Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Derik De Bruin: Yes. Okay. Got it. Got it. Like that. Okay. I think I’ll get back in the queue. I’ve got some other ones where I need to digest some stuff, but thank you. I’ll get back in the queue. Thanks.

Rainer Blair: Thanks, Derik.

Operator: Our next question comes from Rachel Vatnsdal with JPMorgan.

Rainer Blair: Good morning, Rachel.

Rachel Vatnsdal: Good morning. So first up, just on China. So you mentioned that you’re expecting some softness there. Can you just dig a little bit deeper, how much of the softness on that 1Q is going to be pressured there? And then what do you expect for China in total for the year as well? Thanks.

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

Rachel Vatnsdal: Great. That’s helpful. And then just a follow-up. You mentioned that Western Europe was 10% core during 4Q. Can you just talk about your expectations for Europe with this year? Have you seen any softness related to any budget constraints on your conversations with customers there? Thanks.

Rainer Blair: I would tell you, if we think about non-COVID, we continue to see good demand in Western Europe. We have seen the cycle time of deals. So that period of time between lead, capture and capturing the order extending here in the fourth quarter, and we would expect that to continue. As you think about Western Europe, including COVID headwinds, we would expect that to be flat here in the first quarter and then up low single digits. But once again, that includes some COVID headwinds.

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

Rainer Blair: Sure. So as it relates to orders, and I talked about this in the past as well as book-to-bill. In fact, we don’t really look at book-to-bill for the bioprocessing business because it may not be the best way, and we don’t think it is the best way to really understand the underlying health of the business, particularly given the extended lead times that we had here in the prior period. So we’ve been looking at orders really on a two to three-year horizon to take out the lumpiness as well as the extended lead times. And over the last three years, really, both orders and revenues have grown at a mid-single teens average rate. Now from a current trend perspective, in the fourth quarter, our order rate improved by over 500 basis points sequentially but was still down mid-teens, which was as expected as customers continue to adjust for our shorter lead times.

Now to be clear, our full year 2023 guide anticipates Q1 being the low point at low single digits for the bioprocessing non-COVID core growth. And that also takes account to any inventories that might be with some of our COVID program customers, which are now being repurposed. We’re working with those customers to repurpose that inventory. So whatever these order dynamics are revenue forecast for bioprocessing non-COVID in first quarter low single digits, we expect that to be the low point of the inventory work off or burn off and then move forward to what is high single-digit bioprocessing, non-COVID core growth for the full year