Merck Kgaa

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Merck Investor and Analyst Conference Call on the fourth quarter 2023. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. I am now handing over to Konstantin Vest, Head of Investor Relations, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Heidi, and a very warm welcome to this Merck Full Year 2023 Results Call. My name is Konstantin Fest, I'm Head of Investor Relations here at Merck, and I'm delighted to be joined today by Belen Garrillo, CEO of the group, as well as Helene von Röder, CFO of the group. Also for the Q&A part of this call, we'll be joined by Matthias Heinze, CEO Life Science, Peter Günther, CEO Healthcare, as well as Kai Beckmann, CEO of Electronics. the next couple of minutes we would like to run you through the key slides of this presentation and after that we are happy to take all of your questions in the q a with if i'd like to directly hand over to belen to kick off the presentation over to you thank you constantine and welcome everybody to our full year 2023 earnings call i am on a slide number five

of the presentation and would like to start with some key messages for 2023. First of all, we have landed as expected and delivered on our guidance. Not only that, but we have also delivered to market expectations for fiscal year 2023. I hope you will agree with me that we were confronted with major market headwinds and have operated our business in a very, very challenging environment. In that context, we have shown great resilience with a strong support from our multi-industry business models. As we already mentioned during our Q3 earnings call, the scale with opportunities on one side and the challenges on the other side was tilting more towards the challenges. So we have met our guidance corridors for net sales, EBITDA-free and EPS-free, And this is not only good news, but it reflects our great anticipation of the way the business environment was going to be moving in 2023, but also a very disciplined execution of our plans. Now let's move to the highlights for 2023 in the next slide, slide number six. The strong performance of healthcare partially compensated for the challenges that we had for life science and electronics. Organically, our group sales were down by 2% and Evita pre-declined by 9%. Healthcare was once again the best performer with 9% organic sales growth. This was driven by both our Wave 1 launches, in particular Babencio and Maven Clark, and our fertility franchise. Life science recorded a 2% decline in the core business, driven by continued customer stocking in process solution and a deteriorating macroeconomic environment in China amid a complex SAP migration situation. which impact we already discussed with you in Q3 last year. Against the backdrop of a sharp decline in the COVID-19 business, total sales in life science were down by 8% organically in 2023. This decline also had a negative effect on the EBITDA pre-margin in life science and consequently that of the group. Sales in electronics were down by 5% organically due to the prolonged well-known down cycle in the semiconductors market. All that together with significant currency headwinds and a very small portfolio effect, sales declined by 1.2 billion year on year to 21 billion. while EBITDA pre came in at the 5.9 billion. Once again, within our guidance corridors. Moving on to slide number seven to show you the proposed dividend. As communicated in our press release this morning, we will propose a dividend of 2.20 per share to the General Assembly on April 28th. As you see, this is stable versus last year, speaking of the great confidence that we have on the long-term growth of our business. While it is part of our policy that the current dividend constitutes the minimum level, this assumes a stable economic environment. And as I just laid out, our businesses were confronted with major headwinds and operated in a very challenging environment. Once again, in keeping our dividend stable, we signal strong confidence in our future growth. Let me now provide a bit more color on 2023 on a business-by-business basis, starting with life science on slide number nine. Life science had a transitional year where sales were down by 2% organically in the core. while COVID-related sales declined as anticipated with an additional dampening effect of minus 6%. Therefore, total sales in life science declined by 8% organically. In line with our guidance, COVID-related sales fell from around 800 in 2022 to around 250 million in 2023. Process solution decreased by 8%, mainly contributing to the organic sales decline in the core. Turning to profitability, the EBITDA pre-margin was down to 30%. from a high 36.2% last year, mainly driven by lower volumes and negative mixed effects, mainly due to the decline of the COVID-related sales, which you may remember were highly profitable. Our focus in life science is very clear. We aim to return to growth during 2024 while leveraging our innovative portfolio across our three business units within life science. Process Solutions is a key enabler of next-generation maps manufacturing and the production of novel modalities. Here, we can leverage our know-how to drive life science services in parallel. We bring new solutions to the market, taking a very active role in the era of digitalization of labs and research. In summary, 2023 was a transitional year for life science with significant market hedge wins from non-repeating COVID-related sales coupled with pronounced customer stocking. While book-to-bill was below 1 throughout 2023, it was trending in the right direction in the second half. Underlying market fundamentals remain attractive beyond temporary developments, and we have a strong confidence in the mid-term growth prospects for our business in life science. Moving into healthcare, slide number 10. Sales went up by 8.5% organically, and the EBITDA pre-margin has remained stable at 31.6%. Regarding EBITDA pre, positive effects from stringent cost management and half a year of full Babencio profit repatriation were masked by additional pre-launch costs, and the Evobrutinib termination provision of a high double-digit million amount that Helene will confirm later. Growth in healthcare was driven by our oncology portfolio, which delivered organic growth of 17%, fueled by the continued ramp-up of Babencio as well as Erbitox. Our NNI portfolio, neurology and immunology, remained organically stable with a strong performance of Mavenclad, especially in the U.S., offsetting the expected rebate decline. Our fertility franchise grew by 15% organically due to a strong underlying growth, which was amplified by competitors' stockouts. From a strategic perspective, we are confident that our focused leadership approach is solid and provides a promising basis for long-term growth. While the failure of EVO was no doubt a disappointment, our pipeline continues to have significant potential. In all stages of development, we have compounds with novel mechanisms that could redefine the standard of care in key therapeutic areas like oncology or immunology. Development of CevinaPan is going on. As you know, CevinaPan is our latest stage blockbuster candidate in Cell and Net. And the next step is the interim analysis of the three links study. the Phase III study in unresectable patients who are eligible for treatment with cisplatin. Our TLR7-8 inhibitor Empathoran has reached an important milestone in 2023 by completing the futility analysis in our Phase II program in systemic and in cutaneous lupus. We signed new collaborations and license agreement to increase the optionality of our pipeline. And all in all, we feel pretty solid and good about our positioning in healthcare despite the setback with the . We will remain focused on stringent execution of our strategy to both drive our existing product portfolio and to continue to increase optionality for our pipeline. Moving into electronics and slide number 11, organically sales fell by 5% in 2023, while EBITDA pre-decline by 17%. Our semi-solution business was down 4% organically, yet outperforming the market. Our display solution business saw a sales decline of 9% organically. And this was mainly due to volume losses against high comparables from H1 2022 and price reductions in liquid crystals. Surface solution was down by 4% due to volume declines in automotive coating and industrial pigment demand. The EBITDA pre-margin of electronics landed at 25% with some headwinds from currency. The sales decline in semiconductor solutions driven by semiconductors materials led to underutilization costs and negative mix effects. Display solution experienced increasing price pressure mainly in the liquid crystal business. This affects cost and adverse underlying margin development. Obviously, in this context, we have to take some cost actions to mitigate the impact of this effect on profitability while enabling continued investment in key growth areas. We see in electronics excellent long-term growth prospects. Structural growth drivers such as artificial intelligence, high performance computing, and Internet of Things all demand more materials solution and cutting-edge innovation for the next generation of chips. Our semiconductor materials business delivered two quarters of sequential growth in the second half of 2023. We have also seen the first positive signals in the market Chip inventories are being reduced. Chip pricing is recovering, and we observed an early cycle recovery in leading-edge memory and logic chips. We anticipate sequential quarterly growth across 2024, with H2 expected stronger than H1. To sum up, 2023 was also challenging for electronics due to the prolonged down cycle in the semiconductors market. However, we are convinced that we will emerge stronger from this transitional year. And with that, let me hand it over to Helene for a more detailed review of our financials.

