Qiagen Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you to this annual general meeting of QIAGEN. My name is Stephen Rusckowski, I serve as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. I'm joined today by my colleagues from the Supervisory Board, Bert van Meurs, Eva van Pelt, Eva Pisa, Mark Stevenson and Elizabeth Tallett. We're also joined by 2 Managing Board members, Thierry Bernard and Roland Sackers. We're also joined today by Casper Nagtegaal to my right. He's a partner for De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, and Mr. [indiscernible] from our auditors, E&Y.

Before we begin the agenda, let me take a moment to go through a few procedural details. First, this meeting is being webcast live on the Internet, and the audience is in listen-only mode. Second, in accordance with past practice, all shareholders present or represented at the beginning of this meeting will be deemed to be here for the entire meeting. The official language shall be English. Mr. Nagtegaal will formally -- has been formally appointed as the Secretary. If we have any questions in Dutch, he will translate them along with our answers. The record date for shareholders and entitled to vote by proxy was May 27, 2026. On that date, the total number of shares with voting rights accounted to 206,250,011. Mr. Nagtegaal, would you please hand me the attendance list, let me count the votes present and represented at this meeting. Thank you.

According to the attendance list, I can inform you that the holders of 165,431,591 common shares in the capital of QIAGEN are present or represented at this meeting and may cast the same number of votes. This represents more than 50% of the issued share capital.

So with that, let us move on to agenda item two. This involves the Managing Board report for 2025. I'd like to first invite Thierry to discuss our progress in 2025. And then we'll have Roland give us a financial update. Thierry?

Thank you, Steve, and welcome, everybody. Thanks for being with us today. First of all, I'd like to begin by thanking our Board for their constant support for the challenges during those years. And when I say Board, I thank not only our long timers, or should I say old timers, but also our newcomers to this Board.

Second, obviously, you will hear today the evolution of Metin Colpan as Honorary Chairman of QIAGEN. And I would like to take advantage of this short introduction to pay a tribute to Metin Colpan as Co-Founder of QIAGEN. His contribution and his guidance to our -- especially research and development over the last years has been nothing short of remarkable.

Last and at least, obviously, I'd like to pay tribute to our close to 6,000 QIAGENers all over the world for the work they have been developing over the last year and especially in 2025, which, as you will see, has been another solid year of execution for our company. And obviously, I would like also to thank all of you, our shareholders, for your attention to our development and your support.

I'm not going to go through the details of all the slides because most of you, I assume, are quite familiar with our company. But as a reminder, as you see here, QIAGEN has been developing for the last 40 years, added value, molecular solution -- molecular biology solution for research, for academia, for clinical, for pharma companies. It's a worldwide company of a bit more than $2 billion. As you all know, it's listed in Germany, listed in the U.S. as well, a member of the DAX index in Germany.

And I was -- I would like to highlight on this slide that it's a remarkably balanced company. What I mean by this, first of all, it's typical, what we call razor-razorblade business model, where 90% of our revenues are quite recurring. We are talking about consumables, kits test for biology, and 10% made of instruments and services.

Second, you see also a remarkable balance between what we are selling to what we call life science customers, basically research and academia, or also clinical customers, clinical hub, lab, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies. It's 50-50 of our business.

And last but not least, I will insist also on the remarkable balance from a geography standpoint. We are not depending on one single geography. It's a worldwide company, obviously, with the tremendous importance of our sales in North America but also Europe and some emerging countries.

There is something unique about this mid-cap, is that I can guarantee you, it is not the first time and the first year that I'm saying that, that no researcher, no PhD in the world doesn't know QIAGEN, and for one reason is that 40 years ago, this company literally revolutionized and standardized what we call the first step of any molecular biology run, which is the sample preparation.

And this massive leadership in sample prep gives us a unique position. Instead of going through that slide, let me give you 3 examples of how relevant this company is. You probably remember from last year that picture that was all over the world of policeman at the entrance of the Louvre Museum in France because of the robbery that happened there. At the feet of those policemen, you had 2 boxes, it was QIAGEN. It was QIAGEN product.

You might have seen for those of you being on Netflix, one of the recent blockbuster in Netflix called The Pitt. Guess what, in The Pitt, once at the point, there is a nurse in the hospital suspected of an infection potentially from a patient of tuberculosis. And what the doctor said? You need to use QuantiFERON, a product by QIAGEN. Or last but not least, there was a documentary on Ed Sheeran, the singer in Europe. Guess what, they did a DNA analysis of one of his hair. Who did they use? QIAGEN as well. That's the relevance of the company.

So let's go very quickly into the successes of 2025. And I'm going to go quite fast. Roland will go into some more details on the financials.

'25 has been another year of solid execution for this company. You remember from previous presentation that we focus into what we call 5 pillars of growth. And you can see here in that slide that in '25, we once again executed perfectly on our guidance. So execution on sales, 8% growth of those 5 categories of product, it's above market growth, perfectly in line what -- with what we said to the market. It's also an achievement, execution on research and development. Not only did we deliver on sales -- but all of our research and development product. And you remember that QIAGEN allocates roughly 9% of our sales to research and development are perfectly online or on target or did hit the market.

We started to launch new instruments in sample tech. We have a new chemistry, for example, for latent tuberculosis. We started to launch new assays on digital PCR, new assets also on syndromic testing. So execution on sales, execution on development. And this obviously is planned to continue in 2026, where we want to continue to invest into those 5 priorities. As a couple of examples. This company is currently launching 3 new instruments on the market on sample preparation.

This is unprecedented, launching new partnership in full automation for tuberculosis. New assays for gene expression in digital PCRs, new assays on syndromic testing

And for example, this NVIDIA agreement for our bioinformatic activities. I know I go fast, but I will be open to questions on -- if you have any, at the end of this presentation.

Execution on sales, execution on research and development, execution also on capital allocation. You probably remember that for the first time last year, we introduced dividends for our shareholders. We also executed again on return to shareholders via share buyback, the last one being in Q1 of 2026 for $500 million, but we also executed on smart bolt-on M&A, acquisition of companies that are very synergistic with our current product portfolio. And I would highlight 2 examples for '25, the acquisition of Parse Biosciences, a company in the U.S. specializing in single cell, a natural extension of our activities in sample prep. And the company, Franklin, adding new capabilities to our bioinformatics, a company headquartered in Tel Aviv in Israel.

Because I'm sure you follow our company, you saw that Q1 of 2026 was a bit of a more difficult quarter. For the first time, in 27th quarter, we missed guidance. But we missed guidance on the top line, on sales only. We maintain and we achieved guidance on profitability. What I would highlight, it's a mixed bag of results because of one element. We were taken, to a certain extent, by surprise, by the complete slowdown of immigration testing for tuberculosis, especially in the U.S., and that impacted our numbers.

The rest of the portfolio delivered quite well on target compared to our guidance, but this bad result on QuantiFERON pushed the company to update its guidance for the year, not only on sales, lowering it to between 1% to 2% of sales and adjusting also our target for EPS at $2.43. This is mostly driven by a difficult environment on our market.

Capital, money, research money is not flowing as fast as we expected. This is mostly the case in the U.S. And as we said, some hiccups like lack of migrant testing for tuberculosis. At the same time, for the last 5 years, this company has been forcefully focusing not only on growth but on profitable growth. You remember that we presented last year the program, multi-annual program that we call QIAefficiency, where we committed to the market to deliver since 2024, more than 250 basis points of additional operational efficiency. And we are doing that with different actions.

We completely changed the organization. We try to delayer QIAGEN process optimization with our upgrade of a new ERP system with SAP HANA 4. We have streamlined our portfolio when we consider that some activities were not profitable enough, and we did not hesitate to divest from them, and we constantly try to optimize our network of sites all over the world.

Last but not least, obviously, and this is not something new for our company. We are investing for more than 10 years now in AI capabilities, not only to streamline operational efficiency, but also to help for product development. All this in a context where we continue to heavily invest into ESG activities either through people, look at the numbers around, for example, diversity, environmental responsibility, our net zero commitment to the market that we took 3 years ago, but also from a regulatory and governance standpoint.

As a nutshell, in closing, 2025 was another very solid year of execution for QIAGEN. It's fair to say that we have the Board, we have the QIAGENers, the people. We have the solutions and products, and I think we have the shareholders to continue to be successful.

Thank you very much, and passing to Roland now for more details on the P&L. Thank you.

Thank you, Thierry. Before I invite Roland to come up to the podium, I'd like to say that what we'd like to do after we have the presentation of Roland, is at that time, we'll take all your questions for all the agenda items at our meeting. We find this approach best serves you and providing an opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics. Then I will briefly introduce the agenda items, which we're required to do, and we'll take a vote to each of them.

So with that, Roland, it's yours.

Yes. Thank you, Steve, and thank you to everyone joining us here in person. It is good to see you again.

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to recognize Dr. Metin Colpan. As a Co-Founder, our first CEO, and a member of Supervisory Board for more than 2 decades, Metin shaped QIAGEN from the very beginning. Let me express my personal appreciation for his extraordinary contribution over more than 4 decades. And thank you for your dedication, your leadership and your commitment to QIAGEN.

Before I start, let me point out our disclaimer. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements and providing you with responses to questions that involve our intentions, beliefs and views about the future. You can find further information on our website at www.qiagen.com.

So let me now review our results for 2025, a year in which we delivered on our commitments. We reached the high end of our sales outlook and exceeded the adjusted earnings outlook. Sales grew 5% at constant exchange rates, or CER, and this was a solid performance in challenging market conditions, while sales on a reported basis rose 6%.

We again delivered improved profitability as the adjusted operating income margin rose to 29.5% of sales from 28.7% in '24, an increase of about 0.8 percentage points. And we exceeded our target for adjusted earnings per share while also increasing our target twice during 2025. Operating cash flow remained at the high end of $654 million even after absorbing cash payments for efficiency initiatives and higher CapEx investments into our IT infrastructure.

We continue to deploy capital in a disciplined manner. At this AGM, we are proposing a 40% increase in our annual dividend to $0.35 per share. We are also seeking shareholder approval for additional share repurchase authorizations. This will provide additional flexibility to return capital to shareholders while continuing to invest organically and consider value-creating M&A opportunities as we have done recently with acquisitions of Parse and Genoox. To summarize, '25 was a solid year that again reinforced the value of our portfolio, the strength of our execution and the power of our financial position to enhance growth and value creation.

Moving to the next slide. I would like to review the key financial figures under U.S. GAAP accounting standards. Our sales were USD 2.09 billion for 2025, rising 6% on a reported basis compared to '24 in a demanding economic environment. Currency movements had a positive effect of 1 percentage point of net sales, while sales up 5% at constant exchange rates compared to our target for 4% to 5% CER growth. For the full year, the adjusted operating income margin was 29.5%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from 28.7% in '24.

R&D expenses were 9% of sales and in line with our target. Sales and marketing expenses declined to 21.9% of sales from 22.8% in '24 as we maintained a high level of customer engagement with increasing use of digital channels. General and administrative expenses rose slightly to 6% of sales in '25 amid a period of higher IT infrastructure investments. Adjusted earnings per share for '25 under U.S. GAAP accounting standards was $2.38, an increase of 9% over '24, and these results were also above our target.

Moving to the next slide. Let me review our sales among the 4 product groups. Let's start with Sample Technologies, the heart of QIAGEN and contributions about -- and contributing about 1/3 of sales. This rose 2% at constant exchange rates despite cautious customer spending, especially in the U.S. Diagnostic Solutions is our second product group, and here, sales were up 6% CER. QuantiFERON rose 10% CER, supported by ongoing conversion gains in the latent TB testing market that is still only about 40% penetrated. For QIAstat-Dx, our system for syndromic testing sales rose 24% CER as we benefited from the full core menu in the United States and a growing installed basis that exceeded 5,200 instruments at the end of '25.

Moving to the PCR nucleic acid amplification product group. This year, we're up 1% CER compared to '24, led by double-digit consumable sales growth in our QIAcuity digital PCR systems. We surpassed more than 3,200 cumulative placements of QIAcuity since launch. At the same time, we saw lower sales of other PCR consumables, which includes the OEM business, due in part to timing of customer contracts and funding constraints.

Sales in genomics NGS product group were up 2% at constant exchange rates from '24. The QIAGEN Digital Insight bioinformatics business delivered solid growth in '25, supported by demand across both discovery and clinical customers.

Moving on to our margin development in '25. We saw a good increase of 0.8 percentage points in the adjusted operating income margin to 29.5% of sales in '25. Underlying profitability improved significantly since this improvement more than -- since this improvement more than offset about 1.2 percentage points of combined headwinds from tariffs and adverse currency movements. A key contribution factor has been our QIAefficiency program. To give you a few examples, we benefited from portfolio optimization measures, particularly the phaseout of NeuMoDx that was completed in mid-'25 as well as a continued focus on cost discipline around QIAGEN. These initiatives are enabling us to deliver higher profitability while continuing to invest in innovation and enhance future growth opportunities.

On this slide, I would like to show you a reconciliation of the reported U.S. GAAP results with the adjusted results. These adjustments are in line with those of our peer companies and provide transparency for investors comparing QIAGEN with other companies. As you can see, the largest adjustment was related to business integration, acquisition and restructuring-related items. The adjustment to operating income was $150 million, and this reflects the charges related to the acquisition of Genoox in May '25 and Parse in December '25. It also included costs related to the efficiency measures. At the same time, about $63 million of these charges involved noncash items.

As a Dutch company, we are required to report results under IFRS or International Financial Reporting Standards. On this slide, you can see a difference in net income of about $12.1 million between U.S. GAAP and IFRS results. The most significant factor relates to the IFRS accounting for the fair value of the convertible notes. Under IFRS, the conversion features of these instruments are treated as liabilities. Under U.S. GAAP, these are considered in equity. Accordingly, the revaluation of the convertible notes has an impact on the income statement under IFRS. Another difference relates to restructuring costs. Under IFRS, certain personnel-related accruals are recorded later than under U.S. GAAP. In '25, this resulted in higher costs of $4 million under IFRS.

Furthermore, development expenses are handled differently. Under IFRS, internal development costs are capitalized, amortized over a multiple year period through cost of sales. Under U.S. GAAP, they are expensed immediately. Most institutional investors use U.S. GAAP results when comparing QIAGEN with our peers. This is why U.S. GAAP remains the primary basis for presenting our results to the financial community.

Turning to the next slide. We are using our cash flow and financial strength to support the business expansion through organic and inorganic opportunities, while also increasing returns to shareholders. In terms of cash flow for 2025, operating cash flow was USD 654 million and absorbed about $54 million of cash payments for the efficiency initiatives.

At the end of '25, our leverage ratio was 0.7x net debt to adjusted EBITDA compared to 0.3x at the end of '24. This reflects the impact of deploying cash for the dividend, the synthetic share repurchase and targeted acquisitions. We returned approximately $300 million to shareholders through a synthetic share purchase program in the early '25 and also the introduction of a dividend payment in '25.

On this slide, you see our financing structure as of December 31, 2025. In terms of our balance sheet. Total consolidated net debt stood at USD 556 million at the end of '25 compared to $239 million at the end of '24. During '25, we successfully refinancing approximately $500 million of maturing debt through the issuance of a $750 million convertible note. This transaction extended our debt maturity profile, strengthened our financial flexibility and positioned us well to support future growth initiatives and capital allocation priorities.

Our employees remain at the center of QIAGEN's success. At this slide, you see a profile of employees by regions and function. We continue to attract and retain talented employees by providing interesting and rewarding opportunities along with a pay-for-performance culture. At the end of '25, the total number of employees declined to a low 5,700 compared to nearly 5,800 employees at the end of '24. This reduction reflects a decision to discontinue NeuMoDx and DIALUNOX products as well as the impact of targeted efficiency measures. All workforce reductions are handled in a socially responsible manner and in line with local laws. While the overall head count declined, we continue to recruit in strategic growth areas, particularly to support new product development and commercialization.

On the next slide, I would like to update you on our investor relation activities in 2025. We currently have 22 analysts covering QIAGEN and this includes the leading banks of the world. Our teams continued our deep dive series of online broadcast focusing on QuantiFERON and sample technologies in 2025. They provide a noble way for us to engage with the financial community and explain the pillars of our portfolio. In fact, this innovative series was recently recognized in the annual IR impact awards shortlisted among the top 5 nominations, including for the best innovation in shareholder communication. You can watch this broadcast live on our website.

Turning now to the share price performance. While market sentiment towards the life science and diagnostics sectors remained challenging during '25, QIAGEN shares demonstrated relative resilience compared to many of our peers. For '25, our shares in New York declined 2% in U.S. dollar terms. This compares favorably with the broader diagnostic peer group that declined 22%, and our diversified peer group, which was down 4%. In euro terms, our share price in Frankfurt was down 12% compared to the end of '24, primarily reflecting currency movements of the euro strengthening against the U.S. dollar.

Turning to my last slide. I would like to quickly summarize the key messages. First, QIAGEN delivered another year of growth led by our growth pillars despite a challenging market backdrop. Our teams exceeded the outlook we had set for adjusted earnings, while net sales came in at the high end of our outlook. Second, we expanded profitability through efficiency gains and focused execution despite currency and tariff headwinds. Third, we generated substantial free cash flow, providing flexibility for investments and shareholder returns. And finally, our capital allocation strategy continues to prioritize the highest value opportunities, combining investments in growth, with increasing returns to shareholders.

As we look ahead, we remain focused on helping customers achieve better outcomes, improving patient care and creating sustainable value for shareholders. With leadership positions in attractive growth markets, a differentiated portfolio and a great workforce, we are strengthening the foundations for future growth. The combination of our differentiated portfolio, strong profitability trends, healthy cash generation and focused capital allocation positions QIAGEN to create sustainable long-term value for all stakeholders.

Thank you very much. And with that, back to Steve.

Thank you, Roland. We now have an opportunity for your questions on all of the agenda items. Please?

Yes. Good morning to all. My name is Andreas Massek from the SDK, Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger, which is a German shareholder association with around about 8,000 members.

Let me come to the agenda and putting some questions. First question. Why was the meeting scheduled for very early 9:00 this morning? You can imagine that this time is very inconvenient for those shareholders from abroad who want to attend in person. It seems more to be a meeting for the Board members than for us shareholders.

I estimate that the remuneration report is part of the financial report. It has been fully audited by the auditor in connection with the annual financial statements. Is that correct?

While the amount of the proposed dividend does not follow the SDK's policy of distributing 40% to 60% of net income to shareholders, it must be seen in the context of other shareholder return generating measures. Share buybacks are also to be carried out with the synthetic version resulting in monetary payments. What criteria were used to calculate the dividend?

Concerning the proposal to repay to the shareholders an amount, which at maximum, will be USD 200 million in the aggregate. What criteria were used to come to the USD 200 million? And also interesting would be what and when -- what, which amount? And when will you pay it for this year?

Point of -- item of authorization of the Managing Board until December 2027 to acquire shares in the company's own share capital. What will be the plan for this in detail? By the way, the SDK prefers the payment of a dividend as a direct shareholder remuneration versus a share buyback.

Please note that for reasons of principle, the SDK rejects the mandate of Ernst & Young companies until a complete clarification of the events at that time and the resulting consequences for [ EY ] has been carried out in the Wirecard case. You may know that this has been a big scandal in the German capital market some years ago.

Regarding Item 16, QIAGEN has been planning continuous share buybacks so far and in the future, so that the usefulness of capital increases is not apparent. What is the background of this proposal?

We heard some rumors about the acquisition of QIAGEN by, for example, Thermo Fisher, Danaher or Agilent. Are there any actual considerations or negotiations running concerning any acquisition of QIAGEN at the moment?

And I would like to ask how many shareholders are, at the moment, online, present, watching or hearing the meeting, if you know that, I don't know. Yes, these were my points.

Okay. Thank you. So let's see, we have a number of questions. Let's make sure we can walk through all of these.

The first question is pretty straightforward, and that is why did we schedule the meeting at 9 a.m. It's my understanding, Thierry and Roland, that it's been our practice of running the AGM at 9 a.m. That's good feedback. We appreciate that. But it has been our practice, starting at 9 o'clock for a number of years, I believe.

We could revisit for next year.

We could revisit that. So I appreciate that.

Second is a -- Roland, question about the remuneration report?

Of course, we have E&Y in the room. So I talk under your supervision, but of course, the remuneration report was fully audited by E&Y as a normal practice. Not, or I guess, you agree. Or sorry, I wasn't -- No. So as I said, E&Y is in the room. So I clearly talk about under your supervision, but I think I see you nodding. So of course, the report was fully audited by E&Y as well. So I think that's a clear yes.

In terms of dividend, while we clearly acknowledge the policy of the SDK, I do think it's fair to say as well and to remind that QIAGEN is clearly seen from many investors and probably also the majority of the investors as growth companies. Nevertheless, we also started with paying out a dividend last year. This year, we announced a substantial increase into our dividend, as I just said before, to about 40% increase. So we'll see how that moves forward.

But clearly, there is, I would say, a tendency to see that QIAGEN is reviewing the allocation of capital every year. And this year, I would say, another positive sign into your direction. We are increasing the dividend gets out, of course, quickly paid out as well. So I would say we are moving into the direction. Nevertheless, we have to clearly understand that we are -- still see ourselves also as a growth company, and that typically, 60% is not what you see as dividend payment.

In terms of -- similar direction on what you asked in general, what we're doing on capital allocation. I would say our general capital allocation policy, while it's involving hasn't changed. That means we are clearly still very strong about this, at the end of the day, 3 different measures.

First and foremost, we do believe organic growth is the most important growth driver for our company. So we're going to continue to invest into R&D and clearly also in other opportunities within the company. If there's any bolt-on inorganic opportunities, we're happy to review that as well if it increase the value for our stakeholders, particularly the shareholders.

And last, but for sure not least, we have a commitment to capital allocation. You know that since 2012, we are doing share buybacks. We started with $100 million incrementals. As the cash flow of the company has evolved very strongly over the last years, we stepped that up. We also used a very Dutch style of synthetic share buybacks, which, as you pointed out correctly, can be -- clearly has also a dividend policy part of in it as well because the capital goes straight to the investors. So I do think that is something that we shouldn't neglect. And therefore, we do believe that, that capital policy covers actually the profile of QIAGEN best.

What we are going to do? This year, again, I can't speak on behalf of the Board, but I do think it's clearly something what we regularly discuss with the Board. We are waiting for the results of today's AGM, assuming for a second that you approve what we recommended to our shareholders, meaning that we have flexibility in share buybacks, but also increase the dividends. I think there is clearly a discussion to happen with the Board when that is, again, dividend will be paid off. Of course, as always, more or less briefly after the AGM, and the share buyback is an ongoing discussion, where we include a lot of different things, from share price performance, all the way down to what we see on the M&A market is going to happen.

Why do we have an authorization to acquire our shares again? It's more or less what I answered here as well. So I think that is into that.

We hear your comment on E&Y. Have in mind, first of all, that we are a Dutch company, and that's one thing. So again, what -- and that's one thing. The second thing, I think it's fair to say, while the AGM is not fully over, I would expect that E&Y gets revoted as last year with more than 99% of all votes casted.

And next question is on any negotiation regarding acquisitions of QIAGEN. I'm not sure, Steve, if you want to take that question.

Sure. Well, it's our long-standing policy. We don't comment on any rumors or speculation about the company, and we continue to evaluate strategic options in the best interest of all shareholders.

And good. Then you had one question, how many shareholders are online? I think we can't see that numbers right now, but I do think what I can tell you, we do expect that more than 80% of votes are casted today on the AGM, and that is probably on the highest what you can see in Germany, but I think also in the European environment. So I do think the participation of our shareholders is very strong in our AGM.

Thank you, Roland. I think [ we have ] of that. So if there are no further questions, let me conclude this portion of the meeting.

So now let us now continue with agenda item three. This is a nonvoting item and concerns the Supervisory Board report on the annual accounts for 2025. You can find this information in our annual report, which is available on our website.

Next, we move to agenda item four. This item involves a nonvoting item and a review of the main items of our corporate governance structure in compliance with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. As a Dutch listed company, QIAGEN is subject to the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. QIAGEN complies with virtually all of the best practice provisions of code. There are some minor deviations due mainly to legal requirements in our jurisdictions as well as by industry standards. These are outlined in the corporate governance section of the annual report.

Moving to agenda item five or adoption of QIAGEN's annual accounts for 2025. This is a voting item. [indiscernible] from E&Y is here. If here, does anyone have any questions for our auditors? Thank you. We now vote on this item. Is there anybody against the proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

Let's move to agenda item six. This involves an advisory vote for the remuneration report, which is based on implementation of policies previously approved by our shareholders. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby report this proposal has been adopted.

We now proceed to agenda item seven. This is nonvoting and our dividend policy. As you know, QIAGEN introduced an annual dividend at the Annual General Meeting in June of 2025. There is no change to our dividend policy.

Moving to agenda item eight. We will vote on the adoption of the proposal for a dividend of $0.35 per share to be paid out as outlined in the proxy. Is there anybody against the proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain for voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted.

Let us now move to agenda item number nine. This voting item involves the proposal to discharge the members of the Managing Board from liability for performance of their duties during 2025. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to -- we recorded it, no? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

Now we'd like to move to agenda item 10. This is the voting item involving a proposal to discharge the members of the Supervisory Board from liability for the performance of their duties during 2025. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

Now let's move on to agenda Item 11. This voting item involves a set of proposals to adopt 2 new members and reappoint 6 members of the Supervisory Board for a new 1-year term until the day of the next Annual General Meeting in 2027.

A joint meeting of the Supervisory Board and the Managing Board has unanimously adopted a resolution to have a binding nomination for the following people: Toralf Haag, Robert McMahon, Bert van Meurs, Eva van Pelt, Eva Pisa, Mark Stevenson, Elizabeth Tallett and myself, Stephen Rusckowski. These nominations are made in the context of significant renewal of the Supervisory Board over the past 5 years. Following this meeting, 7 of the 8 Supervisory Board members will have joined since 2021.

The level of review reflects a deliberate effort to refresh and strengthen the Supervisory Board to complement it's already strong profile. This group combines fresh perspectives, deep expertise and proven relevant leadership experience among recently appointed Supervisory Board members with the continuity and institutional knowledge of longer-tenure members to support QIAGEN's future development.

In January 2026, Ross Levine stepped down after taking on a new role at Memorial Sloan Kettering as the Chief Scientific Officer. Let me take this opportunity to thank Ross for his many contributions to QIAGEN, and also express our appreciation that he continues to lead the Scientific Advisory Board. Following this departure in January, Mark Stevenson joined us in that same month. Mark, with over 30 years of experience in life sciences technology companies, in particular, Thermo Fisher, Mark brings operational leadership in global life sciences experience at scale.

We also welcome Robert McMahon as a new nominee. He will join the Supervisory Board after his appointment at this meeting. Bob brings deep expertise from his roles at a number of top health care companies, including J&J, Hologic, Agilent and now West Pharma. Mark and Bob, thank you again for joining QIAGEN.

I'd also like to recognize a person of exceptional importance to QIAGEN, Dr. Metin Colpan. Metin will conclude his service on the Supervisory Board and has decided not to stand for reelection. As a co-founder of QIAGEN and our first Chief Executive Officer, Metin was instrumental in building this company from the ground up. He helped define QIAGEN scientific foundation and brought the entrepreneurial drive, scientific vision and leadership that shaped our early development and long-term direction.

Since 2004, Metin has continued to contribute to QIAGEN as a member of the Supervisory Board. So on the behalf of my colleagues, I'd like to express our deep appreciation for his extraordinary contributions to QIAGEN over many years. Naming Metin Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board is a fitting recognition for his lasting impact. As this agenda item also relates to my own reappointment, I'll ask my colleague, Eva Pisa, to take care of that specific proposal.

Now let us move on to voting. First of all, with respect to Toralf Haag, is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Robert McMahon, is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Bert van Meurs, is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Eva van Pelt, is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Eva Pisa, is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who'd like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record this proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Mark Stevenson, is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anyone would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted.

And with respect to Elizabeth Tallett, is there anyone against this proposal? If there is anyone who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted. So I'd like to congratulate my colleagues on their appointments and reappointments.

So now I'd like to ask Eva Pisa to take care of the voting on my own reappointment. Eva?

Thank you, Steve. With respect to the proposed reappointment of Stephen Rusckowski, is there anybody against the proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted. Before I hand over, I would like to congratulate Steve on his reappointment as Supervisory Board member.

Thank you, Eva. On the behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I'd like to thank you and our shareholders for your trust and your confidence of me leading the Board.

Now let's move on to agenda item #12. This voting item involves the reappointment of our 2 managing directors. The reappointment would be for a period of the day following the meeting until including the day of the Annual General Meeting in 2027, noting that Thierry will step down after the appointment of a new CEO.

We now move to the voting with respect to Thierry Bernard. Is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

With respect to Roland Sackers. Is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted. I'd like to congratulate both of you on your reappointment as members of the Managing Board.

Moving on to the next agenda item, item #13. This is the voting item on the updated remuneration policy for the Managing Board. A copy of the policy is available on our website. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who'd like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that this proposal has been adopted.

Let's move on to agenda item 14. This voting item involves the reappointment of E&Y accountants BV as our auditors for 2026. Is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

Agenda item #15. It accounts to the proposal to appoint E&Y accountants BV as our assurance provider for 2026. This proposal is due to a new European directive that requires an auditor to review our sustainability reporting. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

Agenda item 16 consists of 2 points concerning the proposal to renew the current designations of the Supervisory Board to issue shares and to restrict or exclude preemptive rights. The first item is agenda item 16A. This voting item involves the authorization of the Supervisory Board until December 24, '27, to issue ordinary shares and finance preference shares and grant rights to subscribe for such shares. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anyone who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

The second is agenda item 16B. This voting item involves the authorization of the Supervisory Board until December 24, 2027, to restrict and exclude the preemptive rights to issue ordinary shares or grant subscription rights. Is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

Let us now move on to agenda item 17. This voting item concerns a vote on the proposal to renew the Management Board's current authorization to acquire QIAGEN shares. Is there anyone against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record the proposal, and has been adopted.

Now we move to agenda item 18. This voting item involves proposals to authorize the implementation of a synthetic share repurchase through the same procedure used in recent years. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anyone who like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record the proposal, and it has been adopted.

Now we are the final item, which is agenda item 19. This voting item provides us with the ability to cancel whole and/or fractional shares. Is there anybody against this proposal? Is there anybody who would like to abstain from voting?

[Voting]

I hereby record that the proposal has been adopted.

So we have completed all of the agenda items. Before I close this meeting, on the behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, we'd like to thank all of our employees worldwide for the contributions to the success of QIAGEN. My colleagues and I have great confidence in our future growth prospects and the impact QIAGEN could have on achieving our vision of making improvements in life possible.

Let me thank each of you for your attendance at this meeting. We truly appreciate your support in QIAGEN, and look forward to our ongoing engagement. Thank you, and see you next year.

Hello, and welcome to our next deep dive. Today, it's all about QIAcuity digital PCR. We're going to answer questions around what is digital PCR, how does it compare with quantitative PCR and how does sequencing fit in. But before we begin, a quick legal note, as with any investor event, this presentation includes a safe harbor statement. You're likely familiar with this from our other presentations, so I won't read it in full. However, please remember that we will be making forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected, and the factors driving those are detailed in our most recent Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A copy is also available on our web page.

Let's now have a closer look into how DPCR, qPCR and NGS differ and why it matters. Huw Ricketts our Head of Global Digital PCR and Francesca Di Pasquale, our Head of Digital PCR R&D are going to take us on this journey.

