's our investment to put instruments, let's say, for free, more or less, at our customers, of course, with a slightly higher reagents price. That was a total of 110 million euros in 2025. M&A, so we have announced earlier, and it's an opportunity to discuss a bit more, the acquisition in January of Acelix. a company which strengthens our offering in the pharma quality control segment for the cell and gene therapy market. And we believe it will address new applications and unmet needs in this market. It's basically a point of need, so it's not like clinical where we say point of care, here we say point of need instruments. which delivers an automated result in less than 30 minutes with lab-like quality. It will be used in cell engine therapy both upstream to send the patient blood into production and downstream to verify the success of the operation and thus release the batches. It's a company that we knew. We've been working with them since 2021. We had a minority investment and the targeted distribution of their products. We believe this product range will serve as an accelerator for the Pharma Quality Control franchise inside our Go28 plan and even beyond. you see the price that we paid, about 45 million for 100% value of the company. And it should be basically around 20, 29, around 20 million euro sales and break even by that year. And with that, I hand over back to Pierre.

Thank you Guillaume. So it's now a moment to talk a little bit about 2026 outlook and of course key product launches to start with. So beyond Axelix that we are excited to launch to the Pharma customers, we are finalizing, following the acquisition of Spinship, the CE filing, CE marked, we expect by the end of the year that we can do a commercial launch, end of the year, Q4 26, maybe Q1 27. We also wanted to update you on the fact that we have initiated already the clinical study in the US, so that we have the objective, as we said at the time of the acquisition of Spinship, to be The second big launch that we expect in 2026 relates to Spotfire. It's a bit of a strategic launch for us because it will be the first time we go into women's health with vaginitis. It will also be an opportunity to expand the use of the Spotfire platform beyond respiratory and source routes. The plan is to file during the summer so that we, again, depending on the length of the regulatory review, we can launch at the end of 2026, early 2027. Last piece of launch, we had Spotfire available in Europe with what we call the Hyplex panel for respiratory and source fluids. We are expecting to have in H1 2026 the CE marking for the low-plex panel, five targets, that will allow for European customers to address new opportunities and to use this point-of-care solution with a lower-plex panel. And for instance, in France, we had in February a new decree that allows to do a point-of-care testing under certain conditions for certain diseases, and the financing is verified, but it's now regulatory approved to have those panels used outside of the hospital and the labs. So guidance for 2026, we plan to grow between 5 and 7%, so around 6%, with an improvement of the EBIT of at least 10%. And if we go to the details of the performance, we expect non-ERP to grow around 10%. building on the cross-selling and the out-of-US expansion, knowing that we are at the end of 2025, we've been growing the non-airplanes 13%, so very much since 2023, so very much in line with the guidance. For Spotfire, we expect to grow our sales by between 40% and 60%, which is very much in line with the trajectory that we have to reach 450 million euros by 2028. Microbiology, we expect to go between 3 and 5% with China still declining but softer than what we experienced in 2025. We're expecting mid single digit China decline that will also come together with a high comparison basis in terms of new instruments. As I said, in microbiology, we grew new instrument sales by 14% in 2025. In the trio applications, very much in line with the plan, between 7% and 9% sales growth. Moving on to respiratory panels, we are actually expecting between minus 3% and plus 3% evolution. Knowing that we had a very strong Q1 2025, so we have a very high comp basis, we were, just to remind you, we were growing 21% of respiratory sales in Q1 2025. So to keep in mind, for those of you who look at quite early evolutions, Q1 26 is expected to be very much impacted by this. In immunoassay, minus 5 to 0 and still a little bit of the same story of PCT and China decline. And finally, last but not least, we expect currency effects to have an impact on the Estimate at this stage and we update on a regular basis during the quarterly calls is 50 to 60 million euros negative impact. So I leave Guillaume to give you a bit more color on this one. Thank you Pierre.