Thank you very much, Belen, and a warm welcome also from my side. For an overview of our key figures for 2023. On a reported basis, group net sales declined by 5.6% to 20.99 billion euros. EBITDA pre was down 14.2% to 5.88 billion euros and EPS pre declined by 15.5% to 8.49 euros per share. The group EBITDA pre margin came in at 28%. which represents a decrease of 280 basis points versus last year's EBITDA pre-margin, which ended at 30.8%. Operating cash flow declined by 11.2% to 3.78 billion, which is down from 4.26 billion last year, and was hence favorable versus EBITDA pre, mainly due to lower networking capital. Trade receivables declined and inventories have remained stable. Overall, we were able to further reduce our net debt by more than 800 million in 2023 to around 7.5 billion euros. So with that, moving on to slide 14 for a summary of our performance by business sector. Now, Belen already walked you through the highlights, so let me just add the following. Healthcare contributed positively to organic sales growth, which was more than offset by organic sales declines, especially in life science, but also in electronics. The organic EBITDA pre-decline was mainly driven by life science, electronics having added to the development. And on top of this, FX was a headwind for all three business sectors, however most pronounced in healthcare. Now, let me also briefly comment on our reported results. So with that, I'm now on slide 15. EBIT was down by 19.3% year-on-year. This was above the decline in EBITDA pre, mainly due to the high level of DNA and restructuring. The financial result improved by 16 million, which was mainly driven by higher yields on cash. The effective tax rate came in at 87%, which is actually below our guidance range of 21 to 23%. This was driven by a non-recurring deferred tax benefit, which occurred in Q4. As we expect our effective tax rate to remain in the guidance corridor going forward, we are actually keeping our guidance range unchanged, which is 21 to 23%. Reported EPS came at 6.49 and 23, which represents a decline of 15.2% year on year. So with that, let's now take a closer look at Q4. Before I go into the details by business sector, let me briefly share some headline figures for the group. Find these in the appendix of the presentation. Organically, Group net sales decreased by 1.7% in Q4. EBITDA pre was down by 13.7%. The disproportionate decline of EBITDA pre was mainly driven by the margin decline in life science. FX headwinds had an effect of minus 6% on group sales and minus 6.5% on group EBITDA pre. So with that, let's take a closer look at our three business sectors. And I'm starting with life science, which you find on slide. Sales in the life science core business were down 4% organically in Q4, while COVID-related sales continued to decline and had an additional dampening effect. Overall, sales in life science declined organically by 9.7% in the fourth quarter. So looking at process solutions first, the core business decreased by 11% organically in quarter four, a slight improvement from the minus 15% in quarter three, further amplified by the COVID-related decline of 8%. The pronounced decline in the core business was mainly driven by customer destocking. Overall, we would describe the situation in process solutions as hoovering around the profs. Now, taking a closer look at science and lab solutions, this was down 2.1% organically, including an immaterial COVID headwind. Demand from pharma companies has remained soft in North America, and the softness in China has intensified since 2003, with the new anti-corruption campaign having added to many of the companies. And on top of that, The SAP migration impacted our science and lab solution business by a residual low to mid double digit Euro million amount in Q4. Turning to our third business, life science services. Sales in the core were up 14% organically, driven by positive project phasing in CDMO. Amid a significant drop off in COVID related sales as expected, Sales in total were down 8% organically. Hibidapri declined 26% organically in the fourth quarter, mainly due to lower volumes and negative mix effects. And with that, let's move to healthcare on slide 17. Healthcare delivered organic sales growth of 9.2% in Q4. Wave 1 launches grew 17% organically, And additionally, the established portfolio was up 7% organically. By franchise, oncology was a star performer yet again at plus 18% organically, which was mainly driven by Bavencio, which was up 17%, Ergotux, which grew 16% organically on a strong performance in China. Fertility also performed strongly again at plus 14% organic sales growth. Our NNI franchise was stable in Q4. Organic EBITDA pre was up 9.6% in the fourth quarter, which is slightly above the organic increase in EBITDA pre amounted to 565 million euros, resulting in a margin of 27.8%. This is 340 basis points below Q4 22 and also 540 basis points below the margin in Q3 23. With that in mind, please remember that the EBITDA pre-margin in Q4-23 was impacted by a provision for the foundation of the Evopruten, a clinical trial program, which was around 95 million euros, while FX also materialized a significant headwind on EBITDA pre with an effect of minus 20.4%. Here, the largest contribution comes from the devaluation of the Argentinian PTO but the December rate was applied for the revaluation within Q4. Besides that, also the US dollar and the Asian currencies had a pronounced effect on EBITDA pre. So let's move to electronics on slide 18. Sales were organically down by 3.2% in Q4, while FX had a negative effect of minus 5%. Semiconductor solutions were down 3% organically, however, outperforming the market yet again. Sequentially, they were up 8%, with both VSNS and semi-materials having contributed to that development. Sales and display solutions declined 4% organically due to price pressure in liquid crystals. Surface solutions fell organically by 6%, on a softer sales in industrials and . EBITDA pre amounted 206 million euros resulting in a margin of 21.8% down from 30.1% in Q4 of last year. And organically EBITDA pre declined minus 25.3% due to unfavorable mixed effects and lower sales in semiconductors as well as negative pricing in liquid crystals. X was also a stronger headwind on EBITDA pre than on sales, having had a minus 6.8% impact. So before handing back to Belen, let me also briefly comment on our balance sheet on slide 19. Our balance sheet is basically stable compared to the end of December 2022. On the asset side, cash and cash equivalents increased, to €2 billion for €1.9 billion at the end of December 2022. Inventories were stable, while receivables decreased to €4 billion from €4.1 billion of the previous year. Property plants and equipment increased, driven by our investment. And last, intangible assets decreased due to amortization as well as effects. Now looking to the liability side, financial debt decreased by around 500 million due to net repayments and pension provisions were up as a result of interest rate changes. Net equity increased thanks to growth and profits after tax, partially offset, however, by negative FX effects. And as a result, our equity ratio strengthened further from 54 to 55%. And with that, Let me hand back to Belén.