Huw what are we doing here by the lake? I thought we're going to talk about digital PCR.

I know we are, but I thought this would be a great location to talk about it. Earlier, I collected this water sample from the lake here, but don't worry, German waterways are generally pretty clean but this water sample could still contain traces of wastewater.

Now I see where you're going. So let's assume we want to analyze this sample for traces of Norovirus for early signs of an outbreak similar to how wastewater was analyzed during the COVID pandemic.

Right. Good point. It was using the COVID pandemic. So this is a kind of sample where digital PCR can be really valuable. It's a complex sample. In this sample, there contains millions of different components, could be bacterial DNA could be viruses, could be human DNA, could be environmental material.

So how do we find a very small amount of genetic material from virus particles in all of that. There's different ways to approach it, right?

Exactly. And option #1, next-generation sequencing. -- don't look for 1 specific target like norovirus. We look for the unknown, we sequence or analyze all the genetic material in here. And at the end, we have a comprehensive overview of exactly what's in the sample and in what quantities like norovirus, bacteria, human DNA and more.

And with that, at the end, we have a very broad overview of what's in the sample.

Yes.

I know what I'm looking for, I could simply go with, for example, QPCR.

Yes. With QPCR, we don't analyze everything. We look for one known sequence.

And how does that work?

We specifically look for norovirus. We make many copies of it, and then we detect the signal and monitor that over time as it increases. The stronger the signal, the more norovirus is in that but we rely on a reference standard. We compare our sample to a sample where we know how much of the target is in there. We use that comparison to make a calculation of how much norovirus is in the sample.

And what about doing that in a complex something like that?

That's when it becomes more challenging substances in the sample can interfere with the reaction. And if our target is low concentration, it's difficult to detect the signal accurately and precisely.

And this is where digital PCR comes in, right?

Yes. Instead of looking at the whole sample at once, you divide the sample into thousands of different reaction chambers the so-called partitions.

So even with a very complex sample like this and at very low concentrations, we're able to get clear results.

Yes. And this is particularly important in surveillance, where we want to detect very low levels of target over time. For example, during the COVID pandemic, when we were looking at small changes in virus in the community, we want to be able to detect those signals early and with high confidence.

So how does this work in practice?

Detection, quantification and confidence.

Okay. Great. Let's go to the lab.

Let's do it.

So Huw and I, we just took a walk and we used this water sample to explore the difference between next-generation sequencing QPCR and DPCR. And now we need your help to go one step further and have a closer look into QIAcuity digital PCR and how it works in practice.

Sure. What is really interesting is that what you have been exploring now does not only apply to wastewater.

In both environmental and clinical samples, we are really interested in finding a tiny amount of signal within a very large background.

In wastewater, it could be a trace of a virus. In blood, indeed, we could be interested in finding cancer cells or very few amounts of cancer DNA within a large background. Both applications are very different, but the principle remains indeed the same. In this latitude, we have millions of healthy cells. And the key question is, do we also have cancer cells in it? And if so, how many?

And where would we start to find that out?

The first step is always sample preparation. We extract the DNA from the sample. We load the DNA together with the required reagents onto the plate and we seal it. then the plate is put into the QIAcuity instrument and the [indiscernible].

And what happens in inside the QIAcuity?

The sample is partitioned into thousands of single reaction chambers, the so-called partitions. In every petition, a PCR takes place, targeting the cancer markers that we are interested in.

That's right. Each individual partition gives a clear answer.

This is also the reason why it is called digital PCR. Every single partition gives a yes and no answer like the 1 and the 0 in a computer logic. By counting these, the software use statistics to calculate how many cancer cells were present in the original blood sample.

And how long does it take?

The whole process takes about 2 hours. Everything happens in only 1 instrument fully automated and plate-based. And actually, you can also detect more than 1 target at once, up to 12 in parallel, and this is multiplexing. No reference standards, no complex setup, simple, scalable and highly reproducible.

We've seen how digital PCR works and why it delivers precise and reliable results. In real-world applications, it's not about measuring once -- it's about generating consistent results across labs, across studies and over time. But what does it mean for our customers? And why are more and more switching from QPCR to DPCR, let's take a closer look.

Now let's talk about our customers and their applications. So Huw why do customers switch from QPCR to DPCR?

It's all about confidence in your data. Customers are facing increasingly complex samples and demanding applications. They need to be confident they're producing reproducible data across different labs, across different operators and at different times.

So our customers get more out of their samples. They generate higher confidence data and all that at a very similar price point per experiment.

But what makes the QIAcuity really stand out?

It starts with simplicity. The QIAcuity is a fully integrated all in one system that reduces hands-on time and reduces complexity.

And it is also why it is one of the most user-friendly digital PCR instrument available. It really enables our customers to implement it easily and also scale it across different labs and it also fits seamlessly into the QIAGEN ecosystem starting from the sample technologies.

And beyond simplicity and integration?

Flexibility and scalability. Whether you're running a few samples of thousands. We have a 1 plate system for low throughput users to a multi-plate system for the high throughput environment. And that's with all the same technology.

What else?

Speed at scale, QIAcuity is very accurate and highly reproducible across all different throughput levels. A good example is in biopharma, where you may have an R&D facility running many samples, screening many samples, and then in the same system can be used in the manufacturing where quality control measurements need to be made at much lower throughput.

One system, different needs, right?

That's right. One system across all those different applications. All in all, QIAcuity combines performance with simplicity, ease of use, flexibility and scalability.

What about QIAcuity digital PCR in clinical and diagnostics.

Well, we have already shown that digital PCR brings a lot of value in research, but we do not stop there. With QIAcuity-DX, we bring digital PCR to the clinical and diagnostic space.

It forms a strong alternative where sequencing can be too slow or complex and where quantitative PCR is really coming to its limits.

And this opens up important applications. doesn't it?

Yes. For example, in oncology, the QIAcuity-DX is used to monitor minimal residual disease, where you're looking for very small signals to help guide treatment decisions. This is where digital PCR can really make a difference to make fast, high-quality measurements that support decision-making.

So this is how QIAcuity digital PCR is used today across research and clinical applications. Thank you, Huw. Thank you, Francesca. QIAcuity digital PCR combines precision, reproducibility and ease of use across a broad range of applications. But what does it mean in a real clinical setting. Let's hear from our customer, Sean Monahan from Brown University Health, who is tackling one of the most critical challenges in health care. Sepsis. He's going to tell us more about how QIAcuity digital PCR is supporting decision-making in a clinical environment.

As a trauma and critical care surgeon at Rhode Island Hospital, I spent much of my clinical work hearing for very, very low patients. My research is [indiscernible] understand sepsis as a definitive diagnosis of that infection can take days. And you have this [indiscernible] period where you think the patient may have sepsis but you don't know for sure, so you give them [indiscernible] antibiotics and hope that they improve. The issue is that every delay in appropriate antibiotics for those patients, we have an increase in our mortality rate. In my research lab, we have been studying RNA sequencing data from sepsis patients for about 7 to 8 years. We identified a method where we could identify RNA from pathogens of interests that are causing the infections.

However, we knew we couldn't wait the days to weeks that takes for RNA sequencing data to come back for this to have it. We decided to translate or transition to a digital PCR machine, and that's where we decided to use the QIAcuity-DX with a QIAcuity-DX digital PCR in general, is that we're able to get this level or copies per microliter for those pathogens.

With this level, it's no longer just say yes, no. Instead, we have a level that can correlate with the patients' outcomes. When we get a sample from the patient, we can go from sample to result in about 5 hours. We know that with the QIAcuity-DX, we have a very high sensitivity down to 5 copies per microliter, which is very small amount. I would have to say the most beneficial aspect of the QIAcuity-DX for us is having this level of the result for the PCR that's very different from QPCR or any other really molecular techniques that are out there.

And in our research, we're able to show that those copies from regulator have correlated with different clinical outcomes such as whether the patient can be discharged from the ER to the home and the patient as to the ICU or even if the treatment is working. The QIAcuity-DX has allowed us to make our process from sample to actual moment much quicker with the QIAcuity-DX we have a process where there are a few touch points with a faster diagnosis will be able to tailor those antibiotics directly to those patients so that we don't have to use multiple antibiotics and we can narrow it down to 1 and see if that antibiotics are working.

We've explored the QIAcuity technology, some applications and customer use cases. Now let's have a closer look into the business perspective. And with that, let me hand over to Nitin Sood, our Head of Product Portfolio and Innovation and Fernando Beils, our Head of Global Commercial Operations.

Digital PCR is one of the fastest-growing areas of molecular testing and QIAGEN's QIAcuity is designed to make this technology more accessible. QIAcuity bridges the gap between traditional QPCR and NGS. It has the sensitivity and accuracy of NGS and combines it with the speed and simplicity of QPCR.

The digital PCR market itself is $600 million and growing robustly at 15% CAGR through 2028. In addition, there are opportunities to convert selected applications out of the NGS market applications that require less number of targets. On top of that, we have the QPCR market and applications in there that can be converted to digital PCR that require more sensitivity and more accuracy.

We're executing against our growth strategies and seeing strong momentum across the business. In 2025, we did $89 million in revenue and are expecting to do about $100 million in revenue in 2026. We're winning because we are the easiest platform we use on the market. QIAcuity's workflow is as simple as that of traditional QPCR workflows. We also win because we cover low throughput labs and high throughput labs. And we cover a wide variety of applications in life sciences as well as in diagnostics.

And lastly, we're making inroads into gene expression, the single largest application for traditional QPCR. Since we launched QIAcuity in 2020, we have focused on serving a broad range of customers and applications. For our academic customers or customers that are just starting out with digital PCR, we have QIAcuity1, which serves one plate. As our customers scale their applications, particularly in translational research or in biopharma or in clinical diagnostic labs, we have QIAcuity 4 and QIAcuity 8, serving 4 and 8 plates.

To support a wide variety of applications, we provide more than 2,700 QIAcuity digital PCR assays. In addition, if customers have need for novel applications or assays. We provide GeneGlobe where they can easily design new assays.

All these applications have resulted in over 1,100 publications that reference QIAcuity in 2025.

Our momentum in digital PCR is clearly driven by differentiation with an installed base of more than 3,200 systems, which is a CAGR of 75% and also as a result, we had a revenue CAGR of 55%. And this differentiation is clearly visible. One of the attractive unique selling points in our digital PCR solution is the throughput today 1,500 samples per day, we can process, thanks to the variety and the scalability of our platform.

At the same time, our multiplexing capabilities are continuing to increase so that we're able to test up to 12 targets in one single reaction. That differentiation is not only about performance metrics. What also matters is the feedback of our customers. From food testing to biopharma to wastewater testing, digital PCR represents, and this is a customer feedback, the next generation of PCR testing.

What we achieved with all our engineers across these years with the breadth of the portfolio was to make it as easy as QPCR. QIAcuity is part of a larger ecosystem, which serves from R&D down to quality control. And I had the opportunity to meet a large biopharma customer who was using our QIAcuity DPCR solution and viral sector analysis. And this enabled them to apply our digital PCR solution, QIAcuity from sample to insight. This is where we come in as QIAGEN. And this is also our offering, how we can enable our customers to grow, and we can customize the solutions for their needs from quality control down to research and development.

And this is another example on how QIAGEN expands and grow customer relationships across applications and workflows. One of the biggest opportunities for QIAcuity is gene expression, the single largest application within the $2.7 billion QPCR market.

What is gene expression? Gene expression is a foundational tool in disease biology that measures which genes are turned on and which genes are turned off. QIAcuity builds on the strength of QPCR and the fact that it's easy to use and it's fast but it overcomes the limitations of QPCR by being more sensitive by being more accurate and more reproducible, allowing researchers to uncover disease-specific gene expression signals that QPCR may miss.

In 2025, there were over 17,000 publications in gene expression. And this number is growing by 35% annually. To serve this very important market, we're launching a series of products. First, we're launching assays in mouse, rat and humans. In addition, we're launching the high multiplex mix that allows our customers to interrogate 12 targets in 1 reaction.

Our new solutions will enable researchers to detect subtle changes in gene expression and their high sensitivity will enable researchers to find the needle in a haystack. When customers work with QIAcuity, they get access to the breadth and flexibility of our assay ecosystem. Customers can go to GeneGlobe our assay design platform where they can gain access to 10 million predesigned assays and unlimited customization abilities.

We as QIAGEN, we achieved to bring the simplicity, the control into digital PCR and the ease of use, the adoption, the scalability, the capability of multiplexing, you get this all in that platform. furthermore, expanding into Gene expression furthermore into expanding into other applications, be it in the clinical field, be it in life science, be it in applied, be it in translational QIAcuity digital PCR solution is covering this breadth of the field.

It is designed with the customer in mind across all these segments. And furthermore, we are stepping into companion diagnostics.

We at QIAGEN believe in digital PCR, one of the fastest-growing markets in molecular testing and our QIAcuity platform is leading this market. QIAcuity ease of use and performance wins the customer. Its scale keeps them and our continuous innovation expands our customer base. With the QIAcuity Equity ecosystem, we're well positioned for future growth.

Thank you, Nitin and Fernando. We now know what QIAcuity is all about. But there is 1 important aspect of our QIAcuity story that we haven't touched today, and this is our pharma partnerships. Before my colleague, Huw went into his digital PCR role, he was part of the companion diagnostics team. And he had the chance to talk to Jonathan Arnold, Head of partnering for precision diagnostics and Richard Watts from the business development for companion diagnostics team. Over to you.

Okay. Thank you, Domenica. Jonathan, let's start simply. For those who are not familiar with the topic, what is a companion diagnostic? And why is it needed?

Sure. Thanks, Huw. Great question. And I would probably take it from a -- let's take it from a patient clinician perspective. At the most basic level, what I consider a companion diagnostic is essentially a patient has been diagnosed with cancer typically.

Physician has assessed that patient is make it a determination about therapies and essentially needs to diagnostic to determine if it's -- if the patient is eligible for the therapy. And so to me, this is the perfect example of precision medicine, finding the right patient with the right drug at the right time.

Well, from a pharma perspective, so they're running a therapeutic program. They've developed a drug the clinician is making a determination about what drug is right for the patient ultimately. And essentially, the pharmaceutical partner is going to have to invest in the diagnostic to ensure that we are selecting the right patients. And so the pharmaceutical company really needs a partner that they can trust that has the competency capabilities to develop the diagnostic because without the diagnostic, there is no drug prescription.

Where does QIAGEN come in? And what's your role in the process?

So QIAGEN really acts as a trusted partner, and we are that partner because of our competence across the requirements that pharma needs. So if you think about our leadership in PCR technologies, both QPCR and DPCR and the CAD is really resonating with pharma. We also have more than 30 mass collaboration agreements with global pharmaceutical companies. And this is important because it really establishes as repeat customers. And this is what I take most pride in, not just the absolute number. but it signifies that these partners trust us and they want to do repeat business with this.

So I think when people first look at companion diagnostics, they often think about developing the test as you've described there and just getting paid for that from pharmaceutical companies. But is that really the right way to be thinking about it?

Well, it's true that essentially, we are a commercial contract development business. So they are paying us to develop the diagnostics, which is great. It's a very important business to us. But that's not really what I think about the strategic value of our precision diagnostic businesses to CIG. The strategic value of our precision diagnostic business is developing innovative differentiated content for QIAGEN platforms. And so the pharmaceutical companies are engaging with us to develop these novel innovative diagnostics. We own the diagnostic we then launch it on to QIAGEN platforms, especially the QIAcuity DX. And this, in turn, make those platforms more attractive. So it's a very virtuous cycle. So we're launching novel content that no other company typically has access to, which then makes our instruments more attractive to our customers.

It sounds like you're working with a broad range of pharma partners. How should we think about QIAGEN's position within the space today?

So I think of it, we really have a leadership position. We've been doing this for a long time. As I mentioned, those 14 PMAs over roughly the last dedicate is testimony to that. Companion diagnostics is a tough business. If you think about these programs that we're supporting for our pharmaceutical partners, they're often billion-dollar programs. And so really, that concept of our risk is their risk and vice versa. We take very seriously. But we execute on time where we make commitments to these partners, we deliver.

I guess there's been recent interest in the field of ESR1, for example, as a biomarker, a companion diagnostic biomarker.

Maybe Richard, could you explain why that is?

Yes. Sure, Huw. So in breast cancer, ESR1 mutation in the estrogen receptor endocrine therapy. It is a key therapy that delays the progression of disease. Endocrine therapy is a treatment such as aromatase inhibitors. Those robots inhibitors do a great job but over time, patients start to develop resistance and progress the disease. With ESR1 mutations progressing this disease, the biology isn't detectable in the image.

And so is ESR1 mutation status needs to be characterized at the molecular level.

And how does this play out in the patient journey that explain a little bit.

So if a patient is diagnosed as I mentioned, with HR-positive, ER positive breast cancer, then that patient is given endocrine therapy.

And then the patient is then monitored on a 6- to 12-month basis. It is when that patient starts to progress when we start to see the disease developing resistance that we need to check to see if the ESR1 mutation is present or not. And that's where QIAGEN can step in with decentralized testing at the local level to help the oncologists make treatment decisions based upon analyzing blood samples taken from patients to determine if the ESR1 mutation is present.

How could a acuity digital PCR be good for ESR1 blood testing?

So the QIAcuity DX and the application of digital PCR is really a magnifying glass to the molecular pathology world. It really allows us to go exquisitely sensitive into the analysis of the circulating tumor DNA that could be present in that patient's blood sample.

So that's how it works today, how CDX is working today. Where do you see this evolving going forward?

Well, the analysis of circulating tumor DNA is really a paradigm shift in oncology and treatment decision making. We're looking for the detection of what we call minimal residual disease. The application of digital PCR is being applied in conjunction with next-generation sequencing towards MRD detection generally speaking. So it's a paradigm shift that's opening a new form of treatment that can be given to patients to extend their life.

So maybe going back to you, Jonathan, beyond oncology, how far do you think this model could extend?

Sure. No, great question. And it's one thing that I think of our companion diagnostic business at QIAGEN as so much of a platform. So it allows us to look into the future. So I often say, we don't have to be smart. We just have to follow the money.

And so we're able to see where pharma is investing biomarkers, technologies. And if you think about how we apply that, this is what I mean by innovative testing.

We're always ahead of the curve because pharma is looking across the horizon as well.

And so in partnership with and we see these things, they basically contract with pharma or with QIAGEN to develop them and then we launched them on these platforms. And so I really think of our CDx business as a platform enabling QIAGEN instruments and consumables.

Fantastic. Thanks very much, Jonathan. Thanks, Richard. Thank you, Jonathan and Richard. This is clearly an exciting opportunity for our QIAcuity digital PCR. Now let's hear from our CEO, Thierry Bernard and how QIAcuity is positioned for future growth.

Thank you, Dominica, and good afternoon to everybody. I have 2 key messages. You have seen Nitin and Fernando presenting the value of our solution, QIAcuity. You have seen multiple testimonies from customers. Research, companion diagnostic, but also clinical customers.

My 2 key messages are very simple. First, digital PCR at QIAGEN or digital PCR by QIAGEN is not just a technology anymore. It's a full ecosystem, a sustainable ecosystem where QIAGEN fully masters the instrumentation, the consumable, the reagents, applications menu and the bioinformatics.

Second, we are just at the beginning of what we believe to be a revolution in molecular biology, digital PCR. We believe that QIAGEN is already a leader but we want to continue that leadership and continue to invest to provide everyday more solutions to our customers, be them research, academia, pharmaceutical companies or clinical labs.

If you think about it, what do customers want today?

First, they want reproducibility. Second, -- they want scalability. And third, they want to be able to detect more pathogens into one single sample simultaneously. Many companies are able to provide customers with reproducibility, with scalability with multiplexing.

But there is something also very important that customers want. It's simplicity. And I think it's fair to say that QIAGEN is the only company to be able to offer and provide customers with reproducibility, scalability, multiplexing, but also simplicity Digital PC but QIAGEN, as you have heard from Nitin, from our customers and from Fernando, it's one sample in and the result out.

It's a fully integrated box. So this unique feature of digital PCR by QIAGEN of QIAcuity translating numbers today. You got it. We launched it roughly 4 years ago. In 4 years, we took more than 12% of an estimated market already at $600 million. More than 3,200 systems placed since we launched that solution.

1,100 publication to support the value of QIAcuity. This is probably unprecedented. We are already the #2 in this market, and we are on our way to become the clear number one. But there is no way we are going to stand still, and we want to continue to invest to enhance that leadership. And I see 3 ways or 3 priorities for those investments.

First, obviously, continue to increase the potential applications available for customers. We started with a lot of application at the beginning for research and academia. We extended it to pharma companies, but we want to move also to new fields. Think about human identifications; forensics. Second, companion diagnostic is probably one of the major growth field for QIAcuity and digital PCR. We are extremely well placed at QIAGEN because we already can leverage more than 30 pharma partnerships to push that solution to our pharma partners. And the third major investment for our company in the month, the weeks, the years to come, is to be the leader converting the gene expression market into digital PCR.

Gene expression is probably one of the major applications in QPCR today all over the world. But think about it, customers will continue to look for more targets for speed, for accuracy, but in a simple workflow. QIAcuity is ideally positioned to answer those needs. I'm not saying that tomorrow digital PCR, we fully replace QPCR, that's not the point. And by the way, digital PCR will not fully replace next-generation sequencing either, but see it that way.

Digital PCR is allowing our customers to find more targets in 1 samples in a fast way than traditional QPCR, and this is very important, without the complexity of next-generation sequencing. And so when I think about QIAcuity for the future, I see a double-digit growth potential for our company. I see QIAGEN clearly taking the lead in this market.

I see QIAGEN clearly converting more and more QPC application into digital PCR. I see QIAcuity leading the move of PCR in gene expression for QPCR to digital PCR. And I see it as a very major investment for our company. And now back to you, Dominica.

Thank you, Thierry. Before moving on to the Q&A, we're happy to share more customer voices and their experiences with the QIAcuity.

My name is Paul Ramachandran, and I'm the CFO and Co-Founder and Tracey Bio. For decades, imaging has been the mainstay of how we monitor cancer patients minimal residual disease is an attempt to go beyond that and measure microscopic amounts of in patient blood that are not detectable by imaging.

This allows us to more quickly assess whether a patient is responding to therapy when we need to switch therapies and catch recurrence much, much earlier. At the large point stream of MRD, we want to be able to detect a single molecule from the tumor in a blood sample from a patient.

This requires every step in the process to be perfect. From sample collection to DNA extraction and then ultimately, detection of that single molecule using digital PCR. When we first started working with the QIAcuity, we, I think, like many others, so QIAGEN is the maker of kits that come in blue boxes and reagents. When we started a race it would take one technician, a ton of manual work, what that meant was it would take them approximately day to build an assay for a single mutation for a single patient.

But the simplicity of the QIAcuity workflow, we've been able to automate all the pieces around this. Now the technician doesn't have to do any of the work. It's all done [indiscernible] and the robot can build assays for 10 different mutations for 20 minutes. This has yielded greater than 100x speed up in our workflow.

I'm an associate professor at Florida State University. My lab works on developing methods which can reliably test for presence of Salmonella in poultry presence of E.coli in red meat samples so that the companies can reproducibly test their food and protect people. I started working on digital PCR assays in 2023 was having a conversation with the stakeholders that we don't need to only do presence and testing of salmonella.

We also need to count how many salmonella cells are present in the food -- if they have a higher salmonella load in the fluid sample that product should be also eliminated or stock from entering the comp working on food samples for the last 10, 15 years, I know that relative quantification will be always challenging the food samples because food samples are high in protein high in fat and high in all PCR inhibitors you can think of.

And that's why I chose DPCR for quantifying salmonella and whole cell samples. What I value most about the QIAcuity digital PCR platform the one unit does everything from partitioning the plates, doing the PCR and also imaging the plate. Everything done in one box. Second part, it quantifies this presence of target DNA. I also very much appreciate its ability to co-detect to or more targets in within 1 sell of that period.

Thanks, Gopal and [indiscernible] You've seen today 3 customer voices. And we've prepared 3 more for you, which you can see after the deep dive on our web page coming from Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Zalaris..

Now we come to the last point of our session today, which is the Q&A and if you haven't done. [Operator Instructions] Today, together joining the Q&A session with me in the studio are Daniel Wendorff and Huw Ricketts . Welcome and we also have more speakers for today's Q&A that you can see on the screen, which are Thierry Bernard, Nitin Sood, Fernando Beils and Jonathan Arnold.

Perfect. Thanks a lot. I think we're ready with the first question, Daniel.

Yes. So the first question is what differentiates QIAcuity most strongly when customers evaluate competing digital PCR platforms.

Well, I think we can be several of us. When we launched QIAcuity 4 years ago, the main differentiation were coming from the -- was coming from the simplicity. I mean it was the first time that the company was launching a digital PCR system fully integrated, 1 box, sampling, result out. And this for 3 kinds of different throughputs.

And clearly, in the recent years, some competitors have tried to also integrate their solution. But our plate based technology makes it simpler and much more cost-efficient than any other competitive solution at the moment in the market. And this is why notably on the American market, anytime we are faced with competition. Our heat rate is above 70%. That's quite remarkable. Nitin or Huw if you want to complete that differentiation.

Yes.

I mean I think I'd add a couple of points, Thierry. One is that in addition to being much easier to use. It's one platform that scales from 1 play to 8. So when a user gets used to our software, our ecosystem, they can very easily scale and the second is that scalability extends from research all the way to diagnostics. So they can start out on our research use platforms and as they move into the diagnostic application, they can use the DX platform, again, the same underlying technology platform, same software.

And then lastly, we have the GeneGlobe ecosystem where there are tens of millions of assays to choose from lots of customizability available to our customers and then 2,700 validated assays for them to pick from. Anything to add, Huw?

I think you've captured everything there and in it, and I think I can't add anything else. It's perfect.

Perfect. Let's go to the next one, which is you mentioned that customers are increasingly switching to digital PCR where in that transition curve are we? And do we expect the majority of our QPCR installed base to switch to digital PCR? Or will we have customers that use both Q and DPCR.

I think we need to be very clear here. QIAGEN in many different situation has repeatedly said, cannibalization is not what is going to happen. Digital PCR is not going to fully cannibalize total. Digital PCR is not going to fully cannibalize next generation sequencing either. But by combining the fact that we are giving more answers with digital PCR than with QPCR, without the complexity of next generation sequencing and the turn to result of next-generation sequencing, we have created a new need.

So we are also opening new frontiers from our customers, be them pharma company, clinical lab research and academia. So there will be some conversion, obviously, on both sides, both from QPCR and also from engines, but it's not purely cannibalization. For us, as we said in the presentation, 1 of the major potential for conversion will be around gene expression.

We all know that gene expression is one of the key markets currently in QPCR with that all the market in expression will move to digital PCR no, clearly, but we want to convert a big partner. As for the transition from our own portfolio, to digital PCR. It's very fair to say that in the coming years, QIAGEN will invest much more in digital PCR than in QPCR. But what is important is that being a leader in molecular biology. As of today, QIAGEN is the only company in the market to offer valid solutions in QPCR, in digital PCR and in next-generation and to offer those solutions both to research, academia, clinical customers, pharma and many other applications.

Perfect. So let's take one on clinical and then we move on to gene expression. So can you speak about some more of the applications in the clinical setting that we see our customers moving to digital PCR and what are the fastest-growing areas of the clinical market and which applications do we think provides the biggest opportunity for us.

It's a market in the making, but Huw you might want to take this one. And also what we presented today in companion diagnostic is a good answer .

Yes. Thank you very much, Thierry. Absolutely. It's a great question. And we see -- we do see an expansion in clinical applications, anything where you may want to take repeated time points, samples of the repeated time points. for example, the ESR 1 example Richard talked to us about, that's classically strong for digital PCR. You get the precision in the measurements between time points is a critical point. So anything in that oncology space is going to be important for clinical applications, but also something like transplants. We're seeing quite a lot of opportunities in transplant monitoring of patients who have had a transplant.

Daniel, do you want to continue with gene expression?

Yes. One question which came quite often is how important really is gene expression as a future growth driver for the QIAcuity platform.

I think Nitin could give some indications here.

Yes. Gene expression is a really important market, as you heard in the presentation 30,000 publications in gene expression growing at 35% year-over-year. So it continues to be an extremely important tool in analysis of diseases. And where QIAcuity shine is finding the needle in the haystack, finding the gene expression signals the traditional QPCR will miss.

And that's going to uncover more disease biology to help obviously develop better diagnostics and better drugs. Today, 10% of our instruments go into gene expression and with the launch of new kits that we just announced, we expect that to increase.

And then we're not just stopping there. You've heard us say we're launching -- working on our second generation platform, and that will further accelerate the penetration into the gene expression market. It's a very important market.

Perfect. And we have one on the EUR 600 million total addressable market in 2025. How much of that was clinical versus research and also similarly for our growth outlook through 2028. How is the break between clinical and research.

The majority of the market is still in research and academia. As we said, the clinical market is in the making and QIAGEN strategy is to boost that evolution via our [indiscernible] companies partners and our companion diagnostics. But it also, for us, the strategy is to put that technology in the hands of as many applications and customers as possible. You saw the example [indiscernible] for example, is developing is [indiscernible] approach in Rhode Island and thanks to our technology, what is developing it, we are supporting, obviously, but there are many applications that this way we want to push customers in HID, in forensics, in agri business, in food control, for example, to try that technology because we know it brings value. So it's fair to say that the market is probably at the moment, still 70%, 60% to 70% Research academia, but the clinical applications are moving fast.

Yes. We have one more question. What are the biggest barriers preventing broader conversion from quantitative PCR to digital PCR today?

Huw as the Head of Marketing, would you want to take that.

Pleasure. Thanks,. I think in the past, many customers were, let's say, fearful of digital PCR because of the difficulty with the workflow. It's a challenging workflow with the QIAcuity that's gone now. It's an ease of use. It's just like key PCR. You're using a plate-based system, you're setting up basically a key PCR reaction using digital PCR. So I expect customers will adopt this because of the ease of use.

Okay. Perfect. Then I would say let's move to companion diagnostics. And what's the real status of the 3 partnerships for the QIAcuity CDx?

Sure. So I can't comment directly on any individual program. These are highly confidential for our partners. But I can confidently say they're on track. We're expecting launches in the next 12 to 24 months. It's always hard to precise a time line because essentially, we're married to the clinical time lines as well for the therapeutic.

I'm also very, very bullish on our pipeline as I see the progression of digital PCR into our pipeline with farmers in the medium term, it will be the primary technology for our companion diagnostic business. So things are going very well on the companion diagnostic side. Pharma understands and appreciates the value proposition of the QIAcuity DX as we look at those monitoring applications, we see it as a nice complement to NGS. NGS will always be the primary diagnostic in my mind for oncology. But there's other applications where it's not the best, and we see that's where DPCR is resonating right now. So things are good.

Yes, I have 1 more. where within the approximately $2.7 billion PCR market, do you see the greatest opportunity for digital PCR conversion.

Fernando, Nitin, you want to come back to this one?

Yes. I mean, I think we talked about this. We expect, again, the gene expression market, which is about 50% of that $2.7 billion market to be the most exciting opportunity. But broadly, wherever you require high sensitivity, accuracy, precision and you want to do repeat monitoring we expect digital PCR to make inroads into the QPCR market. Fernando, anything to add?

Easy for our future customers for regards to reproducibility easiness, multiplex, you heard up to 12 targets, which is coming up. And on top of this, more than 2,700 assays available and the large liability of customization opportunities. So we want make it easy for our customers and future customers to convert pretty easily.