So we try to update you on our ethics exposure and we know it's a complex topic. So as you all have in mind, we have a very high exposure to US dollar on revenues, on revenues. but much smaller net of cost on the SEBITs because we have a high cost base in the US. We try to give, and again it estimates of course, the impact of a 5% variation versus the Euro on the SEBIT and it's, for example, on US dollar you can see that if you compare US to India exposure, it's 12 times more US than India on the revenues, but it's only three times more on the SEBIT. So keep in mind that we are much more sensitive to the rest of the world than the US. And now beyond this theoretical variation, we try to give you a bit of a view On the right, on where the current rates, depending on the current cities or the current rates for the spot ones, or the forward rates for the more variable, volatile currencies, versus the 25 average, so you see the changes, and therefore how it translates into a forecasted FX impact. Bear with me, there are estimates. So the total today is actually pretty negative, very negative, due to the really, really high Euro currency strengths against most of the world. And so a guidance which we estimate today between minus 50 and minus 60 million. As Pierre said, we will do our best to update regularly these figures during the year.

Thank you Guillaume, and as we have now, as I was sharing earlier, we are two years into the plan, we felt it was a good opportunity to give you an update on Go28 ambition. So first of all, I mentioned the CSR new ambitions and milestones. We are very much in line, in some cases, above the plans that we articulated before. So we decided, especially on two pillars of our CSR ambitions to review at once the ambition. So on the planet side, what we want to do is to expand beyond scope 1 and 2, which is, as you know, very much the control zone of the companies. We wanted to add a target with regards to scope 3, which is the CO2 emissions of our suppliers and our clients. So we'll work on helping them to reach minus 35% by 2034. And we've added, it was approved by the board, a CO2 net zero objective by 2050, including scopes 1, 2, and 3. On the health side, we wanted to strengthen the dimension of accessibility in our CSR ambition, so we wanted to make sure that for antimicrobial resistance impact, we are capable to improve for low and Middle-income countries, the results that we provide, as you know, in those countries, there are significant challenges with antibiotics resistance. We want to make sure that biomeric solutions are well available there. As well as, we've increased the coverage of antibiotics from 80% to 90%, because it's very relevant, again, in the spirit of making sure that antibiotics resistance is well managed everywhere in the world. so that's for the csr ambition with regards to the more financial ambition by building on the performance 24 25 and the guidance that we gave for 26 we are very comfortable to confirm the ambition in terms of sales growth seven percent on average between 2023 and 2028 for the 8-bit improvement we've uh We said we would grow at least 10% every year. So for the years to come, based on what we've already initiated in the context of the efficiency program that we have, we are also very comfortable to confirm at least 10% every year. Now with regards to the margin improvements, as you can see, when you put together 2024, 2025, and 2026, we are almost, after three years, at the level of 340 basis points improvement versus 2043. So we have upgraded to around 500 basis points to be reached by 2048. I remind you, add constant exchange rates, add constant scope. And this is pretty much what we wanted to share with you before we go into the Q&A session.

If you wish to ask a question, you may ask in two ways, by submitting a written question in the box below the player or by joining the conference call and dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. The next question comes from Kavya Deshpan from UBS. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I've just got two, please. So first is just looking at your group organic questions. revenue growth guidance and comparing it to the flu headwind you've estimated in a very weak respiratory scenario. Is it fair to say that bottom end of your 5% to 7% range is driven mostly by the flu? And in that case, you would expect no underlying slowdown in the rest of the business. And then just also on your EBIT guidance. So you're guiding in line with your Go28 plan for at least 10% organic EBIT growth, even though the floor of the top line guidance is a bit lower at 5%. Would you be able to share the levers that you have that give you confidence you can sustain that level of profitability, especially if we do end up at sort of the lower end of the revenue guide because of weaker flu and lower contribution from high margin RP sales? Thank you.