Thank you, Helene. Please go with me to slide number 21, where, as every quarter, I'd like to provide a very brief progress update on our sustainability efforts. As part of our non-financial statements in the annual report that we have published this morning, you may have seen already some of the targets, some of the sustainability targets and the progress we have made against those targets. In addition to our focus area of human progress, supply chains, management and diversity, we also report on our environmental targets as regards emissions, green energy, water and waste. And I am pleased to report that we have overachieved our targets to reduce the negative impact of our water use and waste production well ahead of schedule. We managed a 24.8% reduction in our water intensity score in 2023 versus a targeted reduction of 10% by 2025. Our waste score was reduced by 11.5% in 2023 versus the base year 2016, compared with our goal to achieve a 5% reduction. So we have actually delivered twice as much reduction as expected. For this reason, we have decided to replace these targets with new ambitions and please move to slide 22 for more details. As a new environmental target for water, we are introducing the water intake ratio with the goal to reduce our water intake per revenues by 50% by 2030 versus the base year of 2020. On the waste metric, we now are also emphasizing the recycling component and are introducing the circularity rate with the goal of achieving a circularity rate of 70% by 2030. So overall we made significant progress in 2023 and of course remain strongly committed to our sustainability ambitions. now moving into the outlook and guidance please move into slide 24 let me conclude the call with the guidance for 2024 as always at this time of the year we are providing qualitative targets this will be followed by a quantification of these targets as part of our q1 reporting in may overall we confirm our return to organic growth in 2024. For Group Next Sales, we forecast a slight to moderate organic growth. We no longer provide guidance excluding the effect of COVID headwinds. For Group Evita Pre, we also forecast a range from a slight to moderate organic growth. While for sales, we expect adverse currency effects of between zero and minus 3%, we anticipate the slightly more pronounced adverse currency effect on EBITDA pre of minus one to minus four. In the following slide, slide number 25, you will find additional color by business sector. We expect in 2024 different growth dynamics across our three business sectors. These dynamics depend on the speed of recovery of our end markets and our assumptions on other critical business levers that we can discuss during the Q&A. For life science, we anticipate a slight organic decline to slight organic growth, and EvitaPrin arranged from a moderate organic decline to a slight organic growth. And remember, While we no longer provide guidance excluding the effect of COVID headwinds, we expect COVID-related sales to fall to negligible levels in 2024, down from around 250 million in 2023. This means that COVID-related sales will still be a headwind in 2024. of around 2.5 percentage points year-on-year for life science. We expect a gradual recovery of life science in 2024 with the second half of the year anticipated to come in stronger than the first half. Don't forget H1-24 compares against a very high base, especially in process solutions, as the full impact of the customer restocking only became visible to us during Q2 23. Therefore, we anticipate H1 to decline year-on-year. Moving into healthcare, we guide for moderate to solid to solid organic sales growth and low teens organic EBITDA pre-growth. We expect organic sales growth to be mainly driven by Mavenclad, supported by our oncology franchise, as well as by our cardiometabolic and endocrinology product portfolio. Why do we expect a stronger organic growth on EBITDA pre than on sales for healthcare? First of all, the Evobrutinib termination provision of 95 million euros will not repeat. Further, there will be no pre-launch cost for Evobrutinib as in 2023. And as we already mentioned before, the impact on a beta-3 of the loss of Evobrutinib was turning positive in 2024. due to the significant pre-launch course that we have foreseen. And also remember, we will benefit from the first full year of AVENCIO profit repatriation versus only six months in 2023. For the electronics business sector, we anticipate and about a stable organic sales development to moderate organic growth. And for EBITDA Pre, we guide for a moderate organic decline to moderate organic growth. Please note that our guidance is based on a semi-market inflection in early H2 2024. And with this, we will be all very happy to start the question and answer session. Thank you.