Perfect. Then let's give additional color on the revenue mix across different applications, gene expression, cell and gene therapy, liquid biopsies, mentioned, quality control and so on but also on end customers, academia, the clinical field, where are we with that conversion?

Well, first, I think -- the first thing I'm going to highlight is that digital PCR QIAcuity is clearly 1 of our pillars in growth. As a result, basically also received one of our highest investment into research and development. We have dedicated people on the field, who are [indiscernible] digital PCR. We have a dedicated team for companion diagnostic who's focusing also on pushing this technology to our pharmas.

So you know the numbers, Nitin has given you the numbers for 2025, the target for 2026 as well. We are not splitting those numbers into clinical or research academia or into gene expression, QPCR and so on. What is clear, the key messages are the following. Since we launched this QCPR we have developed the number of applications to fuel that go. We started for research and academia, and we also to sell and gene therapy and move to also QPCR control. We are now moving into gene expression in the second half of 2026. Since the launch of QIAcuity, again, at the beginning, research and academia [indiscernible].

We brought that solution to regulatory authorities, IVDR, FDA, we blow that solution to our pharma apartments. That's how we invite you to see. We have a target which is to become the #1 in this growing market. We see digital PCL at a double-digit growth product in our portfolio. .

This market is growing. We have a good solution. We have a different differentiated solution. We have a cost-efficient solution. We have people dedicated to market it and nearly, as I said, many, we will be #1 in digital PCR. And if we don't, it won't be because of the so. It's because of management, I would say. It's just a matter of execution [indiscernible]

Perfect. And we have a couple of questions on conversion NGS to digital PCR. So can we talk about -- more about digital PCR when digital PCR would be used over a next-generation sequencing particularly as in the oncology space. So when you can get more genetic information from NGS alone by going with digital PCR and if not completely used over NGS specifically, how is this used in a tandem with NGS?

Insisting again on the fact that it's not about cannibalization, but providing customers with a new divided solution. I will invite who are needing to take that question.

But again, it's not about cannibalization. It's basically bringing value compared to what NGS brings to clinicians and patients and compared to what QCPR brings to clinician and patient.

Absolutely. Thanks, [indiscernible] And you hear from Jonathan as well. In oncology, NGS is going to be the primary diagnostics most of time. where we see, as Thierry said, digital PCR is a complement to NGS. And actually, often they're combined together to give more information -- in onco-hematology, we see a lot of digital PCR being used because often onco-hematology is defined by a small subset of genomic alterations.

So you don't necessarily always need NGS, and you might need speed to these patients are extremely sick in an answer quickly. So digital PCR fits very nicely there.

On the Hamilton integration, what percentage of customers would benefit from Hamilton integration and what are good examples of potential use cases.

Nitin, do you want to take this one? .

Yes. So one of the primary applications we are targeting with this integration is really in the cell and gene therapy QC space. As our customers are moving from sort of method development and moving digital PCR from that space into QC of released drugs, they need higher throughput.

And as a result, they will benefit from automation and higher scale. And likewise, as we scale out our customers are scaling out in applied testing as well as in clinical diagnostics. Those are another category of customers that would benefit from more automation.

And we have time for one more, I guess. What products are you launching to target gene expression in the second half of 2016 and already 10% of instruments today? So what's changing?

Nitin on the assays that we are going to launch in the second half of the year?

So we're launching 2 categories of assays for us, as you heard, we are launching panels that target various pathways in mouse, rat and in human. These are miles on ramping motor organisms and of course, human being a very important category. And then we're launching the one-step 12 for multiplex in kit and gene expression. One step, meaning you will be able to do a generation of CDNA from RNA and amplification in one step in the instrument itself is making the workflow simpler and I just want to remind everyone that at QIAGEN, we also have our bioinformatics solutions, our IDA, which does pathway analysis, which also contains the latest greatest information about the new pathways that arenas covered.

So we'll continuously add new pathway specific gene expression panels.

And so that's going to drive growth. And then as I've mentioned, we continue to innovate, and we have more things in the pipeline that will help us [indiscernible] penetration gene expression.

And with that, we are almost at the end. Before closing the session, I would like to hand over for some final remarks.

Yes, well. Thanks again all of you for your attention night. Continue to be did, I hope that you appreciate this format of one hour investor relation and deep dive. I would like to thank Domenica and the team for the preparation of this event. Obviously, we remain open to your questions if you are questioned by Email. The final message for me would be very simple.

For a molecular biology company like QIAGEN moving into digital PCR was clearly a natural step. What we have executed have achieved over the last 4 years is nothing short of remarkable. It is probably the fastest growth of an installed base in tools, life science and diagnostics achieving more than system is such a quick time is remarkable.

But as Nitin said, Jonathan and Huw said, we don't want to stand still already in our pipeline is a new instrument. We could leave at the moment QIAcuity version 2 or generation to. Obviously, we will update you as we go, but see that investment are a clear proof that one QIAGEN is definitely a digital PCR company; and two, that we are going to fuel our ambition to convert the market of QPCR. And any time we can also the market of NGS to this new technology. Thank you, and talk to you soon. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, we are at the end of the QIAcuity deep dive session. Thanks for your participation and for all the questions that we received. And with that, have a great day. And if you have any further questions, always feel free to reach out to us. Happy to help and see you then. Bye-bye.

Okay. We're going to kick it off. I'm Tycho Peterson from the life science team. It's my pleasure to introduce QIAGEN. We've got Roland with us today. Let's jump into it. And maybe setting the stage here, just talking a little bit about trends coming out of 1Q. You had the guidance reset. Just start at a high level, how should we be thinking about what was kind of idiosyncratic in the quarter and broader demand trends as you feel about the rest of the year?

[indiscernible], so which is probably more important. But I think you're absolutely right. I think overall, the Q1 start of the year was, I would say, a quarter with mixed results. On one side, 4 of our 5 growth drivers actually performed quite well. At the same time, QuantiFERON clearly had a difficult start that was due to the immigration-based testing, particularly in the U.S.

Just to remind you, QuantiFERON for us is about a $500 million business for us. 10% of that is immigration-based testing. By far, the majority is legal immigration. And one thing that we clearly had to experience is that there were changes coming up in the legislation in the U.S. took some time that they got effective. We really haven't seen any larger changes more or less all the way through February of this year.

But then digging into that, it became quite obvious that some of our larger clients have seen that impact. Have in mind that kind of testing is not done in any kind of dedicated lab environment. It is done with a very regular centralized labs and that probably also took them some time to figure that out and to rebalancing. Nevertheless, what we did is we took literally 100% of the exposure in the U.S. out, which is around USD 30 million.

At the same time, of course, we see similar trends for very different reasons in the Middle East. We might go back a couple of years when we clearly talked about that, that we won the TB testing in areas like Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and so on. Given for the war, we also took out $5 million for that. We haven't seen any change in Europe for immigration-based testing, nor have we seen any change in 90% of the TB business. And therefore, I think that is quite stable.

Now being in Q2, I would say what we did was the right thing. I think trends got confirmed. So if you go back to the call what we said, we said QuantiFERON around minus 5% in Q1. Probably Q2 is flattish, slightly negative. Q3 is slightly positive and Q4 more or less a normalized growth rate. I do think that is what we also see today and therefore, no change.

Of course, as we had to know going also to your second part, given the changes we have seen then and realized on QuantiFERON, of course, we turned a lot of other stores within the company. That's also the reason why we took a couple of larger OEM deals out of the guidance because the one thing is very clear, we delivered until Q1, 26 quarters in a row in terms of revenues and in terms of EPS. Once you realize, you have to reset guidance for a specific reason, you turn every other stone.

And we'll jump into the businesses in a minute. I guess before I do, I just want to hit on the CEO search. You kicked it off in November. Originally, we were targeting June, now kind of back half of the year. Just walk us through where we are in the process, how you're thinking about the candidates, how the Board is thinking about what the business needs at this stage?

Yes. No, I think it's fair to say in the last call, we updated it, that it is probably now more an H2 event. I don't think it will be all the way down to December, but it's clearly an H2 event. A couple of reasons for that. First of all, the Board is looking for what you probably would call in U.S. like somebody who has seen the movie. So a very senior experienced leader, clearly with a strong footprint in the life science and in the clinical side. Clearly, given also QIAGEN international setting, somebody who has either lived and worked in Europe and/or the U.S. So also here, somebody who's rather very experienced.

I don't think that you should, because of the "delay", read into that, that we are short of candidates. I think it's probably actually the opposite. But at the same time, as a lot of investors were waiting for clarity from some of the CMDs, one of our competitors had on the QuantiFERON product on the QIAGEN side. There's also other parties who are waiting for that kind of feedback, and that probably led to the situation and discussion. Let's wait a couple of more weeks.

And anything you can say about what the Board is looking for? I mean you mentioned international and -- but...

Again, senior person, C-level experience. Again, somebody who did the job in a different country before.

Let's jump in on QuantiFERON, I guess, the biggest swing factor to the reset guidance, you've taken down expectations on immigration. Are we at a clean base from here? Or are there some moving pieces for the next couple of quarters?

It's about immigration. The rest -- it's very straightforward. It haven't really changed. Again, we are careful in taking out 100% of the exposure in U.S. I'm not sure that's 100% realistic. At the same time, we do not expect any legislation change in the U.S. as well. Therefore, I think it's the right thing to do.

In the Middle East, I would call it that at some point, either the war is going to end or we will see these countries going back into -- going back to a more normalized environment like we see that in [indiscernible] and others, so back to work, if you like. The reason for that is -- and therefore, I think there, we should see again some normalization. It's hard to say when, but for sure, will not take us long.

And just how about underlying growth ex immigration? What did that look like in the first quarter? How do you think about that for the remainder of '26?

As you know, overall, we said it a kind of a 6% growth rate for the full year. Now of course, we took $35 million out of that number. So end of the year, we will grow again that business nicely single digits and let you exactly where we are.

You mentioned the competitive dynamic. I guess what we saw there was limited markers, limited head-to-head data on sensitivity specificity, lingering questions on workflow. You've obviously laid out your road map on automation with the Inpeco partnership. Just talk a little bit about how you're thinking about competitive dynamics evolving and with the market obviously getting ahead of itself relatively to the headwinds?

Yes, I think it's probably a fair summary. I do think that will get you a couple of remarkable outcomes. First and foremost, as you were alluding to it, it looks like that our competitor is missing one very important critical market, which is CD4/CD8. Why is CD4/CD8 so important? That is for the subsegment, which is actually the fastest-growing subsegment if it comes to latent TB testing, immunocompromised patients, the critical marker. If you don't have that, it's hard to test.

And I do think that is important, again, and clearly a factor also for the labs because depending a bit on where you are in the world, it is a population group between 10% and 20% of the total population and the testing population. And of course, as I said, the fastest-growing population as well. So I'm not sure that you will see customers going for 2 different work streams to address that topic.

Second, it can be very clear that the automation solution, I think they said is beyond '28, a bit surprised by the wording. Typically, if I mean beyond '28, I would say '29. So I'm not sure what beyond '28 means. Very clear also that there's nothing short term in the U.S. We like the fact that they finally come up to the market in Europe because it's helpful for us to prove what we said before in terms of, again, our success in the market. So I think overall, I think it was incremental good news for QIAGEN, I would say.

And just on your pipeline, can you talk to the partnership changes with Inpeco and whether this should be viewed as shared defense, new lab adoption, potentially both?

I think Inpeco is a great addition to our overall workforce. We have a great partnership with DiaSorin on the back end that's not going to change. But on the front end, of course, there's a couple of steps which still require certain manual steps, which we are, of course, going to automate with the Inpeco solution going forward or we fully automate that. And that is clearly unique then to QIAGEN. Nobody else can do that.

And Inpeco is clearly a well-known proven provider for this kind of workflow automation. As we do believe that TB testing is still a significant volume grower, have in mind, 60% of the global market is still literally 120-year-old skin test. And even that skin test market is growing 4%. We do believe that there is an increasing need for automation and therefore, the Inpeco solution, which at the end of the day provides you with a rollaway solution is a step in the right direction.

And then maybe just shifting over to life science. The other piece of the guidance cut there was just reset expectations, partially on the weaker A&G outlook here and then the OEM headwind. I guess between the 2, you said $35 million, $40 million headwind for the year. Can you unpack each piece relative to what the expectations were when you first laid out guidance in February?

To be honest, it's not too much. The general environment for academia and life science in the U.S. Here, we -- I think it's also fair to say that historically, also last year, QIAGEN had a reasonable consumable performance. Clearly, instrumentation business was for us, as for many other, a bit more volatile.

But what we did, as I said before, we looked particularly in the larger OEM contracts, which are also part of the life science business. And we have here a couple of contracts with large government organizations in the U.S., but also in South America, where given the political environment, we are not 100% sure that they will come up. They were very reliable customers for the last 3 years, always high single-digit million dollars of revenues. But if you do, for example, something like pandemic preparedness, you might have orders in hand, but you're not 100% sure that it comes in. In a situation where you have to make sure that the new guide you set out is more than reasonable, you adjust this.

And I guess was the reset more of a forecasting issue or demand deterioration?

I think it's probably also just to make sure that the forecast is realistic and therefore, I think well doable. And again, that's probably the base behind that. I would say, overall, the automation business was actually quite strong for us. We talked about that in the call, Tycho. As you know, Sample prep, for example, instrumentation was growing double digit. So hard to complain about that, right? And as I said, consumable in general is moving in the right direction.

There always a couple of pockets who can do better. PCR in general is something that we clearly probably will draw a bit more attention to. But in general, we clearly see an increased activity, particularly on demos in terms of requests for proposals on the academic side on instruments. Will all of that lead to more revenues instantly? Probably not. But do we see, I would say, a certain kind of refreshment of interest? Yes.

And then just honing in on U.S. A&G. Obviously, you've got a slight increase in the budget up 1%. You've got this multiyear budget dynamic that's impacting labs. I guess how would you describe the backdrop now? And do you think there's a chance we'll get a pickup as we go through the summer?

Just to frame it also with some numbers. So our more or less work from H1 to H2 only requires $5 million more incremental revenues coming from a better life science environment. If that is our issue, I'm fine, right? So we do assume it will improve, as I said, on the instrumentation side. I think the bigger step forward for us clearly comes also with some of the new launches, particularly in Sample prep. There, we do expect around about $20 million of incremental revenues given the size of instruments we are launching with QIAsprint and QIAsymphony and also, I would say, the visibility on pipeline and so on. I think there's -- I would say, so far, we feel quite good about that.

So I would say environment in Europe, life science is good. Horizon budget is distributed. We're seeing more and more budgets in the U.S. finally reaching the benches. Is everything perfect right now? Absolutely not. But do we see that people are clearly getting more interested, particularly on the instrumentation side, yes.

And then maybe just shifting over to pharma. It seems to be better for most in the industry. Just from a high level, how did it do in 1Q relative to expectations for you guys?

Pharma for QIAGEN has a couple of very specific driver, which make it quite successful for us. One is QIAcuity. Clearly, pharma is a big partner here in biopharma research, double-digit growth rate in consumable and instrument in Q1. Same is actually Parse acquisition. I think what we -- Parse, clearly an outstanding product offering by itself. Now with the acquisition of QIAGEN, the partnering with our global pharma teams helps them also to gain access to some of these larger accounts. And these are sizable deals. That's also the reason why we said we feel quite comfortable on the $40 million guide we have given for Parse. So I would say, in general, pharma is for us probably more on the positive side.

And then as we think about biotech, I mean, funding has been good, sentiment strongest since 2022. Where in the portfolio will you see it when that funding starts to convert to spending for SMidCap biotech?

Several reasons, of course. [ Basically ], we see also biotechs clearly, again, doing more lab work. I'm not sure if they all want to generate now AI-based data also. But there's clearly more fundamental lab work done and therefore, again, areas like sample prep are important. Again, biotech is not like the largest customer group for QIAGEN, but clearly incrementally be helpful. Other area is actually around bioinformatics. Also here, I think we see increasingly request. So I would say it's always good that finally, I think the funding is on the highest level since 2020. Let's keep on going.

You mentioned Sample tech a couple of times and the expectation for a 200 basis point uplift in the back half of the year. I guess -- what's happening now? Is it funnel conversion? Is it replacement detailing, competitive wins? Just talk a little bit about what you're actually seeing on the ground to give you confidence in that pickup.

The uplift is actually somewhere between 400 and 500 bps, but some of them is quite easy because 200 bps is just the headwind from the deconsolidation of NeuMoDx and Dialunox will disappear as of June 30. So it's just a technical impact, right? So that's the 200 basis points. 200 basis points, as you said correctly, it's coming from the new product launches, particularly QIAsprint and QIAsymphony.

So the good news is these instruments are launched in the market. The pipeline is building. There was not too much in Q1. There's still be only a few in Q2. But again, the pipeline for Q3 and Q4 looks good. So I think that is going to happen. Have in mind also that QIAsprint clearly is a brand-new instrument. So every instrument we sell is not only an instrumentation sales. It's clearly also generating incremental consumable pull-through is therefore, important.

Also on the QIAstat side, you know that there's new launches coming up. So blood culture is a big topic here as well. So I would say on the new product launch, it's good. Then we have another 50 bps of what we discussed before. We clearly do believe that QuantiFERON should get better in the second quarter compared to the first half -- sorry, in the second half compared to the first half. And last but not least, Parse, as it is still growing and kicking off, we will have $5 million more revenue in the second half compared to the first half, so another 50 bps there.

And I guess just thinking midterm on the Sample tech, I think you've sized it at 115,000 placements or greater than for the 3 instruments combined as the opportunity. A couple of points tailwind there. What would get you to do better than that?

I think -- one thing what we already discussed is clearly, it's always good if you have a more stable environment and people have the belief that they can plan mid and long term because consumable is something what you buy for your daily work at the end of the day, right? So I think that's also a reason why we actually had a very reasonable consumable business last year. While the environment was not the easiest one for many companies, we were still growing, right? We shouldn't forget that QIAGEN still has, again, historically outperformed the industry quite nicely.

Instrumentation, again, is different. I think the benefit we're having is that most of our instruments are rather with a price point between $35,000, $40,000. And even the QIAsprint [indiscernible] configuration, it's probably around $70,000, $75,000. I think it's reasonably priced. So we would believe if people believe that there's a midterm budget the year after and not everybody loses his job, are going to buy an instrument. More important is it is not only life science, right? We clearly see that the pharma guys are going for the efficient solutions. We see volume growth with some of our liquid biopsy customers who are significant customers for us. You have seen a couple of them just a minutes ago, right? So I do think there's opportunities for us to grow also by other companies doing quite well.

What percentage of Sample tech systems do you think go into clinical placements, the new systems?

I would say the share on Sample prep instrument is not much different than the global split up. So it's roughly half life science, half on the clinical side.

And then parts, you touched on -- I think you suggested potential upside to the $40 million target this year. What's changed since the initial deal in terms of where you're seeing upside?

So yes, the interest of specially pharma and translational space for single cell is going up. The tau therapeutics data set with 100 million cells is definitely a good proof point that you can scale with the Parse technology and on top also keep quality, that's an important factor. And also in general, we see a shift from bulk analysis into single cell, but the major driver here is the pharma part.

And competitively, I mean, how do you see that? Obviously, scale that acquired around the same time. I mean, how do you see kind of the competitive dynamic playing out?

So, I mean, the Parse technology is instrument-free. You named it perfectly right that scale would be the head-to-head comparison. And here, we're not seeing much. Just look at the revenues, right, $40 million for Parse that we expect or even more than that for 2026 and then a handful of million from scale.

It's also the reason why we doubled down on R&D, you might know. While the business is actually doing quite well and actually has healthy gross margins, we clearly put quite some dollars into R&D because we want to build the menu even much faster than the original Parse plan was. It's the reason why it is dilutive for this year, particularly in Q1 and Q2. But again, we do believe also it pays off quite quickly.

Maybe we can hit on digital PCR, strong growth there, over 20% in the quarter. One of the more compelling stories, I think, in the 5-pillar plan. I think people are still trying to get comfortable with what the longer-term outlook, looks like for that business. So can you just talk on how you think about that trajectory? I know you originally laid out a 25% CAGR at the Capital Markets Day, and it's been below that. But how do you think about that business improving from here?

First and foremost, we should remind ourselves, right, that 4 out of the 5 growth drivers, I think, overall on track. And probably more important, nothing has changed. Our $2 billion target for 2028 on the 5 pillar of growth hasn't changed. You're right that the composition of the mix might be different [indiscernible]. But I think the $2 billion are more than doable. I do think that is not -- that hasn't changed, and I don't think there's any reason that it should change.

Particular QIAcuity, I think it was fair to say that last year, we had always good double-digit growth on the consumable side, but the instrumentation environment in general was difficult, not only for us but for many companies. Despite the fact, it was very encouraging that Q1 had a very good start, double-digit growth rate, not only in the consumables as always, but also on the instrumentation side. And I do think we will not expect anything different for the second quarter. And again, for the full year, we feel on track as well.

I think what makes the difference for us is clearly also the investments we made on the consumable side. I would say, historically, for sure, we agree to that, most people would say that QIAGEN always had a better instrumentation solution. But at the beginning, we were clearly a bit short on menu. But with the investments we made over the last 2 years, and we continue to do this year in expanding menu and portfolio for digital PCR, we are probably more than head-to-head, right? I think we have even a certain advantage there. And I think that pays off.

We are not standing still here. Also here on that side, we're clearly pushing hard on the menu side because we do believe the transformation from qPCR into digital PCR is just the beginning. If sequencing is doing well, it's great news for digital PCR because you need validation, you need quality control. It is always most likely digital PCR step. So there's a lot of good reasons to believe that business continues to do well.

You mentioned on the 1Q call kind of a prioritization strategically of digital PCR over qPCR. Can you maybe just talk about what needs to be done to drive more of that transition? Is it workflow, cost per sample for the menu development that Roland mentioned?

Yes. So just as a teaser here, we also have a deep dive coming up on June 15 on QIAcuity. There you will learn more about that. But just a few words on that. So if you just look into the qPCR space, then you will see that a lot is coming from gene expression. And this is something that we also mentioned earlier this year that this is something that we want to continue focusing on. And here, what is important for that multiplex capability is always a big topic. And here, you saw that we're able to target 12 -- or to analyze 12 targets in just one reaction.

Ease of use is important because, as you know, qPCR is a very simple technology. And then how can you automate that? And this is all what QIAcuity can do. Cost per sample is, of course -- cost per experiment is going down, the more targets you can put into one reaction. That's an important factor. And the menu as Roland mentioned, to just catch as many applications as possible in the space.

Maybe we can hit on QDI and you've taken growth expectations down from double digit to something closer to mid-single digit this year. Just talk a little bit about how much of that is discovery research sluggishness and what specifically changed in the underlying demand environment versus prior expectations?

Yes. Overall, we feel very good about the business. We shouldn't forget that right now, we're still going through a SaaS transition. That means, again, typically historically, customers were buying rather upfront licensing deals for typically 3-plus year periods, now they're going for rather quarterly installments. Overall, I would say it's probably somebody more profitable for us, but clearly having a different revenue recognition event for us.

In general, it's quite obvious that the clinical part of that is an important one. We clearly see also now that, again, some of the AI components are being helpful with helping customers getting more volume done. Again, I'm not sure long term is rather a high single-digit or low double-digit business. I wouldn't differentiate here too much. But overall, it's a nicely profitable business for us, which is growing above average.

Okay. I mean you previously talked about 15% CAGR for longer term, but now you think high single, low double?

Let's see where it ends.

And then, I guess, QIAstat, you're pointing to a meaningful ramp there, right, double digit in the back half of the year. Just walk us through what needs to go...

Performance of QIAstat was also a good start in the year in terms of placements. We have healthy -- as you know, historically, we always said if you have a 150 placements in the quarter, it's a good quarter for us. We had that 4x last year. And I would expect it's also the kind of a run rate we should expect for this year on average.

Clearly, respiratory is in Q1, but also in Q2, we said that on the call as well, is a tough comp. I think it's going to normalize in the second half. And we should also not forget that, again, as we said before, there's clearly an important launch coming for us. So we'll see how quickly that involves and contributes. But the significant ramp still comes from the launches of gastro and meningitis in the U.S. because have in mind, why it got launched more or less end of '24, that business in the U.S. is very much a tender-based business. And these tenders are typically 3-plus years. That means only every year, 1/3, 1/4 of the market is addressable for us. So we're still rolling nicely into that business that will drive growth for still quite some time.

I want to hit on margins quickly. So you previously discussed there's a path to pull forward the 31% margin target. Now we're thinking about flat to maybe slightly down this year. Obviously, some FX headwinds in there. But how should we think about the confidence in the 31% framework?

In fairness, there's a couple of headwinds, right? First of all, we did an acquisition where we clearly said it's dilutive, where it's 100 bps, right? The United States decided to implement some tariffs, right, which is also quite some headwinds. And currency wasn't helpful either despite that fact we were growing margins, right, last year; and despite that fact, we are probably keeping it somewhat flattish with what we said for this year, 29.5% on a constant exchange rate, which the actual rate is probably 29-plus percent in all fairness.

So I would say we still continue to expand margins. We still have 40 efficiency steps going forward to helping us to expand margin as well. And on top of that, of course, overall, the menu direction is being very helpful. It's no surprise to you to anybody else that Sample prep at QIAGEN has probably a higher gross margin than most other products. So if Sample prep continues what it is doing right now, being growing quite nicely, the mix will be helpful.

We always have been quite open that QIAstat is an important product in terms of margin expansion because the utilization of production is an important topic in that environment. So again, as we said by yourself, we do believe that it's a good product which is going to grow as well. Yes, I don't see any reason that margin shouldn't improve. Again, I hope that you're not increasing tariffs every second month. But despite that factors, which we cannot control on the efficiency side, we are in the middle of stepping up on changing our ERP system, bringing 2 systems to 1 system. There are a lot of detailed projects behind that. There's clearly updates on that coming up.

Yes, a little bit -- just under a minute left. Maybe the door is open to ask about the strategic process, and we talked on the CEO timing. Maybe just talk about where the Board says that you announced to the world you hire bankers. So what...

Yes. As we said, as you know, a couple of -- probably a few weeks ago, we announced that we engaged 2 bankers to help us and help the Board to review all the different options, which we have. Clearly, also a reaction on all the rumors being around since the announcement of [ Thierry ] and QIAGEN taking part. Nevertheless, I do think there's also an important event which we described before, which was important for shareholders, which was the Capital Market Day. It is probably important for a lot of different parties. So let's see how that plays out and then we take it from there.

Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thanks.

Thank you, Tycho. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for joining us for our next session. My name is Mike Ryskin. I'm on the Bank of America Life Science Tools and Diagnostics team, and we're excited to be hosting Qiagen. We're joined by Roland Sackers, Chief Financial Officer; and Domenica Martorana. Format will be a fireside chat Q&A as usual. Raise your hand if you've got any questions. Happy to let you jump in.

Roland, had some updates yesterday from you in terms of the Board meeting updates, things like that. Anything specific you want to call out from there? We saw some changes to the Board, a little bit of an update on CEO timing. Just maybe you could talk through some of the key takes from that.

Yes, sure. And first of all, thanks for having us. It's always a pleasure to be here. It's a long trip, but it's, for sure, worthwhile the trip. And again, thanks for having us. 2 days fully booked. But I do think what is important, and you will mention it, that yesterday, we released the proxy for the upcoming AGM. I do think it has a couple of exciting news.

And I think let's start with getting certain things out of our way. Probably very important is we are asking for approval of more share buybacks. As you know, Qiagen has this, I would say, setting that we do, 2 different kinds of share buybacks. One is open market share buybacks or on the market. Here, we asked an approval of up to 10% of our total capital. And the second one is, what we call in Europe, synthetic share buyback, which is -- also, here, we are asking for approval of another $200 million of synthetic share buyback.

Again, it's for approval. Typically, its approval holds for 12 to 18 months, and then it's up to the Board to execute on them whenever they believe it's a good time for them. But nevertheless, if you see that in combination with the $500 million share buyback, which we did already January this year and also what we did over the last 2 years, you can see that there's a clear commitment also here again on increasing shareholder returns.

Second topic was that we continue to, call it in brackets, refresh our Supervisory Board. We have just seen that a new Board member was actually on stage here before, which is Bob, CFO of West Pharma, which I think is a great addition, given his track record, his industry experience. So we are very much looking forward that he gets elected on the AGM in June. And at the same time, our -- one of our founders, Metin Colpan, who was, by definition, of course, for many years on our Supervisory Board, is stepping down and becomes a non-voting Honorary Chairman of the Board. So I think -- which is again, on one side, a great recognition what he did over the last 40 years for Qiagen at the end of the day.

Last, but not least, you were also referring to the actual status of the CEO search. What we also said is that Thierry stands for reelection on the upcoming Board AGM to be a Managing Director for Qiagen until we are announcing incoming CEO. I think what we are believing right now it's an H2 event.

And I think what you can read into that is that Qiagen is still looking into different directions. You still know that there is an ongoing strategic review. And therefore, again, I think it's also quite clear that the Board, but also any potential candidates want to see how that works out. At the same time, I can guarantee you we don't have any shortage of candidates. So we do believe that is a good timing for the company.

Okay. Okay. All right. And then you mentioned the share buyback. There is also a dividend increase, too, right?

You're absolutely right. I shouldn't have forgotten that. We are also increasing our dividend by 40% to $0.35 EPS, which again shows also our commitment to shareholder returns. For us, it's an important signal that we also feel very confident about cash generation in the company, and we are committed to our net debt-to-EBITDA goal, which we'll virtually launch more or less earlier this year.

Okay. Okay. All right. Maybe let's talk about the other update from the last couple of weeks. The 1Q results, you guys gave a flash, and then the full result last week, had to update the full year guide. There are a couple of different moving pieces. I think the most notable one was QuantiFERON tied to immigration. Maybe just talk through how the quarter played out relative to your expectations, where the surprise came from, just sort of how you're incorporating that into your forward outlook.

Yes. First and foremost, that hasn't changed for the year. As you know, we are focusing on 5 pillars of growth. 4 of the 5 pillars of growth, we just confirmed, full stop. Within the fifth pillar, which is QuantiFERON, we clearly had to identify that the immigration piece of that business is going in a different direction than we initially thought.

Just putting things in perspective, QuantiFERON is around about a $500 million business for us. 90% of that business, no change at all. The 10% immigration piece of $50 million is something what we had to revisit and particularly in U.S. and somewhat in the Middle East. So just to break that $50 million down even further, $15 million is in Europe, 1-5, no change at all.

We believe that is an ongoing business for us. We haven't seen any change. $30 million is more or less the U.S. part. We took that out fully. Given the political landscape right now, we don't even see any opportunity that it comes back in any reasonable timeframe. Of course, it's going to be in the base as of Q1 next year, but we have to go through that period. And there's another $5 million around about, which is related to the Middle East business, which we have in QuantiFERON, which again is clearly a business, which we believe at least temporary with the ongoing war, is somewhat impacted. Nevertheless, we took it out 100%.

I would argue, at some point in time, it comes back because there will be still construction and other workers have to fly into these countries. And -- but again, it's hard to say when that is going to happen. And if we have to reset the guide, we rather than turn every corner and every stone and see that. So Q1, everything was overall as we expected it. We were, at the end of the day, $10 million down, $8 million was what I just mentioned.

Okay. And the $30 million change in immigration outlook, QuantiFERON-tied immigration in the U.S., is that tied to any new specific policies? Is that just sort of an implementation change? Why so sudden, why so drastic now versus fourth quarter, third quarter, second quarter last year? I mean, assuming this is tied to the administration, why now?