Yes, so on the top line, definitely respiratory season It's a decrease and it's visible in the stats in January. And again, as Pierre said, we are comparing to Q1 2025, which was a high comp basis for respiratory. So, yes, when we look at our guidance and the range between five and seven percent, the main element that could change between the lower or higher performance in this range is definitely the strength of the respiratory season, which we have to remember is actually throughout the year. Yes, we see January and February lower than last year. I mean, it varies quite a lot. Two years ago, we were surprised by strengths in Q2, Q3. Last year, October, November were pretty low, and then December, super, super high. So, yeah, let's see throughout the year, overall, and that's what we, let's say, try to take in our assumptions, as you could see on RP between minus 3 and plus 3, depending on the full year. On EBIT guidance, thank you for the question. Yes, definitely we commit to, we want to confirm, we commit to the at least 10% organic SEBIT growth with sales that can be between plus 5 and plus 7. So even with plus 5, it's more difficult, but even with plus 5, we would commit to plus 10. Why do we feel confident? Because of our Go28 plans. As said and as illustrated by Pierre, we have quite a lot of initiatives ongoing, efficiency improvements that we believe we can push and that we'll continue to deliver in our third year of Go28 in 2026.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Isiah Noor from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon, Pierre and Guillaume. Thanks for taking my question. My first one is on BioFire, specifically the 1800 placements you made in 2025. This number was strongly ahead of your 2024 number of 1,350. We know that your European competitor also launched a multiplex system in the U.S. in mid-2024. So could there be a dynamic here where you lost some customers to this competitor last year, and they've now come back because those one-year contracts have run out? I'm just trying to understand if the 450 run rate per quarter for BioFire is sustainable for 2026, or if there were any one-off dynamics here. My second question is on the flu season. So your U.S. competitor has called out a 20% decline in respiratory sales for the first quarter. Does that sound realistic to you? I understand you don't guide on quarters, but given the flu volatility, it would be great to get your insights here. And then my third question is on China. You are guiding to a mid-single digit decline in 2026. How does this compare between the immunology and microbiology business? And what gives you confidence that the decline is due to a weak market and not market share loss to local competitors? I ask this because some of your Chinese or some of the Chinese IVD companies are forecasting positive growth in 2026. Thank you.

Thank you, so I can start with the first two ones, and maybe we can, together with Guillaume, answer the third one. So the 1800 installation that we've seen, I remind you it's a net, so it's between the tenders we lose and the tenders we win. Very strong performance, but we are not seeing what you are suggesting, i.e. customers would have left in 2024 and come back in 2025. What we're seeing is it's either new customers or customers who increase capacity in terms of testing units in their labs. So it's primarily a signal of competitiveness, I would say, of other solutions in the context of competition that you're describing. So for us, now we don't project, you know, It also depends on the market dynamics. We don't divestimate that, you know, in terms of installations from one year to another. But it's definitely a positive, and as I said earlier, a positive signal on our capacity to grow cells from biofire in general is to make sure. Flu season... Yeah, it's complicated to comment on the impact of the flu season in the middle of the flu season, but for sure, as Guillaume was alluding to, we're seeing, especially in the US, a level of flu season which is below what we've seen in 2025, and I think we should account for that. And by the way, very similar when you look at the The data from the CDC website is very similar to the 23-24 respiratory season. Probably mimics this. So this is what we're looking at. But of course, when we publish the results, 4Q1 will be in a position to share more perspective on what the flu season looks like. 4Q1. And finally, on China. Maybe two words. As you know, it's mostly microbiology in China. We are not seeing a significant shift in market share. To be honest, it's really market decline. By the way, We've also seen, if you look at the Q4 results, China declining around 5% mid-single digits. So very much in line with the projections for 2026. We're seeing the stabilization of the market, but unfortunately still declining with the single digits. So as we speak, this is what we plan for 2026. I don't know, Guillaume, if... Thank you very much.

Just on the majority of cells, as Pierre mentioned, it's actually 90%, 9-0 microbiology. So it's really vast majority microbiology versus immunoassay in China.

The next question comes from Rashid Anwar from INFI. Please go ahead.

Let's move to the next.

The next question comes from Hugo Solveit from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. It's Hugo on 4DCS. Just on pricing, please, to get a bit more details, what does the FY26 guide imply for respiratory, non-respiratory, and Have you seen also reagent pricing getting worse probably sequentially in Q4, Q1 given replacement cycle competitions and competitors launching products? And second, on immunoassays, when do you think would be a realistic timeline for the business to go back to growth again? Thank you.

Thank you, Hugo. So the first question is easier than the second one. The first question, pricing erosion, basically for respiratory panel, which is the most competitive panel, we have a price erosion which is below 2%. In 2025, for non-respiratory, it's below 1%. It's been, I mean, as you follow us, it's been very stable, actually, in the last couple of years. So we don't expect... significant degradation on this front. And beyond BioFire, on Micrology or Industry applications, we are working on pricing improvements in the same order of magnitude that we've seen in 2025. So that's for the pricing questions. With regards to immunosays coming back to flat, actually 2.4 was better. It's only one quarter. It's also, we're still suffering the, even though it's, we are still suffering the PCT decline, even though it's 17% of immunosuppressants. less than in the past, but it's still there. And it's still impacting us in China. So we have those two headwinds. So as I said, our guidance is minus 5 to 0. So we're still seeing a realistic option to stabilize sales for amino acids in 2026. But a midpoint, if you wish, for amino acids is minus 2.5.