Heidi, first question, please. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial star 11 on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment, please, for the first question. Your first question comes from the line of Colin White from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, Colin White from UBS. Two questions from me, please. I was just wondering if you could clarify if the expectation in life sciences for H2 to be stronger than in H1, if that's entirely related to the COVID sales, or if you have any other indication from customers or in the ordering pattern of customers or anything else which gives you confidence in that recovery in the second quarter. And then my second question is related to China. Lower exposure than some of your peers, but obviously it impacted sales this year. I was just interested to get a bit more detail on how you see developments in China playing out for the rest of this year. That's it. Thanks.

Yeah, hi, Colin. It's Mathias. So let me address your two questions on the first one. Indeed, so we are expecting a strong H2 to H1 dynamic. meaning that H1 obviously in sales will be stronger than H1. Why is that? We still have a carryover effect from, if you will, the destocking and when customers will reach their target inventory levels. We expect that, as mentioned by Valente, during H1. And then with a little delay, we see that obviously then translating into sales and then uptake in sales. I can also say that I would expect come H2 and kind of, if you will, the exit period momentum we are building that this will be then more in line with our mid-term guidance. With respect to China, our exposure to China is and has been less than 10% of the entire life science business. Around mid of last year, indeed, we have seen more headwinds given the macroeconomic situation in China. We've seen also some of the impact of the action around the anti-corruption law, et cetera, I would say a lesser impact on the consumable side. As you may know, we have more than 90% of our sales in consumables, very little in equipment. As such, we feel we have seen less of an impact, but nevertheless, given the macro conditions, we have seen a decline in our China sales in Q3, in Q4, and we expect a much more muted environment in 24. Also here with probably a slight uptick in H2 versus H1.