It's a very fair question, and you can hopefully believe that we beat ourselves over the last couple of weeks quite significantly, should we have seen it earlier. But I think the matter of the fact is we as well as our customers have not seen that more or less before Q1 happened. Have in mind, the immigration-based testing is not done in any kind of specialized dedicated lab environment. It is done in the very normal lab facilities, whatever you think of, Quest, Labcorp, ARUP, you name them.

And so it is happening under a very general setting. And we had very normal order incoming actually all the way into January. So in January, things started to change. When we went to our customers and asked, okay, guys, what's going on, and together with our customers, we looked into the different labs and then we figured out certain regions having no impact and certain regions have a different impact. So again, if you just looked that in Texas, significantly larger impacted. Middle East and some other areas not impacted at all. And then you started again to look at that.

In hindsight, you can clearly argue, as you know, certain immigration topics changed legislation-wise in June last year, but didn't have any larger impact. A big step-up in terms of countries was actually mid of January. I'm not sure if that made an impact, but sometimes things slip over.

But I think what we also have learned is that there's a lot of, what you call it, libertarian organizations doing healthcare for also illegals. And that is probably also where we have to realize now that they're running in funding situation and others, so things adding up. We took here probably a very cautious view, but it's just saying it's hard to identify for us what exactly stays and whatnot. Take out 100% and if it gets better, fine.

And what about -- you mentioned the 90% that's not immigration, the other $450 million. What's the underlying assumption for growth rate there in 2026 and beyond?

We haven't reset the bar yet right now. So again, we believe right now that -- as you know overall, we had this kind of 5%, 6% growth rate. I think that is probably for the remaining part, still a reasonable assumption. What we still have to figure out how quickly is now the resetting of the inventory level is going to happen. I would assume that it probably takes at least the second quarter, and then it should improve somewhat in the second quarter -- sorry, in the second half of the year, particularly in Q4.

And is it too early to say for 2027 and beyond, especially that U.S. immigration bit, is there an expectation that comes back at some point? Is it just sort of easier to just not even think about it and pretend it's not there? Sort of how are you approaching it?

So one thing we shouldn't forget, and again, it got confirmed today on a different location, everybody is, I think, agreeing that the overall TB testing market is growing. We say 4% to 5%. Others say 5% to 6%. I think our 4% to 5% is still on the conservative side. Still assuming, which I think nobody disputes either, that that skin test market is still 60% of the total market. I think it's fair to believe that we will grow at least that market growth and hopefully better than that with this ongoing penetration.

Okay. I think you're alluding to an Analyst Day that happened earlier today from one of the other...

Competition with [ UMN ].

Yes, yes. From one of the other major diagnostic vendors. Just anything you kind of took from that in terms of updates on their test and their offering?

Again, not much surprise for us, but it looks like probably for some shareholders because share price reacted positively, I think there's a couple of news which further of all, I think, got confirmed what was rumored before that they are missing a couple of parameters in particular, CD4 and CD8, which are very critical for selected groups of patients, again, particularly if you're looking at immunocompromised patients on. So I'm quite sure that that will have an impact.

Second, I think the workflow expectations were probably somewhat overestimated. It looks like that there's still quite manual steps, didn't even articulate it, from my knowledge, to an extent that it was clear to the market. No news on U.S. launch, at least what we have seen so far. So I would say, again, for us, no surprise. For probably some shareholders, some incremental news.

Okay. All right. So that's QuantiFERON. We handled that. Let's talk about the other component of the full year guide revision was sort of just the broader life science market and expectations for that. Like you said, didn't really factor in a big way for 1Q because it really did seem to be immigration-specific, but you are taking down your assumptions for the rest of the year. What drove that? How did that play out in the quarter? And why do you think the new outlook is more representative?

Just to be very clear, we actually haven't changed too much. The one thing what we changed is particular QuantiFERON immigration-based testing, the $35 million. The second area which we have tested was rather OEM-related. These are literally a handful of customers who do typically high-7-digit deals with. Here, we just took a more conservative view. Even if we sometimes have orders on hand, but the political landscape is sometimes very difficult to read, right?

So for example, we have larger contracts with U.S. governmental institutes, where typically, we have an ongoing business. But sometimes, given particularly that environment, you're not sure if they are able to execute on that. Now when we had to revise our guidance for QuantiFERON, in brackets, anyway, we turned every stone and see is there any potential risk just to make sure that things never happen, at least not -- likely not happening again. So we identified more or less 2 of this kind of isolated topics.

The overall life science business, as demonstrated with our sample prep business, I think it's moving in the right direction. We anyway always had a quite stable life science business. You remember that sample prep in general last year was good. We were always cautious on the instrumentation side. We do believe it's going to improve somewhat, but that is not the driver for our acceleration this year. The driver for our acceleration from H1 to H2 is, first of all, there's 200 basis points of headwind from discontinuation of business last year, which was NeuMoDx and DIALUNOX as of June 30 last year. That will stop by definition mid of this year. So 200 basis point improvement of that.

Another 200 basis points comes particularly out of new product launches, which is, in our case, particular sample prep. You know about QIAsprint, our new high-throughput machine. You know about QIAsymphony, which is also on the market, so there's no launch risk. But of course, it has to accelerate over time. So I would say this incremental 200 bps or $20 million revenues is not unlikely, given the $700 million base we're having.

And last but not least, we also do believe that Parse, our recent acquisition in the single-cell business, should accelerate and probably do also better than the expecting $40 million, which we put into our numbers earlier this year. So I would say there's literally no larger impact from a life science acceleration in our numbers. Of course, we like to see that, don't get me wrong. And I think there's also early indication also on the instrumentation side, but I wouldn't call it victory yet.

Okay. Yes. I mean you touched on Parse. Let's go there. It looks like that was a little bit better than expected in the first quarter, at least relative to your $40 million assumption for the full year. It's tough to draw any conclusions from 1Q, but is there anything specifically that you could call out that drew that strength?

I think just the technology, the single-cell technology, that is very much requested. And also, together with the scalability of that part of the business and just the proof points that we have on large datasets, that's just something that makes us very confident to overachieve the about $40 million that we set for 2026.

And here also, just the synergies that we see also with our bioinformatics business is an important piece as well. So it's not just about Sample tech and Parse being part of the Sample tech business, but also our bioinformatics business that we have.

One of the benefits we have in clear with our Parse technology is that is instrument-free. So you can use it just by using the product itself, which in that environment is not a bad situation. The same thing where we're seeing right now, we're doing actually quite well in front of pharma customers.

I do think Qiagen is, of course, given our global presence, a good acceleration factor for the overall Parse business. So I think the combination of that, plus what you just said, the integration of our -- with our bioinformatics franchise, which will take a bit more time, should be helpful to drive that business going forward.

So you're still assuming $40 million for the year. You just kind of see... That's more upside than downside. Okay. Going back to what you were talking about earlier, Roland, in terms of the new product launches in Sample tech, that's kind of factored into the guide as part of the second half ramp. What are your -- anything you can give in terms of your assumptions for that contribution, confidence in that coming through?

The good thing on instrumentation business, you typically have a pipeline. And I would say the pipeline so far is building quite nicely. So I would say we feel this, particularly with QIAsprint, which is our new high-throughput platform, I think the pipeline build goes quite well, and we should see the first numbers already in the second quarter, but as you said correctly, much more important in the third and fourth quarter.

We also expect, given that it's a high-throughput platform, that the consumable pull-through starts quite nicely. Majority in the beginning will be in life science. So I think also there will be, as always, reagent rental business, but there will be clearly at least 50% of straight sales, which should be helpful for us. So again, I think that is something where we have good confidence.

symphony, same thing. Here, we are, of course, working with particular customers like the Guardants or Nateras or whatever, who are already existing customers, to roll that out because it has significant advantage for them as well. So again, on the sample prep side, again, at least, you know what, now we have the organic growth rate of 3%. If we're able to keep that and grow that over time, that's a nice thing for us.

Okay. Okay. And you talked about -- earlier in the session, you talked about how outside of QuantiFERON, if you think about the growth pillars, the other 4 were on track. Your assumptions for the other 4 for the rest of the year have not changed. So maybe let's talk a little bit about QIAstat, QIAcuity, QDI, sort of how the quarter played out.

There's always some doing better, some are doing okay. I think outstanding, as we talked about, and we're going to repeat it with sample prep, clearly a healthy start to the year. I think the same is true for QIAcuity, double-digit consumable growth rate, double-digit instrumentation growth rate.

As you know, we have a significant project in enhancing our portfolio in terms of assays and panels. In the last 2 years, we launched every year around about 100 different assays, panels on the machine. This year, we said publicly, it will be several hundreds. So we do believe that end of this year, probably in the second half of the year, we have probably the broadest menu available. We also have GeneGlobe, where people can define their own assays. We produce them and ship them to them, which is a great advantage. Customer loves that.

QIAstat, I would say, good start into the year, given that respiratory last year in H1 was a huge business. We also told you ahead that also Q2 will be not the easiest quarter for us because of the respiratory headwind. Placement numbers in Q1 were good. Quite sure that Q2 will be also very healthy, [ gust for ] double-digit growth rate, many guided double-digit growth rate. So I think we are on track to having our $160 million of revenues here as well. QDI, also a solid start, high single digit. It's okay.

Okay. And outside of the growth pillars, PCR, genomics, CDx, that was a little bit more mixed, a little bit spotty in the quarter. Is that more of an end market dynamic, given some of the softness you're seeing in A&G? Is that specific customer issues?

It's somewhat expected -- in all fairness, it's probably a bit weaker than we thought. We do believe -- it was double-digit negative. We believe it should be probably more like mid- to high-single negative. Of course, have in mind that also in that area, we stopped [ exogenous ] and some other products. So there is an impact of that, which has to wash out.

At the same time, it's probably also somewhat of a conversion to digital PCR. It's the reason why we expect some negative numbers into that. So I think we will have a bit more focus on that, stabilizing it in the area I indicated, and that should be helpful as well.

Okay. Are you -- from an end market perspective, are you seeing any stability in A&G? Have things sort of resettled at a lower level? And then we'll talk about biotech and pharma as well.

I would think things are moving in the right direction. I think it's still a bit on the level of, let's have some more confidence. But again, you know that we last year -- also last year, we had a quite solid consumable business overall. I don't think that has changed. I think what has changed now over the last couple of weeks is that we get more request for proposal for instruments. Again, we're not calling it victory yet, but at least people are trying to familiarize themselves what's going on.

Okay. Is it -- you mentioned reagent rental. Is that coming up more and more where people are a little bit more...

On the diagnostic side, I think it's typically part of that, on the life science side sometimes, but it's not a big tool.

Okay. Okay. And in terms of specifically U.S. A&G versus Europe or potentially China, anything to call out by region?

China is selling. As you know, for us, it's like a 4% of share. We have seen some improvement, still negative. I hope or we hope that end of this year, we are only slightly negative, maybe flattish. So it's improving, but it's not in positive territory.

Okay. Let's talk about operating margins and leverage. You -- despite some of the top line weakness, you're still able to deliver some impressive numbers on the OpEx side of things. Just walk us through the bridge there. What's allowing you to do that despite the...

Just to repeat what you just said, we reconfirmed the operating income number for this year, 29.5% at constant exchange rates. So with actual rates, it's probably 29-plus percent, which is despite the negative impact we have from the Parse acquisition because we clearly said we are doubling down on R&D investments, so it's 100 basis points dilutive for the year. And so I think -- nevertheless, we still see gross margin stepping up somewhat, not only this year, but also particularly also next year, mix getting more favorable.

A big driver for us is still the QIAstat utilization ratio, because as you know, this whole production environment was built during COVID. So there's room for us to go into that and get into better standard costing mix, as I said, in general. But we also have 40 initiatives, we call it, of course, QIAefficiency programs and which are ongoing, and there is certain larger programs in -- like the rollout of our new ERP system. We are going to SAP HANA, which we do in steps. But of course, we are moving on here.

It's overall digitization of the company. We have now in the meantime 60% of our orders coming in a digital way, which again, clearly takes quite a significant number of cost out of the system. So there's a lot of detailed projects, which we track quite well. And as you know, they helped us to improve margins over the last 2 years. I don't see any reason why that should change over the next few years. We have, I think, a commitment out by 31% by '28. We clearly said before that we are able to increase that target. Now we will wait for the new CEO to launch it, but I don't think the underlying tonality is not going to change.

Okay. Yes, we'll talk about the mid-term targets in a bit, but on the '26 margins, just to be clear, did you -- are you taking any incremental cost actions post-1Q to sort of reaffirm those numbers? Or is that just still...

I would say we still have cost action, but the plan of underlying -- long-term plan.

Okay. Okay. So on that mid-term framework, you previously outlined so that 7% core sales CAGR, the 31% operating margin, which seems to be coming on the higher end of that, $2 billion of growth pillar revenue. You've had some tweaks here and there, but how comfortable are you with those mid-term targets?

I think we're comfortable with the $2 billion. I think it's fair enough to say that the mix will change, but we're probably a bit short on QuantiFERON, most likely, but that we will overshoot on sample prep and probably some others, the QIAcuity, and for sure, QIAstat. So again, the mix will change. The $2 billion should probably stay.

We are done already with the share buyback, which was $1 billion. We will clearly overshoot that, but we announced not only this year, but also more or less -- hopefully, the shareholders are going to approve in June. The margin committed 6%, 7%, we'll see a bit, right? It might be -- 7% might be a stretch. Let's see how we go.

Okay. And you talked about share buybacks at the beginning with the AGM, just kind of touched on now. Can you talk about new capital deployment priorities going forward? Just between the dividend increase and the share buybacks, is there room left for M&A? Sort of how do you prioritize that?

I think our commitment to all 3 areas has not changed, and I wouldn't put any kind of either/or into that. So we -- first and foremost, we clearly want to invest in the organic growth of the company because it still has the biggest return opportunities for us, and therefore, for all our stakeholders. Second is we like to do bolt-on acquisitions, like we did with Parse. I think it was a great fit to the company. We don't need something transformational, but if something fits to our portfolio and accelerating the portfolio growth, happy to do so.

The likelihood, of course, that these deals happen quite regular is somewhat remote. So while we're doing quite busy, so I think there's enough opportunity, given also the underlying cash flow and the leverage we're having that we can continue in doing share buybacks, increasing dividends over time as well. So I don't think it's an either/or. It's really and.

Okay. And on the flip side of that, you've not been shy about divesting or discontinuing or one way or another trimming things that either are noncore or underperforming. Do you feel like the portfolio is pretty well cleaned up at this point? Or is there more room to fine-tune?

I would say so far, we feel quite comfortable. Again, let's see if -- I don't think there's any larger strategies change, if there's a new leadership team or so, but you never know. So I would say that's something that we have to demonstrate. But in general, the growth drivers deliver right now somewhere between 6% and 7% growth rate. I don't think that is questioning anything. And I do think the leverage probably right now comes out of operational efficiency, and that should give us also enough room to grow margins going forward.

Okay. And on the -- going back to the topic of the CEO change, could you give us any insight in terms of the criteria the Board is using or sort of what are the priorities? Is -- you've outlined certain strategic initiatives and moves. Is the goal to find a CEO that fits within that framework? Or is there a view where you might have a new CEO and some of that framework could change?

I probably think the way the searches I've done in this world is that I would not expect any larger surprises, at least for the Board, because typically, as you know, these candidates go in the meantime through quite a dedicated search process, have to present their cases and so on. So I think everybody knows quite well, from both perspectives, what to expect and that there is no larger surprise, right?

At the same time, I do think what the Board expectation is. Yes, we'd probably call it looking for somebody, in brackets, who has seen the movie. So somebody who worked in life science, who worked on the clinical side as well, some -- because we clearly have a business in both parts of the industry. We clearly would love to have somebody who has experience with Europe and the U.S. because we have an operational setup, which is actually very global as well. So there is a good set of candidates out there. And so I'm quite comfortable that we have the right candidates.

Okay. Last couple of minutes left. Any questions from the audience? If not, Roland, maybe our standard closing question, or remark, sort of what do you think is most underappreciated? What are some of the bigger debate points you're hearing? Anything you want to clarify to investors or make sure people take with them as they walk away?

I'm not sure there's something underappreciated. I think there's a lot of things overappreciated, which was the fear about QuantiFERON, and the world is falling apart. And so I really hope that with some of the news coming out probably today and then hopefully get more interpretation over the next couple of days, and hopefully, the products finally make it to the money -- to the market that people will figure out that there is still the leader in QuantiFERON in TB market and that's Qiagen and that we continue to grow with QuantiFERON, but also in particular outside QuantiFERON.

That is all what we want to demonstrate because nobody questioned, I think, that we delivered quite, I would say, a series of 26 quarters in a row in terms of revenue and EPS performance. That is what we want to do going forward as well.

Okay. All right. Well, on that note, we'll wrap it up there. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to our spotlight session. Today, it's all about QuantiFERON. And in the next hour, you will learn more about our strategic priorities and the latest developments. But before we start, let's have a closer look into the legal disclaimer.

As with any investor event, this presentation includes a safe harbor statement. You're likely familiar with this from our other presentations. So I won't read it in full. However, please remember that we will be making forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected, and the factors driving those are detailed in our most recent Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A copy is also available on our website.

Today, I'm not alone in the studio, and I would like to welcome our CEO, Thierry Bernard. Hello, Thierry, and good to have you here. Over to you.

Thank you, Domenica, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to all of you. Thanks again. for your attention and interest in Qiagen. A year ago, and I hope and I think that most of you attended that event a year ago, we organized an Investor Relation deep dive session on quantified. And we wanted to leave you with 3 main messages.

One, tuberculosis is still the main infectious diseases killer in the world. Remember, tuberculosis continues to kill more than HIV and malaria every year, 1.6 million of people will die every year of tuberculosis. But the reservoir of active tuberculosis latent tuberculosis is even a greater health care challenge. 2 billion people in the world are estimated to be impacted by latent tubercolosis, this is an incredible number.

Second, Qiagen is the undisputed leader for more than 20 years now for latent tubercolosis is testing. But despite being a leader, we have never been complacent or arrogant and we have continuously invested into the development of our solution. First, if you remember, back in 2016, the front-end automation and the unique partnership with a leading company in immunodiagnostic DiaSorin.

Second, the continuous improvement of our test itself to keep and its chemistry, bringing the only combination, I repeat only combination on the market of CD4 and CD8, which is so critical to be able to manage specific population of patients, like, for example, immunocompromised patient. Think about HIV patients hepatitis patient. QuantiFERON latent TB testing is by far the most sensitive test on the market.

Third, improvement after the automation of the back end of the test with DiaSorin, the automation of the front end of the test with partners like Tecan, Hamilton to leading companies again.

The third message we wanted to leave you with a year ago was the market potential is still significant, especially the market conversion of skin test and antiquated technology. And we told you -- but the best -- or the best estimation today are that we still have around 50 million, 5-0 millions of test skin test in the world. ready to be converted to a more modern approach like Qiagen QuantiFERON. Just in the U.S. alone, it's 15 million to 16 million of skin test to be converted. But we don't want to stand still.

Today, we are coming to you to announce that 3 leading companies are reserve strengthening or creating new collaborations to bring an even better set of solutions to our customers. First, DiaSorin, our partners for quasi 10 years now.

Second, a leading company in full engineering and automation in [ Peco ] and we will have their CEO, Ricardo reserves today.

Third, Qiagen, of course, continuously investing into our solution. First, new innovation, and you heard about it at least in Europe, is an unprecedented improvement of the efficiency of our current test. Turnaround time is of use. We call it clear to already available for some months in Europe now available as well in the U.S. Second, innovation today, the first and probably only end-to-end automation, sample in result out automation for Quantify.

For the first time, 2 companies together with DiaSorin are bringing the first full automation workflow where a technician will just need to put a tube into the system and wait for the result. And third, a unique and clearly only possible for Qiagen because of 20 years of test, a unique AI investment to help doctors determining tomorrow, who in the whole population of latent TB patient has the highest score to move to active TB. This is tremendously exciting. This is innovation at its best. But even so, it is also confirming that Qiagen doesn't take our leadership with complacency.

Thank you, Thierry. Innovation clearly doesn't stop here. And with that, let me hand over to [ Nadia Albrecht ], who is going to tell more about our unique QuantiFERON ecosystem.

Hello, everybody. It's great to see you at this QuantiFERON Spotlight event. WHO has announced that by 2035, they would like to eliminate tuberculosis. You can only eliminate tower loses by working on your active TB cases and treat your patients, but you should also look for the reservoir. And this reservoir is latent TB or TB infection. 25% of the world population are about 2 billion people are infected with latent TB. Qiagen estimates the global latent TB testing market at approximately 75 million tests annually, growing about 4% to 5% per year.

Only about 40% of this market has been converted from traditional skin test to modern blood-based interferon gamma release assays or IGRAs. Patients that usually get tested are immunocompromised, health care professionals people that live and close relationship with an active TB patients, but also other groups. All of this together makes a market potential of 1.6 billion in 2026. During our deep dive of QuantiFERON of last year, we told you that we would continue to invest in our QuantiFERON portfolio. And this is indeed what we have done. From the beginning of the acquisition of Cellestis, Qiagen has nonstop invested in making our QuantiFERON assay better, more specific, more automated and more reliable.

When we launched our fourth generation, we added a patented CD4, CD8 antigen technology. And this has allowed us to have a more reliable assay for critical ill patients like immunocompromised and HIV. The magic happens in the tubes, but we never stopped looking and how we can further improve the test. Today, we are proud to present our next step in workflow enhancement and the creation of a QuantiFERON ecosystem for improved automation and patient management.

The first improvement is the launch of a new LIAISON chemistry together with our partner, DiaSorin. The new chemistry is designed to improve speeds, throughputs and workflow efficiency by enabling labs to test up to 75% more patients per hour and achieving a 25% faster turnaround time compared to the previous version. It was launched in November 2025 in Europe and recently launched in the U.S. after receiving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in February 2026.

The feedback of our clients are very positive, and we are on track in our conversion plan between the old and the new chemistry. Latent TB testing is moving towards higher volume, more automated workflow as the market increasingly shifts from traditional skin test to modern era based detection. Qiagen has been investing in automation for several years, partnering with companies such as Tecan and Hamilton, to streamline pre-analytical steps and with the actin to automate the detection on the LIAISON platform.

But we felt as the market leader that we had to go a step further and aim for a full automation, enabling labs to scale with growing demand. This is why Qiagen, leader in globe-based latent TB testing and Peco, a leader in lab automation, and DiaSorin, leader in high medical value testing have started the development of the first full automated block-based IGRA testing platform that we plan to launch by the end of 2027.

The lab technician will only need to load the samples and all the other steps in the process will be done automatically. And the right sequence and at the right time. This is the first and only blood-based IGRA test for higher volume testing that will be fully automated.

[Presentation]

With this partnership, we are leading, again, the next-generation blood-based IGRA testing, and we will have an automated proposal linked to the volume needs of our clients. 20 years of experience, 4 generation of test, multiple endorsements and more than 2,700 publications. We are the only company that has this experience. Based on this, we are creating an AI-enabled risk certification to -- for TB progression with the goal of supporting stratification of patients at a higher risk of progression to active TB disease.

With this tool, we are creating a real sample to insight QuantiFERON ecosystem. This tool will use the values of our 4 unique QuantiFERON tubes, along with other parameters to deliver a more complete view of the immune response to TB. The tool is built on one of the largest longitudinal TB clinical data sets, comprising about 13 million de-identified patient records collected over the last 10 years. And is intended to support health care professionals and making more informed decision, improving patient counseling and supporting enhanced patient care. At Qiagen, we nonstop continue to invest into QuantiFERON as we grow with our clients and we answer the needs of this growing business.

Thank you, Nadia. And Nadia will also be here with us in the studio for the Q&A. The topics, detection, automation and AI-enabled risk stratification Cherry, let's focus for now on automation. And for that, I would like to welcome the CEO of Inpeco, Riccardo Triunfo.

Yes, indeed, we have Ricardo with us. It's an honor, Riccardo to have you with us this morning. Let me start with the first question. You're a leading company in engineering and live automation explain to us why is end-to-end automation so critical for customers those days.

So first of all, Thierry and thanks for this invitation. I think we are all proud to announce this joint impactful innovation. So to answer your question, let me start from our vision. So we, as a company, we believe in a world where medical errors are eliminated through lab automation, software and data traceability. We all know today, labs are facing what is called the perfect storm, chronic shortage of skilled staff and a massive increase in testing volumes. And that end-to-end automation is in our view, the best way to solve this.

By removing manual touch points, we reduced the potential for errors and ensure the full traceability from the moment a sample arrives until the final result. This allow labs to scale their operations efficiently while guarantee the highest level of clinical integrity.

That's very good. And Riccardo, if I may, I have a second question for you. like us, like Qiagen, you work every day with the biggest labs in the world, the quest, the [ LabCore Serba ] in the world. Why do you think a purpose built automation, full automation for QuantiFERON would make sense for those kinds of customers.

Yes. Thanks, Thierry. I mean it makes a lot of sense because laboratory today serve a massive spectrum of needs from small specialized labs to large centralized facilities that you mentioned. With an increased sample volume. The challenge is how do they scale operations and reduce manual steps simultaneously. This is exactly where I see our partnership makes a difference. Inpeco is not just providing a track to Qiagen. We are integrating a fully automated full automation for the entire diagnostic workflow through our flagship automation, the [ Flex Lab ] with new dedicated modules and software.

So by combining Qiagen leading detection capabilities that we have seen with our DNA in automation, we are creating a truly integrated and fully automated solution for QuantiFERON latent TB testing -- throughput and reduce ends of time. And let me say, more importantly, create a super standardized, repeatable process that brings long-term value to the health care system and the labs across the globe.

That's really exciting. I think, Domenica, that you had another question for Riccardo as well.

So one last question from my end, Riccardo. From an investor's perspective, and I think they will be very interested about that. But when do you think the first systems will be up and running at our customers?

No, it's our commitment to move with the greatest momentum to bring this next-generation system to the market. Our ambition is to have the solution fully up and running in laboratories in late 2027. And now we are in a phase where obviously we are also understanding if this can be anticipated. But the forecast is late to 2027. Thanks for asking.

The good thing, Domenica, to leverage a bit what Ricardo just said, is that we have already under CDA presented together with Ricardo sometimes separately. The solution to some key customers. And what I can testify today is that the reception and also input from those customers have been -- hello there -- sorry.

So as you've seen, we now also are joined by Nadia in the studio. Welcome back.

Hello, Domenica.

Hello. So we're ready now for the Q&A and taking your questions for the Thierry and Nadia from the studio, and we also have some more speakers for you today. Welcome back Riccardo. And we also have, as a speaker, Nitin Sood, you know him from our last events, Head of Product portfolio and innovation. And we also have for you ready to take your questions, [ Parampal ], who is the Head of R&D applications for QuantiFERON

Before we start, just as a quick reminder, if you haven't done so, please type in your questions into the Q&A box into the web portal, and we're very happy to take them. And I think we're ready for the first question, right? So let's start with the first one. Are there any competitors currently offering end-to-end track-based automation for latent TB testing and how differentiated is QuantiFERON's position in that area.

Well, the answer is very simple, Domenica, it's no. First of all, even as of today, with the current workflow, Tecan or Hamilton, QuantiFERON and DiaSorin, there is no comparable automation. And tomorrow, this will be unique and really specific to QuantiFERON. So the answer is clearly no. It's at the moment, unprecedented.

So the next one, do you expect -- sorry, I jumped, give me a second. There's lots of questions coming in -- that's why it's jumping. So apologies for that. Do you expect an impact of AI-enabled decision support on testing volumes or market expansion?

Well, I'm going to ask Nitin to take that question because, obviously, you understand that we are taking a bit here. It's a very well-considered bet. It's a fantastic evolution because the holy grail in the fast -- in the fight against TB will be that ability to detect or to predict predictive biology, who in the population of latent TB has the most risk to go to active TB. So what do you think, Nitin?

Yes. I mean, I think, first of all, I just want to emphasize the fact that only we get business intelligence into the test is risk-based progression score because only we have access to these 30 million patients than a longitudinal data.

And again, I just want to remind everyone that most people who have latent TB don't have active symptoms and may not follow through with their treatment. And therefore, providing this intelligence to the patient or to the physician will increase compliance to treatment. And that is a big differentiator, and we absolutely hope that will allow us to expand our leadership position in the latent TB franchise.

So the next one is on the partnership with Inpeco. The development of end-to-end automation solution, is it purpose-built for QuantiFERON?

It is, but I would like to invite also Riccardo to give also his vision here.

Yes. Thanks for this one, Thierry. So while our history is completely rooted in an open automation, this project has been ideated and will be developed with and for Qiagen specific. So we are developing a new ally quarter, which is specific to the testing, as you have seen in the video and an intelligent incubator that have been designed ground up specifically for the QuantiFERON test.

So this level of specialization, which is incorporating Qiagen specific configuration and workflow design is exactly what allows us to guarantee the high level of throughput and the -- reduction, which is also defining our mission. So that's why we are prioritizing the integrity of the specific test will ensure the highest standard of patient care. And that's why this test is specific, this automation and workflow is specific for Qiagen.

Yes. So the next one is on partnerships, right? So what drove the decision to partner with Inpeco versus QIAGEN's prior automation partners such as Tecan Hamilton. What is the value? And the next one is on AI. Let's keep it for now on Tecan Hamilton.

On Inpeco, I think it was a choice that became very clear to us when we decided not to think about automation in terms of adding some different instruments, but thinking from scratch and say, why don't we build something purposely for our test. And therefore, Inpeco, a company that we have been respecting for so many years, and we knew that, guess what, they were present, where we are present. They are present in our biggest customers. We see them every day. It was a natural partner.

Let's now move to the AI question. So the value of AI-enabled risk ratification and which segments of the testing market would this be most relevant for.

I think first, we should probably give a bit of science with [ Par and pole ] on what we are trying to achieve. And then I will ask Nadia to take that question on specifically the patient population that we are targeting. Paranpal?

Thank you, Thierry, and hello, everyone. I want to say a few things. I'm so excited to say this, Qiagen has acquired 13 million unique de-identified patient sets. And Qiagen is the only company who has this breadth of testing, and these data span from 2017 numbers. So it's almost a decade worth of data. And the key here is the long issue -- now data. That means that the patient has to be tracked or tying and we need to have full history of multiple QuantiFERON tests and all other patient parameters, which go with the testing to diagnose the latent TV to active TB.

And the value of CD4 and CD8 is so unique to Qiagen because it gives the comprehensive view of the immune response. These patients are already sick and they could be immunocompromised and this is what advantage QuantiFERON test brings to the table. So that being said, these data sets are spanning from all geographic distribution of U.S. It has pediatric to geriatric population, which is so important for the TB disease, and this will allow us to have a full comprehensive view of immune response for patients at an individual level. We already know that these risk factors are determined at a CDC and WHO level at a population level. But the key is what about the patient level, and that's the beauty of this risk score. Risk stratification, a tool which we are bringing to the table.

Thank you, Paranpal. Nadia, can you say a word about what kind of patient segments would be even more interested?

Yes. So thank you, Thierry. For the patient segments, according to the guidelines in the U.S., every latent TB patient needs to be treated. But as Nitin already said, if you're not sick yourself and you need to start a treatment, sometimes it's difficult to convince the patient to be treated. So this is why we hope this tool can help the clinician to show to their patients, the added value of getting a treatment and why it should be done. So in principle, it is going to be done for all patients that a clinician sees. We know that some people are very at risk. If you take biologics and if you're immunocompromised, these are very high-risk patients. but it's really to convince a patient, please follow your treatment and finish your treatment and don't stop it because this is surely not good.