Next.

The next question comes from Jan Koch from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I would like to try my luck with the flu season again. Could you help us with the phasing of your sales guidance in 2026? So is it fair to assume that sales growth in H1, and especially in Q1, is below the lower end of your sales guidance, given the tough comms? And then secondly, on the planned launch of the vaginitis panel and the point of care market, could you speak a bit about the size and the dynamics of this market and how does your test compete with existing solutions? And if I remember correctly, your midterm targets for spot fire only include RP cells. So should we assume that cells from vaginitis come on top of your targeted number? And then lastly, on syndromic testing, one of your competitors has recently received FDA clearance for a GI panel. which detects 11 different pathogens. Since your panel is able to test for 22 targets, I'm wondering how important are these additional 11 targets you have which your competitors does not have?

On the phasing of sales guidance, so definitely not balanced, because the comparative basis is not balanced. We had a very strong Q1 last year, so a very high comp basis in Q1. So obviously Q1 should be lower than the full year guidance, of course. And then Q2, Q3, Q4, we will see in these quarters, but should be higher than the average overall. That's very clear. Point of care, maybe the prospects, Pierre?

Yeah, vaginitis and isensis troponin, so what we have said is when we get very close to the launch, at the time of the launch, we'll probably update the market on the expectations in terms of sales, in terms of market share, giving a sense of how our products compare with the competition. Obviously, it's also depending upon the label that we get from the regulatory authorities. So, as soon as we are ready to launch, we'll share with the market the perspective. We don't expect a significant impact for Spotfire. GI panel, I was not sure I was fully getting the question, because there are a number of GI panels in the market, actually. What we've done, last year, actually, what we did in 2025, is we launched a mid-flex, targets panel on GI, and we have a 22 panel for IORCLEX when we need to have, when the doctors want to have a more comprehensive review of the potential pathogens. So we believe we have the portfolio for GI that allows to to address the competition. Yeah, that's basically what I can share on the GI panel. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Yann. Next.

The next question comes from Natalia Wester from RBC. Please go ahead.

Hi there, thanks for taking my questions. The first one on microbiology, you reported double digit growth in blood culture, reagent sales, and mid-teen sales growth in instruments. How much of these are coming from competitive wins? And are you able to provide more detail on the wider market environment for blood culture, and if there's been a change to the lower utilization that you reported previously? And then the second question, just on that 3% to 5% microbiology guidance, do you see this as conservative given the 8% growth that we saw in Q4? And how much of that range is dependent on China performance specifically? And then finally, on Spotfire, on your 900 placements in Q4, have these predominantly been driven by McKesson versus those in hospital settings? and are you able to provide an update in terms of what you're seeing in the uptake of 5 versus 15 Plex panels? Thank you.

Okay, so let me start with, thank you, good afternoon, let me start with microbiology questions. So yes, we are very pleased with the good dynamics in terms of instruments, which we believe confirm Leadership that we have taken in microbiology, there is within those numbers competitive ways to be transparent. of all the instruments, so we don't communicate or share exactly what is the split, but it's definitely good dynamics in terms of future reagent growth. The 3 to 5% guidance, you're right, we did actually a very strong performance in Q4 with 8% growth. But there was a little bit of a rebalance with China, which was declining less. And also, as I said, very strong instrument sales that we don't expect to happen again. So we are very comfortable with a 3-5% guidance for microbiology. That's what we believe we should see in 2026. Finally, Spotfire placements, 900 installations, Guillaume?

So, overall in the US, for the US part, yes, the majority About two thirds were actually driven by McKesson. You see we put on the slide that in terms of installation, we put on the slide that in terms of sales, the indirect channel is now 60%. It grew very nicely. It's a successful partnership. It grew very nicely, this part, in 2025. And I think the second part of your question, if I heard correctly, was about the mix effect inside Spotfire. We have now a balanced sales, 50-50, between the 5-plex and the 15-plex, with, therefore, a growth of the share of 5-plex in 25.

Okay.

The objective, please.