Thanks.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Sophia Gray from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking our questions. On process solutions, can you provide an update on what we're seeing in process solutions order recovery and what gives you confidence that the majority of your customers will reorder in H1 2024? What book to bill have you seen in Q1 so far in January and February? Have you seen any indications of an improvement? And then just also on book to bill, When do you expect process solutions book-to-bill to reach above one in 2024? And based on this, how are you thinking about potential growth in process solutions in 2025?

Hey, very good, Sophia. These are a good set of questions, so let me tackle them one by one. Obviously, we talk about pH. The book-to-bill ratio has been during Q4. These are the actual numbers, flat versus Q3. below one, and we're expecting to see the inflection point in order intake during H1. So then your question is, so what's new now versus what you've seen a few months ago? One additional important data point, we just completed a full customer survey with 200 large and regional customers. Take that as a major input. And the majority of our customers are implying that they've reached their target inventory level during Q2, which is a slight delay versus what we have seen and the results we've seen in prior customer surveys. It's a bit different by customer segment. We're expecting that CDMOs reached the target level a little bit earlier, originators a little bit later. large customers a little bit later, regional customers a little bit earlier, but by and large during Q2. Obviously, you're also asking, okay, what are the early signs in 24, now that we have two months under our belt? I would say the early indicators are solid. We've seen a solid start when it comes to order intake. At the same time, we need a kind of a trend, right? We need to see several months in a row trending in the right direction. But I can clearly say it was a very solid start for process solutions. And then your question on the book to build, how will that play out throughout the year? Look, overall, we're indicating a strong H2 versus H1. We are... We believe that the book-to-bill ratio will be getting to one. When it will crush the one, I would not want to predict today. Could be during the year. I know others are a little more cautious. I would say let's leave that probably for the next call. But we're clearly getting into the range of one. And then your question about PS25, I think we – Another thing, what I said before, applying for life science applies to peers for sure, meaning our exit momentum in 24 in terms of growth rate, which we see in age two, most likely in Q4, will get into the range of our midterm guidance, and that will apply especially also to peers.

Thanks a lot. Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Hayward from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks. Charlie Hayward, Bank of America, on behalf of Sachin Jain. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first is, what do you see the probability of Zivina Pant stopping at interim analysis in second quarter this year? And the second question is, what PADSERV competition is assumed in your guide for 2024? And I guess, how do you see the impact of that competition in later years and your competitive positioning to rebut this? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Charlie. It's Peter speaking. So first on Cervinapant, as you know, it's an event-driven study. EFS is the primary endpoint. And I can tell you that we are, of course, counting the events, and we are now close to the threshold that we need to perform the interim analysis. So we are very confident that in Q2 we will reach that threshold. then obviously you have the database lock, you have the interactions with the IDMC, and so on and so forth. Now, remember that we have not given any probability, any quantification, but we have always said that our base case scenario is that the study will continue, and that we consider the overwhelming efficacy with the interim analysis as an upside scenario. So that's to your first question. On your second question, Pat, look, I don't know if you have seen it, but we have published some very interesting data at ASCO-GU, where basically real-world data demonstrates that if you would start with chemotherapy and Bavencio, so the maintenance therapy, followed in second line by PAPSEV, that those real-world data indicate that you can reach not less than 41 months overall survival from the start of chemotherapy. So we think that is really an important data point. because you also will remember that actually two out of three patients treated with G-truda and PADSEV develop neurotoxicity, and that a large part of these patients will no longer be able to receive chemotherapy as a second-line drug, right? So I think that when physicians start, you know, with the treatment options in first line, you have already to think, what can I use in the second-line drug? And the data that we presented at ASCO-GU have been, in this respect, extremely well received. The second thing I would say, that now that the USPI is available from PADSEF, we see a couple of things that indeed confirm that toxicity of PADSEF should not be underestimated. So treatment-related adverse events that lead to death is 3.9%. Interestingly enough, during the ESMO presentation, that number was 0.9%. Serious treatment-related adverse events, 50%. At ESMO, that number was 27.7%. And treatment-related adverse events leading to discontinuation was 35%. Also remember that pricing and reimbursement discussions in Europe will not only take time, but will be relatively difficult, given the budgetary impact of a combination of Keytruda and PaxEv. And also remember that we believe that, especially in Japan, where the bulk of the patients are treated by urologists, there is a high risk aversion in that market. So I think that the toxicity will remain a hindrance for PADSF uptake in Japan. And we also believe that in the U.S., there will be probably a more rapid uptake in the academic centers compared to the non-academic centers. Last but not least, the U.S. piece of our global Baventure sales is less than 30%, right? So if you take all these things into account, we continue to believe that we will continue to grow the brand. I think we have a lot of interesting data, and I can tell you that our teams are fired up to make sure that the community understands these data. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Falco Frederich from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My first question is on life science. Do you think that order intake and process solutions should be up sequentially in Q1 or should we rather assume that it is flat again before then stepping up in Q2? Then my second question also on life science, given these volatile times in the bioprocessing market caused by the destocking, can you confirm that your market shares have remained where they were or have you won a little bit or maybe lost a bit here and there? And then thirdly, on the science and lab solutions business, can you provide a little bit of an outlook for the North American business and when that might start to recover again this year? Thank you.