So we have a couple more on AI. Maybe we'll stick to that for a moment. institutional organizations like WHO migrations officers and so on, we'll probably be very interested by the AI tool that we already started to discuss with them and what's the input on that?

I would say that Qiagen is a, first and foremost, a fact-based company. So we try to avoid making claims as long as we are not clearly sure that we are saying -- what we are seeing, what we are bringing to the market is proven. And so before having those organization, WHO, stop TB introduced, we prefer to have even better data deeper data and then we'll engage them. But those are partners of Qiagen for so many years. Remember, back in 2015, when WHO stated that latent TB was a key asset in the fight against active TB, it was after discussion and work with Qiagen.

Then to stay also again with the AI tool. The question is, when is the launch date? Is it any -- a bit more -- let's be a bit more specific on the software for predicting tuberculosis. And also, is it exclusively for QuantiFERON and DiaSorin customers who can benefit from that AI risk certification tool that we're launching.

I would invite Nitin to take that question, Nitin, on the approximate launch date and on which kind of workflow we want to adjust that tool.

Yes. I mean, again, that the tool is very specific to QuantiFERON because, again, it requires both CD8 and CD4 and it requires access to this longitudinal information that we have collected now through this [ 13 million ] data sets -- for over a decade. So very specific to us. And I just want to highlight that we have a very cross-functional team working on this. We have experts in the QuantiFERON chemistry clinicians or medical experts also working with us. So it's a very cross-functional effort. And the goal is to get the test out as quickly as possible. We're targeting 2027 for the launch of the two.

Nitin mentioned CD4, CD8, and we have a question around that. So what advantages does the CD4, CD8 base latent TB tests have?

Nadia?

Yes. Thank you very much. So I'm going to give the basics and then afterwards, I'm going to invite Paranpal to continue. As a company, Qiagen decided to launch a fourth generation. we were already in the market for some time, and we knew very well why we decided this unique CD4, CD8 combination because we wanted to improve, and we wanted to put the standard again a little bit higher. So what we see today is, and we see this from all the publications that are out there. that with a combination between CD4 and CD8, you have a much more solid test and your results are much more reproducible. So I don't know, Parampal if you want to add something on the science part.

Sure. Thank you, Nadia. So the CD4 cells are available, T cells are available when there is a response against TB antigen. However, when there is a patient population, which is immunosuppressant, their CD4 cells response could be impaired. In that situation, it's so important to have another T cell response marker, which is CD8, which allows us to look at more biologically relevant information on those patient populations, which are high risk.

And if you look at the TB case management, these are the groups who are more prone to get from a TB infection to TV disease. This is why a combination of CD4 and CD8 allows us to have more sensitive and specific test which people can rely on patients can rely on clinicians can rely on and the laboratories can rely on. So this is the uniqueness of CD4 and CD8, which is evident -- so much evidence is available through publications, which allows us to really be proud as a Qiagen to have a very strong test on the market.

So now 1 question again on automation, which is Tecan Hamilton. So just to clarify that, are we still offering -- is there still a partnership with Tecan Hamilton with the impact of system that we're going to launch.

But we need to be clear. What is the power of automation? It's obviously ease of use, gaining time, gaining efficiency, cost efficiency, patient efficiency. But the power of automation -- automation is also in flexibility. It's not one size fits at all. And therefore, we want to continue to offer the QuantiFERON as it is, the QuantiFERON on LIAISON. Nadia spoke about the conversion progressively to the CLIA2 on LIAISON. Some customers are only sometimes interested in the front end, and they are used to work with Tecan. It's going to continue.

The same with Hamilton. Some customers would say, I take care of the front end, I have the technicians for that. And I just want the liaison automation. That's perfectly fine. It depends on volumes. It depends on throughput. It depends on the country. But something I would like to ask also Nadia to highlight is that even our full automation with Inpeco Peco will be flexible.

Yes. Thank you very much, Thierry, indeed. So we really need to give an answer to the needs of the customer if you have a small customer or to a higher customer. And I think a lot of people if they see Inpeco, so we have different possibilities.

The 2, so the [ alicator ], and we have our incubator. And alicator will be needed if a customer works with a 1 tube format. An alicator will not be needed if a customer works with a forte format. So this is already a tailor-made solution. You have an incubator depending on the volume you're going to be able to have a day, you can put in multiple incubators one besides the other.

And you could, in principle, also build on a current street that is already available in labs. So we really go from a tailor-made solution because when a customer wants to go for automation we make a group we sit down with the customer, and we make together with Inpeco, together with [ Asuran ] and us, we make a tailored proposal to the needs of the customer.

Also keeping in mind that sometimes customers can grow -- so if a customer would grow in their volume, there's always a possibility to add an extra VSO instrument or to add the next incubator.

And on volume, which customers would benefit from an end-to-end workflow from an end-to-end automation? Is it more targeted to high-throughput customers. So just maybe a bit more color on that.

So it's really targeted for what we call our high-end customers. But don't be blind. This is not only U.S.-based customers. So worldwide, we have quite a lot of customers that have a possibility to go into this automation process. These are customers that today we would like to serve in a way that is unique in the market.

Okay. I'll jump back to AI. We have a couple of more AI topics. Why does risk stratification matter? And isn't it the point to treat all patients? And just what's the added value for that?

Because we tried to explain, especially also a year ago during our deep dive that when you have such a reservoir of potentially activity. We said 2 billion, 1/4 of the world population, which means probably that in this room, there is someone who is let anti positive. We like -- but that's the way it is. 2 billion people. It is clear that from cost management from, I would say, personalized medicine standpoint. Having the ability to detect or to predict who in dose latent TB has the highest score to go to active TB, therefore, needing a specific follow-up, a longer treatment specific attention and complete adherence because that's the problem many times with the patient. They do not comply sometime with their treatment. It's key.

Many companies have been training and Qiagen as well with different technologies for many years to get there with protein-based option with genomic-based solution. It failed all the time. And suddenly, we realize, wait a minute. These companies have multiyears of -- multiple results. And we have also acquired all other health care data and now we are creating those algorithm.

So now let's see -- let's take a financial one in between. It's on our 2028 target of $600 million. What gives us confidence in that? And also how the new launches are contributing to that?

So that's a very fair question. Back in our -- back to our Capital Market Day in 2024. We set the target of $600 million, as we said, Domenica, for 2028. We were very transparent to -- the market as well that if all the other applications on QuantiFERON are growing in a healthy way, we suffered the loss of 1 market, especially in the U.S. and in some countries in the Middle East, but mainly in the U.S., it's the immigrant mark.

And we gave the market a very clear indication. We believe it's between $30 million, $35 million of impact. We still believe that because of the potential of new applications, not only with what we are launching today, but existing immediate opportunities thus testing for patients under dialysis, for example, extending the knowledge around, for example, the connection between diabetes patient and -- tuberculosis that we have ways to mitigate. But at the moment, let's execute on our target for this year, let's execute on coming back to growth with QunatiFERON in H2 and we'll come back with the appropriate target. What I keep in mind is that the market to convert is still significant. This market is still growing. It's a good market to be, and we have more and more solution to address it completely.

And yes, on the conversion rate of the market, we keep saying 40% already converted? What do we need to get this conversion rate above 50% and even higher? And how might new entrants impact this conversion dynamics.

Nadia, do you want to take it? -- if you want.

So on the conversion rate, it's a combination between our sales teams, our clinical demand teams, but also our medical teams. Because Thierry just mentioned that there is new groups of patients that have the possibility to be tested. And this is really where our medical affairs does a huge soda. So our teams have strict criteria. We follow up. We go to patients, and we continue repeating the same message.

Key message, if you want to convert a skin best to a blood-based IGRA test is, everybody who's BCG-vaccinated will quite often be false positive -- in test. So you can't really deal with it. Secondly, when you do a skin test, people need to come back twice. So these are the messages that we continue seeing and we see year after year that a big part of the market is shifting.

Some parts of the market have almost shifted 100%. If you look to biologics. Biologics is almost using blood-based IGRA test and QuantiFERON test for all of their patients. If there is a new company coming into the market, this new company together with us, can move the 75 million that is today the market of latent TB up to 80 million, up to 90 million because Thierry just said, there's 2 billion people with latent TB. So the number of 75 million is much higher because in some countries, now that everybody has tested.

In addition to that, I would like to add that back in 2016, when we deliberately choose DiaSorin as a partner, it was a very forth, well for choice. DiaSorin is not just an immunoassay company. Talasorin is a leading company in esoteric added value medical test. Their salespeople like Qiagen salespeople, they are used to spend 5, 6, 7 visits to convert to customers. We like it or not. Health care is very prone to innovation, but sometimes there is a lot of conservatism. So for example, in the U.S., we exactly -- we have a tool, a marketing tool, and discuss that with the market over the last 3 years. We have a marketing tool, enabling us to know by ZIP code where the remaining skin test customers are -- and then once we have the information, we look at what kind of population are they basically serving immuno conference and we try to convert them.

But it takes some time up to 6, 7. It's fair to say that it takes on average 7 visits to convert not because they are not convinced, they are, but because they are comfortable with the way it works. My technicians are trained, and little by little, you go to medical value, you go to cost efficiency and they move to you. That's a natural movement, but it takes time. It takes time. It takes medical and it takes experience and mindset. This is why DiaSorin was not just an option among it was the option to partner efficiently with us.

Let me bundle a couple of questions on the Inpeco system. So that's moving again. So where do you find Inpeco systems and what type of labs? Are these new call points for QuantiFERON? Are there customers that have seen us? How is the response of customers?

So I quickly say I'm going to move to Riccardo because nobody can speak better about where Inpeco is in the world. But yes, obviously, the major labs in the world are all customers of QuantiFERON as we speak. And obviously, we have visited already some of them with a fantastic basically attention. They saw the workflow. They also suggested some improvement and its work ongoing, but it's very exciting to see the level of interest, the fact that they come back to us when is it going to be available? We already have customers saying, I want to be the first one to implement it. But Riccardo, what about the presence of Inpeco all over the world.

Yes. We are present almost in every country in the globe. We have currently around 3,000 automation tracks installed worldwide. But I think the important message is that, obviously, we are perceived as a company working in the high-end segment of the market. You mentioned the quest, the LabCore all the biggest labs across the globe have our automation. But 80% of our automations are in the smaller type of lumps. Because I was hearing Nadia loud and clear. Obviously, we are now targeting high-end segment, but there is a huge portion of the market that is not only looking just for efficiency gains, but we're also looking to really remove previous manual operations. So these kind of labs are really in a search in a quest for end-to-end automation. And this is where I see our partnership coming together.

Global leader in lab automation, the global leader in tubercolosis, latent TB testing coming together with, as you said, the super performance analytical platform like the LIAISON from DiaSorin, I really think we are bringing something really impactful in the market. And we have a huge market target. As I said, 3,000 installations across the globe that can plug in this new solution. from our 3 companies.

Thanks, Riccardo.

And on the DSR and chemistry. So what is the feedback from customers? Are we seeing any faster adoption or transition to LIAISON. And how did this address any hesitation and conversion?

So we have given numbers today. Nadia can repeat them. And yes, the reception in Europe is very good, but we just got to prove to the FDA in the U.S. So we are currently introducing to the customers. But Nadia?

Yes. Thank you very much, Thierry. So the feedback of the customers is really overwhelming because we know it goes faster. We can -- we have a faster time to detection. We can do much more patients. And what is ongoing now is we're in a transition plan. This transition plan is really followed up extremely correctly. And we haven't really had 1 customer that was not pleased with the results of the CLIA2. So we are following the conversion plan, and we are convinced that it will be done on the timing that we have for some.

And now the last one for today. So the full automation workflow can it also be used with other latent TB tests blood-based latent TB test? Or is it really just available for QuantiFERON?

I think we did answer, but it's a good question. Obviously, it's a key question. We did answer Riccardo and I and Nitin said the word also about this. it's a purpose-built automation for QuantiFERON. I believe that if those partnerships want to be winning partnership, there needs to be a kind of call it exclusivity or call it special relation, but something very strong.

Basically, we like the fact that Inpeco is so specialized into very precise automation. We like the fact that DiaSorin is so specialized into esoteric testing, and that makes that specialization and that depth of partnership because we all have skin in the game that makes this partnership potentially successful.

And with that, we are at the end. So any closing remarks.

No, I would like to take advantage of meeting being with us. He's heading our portfolio development to give his vision as a concluding words. And obviously, thank Riccardo, thank Paranpal. Thanks, Nadia. Thank you, Domenica, thank our IR team. But Riccardo, thanks a lot for being with us. And thanks also to DiaSorin -- if they are not with us today, we thank them for this partnership. Nitin?

Yes. Thank you, Thierry. So I hope what all of you saw in today's program is not just a product update. It's an ecosystem. That's what we are building, and we're building that from a position of strength. So 3 things. First, we're making the tests faster. 75% more testing to CLIA2.

Number two, we're making the test fully automated, no manual steps. And number three, we're adding intelligence to the test on the basis of 13 million patient records that no one else on Earth has. That's ecosystem leadership. That's what today is all about. Thank you.

Thank you, Nitin. And with that, we are at the end of the spotlight session. Thank you for your participation. Hope to see you soon again. And if you have any remaining questions, please always feel free to contact us. Happy to help you. So see you then. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Katie, your call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining QIAGEN's Preliminary Q1, 2026 Earnings Conference Call Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that this call is being recorded at QIAGEN's request and will be made available on their Internet site. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I'd like to introduce your host, Daniel Wendorff, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations at QIAGEN. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Katie, and welcome to our call on our preliminary results for the first quarter of 2026. In light of the update to our 2026 outlook, the pre-announcement was issued in line with German disclosure requirements yesterday evening. We are planning to publish full Q1, 2026 results on May 6, 2026. We appreciate your time and interest in QIAGEN.

Joining the call today are Thierry Bernard, our Chief Executive Officer; and Roland Sackers, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us is Dr. Domenica Martorana from our Investor Relations team. As always, today's call is being webcast live and will be archived in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.qiagen.com, where you can find the press release and presentation accompanying this call.

Please also note that this call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected due to a number of factors outlined in our most recent Form 20-F, and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also refer to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, that provide additional insights into our performance. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP figures are in the release and presentation. All references to earnings per share refer to adjusted diluted EPS.

With that, let me hand the call over to Thierry.

Thanks a lot, Daniel, and good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are in the world. Thank you for joining us, and thank you also for your interest in QIAGEN.

As you saw in our announcement for our preliminary results for the first quarter of '26, we delivered strong profitability as adjusted diluted EPS achieved the outlook despite mixed sales results. Sales were below our target due mainly to significantly lower QuantiFERON immigration testing demand and continued caution among U.S. Life Sciences customers. The important point, however, is that 4 of the 5 pillars achieved or exceeded our expectation, and we do continue to believe in the long-term opportunities for QuantiFERON. While we are taking a prudent approach to the updated outlook, we see tangible drivers for stronger growth trends in the second half of the year. Let me now highlight some key messages.

First, we delivered adjusted EPS of $0.54 at constant exchange rates, in line with our outlook despite mixed sales trends and a tougher macro environment. Net sales were $492 million, up 2% on a reported basis, but down 1% at CER, and below our outlook for at least 1% growth CER. This reflects a mixed performance with solid momentum across many areas of the portfolio, offset by the weaker-than-expected QuantiFERON sales. Despite the lower sales, disciplined execution supported earnings and enabled us to deliver on our adjusted EPS outlook.

Second, our growth pillars delivered a solid performance with 4% increase of sales CER. Sample Technologies grew 9% at CER, and also rose 3% CER excluding the Parse acquisition. QIAcuity delivered double-digit CER sales growth on gains in both consumables and instruments. Our bioinformatics business, QIAGEN Digital Insights, delivered solid single-digit CER sales growth, led by growth in clinical applications. And [ QIAstat Diagnostics ] sales declined 1% CER, facing a tough comparison to a stronger prior year quarter. At the same time, for QIAstat, consumables were up on double-digit growth for GI and meningitis panels, where instrument placement continued at a growth at a good pace.

As I mentioned at the start, QuantiFERON sales declined and those were down 5% CER. This was mainly due to significantly lower immigration testing demand in the U.S. and in the Middle East. This impact is exclusively isolated to immigration-related volumes. We did not see changes in pricing, competition on -- or underlying demand in the key patient testing markets. We continue indeed to see stable ordering patterns and solid growth in the remaining 90% of the QuantiFERON business.

As we have said before, the underlying market for latent TB testing is growing at about 4% to 5% annually, and we now see the U.S. market growing about 1 percentage point lower at this time due to the immigration situation. Overall, we expect sequential improvement over the course of the year for QuantiFERON testing.

Third key message. We maintained a high level of profitability in the first quarter with our disciplined approach to managing the business and making value-creating investment. The adjusted operating income margin is expected to be at about 27.4%. This reflects continued efficiency gains while absorbing headwinds from tariff and currency, as well as the impact from the Parse acquisition.

Fourth, we have updated our outlook for 2026 to reflect those developments and a more cautious macro environment. Net sales 2026 are now expected to grow about 1% to 2% CER, with adjusted diluted EPS expected to be at least at $2.43 CER again. The updated outlook reflects lower expectation for QuantiFERON, continued caution among the U.S. Life Sciences customers, volatile OEM customer ordering trends and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty for 2026. At the same time, we see very tangible reasons for faster sales growth of about 4% CER in the second half of 2026. This includes the end of headwinds from the discontinuation of NeuMoDx and DIALUNOX, benefits from new product launches, a sequential improvement in QuantiFERON and better-than-expected contribution from Parse, and last, a modest improvement in Life Sciences demand.

With that, I'll hand it over to Roland for more details on the financials.

Thank you, Thierry, and good morning, good afternoon. Let me now take you through the financial details behind this announcement and let us through our updated outlook.

As Thierry said, Q1 was a mixed quarter. We hit our outlook for adjusted EPS through disciplined execution, while sales were slightly below target. For Q1, the preliminary net sales of USD 492 million were up 2% on a reported basis and down 1% on constant exchange rates. The positive impact of about 3 percentage points on sales at actual rates was in line with our planning. Same was the case for adjusted diluted EPS of $0.54 on a reported basis, and $0.54 at constant exchange rates, in line with our outlook.

Let me now review the sales results. Sample Technologies delivered USD 170 million of sales, up 9% CER compared to the first quarter of '25. Excluding the Parse acquisition, which is performing very well, the sales rose 3% CER. Growth was supported by demand for automated consumables and instrument placements, as we saw good trends worldwide. In Diagnostic Solutions, sales were USD 185 million and down 4% CER. The main driver here was a 5% CER decline in QuantiFERON sales, which overshadowed solid trends in many patient testing groups.

QIAstat-Dx sales were down 1% CER, which was expected given the tough prior year comparison to a period with a very strong respiratory season. Diagnostics Solutions also included a year-over-year headwind as expected from the mid-'25 discontinuation of the NeuMoDx system. PCR nucleic acid sales declined 13% CER to USD 69 million. With this product group, QIAcuity delivered double-digit CER sales growth. However, we also saw significantly lower sales in other areas, including PCR consumables and the OEM business as we felt the impact of life science funding constraints. And in the Genomics / NGS product group, sales were up 4% CER to USD 57 million. This was supported by QIAGEN Digital Insights, which grew at a solid single-digit CER pace, driven by growth in clinical bioinformatics.

Let me now turn to profitability. We are expecting adjusted operating income margin of about 27.4% in the first quarter of '26, supported by ongoing efficiency gains as we absorb the impact of tariffs and currency movements while also investing into the future of the Parse single cell-analysis business.

With that, let me hand back the call to Thierry.

Thanks a lot, Roland. Let us step back a bit for the quarterly numbers and share a few reasons why at QIAGEN, we continue to feel confident about the portfolio and the path to stronger growth. The message here is that our pillars continue to move ahead and only the 2026 sales target for QuantiFERON has been adjusted.

As we mentioned earlier, the issue with QuantiFERON is isolated to immigration demand. Importantly, this does not change our view of the long-term opportunity. Trends in other patient testing groups remain solid, and the underlying market for latent TB testing continues to grow. As you have probably seen, new data published around World Tuberculosis Day further reinforced the role of QuantiFERON in detecting latent TB infection, particularly in high-risk and immunocompromised population. We are also advancing scalable laboratory workflows for QuantiFERON. A new generation of chemistry for QuantiFERON detection on LIAISON system with our partner, DiaSorin is now being rolled out in the U.S., in addition to the earlier launch in Europe and other areas of the world.

We are also seeing targeted screening initiatives ramp up in various patient groups, diabetes or dialysis, particularly as well those being prescribed biologic therapies and immunocompromised individuals. Looking ahead, we will host a virtual QuantiFERON spotlight session on May 7, where we will provide you with more details on our strategic priorities, workflow automation plan and the additional enhancement that underscore the long-term opportunity of this product.

Turning to sample technology. This remains one of the clearest example of the portfolio moving ahead as forecasted. We continue to advance our automation strategy with our 3 new system launches for 2026 moving ahead and receiving positive customer feedback. As an example, QIAsprint Connect was launched in February, and we are very encouraged by the first wave of orders, with the first sales contribution expected in the second quarter. We also have the first orders for QIAsymphony Connect after the launch in late 2025. Full IVD commercialization remains on track to begin in the middle of this year. QIAmini is also on track for launch later in 2026.

We continue to see good traction in strategic high-value areas such as liquid biopsy, where QIAGEN system are being integrated into the workflows of major players. The Parse business is also performing better than expected, and we are on track to exceed the '26 sales target of about $40 million. As you remember, Parse gives us an entry into single cell analysis, a highly attractive area where researchers need scalable workflows and high-quality data generation. This was also reflected at the recent AACR Cancer Research meetings where we showcased application across our oncology workflow. This includes our expanding capabilities in sample preparation, single cell analysis and digital insights. For QIAcuity, we continue to see strong momentum in digital PCR. Our focus, as you know, this year includes expanding applications such as gene expression while continuing to develop a portfolio of companion diagnostic with our pharma partners.

Turning to QIAstat diagnostic. We continue to broaden the panel menu and strengthen the platform for syndromic testing while also advancing our pharma partnership in companion diagnostic. In the first quarter, for example, we received U.S. clearance for the GI panels on the QIAstat Rise, which is, as you remember, the high throughput version of this modular system. We now have the respiratory and GI panels CLIA for the Rise version.

QIAstat is also being expanded into bloodstream infection testing. In Europe, we launched the first of the new blood culture panels in January. We also submitted the first panel to the FDA, and we are awaiting a decision. This marks a very important expansion beyond respiratory, GI and meningitis to support better, faster clinical decision support. Finally, QIAGEN Digital Insights, our bioinformatics solution, continues to strengthen our Sample to Insight strategy with its status as a leader in bioinformatics. Within QDI, clinical bioinformatics remains the key growth area, double digit in this first quarter, as we are building capabilities through the integration of the Franklin platform from the recent acquisition of Genoox. So across those areas, the message is very consistent. We are addressing the QuantiFERON immigration testing demand issue, while the rest of the portfolio moves ahead as planned.

And now back to Roland to discuss our outlook.

Thank you, Thierry. Let me now provide some additional perspectives on our outlook for '26 and for the second quarter.

As we have said, we are taking a prudent approach to reflect the development in the first quarter and the current macro environment while remaining focused on delivering solid profitable growth. For the full year '26, we now expect net sales growth of about 1% to 2% at constant exchange rates, compared with our previous outlook for at least 5% CER growth. Adjusted diluted earnings per share are now expected to be at least $2.43 at CER, compared with our previous outlook for at least $2.50 at CER.

The updated outlook reflects two main factors. First, QuantiFERON sales in '26 are now expected to be steady at a CER basis at around USD 500 million. This compares with our previous target for about 6% CER growth, or about USD 535 million. We have reduced these expectations in light of the immigration testing demand trends. This customer group represents about 10% of total QuantiFERON sales, or about USD 50 million. We reduced this by about USD 35 million for '26, and we have not seen changes in demand for the remaining USD 15 million, which is largely European immigration testing. This impact from QuantiFERON reflects about 1.5 percentage points of headwinds to full year '26 growth compared to our prior year outlook.

Second, we are taking a more cautious view on mainly U.S. Life Science customer spending for a total of about USD 40 million, or about 2 percentage points of headwinds. This involves 3 components. About $15 million to $20 million of headwind comes from research customers in the U.S. Another $20 million comes from volatility in customer ordering in our OEM business, which also includes government agencies in the U.S. And lastly, a few million dollars of pressure comes from the Middle East conflict and the broader geopolitical uncertainty that has developed since the start of the year.

Turning to the second quarter. Net sales are expected to decline approximately 2 percentage points CER compared to $534 million in Q2 '25. These sales trends take into consideration that QuantiFERON sales continue at a largely unchanged level from the second quarter of '25. While we believe in the full year target for QIAstat-Dx sales, we have purposely taken a more conservative view on these product sales for the second quarter in light of the strong year ago comparison. The pillars as a group are expected to grow about 4% to 5% CER in the second quarter, compared to the 4% CER growth in the first quarter of the year. And as a reminder, the second quarter will be the last period with headwinds from the discontinuation of NeuMoDx and DIALUNOX.

For adjusted diluted EPS, these are expected to be at least $0.60 at CER in the second quarter compared to $0.60 in the prior year period. Operational efficiency and disciplined cost control remain a key priority for QIAGEN and continue to support profitability despite lower expected sales. At the same time, earnings in Q2 will absorb a dilutive impact of around $0.01 from the Parse acquisition.

Let me now address 4 drivers for faster sales growth in the second half of about 4% CER. First, about 2 percentage points of incremental growth come from the roll-off of headwinds from the discontinuation of NeuMoDx and DIALUNOX and unchanged from our prior expectations. Second, about 2 percentage points are expected to come from new launches, including the sample prep instruments and additional offerings for QIAstat-Dx and QIAcuity. This is also unchanged from prior expectations. Third, about 1 percentage point is expected to come from improving year-over-year growth from QuantiFERON as we anticipate growth in the second half of '26 compared with the first half. Finally, about 0.5 percentage point of improvement is expected from a combination of the past acquisition, transforming better than our target for about $40 million of sales in '26, and modestly better trends in U.S. Life Science funding as the year progresses.

Taken together, these factors explain the expected bridge from sales declining about 1% to 2% CER in the first half to a growth rate of about 4% CER in the second half to reach our target for about 1% to 2% CER growth in the year overall. And looking ahead, in terms of midterm growth, we see very positive trends for QIAGEN as we work through a period of rebasing QuantiFERON demand. The pillars of the group are expected to grow about 7% for '26, and we see this continuing at a healthy pace in the future and supported by QuantiFERON returning to a more normalized growth rate in '27.

With a series of new product launches on the way, in particular, the new instruments and sample technologies, this provides even more confidence in delivering faster sales growth. The pillars are also increasing as a share of total sales. They are now at about 75% of total sales and rising, and we are taking actions to stabilize the base business.

Let me also briefly address currency trends. For the full year, we currently expect a tailwind of about 1 percentage point on sales, and a neutral impact on adjusted EPS. This is unchanged from our previous assumption. For Q2, we expect a tailwind of about 1 percentage point on sales and a neutral impact on adjusted EPS. Overall, we have taken a prudent approach in updating our outlook, reflecting current market conditions and known headwinds. At the same time, we remain focused on disciplined execution, protecting profitability and returning to growth in the second half of '26. Last but not least, we also confirm our adjusted EBIT target of 29.5% CER for the full year.

I would like now to hand back to Thierry.

Thank you, Roland. And before we go to the Q&A session, let me go over a brief summary of this call today. Q1 was a mixed start to the year, but we delivered adjusted EPS in line with our outlook through disciplined execution. The sales shortfall was driven mainly by the QuantiFERON immigration testing demand reset, and we are addressing this directly and proactively. We continue to view this as a rebasing of demand in this testing group, but absolutely not a change in the long-term opportunity for latent TB testing. Trends in all the patient testing groups remain solid, and we expect sequential improvement during 2026.

The rest of the portfolio continues to execute on target. Sample Technologies, QIAcuity and QIAGEN Digital Insights delivered solid growth in this first quarter of 2026. New product launches and portfolio additions support our confidence in stronger growth trends in the second half. We have updated our 2026 outlook to reflect what we are seeing in QuantiFERON immigration testing trends, as well as ongoing caution among U.S. Life Sciences customers and the broader macro environment. But at the same time, we see tangible reasons for faster sales growth in the second half of the year.

So in closing, we are updating expectations prudently, and we are staying really focused on delivering solid profitable growth.

With that, I'd now like to hand back to the operator for the Q&A session. Thanks a lot.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Michael Ryskin with Bank of America.

Great. I appreciate the color you provided on the slide deck and on the call. I want to dive into a little bit more of the difference between what you saw in the first quarter versus how you're updating the guide.

If we look at your reported results for the quarter, you missed consensus by about $9 million, $10 million. And if we look at QuantiFERON at down 5% CER, it seems like the majority of the miss was specific to QuantiFERON, maybe $8 million of the $10 million was QuantiFERON. But then for the full year guide update, $35 million is QuantiFERON, but $40 million is that U.S. Life Sciences. So I want to really focus on that. Just didn't seem like it was that much worse in the quarter itself. So is it something that deteriorated in March later in the quarter? Is it order trends you're seeing? Just you commented $15 million, $20 million from research customers, $20 million OEM. Just didn't really seem like that played out in the quarter itself. So why is a steep revision to the full year guide there if you didn't see it in 1Q?

So thanks a lot, Michael. And I think that you are nailing it indeed for the first quarter. Out of the $10 million shortfall, QuantiFERON indeed represent at least $8 million of that. Now for the full year, we take a realistic but also cautious view based on many factors. We believe indeed, as you said, that the total impact, rebased on an annual basis for QuantiFERON immigration testing is around $35 million. In addition to that, we take a cautious approach to the current U.S. Life Sciences customer environment and kind of wait-and-see attitude that we have seen in the quarter 1. This represents roughly $20 million of cautious expectations.

And then we also take -- and this is not new, if you remember our previous call, a prudent approach for our OEM activities. By definition, OEM activities are more volatile because they are based on deliveries of big bulks of product one time. And so year-on-year, you have that volatility. And for the year 2026, we believe it's another impact of around $15 million to $20 million. So overall, between QuantiFERON immigration testing and those 2 events, cautious Life Science kind of wait-and-see attitude, especially in the U.S. and OEM, you get the difference to the re-forecast for the year.

Okay. All right. I appreciate that. And then for my quick follow-up, on QuantiFERON itself, you kind of alluded a couple of times on the call to this is a rebasing year, and you expect it to improve in the second half and you expect it to improve going forward.

Just sort of what gives you confidence in that? You saw QuantiFERON already slow a little bit in 4Q '25 to about 5% CER. Why do we think QuantiFERON is going to reaccelerate? Why isn't this a low to mid-single-digit grower going forward, given the robust growth you've had over many years and the fact that some of these immigration pressures are very likely to persist?

A fair question. You can imagine, Michael, that we have done a lot of analysis of the most -- in the most recent weeks. And this is why we came to the conclusion that it's an immigration isolated event. And we don't imagine and we don't expect this event to happen again with the same magnitude in 2027, for example.

The reason is very clear. Once you have reset the basis because you have lost a market of immigration that you are not going to test anymore, the impact on the following year, obviously, is not happening with the same magnitude, first. Second, because when we look at other applications for QuantiFERON, immunocompromised patients, diabetes patients, dialysis patients, for example, we still see very good growth. And so to give you precise numbers internally, but also with external experts, we have analyzed again our growth expectation for this market. And the conclusion is the following.