Sorry, just to follow up on the microbiology blood culture as well, whether you're seeing an improvement in utilization there.

Sorry, your question is, do we see a degradation, an improvement? Yeah, it's true. As you know, I think you probably refer to the... closing the acquisition of BD. Obviously, we're watching it, and it's a bit early because they've just closed, so we see what's the impact from a commercial perspective with regards to new deals. But as we speak, we're seeing very much the continuity of BD. Very strong performance. Just to highlight, 8% growth in microbiology. I mean, I don't think we have the details for BD, but I think they've communicated a decline of diagnostics business by 10% in Q4. So we see the performance, even though we are disappointed with the overall performance in 2025 in microbiology, which, as you know, is below initial guidance. We're seeing it as a actually very positive, competitive evolution in the market.

Thank you.

Okay, moving to some online questions. So we have four questions from Christophe Gannet from Odo. Inflation of personal cost, what should be the most likely pace of evolution for 2026? What is the level of price effect on filmarray Q4 and full year? And the last one, can we have an update on saving the efficiency plans in terms of million euros and what is the rest of the journey? So, I can take some of those. Thank you, Christophe, Raphael. So, inflation of personal cost. So, basically, with our global footprint and, of course, more weight of U.S. and France, we see kind of... average, we call it merit increase, or I think inflation of personal cost, around 3.5% to give you an idea. To come back to the other questions, the level of price effect on the film array, so as we said earlier, and just to repeat, on the respiratory panels, we see a price erosion below 2%, and that has been There's no significant acceleration on the quarter. It's a regular and consistent trend. And on non-respiratory, the price erosion is actually very minimal. It's below 1%. Savings and efficiency plans linked to Go28. So actually, we've never reported in million euros. As we said from the start, we measure it through our SEBIT margin increase. You saw that, as Pierre said, after two years and when we had our target of 26, we will have likely delivered the 340 basis points of organic margin improvement that we were targeting in three years instead of five. So as Pierre stated, we have actually logically increased the five-year target to 500 basis points organic improvement versus 340. So we still have, it's also to be very clear, it's not the end of the journey after very well delivering in 2020. We still have a lot of topics ongoing. Some of our initiatives have delivered earlier than expected. I'd like to mention in 2025 the procurement savings. We gave quite a number of millions delivered in 2025. Some of those were ahead of our plans. There are other topics that are more, let's say, going to produce their effects in 26, even some in 27. And we have plans even, I can tell you, for initiatives that are in the making, that have preparation steps in 26, that will actually deliver full year in 28. So with that, I would say rest assured that we still have a number of positive effects from Go28 plans that are to come in this 500 basis point improvement.

And the install base of BioFire is 28,500, right? End of 25.

One question from Arnaud Cadart, CIC. What about the recent decree authorizing the point of care testing in France?

What are the business opportunities for BioMérieux and what could be the update? Yes, it's a very recent development, very French. It's a very recent development where we're seeing, and that's good news, good news for the patients, good news for the business, that there is now in France a decree that allows to do point-of-care testing. So it's organized, it depends on the disease, it also depends on the settings. It's very regulated in an organized way, but still allows to do testing outside of the lab. Obviously spot fire is impacted, but also a screen chip for myocardial infection could be authorized. the respiratory test, especially for elderly patients, in the houses for elderly patients. So, those opportunities are opening, The decree was published, I think, two weeks ago, so we still need to work together with the clients on what it means. And it sometimes happens in France. It's authorized, but it's not funded. So there is a funding mechanism to also organize and refine. So we are working on it. But it's very positive news that the market is opening outside of the U.S. and Japan to point-of-care testing. So we'll see how it goes. Another question from Arnaud.

What does to expect in 2026 at the SEBIT level from the recently acquired company? It was around minus 20 million in 2025. So basically the companies acquired in 25 and especially Spinship, which is a major one, was in January 2025. So it's now embedded as an organic contribution in 2026. So it's fully embedded in our figure and in the target of plus 10% organic in 2026. The one that will be on the scope change is actually ACIDX, which will be a loss for the first year, probably a few billion euros of losses contribution in 2026. I remind you, we have said that we would target a breakeven in 2029. Okay, one question, two questions from Charles from Barclays. The first one is on the biofire non-respiratory panels with the increase in competition in the US, will the recent launches of the GI mid and water fire panels be sufficient to maintain double digit growth? as the install base matures. This is the first question. The second one is on tariffs and pricing. So we are projecting for 2026 negative currency impact of minus 50 to minus 60 million euros on CDIP. We assume the 15% U.S. tariff rate, and we mentioned the procurement savings in full year 2020. So, the question is, could you elaborate on the mitigating actions being explored to protect margins, and to what extent price increase could be further leveraged in a more cautious, cost-effective spending environment?