Let me take your three questions. Look, on order intake, I don't want to repeat what I said before, right, in terms of infection points, et cetera. I think it would be fair to assume that obviously we will see a sequential improvement throughout the year. I think that's fair to assume. Then your second question around share Look, I would separate China from the rest of the world. So let me start with China. And I think we've talked about that before. During COVID, we, like probably most other players outside China, have capacity constraints. We for sure. And as such, we are limited in supplying our market in China. And as such, local players have gains here. That's a fact, right? I talked to customers when I visited them. That's a fact because they had to continue with their production. Now, the good news is I think we are on our way and have clearly the goals to win back that share through innovation, et cetera. But clearly, I would say in China, we lost share. For the rest of the world, I think give and take, I would not say we have either won share or lost share during the last couple of years during COVID-19. And obviously now the goal going forward is to win share, given that we have now capacity and can tackle the new opportunities. Our science and lab solutions business, I think we will see a bit of a similar dynamic in terms of H1, H2. There we obviously have a broad range from pharma to industrial to academia. As such, we are kind of depending on different trends. If you ask specifically about North America, I would say we will see a gradual improvement in 24, maybe a bit more mute in NH1, and then also an uptick in H2.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Gary Stevenson from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks very much for taking the questions. First one just on the life science outlook again. I guess the guidance really at the midpoint of the qualitative range points to no growth on sales. So given the dynamics you've seen in process and maybe a possible overhang from any sales that might be lost, the SAP migration in SLS, but then the more solid outlook for the smaller LSS business. Could you just help frame how you're thinking about the contribution from those three businesses in 2024? And specifically, do you assume process grows in 2024 when looking at the FY number in CER? And then secondly, just to follow up on Bivencio, you mentioned the 2024 healthcare growth being supported by oncology. So I'm wondering how you're thinking about Bivencio in that. So would you expect Bivencio to grow each quarter through 2024, looking at the global number? Or could 2024 be peak year sales for Bivencio if pressures build there? Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for your question. Let me start with your first one. Obviously, at this point, we are not guiding on a kind of a business level like PS, LSS, and SLS in a more granular detail. What I would confirm is that in PS and especially in SLS, we will see a clear H1, H2 dynamic, more muted in H1, given obviously the factors, more the destocking topic coming to an end for PS in kind of H1. And if you will, a little bit more the China topic for SLS as an input driver. And as I mentioned before, we will see an uptick in H2. LSS, I think, will remain a little bit more volatile. We have seen some strong core growth in Q3, Q4. But here, given the size of the business, we are a little bit more dependent on individual customer batches. Do we get a batch into this quarter or the next quarter? But overall, I think we are also there on a solid trend for 24. So that's kind of the color I can point at this time.

Yeah, hearing your question on Bavencio, look, we are not guiding beyond 2024 today and probably even less on individual products. But I think that the elements we have at our disposal make us confident that there is a lot of good data out there. And what I can confirm again, like I said to the previous question, is that we are confident that Baventio will grow in 2024. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Edward Hall from Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, guys. Ed here from Stifel. Following today's results, I just wanted to get your interpretation of where you stand in regards to the 25 by 25 and what are your core drivers to get there. And then again on the destocking and process solutions, is there any further details from the survey which you could share by subgroup, so cell culture, media, filtration, for example? and in terms of the destock in these subgroups. And then maybe a further question, more abstract, but do you see any impact from ongoing legislative news in the U.S. around Chinese healthcare companies, e.g. Wuxi? Thanks.