In most of the world, the testing demand for latent TB continues to grow at around 5%. In the U.S., you indeed lose that immigration testing base, but the rest of the market continues to grow at around 4%. So it's still a healthy market to be. The second reason why we are confident, and this is why I confirm our invitation for the spotlight session on May 7, is that we continue to invest on this range of products. We have a new, more efficient workflow together with DiaSorin is that we call -- is what we call the CLIA2. And on May 7, we are going to show you enhanced automation investment and also progresses into patient scoring to show that we have still a potential to target probably around 5% growth for this range of products.

We will take our next question from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

A couple here. So you guided 6% to 7% growth in QuantiFERON in February. That was after the immigration policies were in place. So I'm curious, were you expecting a reversal of the policies? Or did something get worse in the quarter? It'd just be helpful to hear about the guidance philosophy because we knew about the immigration policies then.

Second, to Mike's question on Life Sciences, sluggish academic spending is not a new dynamic. NIH grants were flat in January, down 9% in February, actually got better in March. So did something deteriorate in your order book? Is the environment getting worse relative to what you were thinking before? Or were you just previously too optimistic on the recovery?

And then lastly, just get us comfortable with the margin ramp. You're maintaining full year on margins. Get us comfortable that you can actually hit 29.5% for the year.

Thanks, Tycho. Those are good questions. Let me address first the question on QuantiFERON.

Tycho, as usual, in full transparency, this is probably where I blame myself the most. And what do I mean by this? As you can imagine, Tycho, we follow sales in our customer base on a daily basis. Sales of QuantiFERON to address the migrant testing market are done in different kind of labs, what we call our key accounts, LabCorp, Quest or normal labs in the U.S. We didn't see any inflection in growth until December, which means that probably our customers didn't see that immigration impact either. And if you remember when we reported the Q4 result, we highlighted that softer December month. Should we have seen earlier that, that trend on immigration, softer demand would amplify in January and February, that remains a good question, and that remains a question where I blame myself. But nothing until early January was showing us that this would amplify.

Second, Tycho, if you remember, this current administration in January announced an extension of forbidden countries, up to 49 countries, if I remember now. This created a second impact. So yes, I blame myself because I wish I would have been more proactive with the first signals that we saw end of December or early January. And this is why I said that we are taking very proactive actions. And this is why we decided to reset the market potential for QuantiFERON because we know now that it's a solid trend.

Second, Life Science and Academia. We are not more impacted than most of our competitors. And indeed, Tycho, I would agree with you, and I said that for many quarters now, that we have more visibility now in Q1 on funding, especially in the U.S. compared, for example, 6 months ago. This is a fact. At the same time, it is also a fact that money is not flowing back as quickly as expected, and this is not just impacting QIAGEN. When I look at our competitors' results in Life Science, for example, you clearly see that it's negative to flattish.

So it's nothing new. But what is new is that everybody, I believe, was expecting the money to flow back quicker. And this is why I mentioned that kind of wait-and-see attitude. I don't think in addition to that, that the increased geopolitical tensions in the Middle East did help positively that kind of wait and see attitude. So basically, we are a bit more cautious. We still expect a rebound. It's 0.5 point of growth in the second half of 2026, but it's taking a bit more time. And now on the margin forecast, I'm going to ask Roland to chime in here.

Tycho, fair question on margin development. First and foremost, you will see already that within the second quarter, we will deliver an adjusted EBIT margin north of 29%. So we go very quickly into the direction of also our full year target. And then in the second half, we will even pass it. Again, if you compare it also to last year, you see some developments here.

And I think there's a couple of drivers to that. You know from prior discussions we had, we clearly continue with our roundabout 40 QAI efficiency projects. And therefore, I would say they were clearly supposed to help us to overachieve our margins. Right now, I would say at least -- for this year, at least, they will help us to achieve the 29.5%. Gross margin in addition is going to be helpful. You have seen that also in Q1 sample prep was being very helpful for us in general, and we do believe that trend continues in particular with some of the new launches, there's even an acceleration dollar-wise expected. I think it's no surprise that sample preparation is one of our higher -- or probably highest gross margin product.

So I think there's also clearly a factor coming from the gross margin side in addition to operational leverage. Big step, just to finish it up, is mid of this year, actually another significant step in terms of launching our next wave of our implementation of the ERP system, which again clearly takes a lot of incremental cost out of the system. So overall, I would say the 29.5% is well on its way. And again, you will see that number already quite close in the second quarter.

We'll take our next question from Casey Woodring with JPMorgan.

So you left the 5 pillars unchanged outside of QuantiFERON for the year, meaning that the Life Science capital spending headwind is seemingly not hitting sample tech or QIAcuity. So can you maybe just elaborate on where exactly in the portfolio you're taking a more cautious stance here outside of the OEM business that you talked a little bit about, but purely on the research side?

And then I guess what gives you confidence that the Life Science capital exposure that you do have in sample tech and QIAcuity won't be impacted this year from the weaker market that you're adjusting for elsewhere?

And then just as a quick follow-up, I would also be curious to hear your confidence level in the new product launches. You maintained the guide of 200 basis points of contribution for the year from those despite calling out a weaker capital market. So just maybe walk through the order book for those visibility into that contribution guide for the year.

Thanks, Casey. And I'm going to start with the second half of your question, which is the confidence in our new product launches.

The confidence is based, Casey, on the buildup of the pipeline as we see it. If you remember, for QIAsprint, for example, we told you that we were receiving purchase orders even before the system was officially launched. Yes, we launched it earlier in the year. And when I see the building up of the pipeline, it's above our expectation. That's why we are feeling good about it. We continue to acknowledge the softer, or the less quick or -- less quick stabilization of the capital expense trend in labs, especially in the U.S. But when you -- we continue to believe as well that if you bring a differentiated solution, value solution, you have opportunities. And it's the same for QIAsymphony Connect.

Our relation with our biggest customers, be them Natera, Guardant Health, Neo for QIAsymphony Connects are very strong. So confident as well. QIAmini, it's a bit too early to say, but the time line for QIAmini is fully on target, and we know that it's going to answer a need for automation in sample tech. And it's not going to be an expensive instrument.

Second, QIAstat, the new panel on blood culture and bloodstream infection. It's a need in many European countries. As you know, it's not going to impact the sales for the U.S. because it's going to probably be approved around November or December, but it's going to be mainly in Europe. So the combination of new solution improvement because indeed there is more visibility on funding. That doesn't mean that it flows back, as I just said before, but there is more visibility, allows us to confirm the number that we gave you earlier in the quarter.

I think those answer both of your dimensions. We continue to acknowledge that money is not circling back as quickly as we expect, but we believe that this is going to sequentially improve.

We'll take our next question from Jack Meehan with Nephron Research.

I wanted to spend a little bit more time on QuantiFERON. Could you remind me the breakdown across different test categories and the size of the immigration testing pool? I didn't realize there was so much exposure to specific regions. Maybe just talk about the magnitude of the weakness you're seeing there?

And I'll squeeze in one follow-up at the same time, which is you mentioned you don't think any of the weakness is competitive related. Just any more color you can share on this topic in terms of your latest thoughts.

I do apologize, Jack, because the second half of the question, there was a lot of background noise and your voice was extremely muffled. And so I couldn't get the second part of the question. Could you repeat the second part, please? Jack?

Sure. Can you hear me okay now?

Yes. The first part of the question, I could get it. I will answer it. But the second part of your question, I didn't get it. I'm sorry.

Yes. No worries. Sorry about that. It was just -- you mentioned you didn't think any of the QuantiFERON issues were competitive related? I was curious what your latest thoughts were on that topic.

Okay. Two good questions again. I mean I'm a bit surprised because I really believe, Jack, that in the past, we segregated the different components of the QuantiFERON applications, trying to make a balance between normal testing, immunocompromised patients and new buckets of growth, such as, for example, diabetes patients and so on.

So our best estimation based on obviously actual numbers is showing that around 10% worldwide of our QuantiFERON testing is based on immigration testing. And it's not just in the U.S.. It's in the U.S., it's in Europe, it's Middle East. Look, remember, if you have in mind the contract that we won in Oman on QuantiFERON where the State of Oman gave QuantiFERON the testing, it was the testing of all their immigrants. And so with the current policy in the U.S., with the fact that the geopolitical situation in the Middle East is not favoring movement of people, you have that impact.

We believe that the Middle East situation is a bit more shorter -- short term, short-lived. In the U.S., we believe this is going to be a remaining and a recurring number. And this is why we preferred, and I think it's a transparent decision, we prefer to reset the base. It goes across legal and illegal immigrants. In one-to-one, I can give you more details if you want, but that's the explanation.

For the competitive pressure, look, we are like you. First of all, we never been in the business of bad mouthing our competitors. We are used to competition in QuantiFERON. We have many on the market. The recent publication I saw recently from potentially coming competition is just showing that it's an equivalent to our third-generation QuantiFERON. We are ahead of that already as far as we are concerned. So I'm not belittling it. I said we are prepared.

We'll take our next question from Aisyah Noor with Morgan Stanley.

My first one is on sample tech. Could you unpack the 3% organic growth a little bit? So instruments versus consumables, U.S. versus Europe? And could this accelerate further to a mid-single-digit type of organic growth in the second half?

And then my follow-up, which I'll also ask in this question is on the strategic review, given it's top of mind for investors at the moment. If you could give us some color on how that's going. And based on the headwinds you're seeing in the U.S. market right now, whether it's immigration or life science weakness or flu, does this change the direction of your strategic review and how you're thinking about the future of this business, and how soon we could be to an outcome of this review?

Thank you so much. On sample tech, I mean, this 3% organic is confirming the strategic decision that we took some years ago is moving as quickly as possible, manual customers to automated. So it is supported by all the upgrade in automations that we have done in the past. If you remember, Aisyah, EZ1 to EZ2, QIAcube to QIAcube Connect, for example, this is what is in our numbers in Q1.

Why are we confident in Q2, Q3, Q4 is that as we have said this morning, you still do not see the impact on the new automation. The QIAsprint, the QIAsymphony Connect and the QIAmini in the Q1. This is going to come starting Q2, Q3 and Q3 and Q4. Can we push it to 5? Aisyah, that's a good question. I rather to say step by step, we took a commitment to you in our Capital Market Day in New York 2 years ago to bring sample tech back to 3%. We are there. If we can beat that, we will, obviously. And I think in this regard, the acquisition of Parse is a very smart acquisition.

Second, the strategic reviews, they are not impacted by our environment. I think we have always said that management and Board together are always open to work on options that could create more value for our shareholders, and that remains the mindset.

We'll take our next question from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe Research.

Two topics. The first is a follow-up to the last question. Thierry, any update on the CEO process? And any -- obviously, if there's something material, we'd know it at this point, but I'm mostly just curious on how that's progressing and what the time lines are? So that's the first one.

Second is on Life Science spending. Could you give us a little bit more detail on which segments, really which product categories is what I'm trying to get at, were the ones where you saw a notable weakening in demand? So I'm trying to get at -- obviously, there's the issue on QuantiFERON, but putting that aside, within Life Sciences, what product categories weaken the most over the course of the quarter? And was that weakness largely U.S. academic and government? Or were there other dynamics that were surprising in areas like SMID-cap biotech, pharma discovery, any other areas?

Thank you, Doug. So very simply for the first question, this is probably one of the most important decision of the Board and the process of the CEO succession is still ongoing. We expect this to be solved in H2, but it's going very well, and we are paying extreme attention, obviously, to this process. And as you know, I will be serving the company as long as needed, but H2 is our time line.

For the Life Science, I think, first of all, to the different part of your question, we see softness mainly in pure research and academia, which is confirming what I said before. Yes, there is more visibility on funding, but money is not flowing back as quickly as expected. Where do we expect and we see the main weaknesses? It's in traditional, what I would call a bit commoditized PCR, and other components, for example, enzymes or oligos.

Our sales, for example, to some major U.S. institutions like the CDC, or the NIH, they have decreased in Q1 around enzymes and oligos, for example. So components and traditional PCR. And third, we confirm that it's mainly pure academia, pure research. We are satisfied with our pharma business, especially on the companion diagnostics. This is going very well, and we do not see specific increased weaknesses in the biotech environment.

We'll take our next question from Odysseas Manesiotis with BNP Paribas.

On QuantiFERON, I wanted to ask out of the Roche launch, there's a few claims that have been made on our industry conference that there's big automation improvements here. I wanted to get a sense of how much of your QuantiFERON sales are generated from your fully automated workflows using Tecan and Hamilton?

And secondly, on your margin, considering you maintained your target for the full year despite the lower sales growth. Roland, you did touch on some kind of efficiency programs doing better than expected. But is there any mix effect involved as well that we need to know regarding QuantiFERON or the OEM sales?

Very good. I will -- since you asked Roland, I'm going to ask Roland to take the efficiency point, and then I'll come back on the QuantiFERON.

And I'm happy to go first. Producers, I do think, again, as I said, there's a very good level here and confident on the margin development. I don't think there's, at least from our perspective, any reasons that we are not able to achieve that. And actually, some of the drivers are exactly the ones you're referring to. Mix will be helpful for us because, as I said before, sample prep is clearly a significant opportunity for us. It is clearly a high-margin product for us and some of the new launches will also clearly generate an increase on the consumable side because, again, just think about QIAsprint being a high throughput machine, that means by definition, there are more consumables going into this kind of a machine than to any other kind of instrument. So therefore, also not only the instrumentation part, but particularly also the consumable revenue stream should increase. Therefore, I think, again, a good driver.

Second, some of the product areas, which right now are not developing as planned, are clearly coming with a lower margin contribution. I do think that is clearly in brackets somewhat helpful relatively as well. So I think that is -- there is a component. I do think, nevertheless, the single largest component is actually the activities we started now it's more or less 18 months ago with the efficiency program. Again, I talked already about what we're doing on the ERP implementation. We still continue our activities around business shared service center. So we are moving here from 15% to 20% over time of employees being in business shared service center. We're talking about significant AI implementation programs within QIAGEN, not only to the customer side on the QDI side, but also the internal processes for customer services in the finance area, again, in coding, right?

We have significant opportunities around software development internally. So there's a lot of areas where we see improvements coming up, and they come faster than most people believe right now. Again, as I said, AI is clearly changing the world to a certain degree. Clearly also in our environment, and we are riding that as well.

And to your first question, look, I would take it like this because I cannot speak on behalf of competition. What we have seen are slides that are showing a product which is by no means differentiated to the QuantiFERON. It has even less features than the current QuantiFERON.

But from an automation standpoint, what I'm going to say is that there is at this moment, only one full workflow, and one fully flexible workflow on the market. And this is what is provided by QIAGEN. When I say full is that when you start with a Tecan, or Hamilton, then the QuantiFERON and DiaSorin in the back end. Or you can perfectly pick and choose and say, I'm only interested in the frontload automation, Tecan or Hamilton or I'm only interested in the back-end automation with DiaSorin. So we have a mix of situation.

What we want to show you on May the 7th is that beyond this, we want to even enhance automation further, make it even smoother, more integrated and leveraging the full power of what we call the CLIA2 from DiaSorin. And we want also to improve the product from a medical and patient scoring standpoint. So stay tuned, but I can guarantee you that you will see that once again, we are taking a step ahead on what we are going to present on May the 7th.

We'll take our next question from Harry Gillis with Berenberg.

Just following up on the previous questions relating to the step-up in your margin through the rest of the year. I was just wondering if you could maybe discuss whether the Middle East conflict is having any impacts on your raw material, freight or energy costs? And what's your exposure there should the conflict persist for maybe for a significant part of the year?

And then just a second very quick one. I noticed your restructuring adjustments increased from $25 million to $45 million, what you guide to for the full year. Could you touch on what that incremental $20 million is and where in the business you're taking some measures there?

Yes. I would say more or less the Middle East conflict, the good news is, of course, it doesn't affect us directly in terms of production, whatever, again, thanks to the overall COVID environment. At that point, we had to change more or less our whole energy infrastructure a lot. So we are totally flexible there. Where it clearly impacts us as many other companies is on logistic costs because it's quite clear that the big logistics providers and forwarders are charging surcharges to us.

As you know, to a larger extent, we're able to share that with our customers, but probably not to the fullest extent because, particularly on the intercompany side. We still hope that there is a certain normalization come up at some point in time, but we do not expect that short term. Nevertheless, I don't think that, that is too much of an impact for our overall margin situation. I'm quite sure that we see also here, as I said before, rather improvement, something at the end of the day, given our cost of goods sold structure that is not too meaningful from the outside perspective, but just to give you the complete picture here.

On the restructuring effort, as I said, there's a couple of efforts which we are doing right now. I was referring to them. Some is around our current ERP systems. There's changes coming up. Some has to do with some of the other topics I was referring to, building out on the knowledge we accumulated over time in our shared service centers. So that's clearly something that we want to strengthen over time.

We will take our last question from Catherine Schulte with Baird.

I guess just going back to the Life Science caution. Thanks for giving some color on those product categories. But just given it's impacting only that more commoditized side and kind of the non-pillar side of the portfolio, is what gives you confidence that this is market related versus share or product issue on that non-pillar side of your business?

Well, I would say, Catherine, that over the last 6 to 7 years, we clearly said that this company was focusing on where we are relevant and we can take definitive market shares on growing market. And therefore, from a strategic standpoint, it is no surprise to say that QIAGEN becomes more and more a digital PCR company rather than a PCR company. It's perfectly in line with our strategy.

We focus our sales force attention as well on products where we bring differentiated value and where we know that the margin over time are going to be the most interesting. So this is why also you see also that kind of results. The rest, I mean, as I said, enzyme, oligos, those are normally products that you sell in big bulk. So they are depending on order patterns. So it's not surprising. We have always said that OEM was volatile by nature.

I think it's wise in any kind of model to model the OEM business at QIAGEN between $70 million and $80 million per year of revenues, give and take, you see. So -- and then I think this is -- and I think it's wise for a size -- for a company of our size to continue to focus our people. We cannot be everywhere and I prefer them fighting for sample tech, pushing for digital PCR, pushing for QuantiFERON for QIAstat and for QDI with those products, and it represents already 70% to 75% of our revenues.

With this being said, I think we need to end this call. I would like to thank you for your attention and repeat again before closing that we have a virtual quick spotlight session on May 7 on QuantiFERON, and I'm sure that you will find it quite interesting. Thank you very much.

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Daniel for any additional or closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, Katie. Thanks, everyone, for joining our conference call today. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you very much for your participation, and goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Luke Sergott. I cover life science tools and diagnostics for Barclays. Kicking off the conference here, first meeting with Qiagen, long-time listener, a long time caller or I guess, for me. I have Roland Sackers, CFO; and Daniel Wendorff, IR.

I guess just to start off, we talked about this a little bit outside, but kind of go through updates on strategic direction, CEO search, some of the M&A news that's been out there. So just kind of wrap all that up into some early comments.

Yes. First of all, Luke, thanks for having us. And I appreciate that you're now a research analysts and not a search anymore. We still miss you as a customer. But I think it's an important question. And I think probably you're referring to also the comments Thierry made more or less last week where he was, from my perspective, reinforcing what we said before, right? On the one hand side, Qiagen feels quite strong about, I think our overall perspective in the market, I think we delivered also a very strong 25 footprint. And with our focus around our 5 pillars of growth, we feel very comfortable going forward.

Nevertheless, we are also going to a CEO transition. As you know, in the company announced that they go a different path. And we're in the middle of the CEO search. We are now down from a long list to a short list. I think we said publicly last week that we probably believe that sometimes in the second quarter, that may result in an announcement. It depends a bit when a new person can start if it is a U.S.-based person, European-based person because, as you know, in Europe, you have a couple of competitive clause and other things, which might take some time.

Nevertheless, I think the Board is very straightforward that they are looking for somebody in U.S., you would probably say who has seen the movie, somebody who has experience in the footprint in more or less in all of our industries we are serving on the clinical as well in the life science side, clearly, somebody who worked on Europe and the U.S. So I do think that is the expectation, and we are moving along quite well with -- I would say, a strong group of candidates.

Nevertheless, during that time period, and again, we went through a similar situation in 2019, as you know, while we are a much stronger company today. The Board, of course, has to review all alternatives it has, right? And that goes from just driving the organic growth. Also doing, of course, as we did in the past by ourselves bolt on acquisitions. But of course, if there's any opportunity to create additional shareholder value or shareholder value even much faster by being part of an acquisition or any kind of transaction. We are very much open to that. That's also the reason why we hired advisers to help us facilitating that. And again, as you know, we will see what the outcome is. The old rule is nothing changed until the day we announced it, and that's where we are.

Yes. Until you get another press release, yes. All right. That's fair. And then I guess from a CEO perspective and you guys are recruiting and in light of the strategic rationale and maybe I don't want to say shopping yourselves, but just open for more discussions around that. How does that impact the search there? Is that like walk us through who would be coming on? Like would they have protections and -- because like you said in 2019, you went through a similar dynamic.

I think you can take your 2 perspectives, right? And I'm not telling you if I'm leaning to one or no, but just more or less, I think it's probably the range of objectives you can have. On the one hand side, you can, of course, argue okay, is this a limitation to your CEO search because what does it mean for a CEO if there is a company which is reviewing its strategic position. But on the other hand, you can also take a position and a view and saying, okay, it might be helpful for any incoming CEO if that review was properly conducted and reviewed and the board came to the conclusion the best way forward right now is more or less staying stand-alone and moving it forward as the organic plan is quite strong.

That doesn't mean that the Board doesn't know about its fiduciary responsibility going forward. It's quite obvious that if the day later, somebody else would come forward and say, hey, we have a different view on that company and that they don't know about their fiduciary responsibility. So I would argue, you can take different views. And nevertheless, the list of candidate is quite strong.

All right. Great. All right. Let's go to the fundamentals. I think the feedback on 1Q across the board from tools is that they took investors kind of by surprise with how conservative or appearing conservative, the guides were and it felt more of the same of the last few years. Walk us through what you guys -- what looked into -- what was baked into your 1Q guide? And coming in a little bit softer there. And why this time is -- why it's different than what we had seen in the last few years in the space?

We clearly, I would say, gave a guidance, which we feel still quite comfortable with for the full year of a goal of 5% growth rate. Nevertheless, I do think it's fair to say that there is clearly quite significant ongoing macro challenges in this world, right? I think the good news is that finally, U.S. has an approved NIH budget, which is also quite helpful on the consumable side.

Nevertheless, particularly on the automation side, it's also quite obvious that it will take some time before our customers rebuild the confidence to do mid- and long-term investments, which is buying a new machine. Because we all recall 6 months ago, there was a lot of rumors around NIH budget might be down 20%, 30%. That is not helpful building the confidence in, again, if you want to buy a new instrument.

The same time, other things have changed, right? You're now seeing what's going on in the Middle East. We all hope that it's over quite soon, but we all know that every company has business in this area. It is clearly a significant part of a lot of logistic change. I'm quite sure that the freight companies are already reviewing fuel surcharges and other stuff. So a lot of things going on. So I would say, starting on a realistic more balanced base is a good starting point. If it goes better, I'm quite sure that we, as many other companies still taking orders.

But again, I wouldn't underestimate the impact of this lack of confidence. We're still seeing, particularly on the academic side. The clinical side overall feels quite strong. We don't have the strongest respiratory season in the world right now. So there's no incremental tailwind. Now QIAGEN specific. Have in mind, of course, we are fighting in the first half also some headwinds from the discontinuation of NeuMoDx and [ QIAcuityDx ] that will fade away just that by itself will give us 200 basis points more growth in the second half compared to the first half. We also made important launches this year. As you know, we are launching 3 new machines on sample prep, 2 already on the market. So there's no launch risk on that. Quite obvious that we will generate more revenue in the second half than the first half. So also that will overall give us a step-up of 150 basis points from new products on the sample prep side, 50 basis points from other launches. So I think there are good reasons to believe that we see an acceleration, Nevertheless, we're not in the easy environment right now.

Yes. And on the academic government environment, you touched a little bit on that. We talked about how last year you had the second half weighting. I mean, last year was like a total freak out, I guess, from everybody when they saw that budget cut 40%. So we don't have that this year. But what we've seen is that the budgets are still slow to release. And like we were at AGBT, and I think that the sentiment there was that at least researchers felt that, okay, at least I'm going to have my job. I'll figure out when I get my money later. That's like the incremental positive that we got. Are you getting that same type of feeling from your customers?

Yes. No, I would say the good news for us is you have seen that last year, we were also not really much affected on the consumable side from all the shutdowns and budget things because our products are typically products which are very resilient. As long as you go to the lab, you need our products because otherwise, you can't do anything.

So we have felt it mostly or a significant part, actually on the instrumentation part. But yes, of course, there is this level of uncertainty, which, as I said before, will take some time before it moves away. It's actually also different in the U.S. and I think that is in European research budgets are actually moving quite well along, which is important for us as well. Yes, it could be more stable, but we're still moving in right direction.

And on the U.S. side, are you seeing -- is this kind of just a continuation of existing projects? Or are you starting to get bids for new project starts or new ideas?

What you were really seeing picking up for us is request for quotes for the new instruments. So you see that people at least expecting money. They're doing the due diligence work. They want to have demos. So that helps us also to get, I would say, more optimistic for the second half of the year. because you wouldn't do that if you wouldn't be somewhat optimistic because there's are other things you could focus on.

Yes. And on those launches, I mean, you have the Sprint or the QIAsprint, the QIAmini.And the first update QIAsymphony in a long time. So kind of walk through the genesis of -- and where these new boxes are going to fit within the workflow and...

Clearly, 3 important launches for us. And as I said, Symphony is on the market, Sprint is on the market, Mini will be end of the year, probably not much contributing revenues for this year, but probably more important for '27. Impact to the financials will be different. As you said correctly, Symphony, of course, is a well-known instrument for Qiagen, but now we had a major new release, which has a lot of features, which old machines doesn't have from continuous loading random access, 30% more capacity on a lower footprint. Again, as you know, we have a lot of significant customers who are growing 20%, 30% and they are clearly in desperate need of new sample prep machines. And so if you can more or less offer them now new machines, which are higher throughput and a lower -- or higher throughput on the lower footprint is exactly what they're looking for. So we have, I would say, good order income on that.

This will generate particular instrumentation revenues. It will take some time before this generates incremental consumer revenues because these machines, which we are probably replacing other symphonies are very much utilized. Over time, it will generate more throughput, very different than the QIAsprint. QIAsprint is a high thoughput machine. Here, Qiagen doesn't have any footprint at all because we have never been in that subsegment, while we would say, the leading market player if it comes to sample prep is more than 60% footprint in the kit market. We have never been in that subsegment.

I would think here, we will see both significant income of revenues from the new instruments. And of course, every kit is also incremental kit to what we're selling. So I think that is something what, for sure, will have large financial impact on the sample prep side, not only for this year, but probably also midterm.

Last but not least, the Mini again, a very different instrument, rather an instrument where we are expecting to replace manual work. And the way it should work is, we haven't set a price point yet, but let's assume you can now buy a walkaway instrument for $3,000 to $5,000. And as I said before, most analysts, I think you have a similar number, Luke, expect that we have a 60% market share in sample prep.

Typical setup in the lab is that we have 10, 15 different applications. So let's assume we have 10, 6 coming from Qiagen. Now you -- instead of using them manually, you can use an automated walkaway solution breakeven in less than 12 months. Over time, we expect these customers ask themselves why I'm still doing for others manually, if I can have a walkaway solution. Particularly in days where everybody feels a bit squeezed. Money is a bit limited. So I do think that's a nice addition to our full menu.

That's also the reason why we expect that our mid- and long-term growth rate for sample prep should be significantly up. Again, this year, it's probably somewhere between 9% and 10% growth rate. But of course, that includes the $40 million from the Parse acquisition. If you take that out, we are still probably somewhere between 4% and 5%, which is a significant step forward from the underlying, let's say, 2-plus percent we had in the past for our single largest product. In addition, being the CFO, is clearly also important and not a surprise that sample prep is probably one of our most profitable products as well. So that also will have a, I would say, a good impact on our overall margin, probably '27 and forward.

On the Sprint with the high throughput, right, when you think about and this is -- I'm thinking more about diagnostic labs and liquid biopsy applications. How scalable is this to get into if there's like large-scale genomics population studies to single cell, again, because you're the first layer of that whole biology stack, you need to unlock that part of the market?

So the QIAsprint is mainly targeting our research customers. So high throughput sample preparation for our research customers. But you're right, the QIAsymphony Connect, we have, in particular, developed for our liquid biopsy customers, full sample traceability, very important in clinical applications. It has a superior extraction performance due to a slight technology switch. So even in samples where you do not have -- where you do not have a lot of material, you can purify that very easily with the QIAsymphony Connect. And we particularly follow the strong growth of our liquid biopsy customers with the QIAsymphony Connect development. But the QIAsprint, this is really the high throughput for the reason mainly for research applications.

Okay. That's helpful. And then back to what you were talking about the profitability on the incremental. With the new instruments, typically, from a mix perspective, that was always a headwind, obviously, versus your much higher margin consumables and that obviously hasn't changed. But it's more of a question of from the new instruments coming out versus what we had seen in the past, can we assume a better drop-through from that higher instrument mix? Or is this going to be something like we've seen in past launches?

As you know, we do have a midterm target out of 31% adjusted EBIT margin for 2028. And I think we've been quite vocal about that we are going to increase that target going forward. In brackets, I only have to wait for a new CEO. He should review what he has to deliver. But of course, we internally develop the numbers signed it up. So we're happy to release. It's just fair that whoever comes in has a chance to review that and might even up, I don't know. We will see that. But we feel comfortable that we have potential to increase that.

A significant part of that, I would say, expansion of profitability, again, from more or less a 29.5% we had last year is clearly also that we do expect gross margin improvement. And that is driven by a couple of factors. One factor is that we expect also the consumer number in sample prep to grow. As you said correctly, overall, we have a healthy instrumentation gross margin better than most other companies. But of course, it is not to the same level than our consumables. It's probably also the reason why this year, that's more or less a bit flattish, it goes up a bit but not a large change and that comes in next year.

But there's, of course, other initiatives as well, in particular, also QIAstat will drive gross margin improvement because right now, we are underutilization. But of course, if that product continues what we strongly believe 10-plus percent, that should help us to grow into that and therefore, reducing our standard cost gain.

But on top of that, we have for the -- what we call QIAefficiency initiatives where we tackle a lot of different areas in terms of margin improvement has to do with, on the one hand side, rolling out our new ERP system. As you know, historically, we had 2 separate SAP systems, one for Europe and Asia, one for the U.S. Now we bring it to the new SAP HANA system on a global basis. So there's a lot of end-to-end work integration, which, of course, made a significant difference for any larger organization. But we also still have opportunities to shut down smaller sites and locations to integrate them into our larger hubs, which again will drive efficiencies quite significantly going forward.

Okay. And on that LRP, you talked a little bit on that. But on the growth perspective, you guys talk about some share dynamics there on QuantiFERON. This is one of your key pillars of growth. I think that your position in that market is well understood. But there's always the bogey of competitive dynamics coming from the bigger customers and diagnostics world. So give us an update on like how you guys are planning for that? And anything you want to walk through about the different -- it's a very niche market set, right? It's very fragmented. So where do you think that you'll be able to get?

I think first and foremost, everybody has to understand that still 60% of the market is still a 120-year-old skin test, right? And even 120-year-old skin test market is growing 4% as global population is growing as more mandatory testing getting required, back-to-school testing, health care worker testing. So the market is growing.