I think the first one, you will take the second one. For non-expiratory planners, so basically, you're right to say that The recent launches of GI-Limit and Watchfire are not going to be sufficient to maintain double-digit growth. And I mentioned we've actually grown the install base by 7% in 2025 only. So the main driver for growth is actually not market share, it's market growth. We expect the market on non-respiratory panels to keep growing, be it meningitis, be it blood culture infection, be it GI. pneumonia. So all those markets are growing actually faster than respiratory panels. We are the only ones with such a broad menu of panels. Best competitors are 3 to 4 panels, we have 7. So we keep working on cross-selling, expanding the market, and the growth of the install base, which is again 7% in 2026 versus 2025.

Tariff pricing, actually there are a lot of sub-questions in this question. So I think FX impact we give visibility. Tariffs we have not discussed, so thank you, it's a good opportunity. The impact in 2025 was approximately 10 million, 11 million exactly in our P&L of additional US tariffs that we had to pay, mainly in H2. What we see for 2026 and that we have embedded in our guidance is about a bit more than double that, 24 million euros. This impact is after the negotiation with our suppliers who take their own share and we take ours. But it's before the effects of price increases. which are not specific to tariffs, of course. On price increases, just to mention that we have, as Pierre said earlier, you know that where we can push on price is in microbiology and industry applications. It's not easy, but we are disciplined to do that. Around 2% in microbiology and industry applications in 2025. And we should be ballpark in the same target. in 2026. And then there are many other, let's say, actions on the margin improvement. We call them efficiency improvements. It's part of our Go Simple pillar of Go 28. And as I mentioned earlier, they are part of the margin improvement that we have in our guidance and that we have even improved for the 2028 target to 500 basis points over the five years. Okay, moving to the live question. That should be a question.

The next question comes from Philip Omnu from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks for taking my questions. Can I just ask, given your net cash position, can you share an update on your cash allocation priorities and then how are you thinking about opportunities for larger scale M&A? And then my second question, Maybe going back to your comments on the margin, if we just think about the bridge for 26, how should we think about that balance of margin improvement coming from operating leverage or mix and cost efficiencies?

So I can start with the capture location in M&A. Basically our strategy is very much to continue what we've been doing, i.e. we call it bolt-on acquisitions. strong balance sheet, so we are looking at companies that bring differentiated solutions, that support a core business, and that's very much the continuity of what we are very much in that spirit. And Guillaume mentioned it, we are going to increase our dividends by 9%, which is also to give cash back to the shareholders. So it's the other element that we mentioned, capital allocation. With regards to 2026 margin improvements,

So it's actually mainly a cost efficiency initiative on top, of course, of volume growth and the scale effect that comes with it. We'll see on the mix, but when you look at it overall, especially with ERP, that could be, again, around neutral. It's not the mix effect that drives margin improvement. It's mainly our own initiatives. And let's say, yeah, proper cost management and cost control. Great. Thanks, Jeff. Okay. One question from Maya Pataki. Hello, Maya. On the Virgin IT panel, can you share how it compares to what is in the market now and how should we think about the pace of uptake?

What's the biggest difficulty with the rollout? So it's too early to share the details of the vaginitis panel and when we get closer to first of all the filing and then the approval we'll share more details. But what I can share is we We're excited actually with the Vaginitis pilot because it will be an opportunity to leverage the very unique features of Spotfire outside of respiratory and source-road. So we expect time to result to be very competitive and we expect the Plexin capacity of Spotfire to bring an additional differentiation to what exists in the market. So time to result, point of care, Plexin capacity, You know, we like to launch products that are differentiated, so we'll come back to that, but we expect to launch a differentiated solution in the field of agilities.

Okay, and with that, we can close the call. So we'll be on the road next week, so we will have the opportunity to meet with some of you. And our next call will be on April 23rd to comment the Q1 sales performance. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.