Yeah, so why don't I take your question on the destocking first. Look, indeed, we did this with about 200 customers, quite a wide range in terms of In terms of customer type, what we got as a result is that apparently CDMOs are getting closer to the target inventory levels, meaning a higher portion of that customer group will reach the target inventory level by Q2, versus the originators, where that portion is a little bit smaller. These are not huge differences, but give you a bit of a color. And equally, we are also seeing that more regional accounts will reach their target level quicker. In other words, a higher percentage of those customers reach it in Q2. And then by product, yeah, look, I think there are differences, right, between upstream, downstream. I wouldn't call them huge differences. I mean, if you want to get a size range target inventory level, let's say between five and a half and six and a half or seven months, right? And then in some categories it's 5.9 and the other is 5.6. But I would say it's not a huge difference. And then, okay, your other question was around the U.S. regulation. Obviously, we are monitoring about the development, about the framework. What I would say, obviously, I cannot comment on individual companies or even customer names. I think the key takeaway, we are not depending on individual customers or put it in other words, none of our customers has a share of more than 2% to give you lifetime sales. So we are very resilient, we have a very robust, very large customer portfolio. But nevertheless, I mean, we're monitoring and we're certainly dealing whatever the outcome will be of that legislation.

Let me finalize with a 25 by 25 question. You know, we call this ambition in 2021. during our Capital Market Day and since then we have many moving parts and plenty of assumptions making or driving that ambition positively or negatively. The pandemic mostly, you know, the challenges that I mentioned for 2023 have been extremely important on that trajectory. And as you imagine, the teams are mobilized behind that stretch aspiration, as I said, during the capital market stay, and the core drivers would be our main growth healers from the three sectors, so the launches in healthcare, process solution, and semiconductor materials.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Sam Homer from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi there. Thanks for the question. What gives you confidence in semi-recovery now early to H versus prior commentary, which I believe was year end 24? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm taking this one. So what gives us confidence on the early H2 recovery? Looking into our current trading, it gives us confidence that the guidance is correct. Looking at market data, and we are a bit favorable to our kind of peers' guidance on this year. According to our current data, it increases the confidence levels on the trajectory of discovery in the second quarter. in early H2 in 2024 and, of course, turning into a much deeper growth in 2025. That's what we can see from the market. So data confirms that.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Metzger from ODA-BHS. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Oliver Metzger, your line is open. Please ask your question.

Sorry, do you hear me now? Hello?

Yes, you can hear us.

Sorry, muted by coincidence. So good afternoon. My first question is for Kai. So with the same materials, you've seen a better quarter. By now, we also hear some industry comments which sound encouraging. At the moment, to my understanding, it's more price-driven than volume-driven. But can you give us a little more color about the underlying dynamics? How do you see the market? When do you see the conversion from higher prices also into higher volumes? Second question for Matthias. So how would you describe the impact of China and also the more difficult situation at early biotech with regards to the steepness of the recovery curve and process solutions. So you mentioned towards 2024, you see basically it comes to a mid-term trend, but is it something where you think, oh, this might also have some negative impact more beyond 2024? And my last question on Peter. pretty conceptual, so following the evolutionary failure, basically, you know, three months behind, and you have had a lot of time, basically, to draw your conclusions, so could you share with us your view, what does it mean for your servant healthcare, has it basically been the trigger that you look more towards external innovation versus internal innovations, and how to think on that, that would be quite helpful to know, thank you.

Thank you, Oliver, for your question. Great question. I would like to tackle that one. You're absolutely right. The current market development is primarily price driven on our customer side. They have to turn it into volume on their side, to their inventories, and that then translates into our volume. That's the sequence of events. That is by and large our assumption for the inflection point. that I've addressed in the previous question. Second is there's an additional element which is the current demand for AI-related technologies, GPUs, Edge AI, high bandwidth memory. This already is picking up, so it's not just on the price side of our customers. There is already a volume impact still being proportionally small. However, it's a good indicator that these technologies are ramping, and with our majority share in leading edge. The majority of our portfolio is in leading edge technology. Of course, we do have an early benefit of that. This is how we see the market right now and this is what supports our guidance going into the year 2024.

So on the life science question and kind of you asked around the implication of the headwinds, kind of throughout 24 and then beyond. So I would start by saying, obviously, destocking has the biggest impact on total lifestyles and by far the biggest impact on PS. I think even in this call, we looked at it from different angles and your takeaway should be clearly that, I mean, come end of H1, the vast majority should be behind us and that obviously drives the H2, H1 dynamic. what I implied, so I cannot imagine that this will be a major topic beyond 24. Then in sequence of impact, China certainly has an impact on PS, has an impact on SLS. Here we are clearly depending on the macro situation within the China economy. It has an impact of less than 10%. Our share of our China shares of total LS is less than 10%. That gives you a sizing of the potential impact. Given the caveat, what I said, dependency on macro, our expectation is that come H2 also there we see an uptick. and then the biotech funding has the least impact of those three, mostly in our LSS business, but here also less than 10% of our sales depend on biotechs by and large, and then far less than that on the smaller biotechs. I think too early to predict fully 24. I have heard some early signals of stabilization, maybe even some positive signals, but here as well, I think it's too early to tell, but it feels like 24 is also getting us in the right direction.