Second is that market was always competitive. People for good or bad reason, obviously, there's only Qiagen in the market. There's other companies in the market, very serious clinical companies as well, right? So I'm not sure why somebody might believe one is better competitors than others. And I would say, we fighted them all quite significantly over the last couple of years.

Yes, we clearly have the leading market share. But what probably also has to do is that we never stand still. We improved the product. We have now launched a fourth generation. As we all know, the fifth generation is coming at some point. We made particular this year, a significant step forward in terms of automation, we just released weeks ago, new automation steps, which increased 75% of throughput that is hard to catch for anybody going out.

And most important, we work with our customers over the last 2 years to embed them into like 3, 4 years contract, which I think is a win-win situation because at the end of day, we shouldn't forget also QuantiFERON is not only for us, but also for a lot of our customers, it's not for most of our customers, a significant product with significant profitability.

So the question is, why should you change it? Particular -- and you know, Luke, you know that, have you ever heard in the last 15 years any issue with QuantiFERON kit? Is QuantiFERON automated system? No. It has worked seamlessly. So changing a product on the clinical side, which is working perfectly, is a risk and the one learning we all have in our industry. That's true for our supplier. That's true for a lab as well is once you can't deliver, you are in deep trouble, right? So putting that in a risk, we'll see how it works.

We feel well prepared. There's also not a large update on that. As you know, some of the competitors pushed even launches out in the U.S. for time going forward. Let's see what happens. For us, I think it's even better if the launch happens soon because that's the only way that we can prove that we're still around once they're on the market.

Yes. All right. And then I guess from here the last couple of minutes, I want to talk about the recent Parse acquisition. You guys talked about the coming in above the $40 million target that you're having. So how much of that is due to just benefiting from your commercial organization and overall, just being able to scale the business versus anything that you guys have done internally from an ease of use or workflow simplification perspective?

So I think the key contribution really comes from the past technology itself, first of all, so we closed the deal in December last year. And one of the key reasons why we acquired Parse is the ease and the rapid adoption of the technology. It does not require an instrument if you don't want to. And that's virtually exponentially scalable.

And the most attractive part of the single cell research market is currently the part where you can generate large data sets of millions of cells. This is where the trend is going and where we believe Parse has the best solution on the market. So this is really that part of the single cell market we thought it's most attractive. Of course, over time, you're right. We expect with our commercial reach to generate revenue synergies in that regard. And we're also doubling down on R&D which is one of the reasons why we guide for a flat adjusted operating income margin in 2026 because we really doubled down on R&D for Parse. This is currently the market segment, which is growing the strongest.

Yes. Okay. And that would be, as we think about where Sprint kind of fits in within that research market, would that be one of those applications where it's an easy fit for you or no?

I wouldn't see it this way. If you think of Parse and where the money is coming from. So pharma companies are currently really exploring that field which is driven by a few factors. You can generate large data sets. You can store and interpret the data also with AI-enabled solutions and you can gain biological insights. And if you think of a virtual cell modeling structure, this is currently where the money goes into it. If you think of the Parse technology itself, you basically use the cells as the incubation areas and you do the transcription, the reverse transcription in the cells. So the QIAsprint is really for sample preparation.

Yes. Okay. It makes sense. And then I guess from here, when we're thinking about the -- you're talking about guiding to the flat margins. But there's still a pretty healthy step up from your 1Q all the way up to 4Q. Can you just walk through quickly on the buckets there?

In terms of revenues or in terms of profitability?

Profitability side.

Again, profitability, as I said, of course, once it comes to the scale of revenues, there's an underlying impact. Second, which is, I think it's very clear that Parse right now is dilutive to our transaction just in Q1, it's $0.02 dilution coming from cost -- gross margin for Parse is actually quite healthy. We are doubling down in R&D because we do believe we do have the leading franchise. And again, we have probably this year at least $40 million. I think our probably only competitor in the market, probably around $4 million in that kind of a field. So there is a nice opportunity for us to set the standard for the future, and this is exactly what we want to do.

More important is that we are clearly ramping forward some of our efficiency projects as well. So that is a significant driver for profitability as well, not helpful right now in the first half of it is, of course, the whole tariff implementation. It's going to annualize mid of this year, so that should be also being quite helpful at the end of the day. You might all get a big check. I'm not sure how that ends. But again, that's probably a discussion for another day. Margin improvement, I'm quite sure that we have better margin this year than we have guided yet.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Welcome, and good morning. I'm Puneet Souda. I cover life science tools and diagnostics here at Leerink. And my pleasure to be hosting QIAGEN team today. Joining us on the stage is CFO, Roland Sackers; and also Head of Investor Relations, Daniel Wendorff. So great to have you guys. Thanks for coming to our conference.

Thanks for having us.

Yes. Maybe, Roland, the first one, something that's on a lot of investors' mind, and there's quite a bit of discussion around it. Maybe just if you could talk about -- obviously, you've stated that you're open to discussions regarding strategic options. Theory has really emphasized shareholder value. Now it's always -- I understand, look, it's hard to comment on these ongoing discussions and level of interest. But wondering if you're willing to share a bit more about this process and how things are progressing? Any updates on the strategic front?

Sure. And again, thanks for having us. I do think was pretty much clear, and I've seen that, of course, Bloomberg picked it up last week as well, that on the one hand side, QIAGEN feels quite strong about its position in the market. Clearly, we executed quite well over the last couple of years. At the same time, we also believe we have a strong pipeline. At the same time, it's also very clear that more or less since a couple of months, we're in a CEO transition. And that is a typical time where not only the CEO, but clearly also the Board can ask itself, okay, what other alternatives are accessible for us or might even create further view of future value or incremental future value, if you like.

And this is exactly what stated that, that is probably the time we're in. While the CEO search is progressing and just to be very clear, that's progressing quite well. We are more or less from a long list to a short list, and we would expect that there is a new CEO at least announced in the second quarter of this year. There's clearly opportunities on the M&A front as well. That also goes into different directions. On the one hand side, I do think we, in the meantime, build a very nice track record of doing bolt-on acquisitions like Genox or as well.

At the same time, there might be opportunities in any kind of combination with different or even larger companies to create more value for the shareholders as well. The Board as well as management demonstrated and want to be very clear that is where we are open to, and let's see where we end up.

Got it. Okay. You addressed both of those key questions, but I'm sure you're going to have more of those in one-on-one meetings. But maybe just given the ongoing conflict right now, any -- and there are some inflationary concerns. Just wondering if there are any considerations in terms of shipping costs, other things that you have started to think about if this was to stretch longer?

Yes. As you said, it's a question of how long it might take, right? Is it more or less a few more weeks, I think we all should be fine. There is clearly already some hiccups in terms of logistics, left and right. I don't think that's too material right now, is a lot of things you probably have to eat, but I don't think that is any large material change of business. That might change in a second, of course, when your logistics supplier, for example, starts to increase fuel surcharges. I know they are typically good at that. If a larger time frame fuel prices also for them change they might add to that pricing.

It might be a couple of millions. Again, nothing that I'm too worried about right now because I would say, let's see how where we are in 3, 4 weeks down the road. Again, we right now do rise calculations. I think it's also important to know that the majority of our freight cost, we pass on to our customers -- so I think the net impact might be smaller than that. But again, right now, it's probably more the logistics change in general, while we don't have too many things coming via ship. Also a lot of plans are stuck somewhere while it probably will take some time before there's a normalization also with the logistic providers. Again, something where we have to play through right now. I'm not to avoid, but at the same time, you cannot ignore it. .

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then the other question on the macro side is just overall the state of funding, both in academics versus pharma that's been relatively stable. But then there is also the question of the smaller biotechs. So maybe just trying -- I believe you were expecting 50 bps of improvement from funding. Any changes that you're seeing here in the first half so far?

Just in perspective, 50 bps on a half year number from H1 is [indiscernible] So again, if that is our maximum work for the here, I'm happy to take that. I do think we have to slice and dice it a bit. What I do mean we said the consumable business is a very resilient business. As you know, it's 85% of our revenues -- and even in the governmental shutdown in the U.S., we still sold consumable on a quite regular basis. The more for the larger impact typically comes on the automation on the instrumentation side. Of course, here not only good enough to have the funding available.

And as you know, the good news is we do have an NIH budget is growing 1%, much better than most people who are expecting/faring while at the same time last year when the world was thinking about or is it down 20%? Is it down 30%. So plus 1%, I think is a very solid and good number. So I'm not too worried on the consumables side. But on the implementation side, I think you need more than money available, you need also confidence in the system because anestiment is not an investment for a 12-month period is a midterm investment. So you typically enter into a new consumer screen, you might have to hire a new operator for the machine or at least your contract -- a service contract for the machine as well.

So it's not necessarily only about the budget for this year is also do we believe what is my funding situation down the road. Building confident, as we all know, doesn't happen in for weeks -- that's also what we factored in when we have given guidance a year. So it might take some time but the confidence into the system, probably will take some time. Again, that's more specific to the academic situation -- we do not see this trend in Europe right now. We also don't see that in the clinical environment just to frame it. So we are careful on the instrumentation side because, as I said, we would expect building confidence back will take some time.

okay. And then switching gears to 2026 revenue, your guide, you are expecting at least 1% organic growth in Q1, but for the full year, I believe you're expecting 5% and that implies a significant second half ramp. Maybe just walk us through your comfort level on that ramp, still somewhat a number of things that you pointed out, obviously, in the marketplace is still were in that somewhat of an improvement phase there's some conflict ongoing and macro questions that are in the marketplace. So just given the CapEx environment still, what gives you sort of confidence on that second half?

Well, I think looking back towards to last year, similar to end, we gave a quite low guidance for the first quarter of the year. And I would say we proved in the guidance over the course of the year twice, particular on profitability and gaming quite strong. Nevertheless, I think it's also fair to say this year is somewhat different, given some of the macro trends, particularly in the U.S. Nevertheless, the bridge from H1 to H2 is actually the following: as you said, from 1% and then more or less a 500 bps increase H1 to H2, 200 bps is just mechanics because it is until mid of this year, we do have the headwind from the discontinuation of 2 of our business, Nimodix and DynaLogic.

This will automatically fall apart to 200 bps out of the 50 million another 200 bps is from what you just were referring to is from the new product launches. 150 of that is from the new sample prep machines. We are going to launch 3 new machines this year. QIAstat and QIAsprint are already on the market. So there's no launch risk or whatever. Again, having $15 million more revenues in the 6 months period coming from 2 new significant launches. I don't think it's too aggressive while I would say it's fair to say, yes, you still refer to this instrumentation topics before. I still believe that is reflected in the numbers as well because, again, only half of our business is life science, half of our business is in the clinical market, which is doing quite well.

And of course, this instrumentation business also comes with pipeline and so on. So you have a recent visibility another 50 all of the 200 million comes from launches we do around QIAstat and as well as a QIAacuity, our digital PCR platform. we delivered so far quite nicely on both of them. I wouldn't say there's any larger we -- another acceleration, we do expect [indiscernible] it's fair to say that Q1 is clearly a bit more challenging for us, quite unusual. That has to do with the large tender business we had last year, you might go back to Q1 last year where we had a 16% growth for QuantiFERON wise, which also for us is a strong growth rate. And it has to do with the tenders we won in Brazil and in Oman.

This tenders typically come with a full package, not only the consumables, but also the instruments, the software. So that will normalize way starting in the second quarter and then even sequentially in the third and fourth quarter. So I think there's other impact. And the last impact is the Parse acquisition, which, again, they did $20 million in '24. We said we do million, at least $40 million in '26, but sure right now that we do more than $40 million. So there's an acceleration of probably $5 million from H1 to H2 as well. So I think there's a lot of reasonable factors for us to believe that it's going to happen. But I want to be fair as well, it's not a home environment is not the easiest one, 1 now.

You have this other things you just mentioned, U.S. academic and you have China here, now you have the Middle East -- there are a lot of things to juggle at the same time. I think there's a lot of reasons to believe that we will on that way as well. And again, if what that is happening with a lot of other companies are saying right now that he believes the academic environment in the U.S. will even improve sooner than later. -- that is upside to our guidance as well. I think we haven't factored in here too much as well.

Got it. I want to come back to QuantiFERON in a second, but maybe just briefly on PRS. Just wondering -- in terms of the product, you were expecting going to $40 million the competitors, as you know, some established competitors in the marketplace, they have launched also new products that are lower priced products. So there is another sequencing company that also has via their acquisitions, they have products in the marketplace. So I guess if pricing was to pricing pressures were to emerge in that market obviously, how should we think about that?

So first of all, the technology of Parse has a big advantage that it's scalable and it's instrumentary. And our competitors, they rely on implementation solutions. And the one you're referring to, I guess is one of them is 10x. They are moving currently customers from one platform to a new platform, which is indeed cheaper. However, if you do -- if you buy the kits with higher single-cell brands per kit from past we are very well price competitive. So it's not that we are seeing price pressure on our -- for our products at us. That's not the case, right? So our pricing has been stable over the last 2 years. And if you do a really apples-to-apples comparison and if you do a really big data set generation of single cell analysis, you will see that our pricing is actually very competitive, still also to the new platform of 10x. So that's not really what we are seeing.

I would just to add to that, I think I would argue that Parse [indiscernible], again if you want to compare to certain offerings, you probably have to compare to the scale part, the scale part is most likely, as they said, $ 4 million in revenues. As I said, we are saying at least $40 million this year. And I said before, we were going to beat that number.

Second, wherever a healthy gross margin is a profitable product. The only reason why we have dilution this year from that acquisition is we are doubling down on R&D because we believe now the times set the standard for the future. Given the advantage we see in the technology, as Daniel said, automation-free hundreds of millions of copies possible. There's a significant opportunity for us to, again, to get here to a leading franchise for a significant time going forward. It's the reason why we're doubling down.

And then maybe an add-on. You might have seen that we launched a new chemistry, the forces pass. And 2 of the main advantages is that 1 is that the data quality is even higher than for the old chemistry which is 1 of the key competitive advantages of the platform. And the other advantage is that the sales retention rate is meaningfully higher, 75% higher. -- due to the introduction of a magnetic bead technology, which is able to get to increase the cell retention rate with new chemistry. .

Got it. And then do you have customers using any of the downstream analysis? And maybe on the other piece that I have on the margin side, you talked about investments into this. So sort of how should we think about the overall margin drag in sort of Q1, Q2 here?

Just Q1, I think we said that the as well, it's just coming from acquisition at $0.02 dilution. Again, it will improve quarter-over-quarter. As I said before, we also believe that probably sometime next year becomes margin accretive given the growth we're expecting in a healthy gross margin. So I'm not concerned on the profitability profile at all. It's on the question of how much we really want to double down on R&D, and I do think there's a nice opportunity. As I said before, one of the benefits is exactly what you were referring to a nice combination with our QDI business, don't we see that already happening as we speak. There is not only internally at QIAGEN, but also on the customer side, I would say, a strong linkage happening. People are thinking more and more end-to-end and getting that out of one hand is a significant benefit.

Got it. Maybe just coming back to QuantiFERON, you talked about tenders and tougher comps from last year. One question that remains in the market place is really the emergence of competition from a major [indiscernible] testing provider. How are you Again, that's been a question that's come up quite a bit, but maybe just tell us how should we think about that, where your strength would be, where the channel is strong, where the defensive moats are.

Yes. First and foremost, I think the company you mentioned twice now since 2012 to come to the market. To be honest, in the meantime, we are bagging that sector to the market because right now, we are fighting a ghost and let's see what they are going to see us now in May. Again, I would say, let them come to the market and we talk in 6 months again. Nevertheless, we are not standing still right. First and foremost, as you know, last year, they were clearly referring that U.S. launch got pushed out. So -- and we're still working under the assumption that they come to the market in Europe, sometime mid of this year.

Let's see if that gets confirmed. What is surprising to us that there is not much news around that. Last one, you might have seen that was a poster launched a couple of weeks ago on a conference. Interesting enough that poster didn't have any clinical data, just biomarker data which is very unusual because if you are close to your launch in our industry, you typically provide clinical data because that's where you sell. But you typically goes, and I don't have to tell you that you go to 1 of the top KOLs in our industry and say now what the QIAGEN instrument and solution, here's our wealth, you compare or whatever comes good out that, you put into a marketing poster and tell the world. It hasn't happened yet.

Again, I don't want to read too much into that. It's just an interesting news. Second is, we clearly haven't sat still in the last 2 years, we signed on with more than 60% of our customers multiple year agreements. Interesting factor as well as most customers were signing this contract, which are also volume based with no larger impact to prices. Actually, we actually are typically now having inflation base protection into that, which in this case is not a bad thing to have as well. And last but not least, I think the question particular investors have to ask himself, where are these machines placed from the competition? Are they there where TB testing is happening? And then second, how much capacity do they have? Because what people also forget is that TB test is either 3 or 4 column test.

It means you have to have quite significant excess capacity, probably 40%, 50%. I'm not sure which labs 4 years post COVID has a machine hanging around with 50% capacity. So I think you can play around with it fair enough. But at some point in time, when you want to play a series, you might have to buy a new machine, -- then again, if you have to buy a new machine, you look up, okay, what is the best machine available? Is it a 10-year machine in the market? Or is it one of the newer, for example, ind solution?

Again, we are preparing for a lot of different things. right now is also one of the reasons why we said CAGR is probably not 10% anymore. It's probably somewhere around 7%. Let's take it from there. Right now, we are just hoping that we don't have to fight a ghost for another 12 months. .

Yes. That's a good perspective. On the instrumentation side, maybe just you have QIAsymphony. There's a potential for a replacement cycle there. Maybe just tell us how are you thinking about what the new product launches already in? How should we think about the -- both the growth of those products Sprint, other boxes, automation boxes and then more importantly, QIAsymphony.

Yes. So as Roland already mentioned at the beginning, we are in the process of launching 3 new instrumentation platforms. The QIASymphony Connect, which was basically a follow-on to the new development for the QIAsymphony, QIAsprint Connect and the QIAmini. QIASymphony Connect will be fully IVDR launched mid this year. It's already on the market in a precommercial launch since end of last year. The QIAsprint Connect was just launched at a conference in Boston a few weeks ago. The QIAmini will come in fall 2026.

What is important to note, the QIAsymphony Connect is in particular, developed for the needs of high-value applications, meaning for the needs of liquid biopsy customers. And if you want to do microbiome testing, for example. It has a full sample traceability, and it has superior extraction performance. And we expect that mainly our clinical customers will want to buy this machine. Consumables, which are currently run on the QIAsymphony can also be run on the QIAsymphony Connect. That's different to the QIAsprint connect. So the QIAsprint Connect is really our entry -- it's a completely revolutionary entry into high throughput sample preparation.

That market hasn't seen innovative products for quite some time. We launched the QIAsprint Connect with 13 new -- so with the new menu, 13 new sample types. And that should really be incremental, not just to instrumentation, but also to our consumables revenue. The QIAmini and it's mainly research for research applications being used. This is also the case for the QIAmini. The QIAmini is really designed to provide smaller labs mainly being on manual tests to provide a first entry into automation. It can process up to 8 samples. And if you want to do if you want to enter more automation processes, the QIAmini would be the right platform to buy also many research customers.

So when you think of the QIAsprint, it's basically a bit of a market expansion. The QIAsymphony, we really doubled down on our high-value customers, in particular, liquid biopsy.

Got it. Okay. Maybe just given the time, let me switch gears. China, I mean you have historically said China would bounce back before 2026. Given the high teens declines in 2025, are you seeing any stabilization? What's the latest there? And what are you hearing from the teams?

Yes. just to phrase it first, China as is around 4% of revenue, so sizable, but I would say not too meaningful. We still believe that China will start the year with a negative growth were probably high single-digit growth rate, but negative growth rate. But I would say there's also reason to believe that it shows sequential improvement and hopefully, and the last quarter, kind of a flattish on that. What is probably the difference between QIAGEN and many other companies serving that market as well is that we have two kind of different brands in China. We have some very typical global brands, the QIAGEN brand. But we also have, since 2005, a very local brand, an acquisition what we did in 2005, actually, at that point in time, our single largest copy cat.

We always kept a separate Chinese R&D, Chinese production, Chinese management. And here, we clearly can see the difference between being perceived as a local company and being perceived being a global company because the local business is doing better. Our topic is not like VBP or so, it's not really affecting QIAGEN at all. It's more like this bank Chinese topic, buying local, if you like, and of course, overall GDP situation. We have seen some improvement. So we hope that it moves in the right direction. At the same time, what we are, of course, reviewing right now as we speak is a more product which we can integrate into our local brand by Chinese production, again, China for China and see if we get the benefit out of it.

And do you expect China for China, broadly speaking, growing simply because there's reference even in the life science tools beyond the IVD market for local products.

Absolutely. Again, we shouldn't forget China is already the second biggest health care market in the world and by definition population growth, at some point, it will be the single biggest health care market. So we made, on purpose, a decision to stay in the market. sometimes it might be even official to be a European company who knows. So again, there is clearly still a need for cutting-edge products. We still particularly see that some of the top educated and recognized labs in China are very low customers. So I think there's also reason to believe that things at some point might to other lease that they are not negative anymore. Let's start somewhere.

Maybe switching gears to -- just wanted to get your thoughts on capital deployment. I mean, you obviously completed the $500 million share buyback in January. Maybe just give us a view into the valuation gap that sort of exists out there? How do you think about M&A, buyback and especially at a time when you have looking at strategic option, CEO sort of ongoing at the same time.

Sure. First and foremost, let's see what comes all of the you right. And I do think that is clearly probably the next milestone. Second, since 2012, I think Gas built a nice track record of capital allocation. Again, first and foremost, investing into our organic growth rate, meaning R&D second to doing bolt-on acquisitions. But to us, we typically generated excess cash flow. And I think that cash flow over the years even become stronger, and I don't think it's anywhere different for '26 or '27.

Therefore, we stepped up our share buyback programs from $100 million, which was initially more or less a yearly share buyback then into more or less earlier a few years ago into a $300 million bucket. And this year, as you said, to a $50 million share back if nothing changes, but that way, I'm quite sure that we will have on the Annual General Meeting this year. Another proposal for 2 topics. As you know, we also started last year to pay a dividend. We started quite low. So I think there is an opportunity for us to step that up. Again, we are not becoming a huge yield player, but given the cash flow generation, that's for sure an opportunity to nicely increasing that dividend payment as well.

And second, of course, ask for approval for another share buyback because we do believe it's rather a regular tool for us going forward. If there's a bolt-on acquisition opportunity, happy to do that as well. Nevertheless, I don't think, given the likelihood in our industry, there's only a reason to believe that in average, there should be excess cash.

Okay. That covers it. That's helpful. Maybe in just 1 sort of last question around, obviously, AI as the topic comes up. QIAGEN always had developed a strong position by informatics and a number of tools, not just any early days it was open source. Now more and more things were incorporated into QIAGEN products as well. So maybe just give us a sense of with AI now, where are you seeing -- are you seeing any upside in terms of the customer demand -- how are folks employing these tools? And what's your expectations for overall the bionformatics side of the business.

Is a huge opportunity for the industry, but I think partial for QIAGEN, as you said correctly, it is already embedded in our particular QDI information. Because at the end of the day, tech sequencing. There are so many information coming out of the sign, it's beyond human comprehension. So you have tools to help you to get to the right conclusion in a faster way and a better quality that's a perfect outcome. At the same time, we all have to recognize there's a long way to go to train these machines, right? So there's a lot of data required that all this information get even better over time. So there's also, I would say, a huge opportunity for the underlying QIAGEN business because this information do not come from [indiscernible]

And particularly, if you think now clinical, 99.9% is not good enough, right? And I still can only remind people on automation but I started more than 20 years ago at QIAGEN, when we just entered the automation of sample prep Still, the majority of sample purposes world done is still done in a manual way. Automated, of course, is growing much faster. So while AI has changed in the world, Particularly on the clinical part, it will take quite some time before we see that as making a dramatic difference. But until then, it will drive a lot of pros.

Yes. There's always inertia that you have to fight back. But thanks for the thoughts here. Ron, I really appreciate the time, and thanks for joining us. .

Thanks for having us, and thanks for letting us in your penthouse. Thank you.

Yes. Absolutely.

Welcome. Good morning. Dan Brennan from TD Cowen Tools and Diagnostics team. Pleased to be joining here, kicking off the 46th Annual TD Cowen Healthcare Conference, CEO of QIAGEN, Thierry Bernard. So Thierry, thank you for being here, and welcome.

Thank you.

So listen, you've been at the helm around 6 years, Thierry.

A bit more.

A bit more than that.

Close to 7, yes.

Close to 7. I'll blame that on Tom who wrote the question. So maybe just speak through -- I've gotten to know you, I knew Peer before you. Just what are some of the ways that you've shaped QIAGEN? And what do you consider to be some of the most attractive features of the profile today?

First of all, thanks for having us. I think the most -- the main highlight of the last 7 years, I believe, is twofold. One is this is a very focused company. As a reminder, and it's not the first time I'm saying this, we are a mid-cap. And therefore, as a mid-cap, we need to make sure we invest where we can take between the #1 and the #3 position on the market. And this is what we have achieved.

I mean, if you look at the performance again of 2025, our growth priorities, the so-called 5 pillars of growth, it's roughly 75% of our business, it grew at 8% to 9%. It's a phenomenal performance. So very focused. And the second main feature is the focus on increased profitability. If you look at -- we were starting already from a very solid P&L. I'm talking gross margin and operating margin. And we have strengthened that despite some events last year, for example, obviously tariffs and that we are getting closer and closer to 30% EBIT margin. This is way on track. So very focused, very profitable executing on numbers.

So maybe speak a little bit about the search for the new CEO. So just what type of candidates are being evaluated? How close are you maybe to announcing hire? Just anything along those lines? And again, are the types of people you're looking for? Is it just to continue the strategy that's in place, which seems to be working, but is it -- are you also looking for someone who's maybe going to implement more change?

The Board and I are, I think, in the final steps of the process. Obviously, profiles were significantly experienced executive, preferably with experience and knowledge in tools and diagnostic with an international background, significant experience with public markets. And we have now a very short list of final candidates, of which a #1 into those candidates. So I think that if everything continues to go well, that's something that can be announced way into Q2 and with someone new on board by the end of Q2, clearly.

So you've had some changes at the Board level, too. You've got Steve Ruschowki, Chairman in June; Mark Stevenson joined Supervisory Board. Just what changes maybe, if any, of emphasis is the Board putting on the business today?

Well, since 2020, we have continuously tried then to enhance the competencies within the Board. We brought in more than 5 new candidates, most recently, as you said, Steve Ruschowki and Mark Stevenson. So there is a significant a number of very experienced executive in health care in every dimension, science, finance, strategy, human resources, quality, you name it, even also IT and cybersecurity and digital.

So we have a very strong Board, extremely cooperative supporting and challenging with management. I cannot be happier clearly. And I always insisted to the Board that I wanted ex-CEO, because this is a unique job, I would say, and having the opportunity to benefit from the input from ex-CEOs or current CEOs is a great value to me.

So maybe it's a good segue into M&A. Not lost on anyone here. There's been a bunch of media outlets reporting we're in a period where strategic players are potentially evaluating a possible acquisition of QIAGEN. I know it's hard to comment on rumors. But just kind of wondering, the first question would be more technically under German law, what are the circumstances by which the management team or the Board would need to disclose strategic interest if it was real?

Well, it would have to be material, but I'd like to highlight something very important here. The Supervisory Board and the Managing Board, we are really working to enhance value creation to our shareholders, all our shareholders. And so we are not only ready and open to engage, but we are doing this with the help of advisers working with us.

I mean, in this case, we work hand to hand -- hand in hands with Moelis and with Goldman Sachs. And so I cannot be clearer on this, very open to engage. We are working on different alternatives, and it has to basically create value for our shareholders, for our stakeholders. We need to see obviously a decent deal feasibility. But we are definitely convinced that we need to review those strategic alternatives. That's number one.

At the same time, as we just discussed, we continue the search for a new CEO. I think both process and can go in parallel. And at the same time, we also continue to execute on very solid numbers that we disclosed to the market, if you remember in our last Capital Market Day, which is executing on 7% growth for sales. We are on it. Going to or above 31% operating margin. We are on it. Returning $1 that -- more than $1 billion to our shareholders. We have done that. We are at $1.1 billion between share buyback and dividends. So we are executing, but I think the main message here is that we are definitely with advisers, Goldman and Moelis ready to engage and convinced that having strategic alternative reviews is good for our shareholders.

And can you speak to that a little bit because I don't think we've heard that before. So how are they -- how long have you been hired? How long have you hired them for? Was this back when the rumors first broke, whatever that was ago? Or just any more context around the timing at which you engage with these strategic advisers?

Well, it has been a constant. The difference here is that we never disclosed that we had advisers, which is step to prove how serious we are here. I don't have to disclose when we sign or when we didn't sign. We are closely working with 2 advisers and taking the stance to say that publicly is also a clear sign. So...

And I know in the past, when there was the -- I think a few years ago, we hosted you and there was potential of BioMéu was interested in the company. There was, I think, a Wall Street Journal article in that. I think back then we discussed your view on a merger versus an outright acquisition if something were to happen. Any context how you feel about that today in terms of getting the maximum value if something were to transpire for QIAGEN? Is it really an acquisition that would create the most value in your opinion? Or are you open to other forms such as maybe something more like a merger?

I think, Dan, we need to have one obsession if we are serious here is creating value for shareholders. And making sure that also the legacy of the company, what I mean basically creating value for the stakeholders, the people who have been building QIAGEN for the last 40 years is also respected. But the only criteria is, does it create shareholder value?

And do we see a pathway that would be ridiculous in my view or value disruptive if we would engage with no clarity of a regulatory pathway for that combination. It's very time dilutive. It's sometimes disruptive for employees as well. So that's -- those are the criteria, yes.

And maybe just final one on this aspect, too. So if -- I mean, if it were to be -- say, for instance, the most value accretive opportunity was through a merger, that require maybe not merger, it was more of like a size equal, but it required a significant amount of equity. Like would you consider the financing of any potential acquirer such that would that be a calculus in the decision around how to create the most value?

Once again, I mean, value creation for shareholders is the main criteria. Then it's always normally simpler or it's most of the time simpler to go to a straight cash acquisition. But if you create a good combination between cash and paper and it creates value once again for our existing shareholders, that makes sense as well.

And maybe -- sorry, final one. So you have the decision maybe on a new CEO, which could be announced in the second quarter. If we see that decision, announced, are we -- should we be under the presumption that the strategic initiatives and evaluation probably isn't going to materialize at this point?

No. Absolutely. No. That's why I said, and I insisted that those are 2 parallel processes. The candidates in our short list are fully aware. And I think, once again, I mean, having the best man for the job for QIAGEN as a CEO is also creating value for our shareholders, proactively reviewing strategic alternative is also a way to create value for our shareholders.

Okay. Great. Maybe just kind of flipping around to the business. You've guided to similar organic trajectory ex discontinued businesses in 1Q and 4Q, like flattish. When we think about the guide, it does appear to be that there is a benefit -- a stronger growth in the back half of the year. I'm just wondering how you think about the layout of 2026 as you foresee it in the context of your guidance?

Yes. I think we have been explicitly describing this with numbers. I think that the trend and the sequence in '25 -- in '26, I'm sorry, will exactly be the reverse of what we have been through in '25. '25, everybody, not only QIAGEN, but especially QIAGEN started very strong. For example, we were at more than 6% growth in Q1 of '25. If you remember, 16% growth for QuantiFERON alone, for example. And then little by little, we had a sequential decrease of that growth for many reasons, uncertainties, tariffs, difficulties to have visibility on funding, especially for research and academia.

