Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jack Meehan: Understood. Okay. And then on the income statement, you previously talked about kind of OpEx reductions. I was looking at the SG&A line kind of on a non-GAAP basis, it actually increased a little bit sequentially, and that was despite kind of revenue declining sequentially. So, I was just wondering if you could talk about what happened in SG&A in the quarter. And like is there room to like pull more cost out given the lower top line?

Ilan Daskal: So usually, what you see — it was a minor kind of step-up, Jack. Usually, on the fourth quarter, we see a much higher kind of step-up in SG&A which this time around, actually more of the initiatives that we have been working on will kick in on the — in the fourth quarter. So, we don’t anticipate the traditional step up in the fourth quarter. For the third quarter, it wasn’t that material.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tim Daley from Wells Fargo.

Tim Daley: So first on the process chromatography business. So I think you were previously expecting down mid single to high single decline. With the update today, I’m getting to 13% down or so for the year. But even with that that implies a pretty significant step up in the fourth quarter. I think almost like 80% sequential dollar increase from 3Q to 4Q. So first off, are these numbers that I’m kind of getting to in the right ballpark? And then secondly, can you help us understand the visibility, confidence that you have to kind of get that big sequential step-up, especially given the commentary around a slower or lower than typical seasonality for this year-end?

Andy Last: Yes, I think maybe it’s kind of some of the math might be a little off there. I think the process chrom overall it’s going to end up at a lower number, in kind of the guidance implication there. And it’s kind of like mid-teens. And so, I don’t think we’re seeing a meaningful step-up in process chrom in Q4. But yes, I think that’s really probably just a bit of math there, it’s slightly higher.

Tim Daley: All right. Got it. That’s helpful. And then, Andy, can you — the supply chain impacts weighing on the third quarter Diagnostics revenues. Can you just provide some details on like what is that, how big the impact was in the quarter? And if you expect those delayed revenues to be fully recuperated in fourth quarter?

Andy Last: Yes. So essentially, we — obviously, we’ve been communicating our supply chain challenge on the clinical side because various impacts of COVID plus we moved our plants from France to Singapore. We’re catching up quickly, but it’s sometimes difficult to get the pacing of that right. So, if you get a bit of delay, you also get a bit of pull-through, consumable pull-through delay as well. And so that factored a bit into our Q3. But we are looking at a pretty strong Q4, and we have good line of sight now. Our plant in Singapore is really cranking. We’ve done a lot of work leading out the workflows there. And so, we’re going to get the benefit of that in Q4 and also get some pull-through effect. So Q3 just ended up being softer as a result overall.

Tim Daley: And then final one here for Norman. With the ‘23 guidance now 400 basis points lower, that midterm CAGR for 2025, the guidance updated in May now has an incremental 100 basis points or so steeper, I guess, headwinds in front of it. So, given the current environment, how are you evaluating the 2025 target? Or is this something that maybe will wait until a new CFO is in the seat to put their own fingerprints on, if you will?

Ilan Daskal: So Tim, this is Ilan, I will chime in and then Norman probably will have some additional color. But already in the prior quarter, we communicated that the 2025 targets from our perspective is kind of in a holding pattern. We would like to get more insight and visibility going into 2024 in order to shape our thinking about the 2025 targets. So probably in the next kind of earnings call, early next year, when we have the 2024 kind of guidance in front of us, the 2025 numbers, we’ll know how to think about it and to see what is the reason impact and what magnitude, et cetera.

Norman Schwartz: I think that covers it pretty well.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Conor McNamara from RBC Capital.

Conor McNamara: Just without getting into 2024 guidance, just how should we think about 2024 in general? And just which headwinds that you called out in this quarter likely to persist in 2024 and which are likely to end by the end of this year?

Ilan Daskal: Hey Conor, this is Ilan. So I can start with obviously various aspects that are associated with the macroeconomic, I’m not sure personally that China will recover like in a few weeks. So that may take a little bit longer. The funding environment, which is obviously indirectly linked to the treasury yield is here to stay. The inflationary environment is here to stay for a while. So, there does and probably will continue for a while to have some impact on the smaller biotechnology companies funding, and the way they think about the pace of their spend. So these are definitely areas that we want to kind of think about it — to think about and then not to mention the geopolitical everywhere now that is getting kind of — to probably a new level that we have not experienced before.

So, there are multiple fronts there that — and when you think about Europe, I mean, overall, for us, Europe, generally speaking, is doing okay for us. But when you think about the macroeconomic, Germany is probably already in a recession. So, it’s going to be interesting. I mean specifically that domestically, we’re going into an election year domestically. So, we’ll have to wait and see how everything will shape up. But it doesn’t have to do anything with our own kind of organic initiatives, products, new products, the end markets that are not disappearing, they’re not going anywhere. So it’s only — from my perspective, only a timing issue.

Conor McNamara: Okay. Great. And just following up to Patrick’s question about PCR. Can you just talk about ddPCR, specifically because that slowdown was worse than any of your other business units. So how do we — can you give investors some framework to think about how that — how we can get comfort that that’s definitely a market environment and not competitive pressure because there have been some competitors out there making some noise. So we just want to make sure that you still feel good about your market position there in ddPCR?