Yeah. Okay, Oliver, let me take your question on the post-EVO inorganic agenda I will take it from the broader perspective, and then I will invite Helene and Peter to chime in if necessary so that you have clarity on how do we see not only healthcare but the group overall. So before coming into healthcare, I would like to emphasize that our strategic priority for healthcare M&A remains with life science, and this has not changed. And there are many reasons for that that I will not detail at this time, but primarily our leadership position, attractive growth and margins, and the optimal risk-reward profile for the group. Having said this, how do we look at healthcare post-EVO? First of all, we are very well positioned, right? A very strong commercial performance, which you have seen over the past years despite a challenging environment, even during or mostly during COVID, during the pandemic. Still double-digit growth in 2023 for Mavenclad and Vavencio. A streamlined focus in all our four franchises. I think this all underlines our super... strong commercial capabilities by the way that we master in both mature and developing markets. In R&D, we continue to be confident on our internal pipeline. Chevy, that Peter detailed before, Empathoran, the TLR7-8 inhibitor that has past utility, Cragribin being developed in myasthenia gravis entering phase three in 2024, and more news to come on our ADC portfolio around ASCO. The second wave of the R&D transformation has been implemented, and our objectives continues to be to bring medicines to patients faster. And in the context of some of our R&D calls, the teams underlined that in future we expect more than 50% of the launches to come from external innovation. So I am highly confident on Peter and the healthcare team to deliver on this. You know, I would actually add a bit more on this because obviously as we continue to be extremely confident on Shabinapan, as we approach a critical milestone, we continue to look at scenarios with and without every asset. And even if Chevy wouldn't work, right, healthcare would still grow. So at this time, our key priority is to keep our strategic focus, continue to grow organically and inorganically by innovation, and stay very disciplined and consistent to our focused leadership approach. And therefore, our scope will either be therapeutic areas in which we already have a presence or adjacent opportunities beyond our therapeutic areas and modality footprint. Example, expanding in the field of neurology. So for healthcare, we reiterated in the capital market pay a preference for licensing because this allows us to pick the desired asset to complement our portfolio, and it also allows for uncorrelated moves as simply more shorts on goal. And this is basically what the team has been doing in recent years. We have announced three deals in Q4 2023, and we will continue to do so. That complemented eventually with value-creating Bolton acquisitions in those areas that I mentioned before. But I don't know, Helene, if you want to add, or Peter, if you want to add anything from your perspective as well.

So, yeah, thanks for that. And as you opened this a little bit broader around business development, I mean, one thing we need to remember is the track record of Merck over the past 20 years. The common denominator for success is that Merck always did what was right for the company and for the company's owners. And actually, decisions weren't taken to achieve a certain CAGR for a specific sector. Hence all the acquisitions for the strong and deep strategic rationale. And this is basically the reason why we're in such a powerful position as we are in today. So ultimately what I'm saying is like no change to what we communicated at the capital markets day enough. But looking at healthcare as the first question, I mean, operations performance speaks for itself. And we do not see any urgency to act regardless of whether or not the CV study fails or not. So we stick to our approach to focus on what strategically makes most sense for the group and not just one single factor. And I'm pretty cool here because we know that even slight growth in the healthcare business is hugely attractive in the fields that we play in. So expect us to remain very disciplined And ultimately, as a CFO, I can only always repeat what we're looking at when we look at external business developments. It's simple. We need to create value. And what do we mean by saying we need to create value? It's basically ROSI above work of the company, EPS pre-accretion, and, of course, maintaining our strong investment grade rating.

Okay, yeah, not a lot to add from my side. I mean, perhaps just one last comment on the deal. So you have seen that we have been quite active in licensing. You have seen different archetypes there. For example, pinicotinib is a bit of an adjacency, right? It's a TGCT, it's a benign tumor. Then the deal with Inspirna is in colorectal cancer, so that's really spot on and in one of our strongholds. If I look at the pipeline, for example, you see cladribine in myasthenia gravis, which, again, is an adjacency, I would call it, to neuroinflammation in a rare disease. So that's basically relatively illustrative, I would say, of what you could expect moving forward.

Okay, great. Thank you very much for this very comprehensive answer. Thank you.

I think we have time for one more. No, I think these were all the questions in the queue. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for asking all of these questions. Belen, if you have any closing remarks, we are also happy to hear them.

Not really. I wanted to thank everybody for their interest in our company. Obviously, we are entering a year in which we are expecting to return to growth. And this is exciting. You have heard all the sector heads being confident on the assumptions that are underpinning our guidance. And we are looking forward to meeting many of you for the upcoming roadshows and conferences. And, of course, we will keep interacting quarterly as the year goes on. Thank you very much and have a good evening. Thank you.