If you look at '26, we guided that more than 1% for Q1. And indeed, H2 will grow faster than H1, but it's very easy to explain that. First of all, you have roughly 2 percentage points coming from new products that we are launching in 2026. I'm talking here mainly about Sample tech. I remind you that we are launching 3 new instruments. This is unprecedented, but also new panels for QIAstat, for example, new assays for QIAcuity. All this impact mostly H2.

Another 2 percentage points are coming from a base effect. In H1 of last year, we still had in our portfolio activities such as NeuMoDx, for example. In H2, as a comp effect, they disappear. It's 2 percentage points once again. And then you have 2 smaller impact. One, in my view, is on QuantiFERON mainly, once again, a base impact because in Q1 of last year and Q2, we signed big deals, either in Oman or in Brazil on QuantiFERON. This accounts for basically 0.5 percentage point.

And last but not least, there is the Parse acquisition impact. Parse has much more revenues in H2 than H1. We told you that it would account for roughly above $40 million revenues next year in our sales. And we also take an assumption. You can blame us for this, but the assumptions that in H2, capital expenses in laboratories is going to normalize a bit, not fully, but people will start reinvesting. Again, those 2 phenomenon, Parse plus a return to quite normal in capital expenses, it's 0.5 percentage point. So that explains really the sequence.

We believe that we are on our way to execute that. The environment is not easy. I mean there are still -- there is still a kind of wait-and-see attitude as we were discussing, you and I, from labs before investing clearly. Let's hope that what is happening for the last weekend is not going to add more disruption to that, but we'll see. But we are going to execute. Once again, there is no way we do not execute on the sales, on the operating profit and on the EPS as well.

And when you talk about the environment being still kind of conservative or maybe risk averse a bit, is that just on the U.S. academic side? Is that across all research, pharma included? Just...

I think research and academia, especially are cautious when it comes to investing into capital expenses because as we discussed last year, then, the environment is better, not only in the U.S., but also, I think, in many other geographies. We have more visibility on NIH funding. There are still some details to fine-tune, but there is visibility on NIH funding.

After some elections in Germany, I mean, budget situation in Germany has clarified. There are no bad signs from the U.K. I'm talking about major markets, obviously. France is a bit tricky, but they have a budget now. So I think the visibility on the environment is slightly better.

But I think that especially research and academia, some labs are waiting to see a bit more. What does it mean in terms of real investment in the U.S., what does it mean in terms of non-direct versus direct funding? We will clarify that around the month of April. So that justifies that in H2, we are more optimistic.

At the same time, if you think about it then, especially in Research and academia, that sluggish capital expense environment has been lasting now for 2 to 3 years. In Research and academia, they invest. They need to invest on a regular basis. And guess what? QIAGEN comes, for example, just for Sample tech with 3 new solutions. This obviously is very favorable to us in H2.

And when you say research and academia, you really specifically motion academia or research, you mean pharma as well?

No. Pharma for us, we have disclosed that for the last 3 years consistently. We see pharma being quite dynamic. You know that we have an interesting business with pharma in companion diagnostics. This goes very well. It grows very fast, especially on account of digital PCR. But pharma as a direct customers to us, our solutions, it's a good growth as well, especially in Sample tech, for example, or in digital PCR. Pharma companies were the first one to signal that they would buy the QIAsprint, one of our new launches in Sample tech, even before the system was launched.

Okay. So maybe just pivoting over to some of the newer product areas. You talked about the sample prep launches. Just -- I know there's a bunch of questions on this. We spoke about it a little bit before. Just any color as we think about what the realistic upside could be from sample prep. Obviously, the CapEx environment is a bit restrained, but just speak to kind of what you think about those.

I mean the way we see it, remember in our Capital Market Day in New York, June '24, we said CAGR for Sample tech will be 3% to 4%. Never forget that it's a significant revenue for us, but it's a highly profitable revenue. So any time you can grow positively, I mean, it's very beneficial to your P&L.

And so we are perfectly executing on that. We said at that time, it will come partially from our new instrument. This year, it's fair to say that -- we expect $15 million of sales from those new launches. So it's important, obviously. But it's also showing that we are clearly the leader in Sample tech, an activity where you have long-tail customers, extremely profitable. And any time you are putting an instrument, you are generating consumables after. And those consumables are high margin as well. So we are executing.

The reception from customers for not only the QIAsprint, as I said before, but QIAsymphony Connect in our major customers like Natera, Guardant Health, Exact is very good. And I saw also a very, very set of interesting questions from customers for the QIAmini as well. So this will come later in the year. But yes, we execute perfectly on what we said here.

Parse will reinforce and strengthen this. Parse this year is $40 million revenues, at least -- the double -- we confirm a double-digit growth profile for this activity, at least for the coming years. And so it's, as we disclosed, slightly dilutive to our EPS this year, but this is going to be managed very quickly. It's a very good acquisition.

So maybe since you hit Parse, we just came back from AGBT and the academic market is still challenged, but hopefully bottoming out, 10x has had a little bit better numbers lately. But double-digit growth is still well above, I think, what the market is growing at right now. So the $40 million this year, you sound good on. What gives you confidence in that double-digit growth rate? Like where are you growing? Are you taking share as a unique solution?

First of all, the confidence is coming from the fact that any time we do an acquisition of that kind, we always choose a highly differentiated solution. Genoox in bioinformatics is very differentiated. QIAstat is very differentiated. Remember when we acquired QIAstat, people were saying, well, the syndromic market, there is a clear leader and at the point, QIAstat in 2025, 25% of growth. It's significant.

Parse is not 10x. Parse is a much better solution, which is instrument-free, first feature. Second, the number of cells that you can process is absolutely with no comparison of what competition can do, whether it's 10x, scale or Becton Dickinson. And so we have stronger features to address customer needs than competition. We need to continue to invest in R&D to maintain that edge. Parse has built in the most recent month, a Giga Lab as well to address even higher volume from customers. I mean it's -- that's why I say it's a very good acquisition.

And I don't look at what competition does not achieve. I look at what this solution can achieve on the market, which is definitely growing, which is the ability to work at the single cell level.

Okay. Okay. Maybe just moving over to digital PCR. Continues to do well in a tough environment. I think core PCR is declining, I think, is what's assumed here. Maybe just give us a little bit of color on the delta between those 2. We'll dig into digital PCR in a moment. But just on the core PCR market, just kind of what's happening? Is that just all economic and government weakness that's pressuring that?

No, Dan, I'm not sure that -- I mean, at least the answer is very straightforward. I said we are a mid-cap. And I'm pushing for the last 7 years our teams everywhere, sales, research and development, customer service to focus, focus, focus. And so we are paying much more attention to digital PCR than PCR. And if you ask me what is the strategic priority of QIAGEN, PCR is not a strategic priority. We are a PCR company.

But from a product standpoint, it's digital PCR. And this is where we want to push the market, and this is where we want to convert the market. So the evolution of PCR in our portfolio versus digital PCR will continue to happen. Guess what? Because we clearly said last year, our priority in digital PCR is to focus on gene expression assays and solution.

Gene expression is the core market for digital PCR. The day will prove, and we will prove it that digital PCR can be as cost efficient as PCR in that field of gene expression will convert even more of the market. But let's make no mistake, we work on focuses. Digital PCR is a focus. PCR is much less a focus for us.

So can you give a little color on like where you're winning in digital PCR types of accounts who are adopting? I know you feel you have a really differentiated portfolio, but speak a little bit to the competitive profile.

It's not that we think it's the truth. We were the first company to launch fully integrated system. It's not a drop technology. It's a plate-based technology. Look at the cost efficiency overrun by QIAGEN as customers, they will tell you the same. overrun with QIAGEN compared to competition, it's much more cost efficient. So it's not QIAGEN statement. It's -- and look at our growth. The installed base we created in less than 5 years is remarkable.

We are below our objectives in '25 on capital expenses. Why? Because of the environment that we described before. But what do we say when we say we are below our objective. Last year, we still put 500 QIAcuity on the market. So yes, it was below our budget, but 500, I'm happy with that. It's difficult for me to be happy, but you see what I mean. And this will generate more consumables.

Growth in consumable for digital PCR, double digit. Growth in companion diagnostic, double digit. It's good. It's good. This field, this activity, we will become #1. There is absolutely no doubt if we continue to add menu. We already have a new generation of system for digital PCR in our R&D pipeline. We'll tell you more about this in due time. We have new set of assets, especially in gene expression. We will become #1. It's -- or not -- if not, blame it on the management, clearly, that's clear. I cannot be clear out there.

Okay. So QuantiFERON, obviously, Roche has been out there for a while saying they're coming, they're coming. I think you just want them to come out because they just get it out of the way. But just speak a little bit to kind of how you anticipate when they do enter the market, kind of what kind of impact it could have in your profile?

I don't want to be facetious. They have been out there on PowerPoint. So let's also state the facts. While they were out there on PowerPoint, QIAGEN was delivering on results. Double-digit growth systematically for the last years, and we are on our way to be $600 million revenues, as we said in our Capital Market Day.

In addition to that, we continue to invest. What you're going to see on QuantiFERON in 2026 is even beyond what we have communicated. We are just waiting for the right time because we want to have data. Once again, we present data, solid data, but you will see more innovations in QuantiFERON in '26 that we have disclosed so far in 2 directions: proprietary enhanced automation and AI-based results.

So -- but obviously, we respect competition. And Roche, we believe, will enter the market probably in H2 in Europe. We don't know what's going to happen in the U.S. because we cannot speak on behalf of Roche, but they have stopped mentioning the U.S. market at least in the last 2 years.

What I also highlight is on the few presentations we have seen on their solution, it's not QIAGEN talking. It's clearly written that the solution will not be differentiated versus QuantiFERON interferon gamma solution. So we welcome the competition. I think we are ready commercially. We are ready technologically. We continue to invest into the solution. Let's see who is going to win.

At what time in the year do you think we might get an update on some of the new features which you just mentioned?

I think around Q2. I think around Q2, that's the current plan. But again, I don't want to play with statements for the sake of communicating. This is not QIAGEN. So when we will have relevant data, you will -- but I'm trying to share the message here that we continue to invest on that product clearly. We gave you a 7% CAGR in the Capital Market Day in June '24. When we are coming from double digit, it means that in our forthcoming numbers, we are already factoring new competition.

Got it. So maybe just on QIAstat-DX, you mentioned it earlier, the success you've had since you've taken it over and the menu keeps expanding. Just when you think about the kind of go forward, I guess it's menu, menu, menu, but when you think about the go-forward growth rate, just what are some of the maybe like upside and like downside drivers to this business over the next couple of years?

That's a very fair question. I mean the syndromic market, which is the core of QIAstat continues to grow. It's high single digit in many mature countries, double digit in more, let's say, emerging countries. Let's also add to that, that the market so far is still massively U.S. and Europe and even very unbalanced. U.S. is probably still 60% of that market, Europe between 20%, 30% and the rest is the rest of the world. So we still have to do a lot outside of the U.S.

The double-digit profile for QIAstat, if we continue to execute, as you said, on new panels, and I'm very excited with the complicated UTI panel that we want to have on the market, at least in Europe by the second half of 2027 because there is nobody there. So -- but -- the double-digit profile of QIAstat for the coming 3 years, I think I have no doubt that we are going to execute.

Then for the market, the big question will be, is the market moving to shorter panel or long panel? QIAGEN plays massively on long panel, 20-plus pathogens. It's inpatients that we are targeting, not outpatient. We are not targeting point of care. We are targeting hospital settings. We need to defend that market because there is a value there. But after 3, 4 years, we need to see where the market obviously will go shorter panels or longer panels, clearly..

Okay. So maybe jumping over to QDI for a moment. I know it's a smaller percentage of the revenues, but there's a lot of noise in the marketplace, obviously, from AI and the risk and disintermediation and software. How do you feel about your QDI portfolio from that perspective?

I mean QIAGEN is dealing with AI for the last 20 years. I mean, AI has not become fashionable at QIAGEN because everybody is talking about AI. From the very start, when we decided to invest in bioinformatics, more than 20 years ago, we took a very, very important stance. The power of bioinformatics will come from the combination of manually curated data boosted with LLM.

And this is exactly what we have been doing. We have created a significant knowledge base coming from manually curated data, and we are boosting this with LLM solutions for the last -- we just need to keep doing that, especially from our research and academia portfolio, this is where we are having more difficulties for the last 2 years.

Clinical portfolio in bioinformatics grows double digit. Research and academia portfolio grow low single digit because of the environment, but also because we need to reinvest into AI for this portfolio. This is why we told you that in the coming 3 years, there will be more than 14 AI-based developments just for bioinformatics. But what is clear is that it's not new for us. It's just continue to execute on what we have been doing for the last 20 years.

I think we're out of time. But Thierry, do you want to wrap it up with what message would you like to leave investors with?

Well, first of all, thanks for the trust. I continue to believe that this company is solid, much more solid than 7 years ago, very focusing, increasing profitability regardless of the external environment and very open to strategic alternatives that we continue to try to create value for shareholders.

Terrific. Well, thanks, Thierry, for being with us today.

Very good. Thank you so much, Dan. Thanks, guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Katie, your call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining QIAGEN's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised this call is being recorded at QIAGEN's request and will be made available on their Internet site. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I'd like to introduce your host, Daniel Wendorff, Vice President of Head of Relations at QIAGEN. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to our call for the fourth quarter of 2025. We appreciate your time and interest in QIAGEN. Joining on the call today are Thierry Bernard, our Chief Executive Officer; and Roland Sackers, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us is Dr. Domenica Martorana from our Investor Relations team. As always, today's call is being webcast live and will be archived in the IR section of our website at www.qiagen.com, where you can find the press release and presentation accompanying this call.

Please also note that this call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected due to a number of factors outlined in our most recent Form 20-F and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also refer to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP that provide additional insights into our performance.

Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP figures are in the release and presentation. All references to earnings per share refer to adjusted diluted EPS. With that, let me hand the call over to Thierry.

Thanks a lot, Daniel. Hello, and good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are in the world, and thank you once again for joining us. I am very pleased today to confirm that QIAGEN continued to perform and delivered a solid finish to 25 with results in the fourth quarter again above outlook. We exceeded our targets for both sales and adjusted earnings, once again placing QIAGEN among the fastest-growing companies in our industry. This reflects continued execution across the business and the trust our customers place in us even in a challenging environment.

I also want to recognize the dedication of our teams around the world. Their work has been essential in delivering those results. So let me walk you through our key messages for today. First, we exceeded our outlook for the fourth quarter, and we also delivered solid full year 2025 results at the high end of our expectation with adjusted earnings again above our guidance.

Net sales were $540 million in the fourth quarter. growing 1% at CER and exceeding our outlook for flat sales development against the fourth quarter of '24. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.62 at constant exchange rate, exceeding our outlook of about $0.60 constant exchange rate again. For the full year of 2025, net sales were $2.09 billion, up 5% at CER and at the upper end of our outlook of about 4% to 5% growth.

Adjusted diluted EPS increased to $2.40 at CER. This was above our outlook, which we increased twice during the year and reflects our ability to deliver in a challenging environment. Second key message, we reached important milestones across our portfolio. We want to highlight here that across our growth pillars, sample technologies, QuantiFERON, QIAstat, QIAcuity and QIAGEN Digital Insights. They all achieved combined sales of [ $1.49 ] billion at CER in '25, delivering 8% growth at CER again. The current trajectory keeps us on track for at least $2 billion in combined sales from our growth pillars by 2028. This reflects continued demand across our portfolio and the increasing relevance from areas where we have decided to invest for the long-term growth.

Sample Technologies continued to grow with sales up at CER in the fourth quarter and 2% CER gain for the full year. This is an indication of the demand for automated consumables as laboratories continue to push to automated sample prep. In addition, during the year, we completed the acquisition of Par Biosciences extending sample technologies into single cell analysis and adding exposure to this very rapidly scaling field.

QuantiFERON delivered continued growth with sales up 5% at CER in the fourth quarter and 10% CER again for the full year, supported by ongoing conversion and a large and still underpenetrated latent TB testing market. We are executing here on a clear strategy to drive further conversion. QIAcuity our digital PCR solution delivered double-digit growth in consumables and an installed base that exceeded 3,200 instruments globally since we launched it. as digital PCR continues to gain relevance in applications requiring high precision and [indiscernible].

QIAstat grew 15% at CER in the fourth quarter and 24% CER for the full year 2025. Growth was supported by menu expansion and the growing installed base that exceeded 5,200 instruments. Last, our bioinformatic business, QIAGEN Digital Insights, delivered continued growth in 2025, supported by demand across both Discovery research and academia and clinical customers and the integration of Genoox, which further strengthened our clinical interpretation offering. Third message for today. We made further progress on profitability and cash flow while continuing to execute on disciplined capital allocation.

For 2025, our adjusted operating income margin increased 80 basis points to 29.5%, reflecting continued efficiency gains across the business. Those improvements more than offset headwinds from tariffs or adverse currency movements and the previously disclosed dilutive impact from recent acquisitions. We also generated solid free cash flow of $453 million in 2025. This supported investment into the business, including the rollout of our upgraded ERP programs.

At the same time, we continue to return capital to shareholders. Since 2024, QIAGEN has returned more than $1.1 billion to shareholders to date and introduced an annual dividend payment while pursuing selective bolt-on acquisitions to support our future growth. So as we are heading into 2026, we clearly remain focused on execution, disciplined cost management and continued investment into our growth pillars.

Before handing over to Roland, I would also like to briefly acknowledge the change in our Supervisory Board. We are very pleased to welcome Mark Stevenson, who joined our Supervisory Board in January. Mark brings deep operational and global life sciences experience and we really look forward to working with him. At the same time, I would like to sincerely thank [indiscernible] for his many years of contribution to QIAGEN.

[indiscernible] step down from the Supervisory Board after taking on a new leadership role at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, but we are grateful that he will continue to serve QIAGEN as Chair of our Scientific Advisory Board. With that, I'll hand it over to Roland for more details on the financials.

Thank you, Thierry. Hello, everyone. Thank you as well for me for joining our call. We are pleased with our performance in the fourth quarter and full year as we delivered results above our outlook for the fourth quarter on both sales and adjusted diluted EPS at constant exchange rates. 2025 was overall another solid year for QIAGEN in terms of execution and delivering on our commitments.

Let me frame our performance around 3 key messages. First, we delivered solid results with sales for '25 at the high end of our outlook with continued strength in consumables and our growth pillars amid a cautious funding and capital spending environment. Second, we improved profitability expanding the adjusted operating income margin by 80 basis points over 24% on efficiency gains and operational discipline. These actions more than offset material headwinds from tariffs and currency movements. And third, we continue to deploy capital in a disciplined manner. We are investing to support future growth while increasing returns to shareholders.

Our strong free cash flow enabled us to make investments into bolt-on yields like Parse and Genoox while also returning over USD 1.1 billion to shareholders since 2024. With that context, let me focus on the financial drivers behind our results. For the fourth quarter, net sales grew 1% CER and exceeded our outlook for flat sales development against [indiscernible] '24.

Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.62 at CER and above our outlook for about $0.60. For the full year, sales increased 5% CER, and this was at the high end of our outlook. Our growth pillars delivered 8% CER growth for the year and reached our goal for $1.49 billion of combined sales at CER. So we are on track to achieve our '28 goal for at least $2 billion of combined sales from these products.

Adjusted diluted EPS for the full year were $2.40 at CER for '25, which was $0.12 above our initial outlook for the year and compares with $2.18 in '24. Let me now provide some additional insights into sales trends for the fourth quarter and for '25. Among our product groups, Sample technologies delivered mid-single-digit CER growth for the fourth quarter and this was complemented by low single-digit growth in Diagnostic Solutions and Genomics, while sales in our PCR product group declined at a single-digit rate.

In Sample technologies, sales growth in the fourth quarter was driven by higher demand for automated consumables used on our instruments, and results are included first-time contributions from the past acquisitions that was completed in December. For the full year, Sample technologies delivered 2% CER growth in line with our expectations as trends improved over the course of the year.

In Diagnostic Solutions, sales increased 1% in the fourth quarter. QIAstat-DX sales were up 15% CER, driven by double-digit growth in consumables as we continue to benefit on the full core menu in the U.S., '25 delivered 5% CER growth and supported by continued conversion from the skin test. In the PCI product group, sales declined 9% CER in the fourth quarter. Consumables for use on the QIAcuity Digital PCR system continued to deliver double-digit growth as we continue to place over 100 instruments per quarter in a challenging capital spending environment.

Sales of other PCR consumables, however, declined due to factors that included the challenging funding environment and lower OEM contributions compared to the '24 period. In the genomics and NGS Product Group sales grew 2% CER in the fourth quarter, driven by double-digit growth in the QIAGEN Digital Insights Bioinformatics business. At the same time, sales of NGS consumables were under pressure.

Turning to the regions. [indiscernible] in the Europe, Middle East, Africa region led the performance and were up 5% CER for the fourth quarter. top-performing countries included Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. In the Americas, sales declined 1% CER with results in the United States being flat at constant exchange rates. A factor reflecting this was the U.S. government shutdown.

In the Asia Pacific, Japan region, sales were flat in the fourth quarter. Results in China declined at a low teen CER rate for the fourth quarter over the year-ago period. But keep in mind that this country represents only about 4% of total sales in '25.

Turning to the full year results. For '25, the adjusted operating income margin was 80 basis points to 29.5% compared to '24. And this was achieved despite facing about 120 basis points of combined headwinds from tariffs and adverse currency movements. In other words, the underlying profitability strengthened meaningful during '25 -- excluding these external headwinds, the margin expanded by roughly 200 basis points in '25, and this was well above our initial target for at least 150 basis points of improvement and this was before the tariffs were announced. This performance reinforces our confidence in exceeding our '28 target for a margin of at least 31%, and we are reviewing this target with plans to provide an update.

For the full year, we raised our adjusted EPS outlook price during '25 and ultimately delivered results of $2.38 on a reported basis and results at CER of $2.40. Turning to cash flow. Operating cash flow of '25 was $654 million compared with $674 million in '24, reflecting strong earnings generation. The results for '25 also absorbed about $54 million of cash payments for the efficiency initiatives.

Free cash flow was $453 million for '25, reflecting higher capital expenditures related primarily to IT investments that included the SAP system upgrade. We continue to deploy capital in a disciplined manner, balancing investment in the business with returns to shareholders. As you know, we completed the purchase of Parse in December while in January, we returned USD 500 million to shareholders through a synthetic share repurchase. On a pro forma basis, net leverage stood at about 1.3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA in January 26 as our leverage improves.

Net financial flexibility to support continued investment in organic growth and targeted both on acquisitions while also increasing returns to shareholders and that also includes our annual dividend payments planned again from mid-'26. Taken together, our '25 performance reflects solid execution on sales growth margin expansion and disciplined capital deployment as we look for another year of solid profitable growth in 2026.

With that, let me hand the call back to Thierry.

Thanks a lot, Roland. And let me share with you a bit of perspective on our product portfolio. Starting with Sample technologies, as you know, a key focus for QIAGEN. In December, we completed the acquisition of Parse Biosciences, extended our sample technologies portfolio into single sales analysis. Parse as a scalable differentiated chemistry that strengthens our Sample to Insight workflows and opens a long-term growth opportunity.

Recent launches such as ever code wall blood fixation enable immediate fixation at collection and extend Parse's reach into translational and clinical research. Alongside this expansion of acquisition, we execute on our next-generation automation road map. In 2025, we successfully launched QIAsymphony Connect took initial orders for QIAsprint Connect and remain on track for the launch of QIAmini.

Within Sample technologies, strategic high-value applications to continue to gain traction. One example is our liquid bios sample preparation portfolio, which grew by more than 30%, reflecting this increasing relevance in Sample Technologies. Despite cautious capital spending, our sample technologies installed base grew to around 31,400 cumulative placements.

Looking 2026. We will launch QIAsprint Connect and QIAmini together with additional kits, supporting automation across more than 30 applications for QIAsprint Connect and more than 15 applications for QIAmini. Over time, this will increase instrument and recurring consumables. Full IVDR launch for QIAsymphony Connect remains on track for mid-2026. QIAsprint Connect is planned for February and QIAmini for fall of 2026.

Moving to QuantiFERON, where we continue to invest enabling laboratories to manage rising testing volumes with higher throughput and more efficient workflows. A key step here is the next generation of QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus second assay developed in collaboration with [indiscernible]. Last year, we completed the European launch of this high throughput assay. This new generation of chemistry enables laboratories to test up to 75% more patients per hour while reducing turnaround time by around 25%.

Building on this European launch, we are planning a U.S. launch of this higher throughput chemistry in 2026. In parallel, we are also exploring how AI-based approaches can support clinical decision-making in latent TB infection, particularly in the context of increasing testing volumes and the need to guide preventive treatment.

Turning to QIAstat, where we expanded the menu and the installed base over the year. In '25, we submitted our first blood culture identification panels for clearance in the U.S. and in Europe. These submissions extend QIAstat diagnostic into bloodstream infections and sepsis-related applications, building on panels across respiratory, gastrointestinal and meningitis testing.

We also expanded the installed base with cumulative QIAstat placement exceeded 5,200 instruments worldwide in 2025. We continue to invest in new panels particularly a panel for complicated urinary tract infections where QIAGEN will be the first with a comprehensive syndromic solution. At the same time, we are also advancing our work on pneumonia panel. In parallel, we continue to develop companion diagnostics with our pharma partners on QIAstat.

Next, QIAcuity Digital PCR continue to see steady adoption as customers convert from QPCR and NGS to digital PCR. In '25, cumulative QIAcuity placements exceeded 3,200 systems worldwide. This reflects continued uptake of digital PCR where higher precision, absolute quantification and more standardized results are required. Our focus remains on expanding the assay portfolio and improving workflows. Gene expression remains an important use case for QIAcuity alongside applications such as cell and gene therapy.

Automation is another key focus with the launch of a nanoplate handling solution codeveloped with Hamilton on the [indiscernible] platform. enabling walkway automation and more standardized workflows for regulated environments. Last, QIAGEN Digital Insights, where we continue to develop bioinformatics portfolio to ship both research and clinical use. This includes progress with Franklin.

Following the Genoox acquisition integrated QIAGEN's curated knowledge with AI-enhanced workflows to support genetic interpretation and clinical reporting. AI has been embedded across QDI, and we are continuing to support research, data science and commercial solutions by improving workflows, consistency and the use of high-quality genomic content.

For the next 2 years, our focus is to continue developing at least 14 AI-enabled software solution within DI. We are also preparing to integrate [indiscernible] single sale data sets from past Biosciences into the QDI portfolio, connecting single-cell data with downstream analysis to support predictive modeling across research and transnational.

And now back to Roland for the outlook.

Thank you, Thierry. Let me now provide some additional perspectives on our outlook for '26 and for the first quarter. Our ambition remains to deliver solid profitable growth as we continue to navigate a challenging macroeconomic environment. Against this backdrop, we remain on track toward our '28 ambitions of around 7% core sales CAGR from '24 to '28 and adjusted operating income margin of at least 31%, at least $2 billion of sales from our growth and sustained shareholder returns having already delivered more than $1 billion since '24.

For the full year '26, we are initiating an outlook for sales growth of at least 5 percentage point CER and adjusted earnings per share of at least $2.50 at CER. Turning to the first quarter. We expect net sales growth of at least 1% CER compared with sales of $483 million of the first quarter of '25. The growth rate for the first quarter compared to the full year target reflects temporary factors.

First, we are absorbing the year-over-year impact from the discontinuation of NeuMoDx and [indiscernible], which represents a headwind of about $10 million or about 2 percentage points in the first quarter. We will see the same impact in the second quarter of '26, but then it rolls off since these products were discontinued in June '25. Second, and like others in our industry, we continue to see cautious life science customer spending trends carrying over from '25 into the beginning of '26.

We have reflected an estimated impact of about $10 million in the first quarter or about 2 percentage points of growth. At the same time, we continue to expect an improvement in the funding environment over the course of the year. And third, QuantiFERON faces a strong comparison to results in the first quarter of 25% when sales was 16% CER and supported by tender activity in the Middle East and Latin America. As a result, we expect QuantiFERON to grow at a low single-digit CER rate in the first quarter of '26, representing a headwind of about $6 million to $7 million or about 1 percentage point of headwinds through a normalized full year run rate for '26 of about 6% CER growth.

Turning to earnings. Our outlook for the first quarter is for adjusted earnings per share of at least $0.54 CER compared to -- with $0.55 in the first quarter of '25. Operational efficiency remains a priority in '26 and continues to support profitability. At the same time, earnings for the first quarter of '26 are expected to absorb the $0.02 dilutive impact of the past acquisition as well as an adverse impact of about $0.02 from the U.S. tariffs that were implemented later in '25.

For the first half of '26, we currently anticipate sales growth of about $0.02 to $0.03 CER, followed by an acceleration in the second half of the year. The acceleration in the second half reflects various factors, and let me provide a bridge to our full year outlook.

As a first point, the comparison impact from the roll-off headwinds from NeuMoDx and [indiscernible] contributes about 2 percentage points of incremental growth. New product launches, including the 3 new [indiscernible] instruments as well as new offerings for QIAstat-Dx and QIAcuity are expected to add an additional 2 percentage points of growth.

As a next point, acceleration year-over-year growth from QuantiFERON starting in the second quarter of '26 is expected to provide about 0.5 percentage point of incremental growth and improving U.S. academic and governmental funding trends together with a higher contribution from parts in the second half are expected to add approximately another 0.5 percentage points.

Taking together, these factors fully explains the bridge from approximately 1% growth in the first quarter to at least 5% growth for the full year. Turning to margins. We expect adjusted operating income margin to remain at about 29.5% of sales as efficiency gains and broad-based growth are expected to offset margin headwinds of about 160 basis points from the past acquisition, adverse currency movements and tariffs. This underpins our full year '26 target for adjusted EPS of at least $2.50 CER and the step-up from our '25 results.

Let me also provide some perspectives on the currency trends against U.S. dollar. For the full year, our currency expect tailwind of about 1 percentage point on sales and a neutral effect on adjusted EPS results. For the first quarter, we currently expect a tailwind of about 2 to 3 percentage points on sales and a neutral impact on adjusted EPS results. Overall, we have taken a prudent approach in setting our outlook, reflecting current market conditions and known headwinds while positioning QIAGEN to continue to rank among the fastest-growing companies in our sector. I would like to now hand back to Thierry.

Thank you, Roland. And before we go to the Q&A, let me quickly summarize our key messages for today. First, looking back on 2025, QIAGEN delivered another solid quarter and closed the year with consistent execution across the business. The growth pillars grew at 8% CER and this is among the fastest in our industry. This once again reflects the strength and balance of our portfolio across life sciences and diagnostics. At the same time, we remain obviously mindful of our environment. We continue to operate amid macroeconomic uncertainty, cautious capital spending and ongoing volatility, which requires discipline and focus in how we manage the business.

Looking ahead, our growth pillars are positioned to continue growing in 2026, supported by a very strong pipeline of new product launches and portfolio additions. While we continue to see a cautious life sciences funding environment and softer capital spending we expect conditions to improve gradually over the course of the year. Keep in mind that our outlook for the first half of 2026, is clearly impacted by many base effects from last year, and we are relentless about the contributions ahead from the upcoming new product launches.

We expect our growth pillars combined to step up again in '26, targeting growth of around 9% at CER. Sample technologies is targeting sales of around $720 million CER. QuantiFERON, around $535 million. QIAstat around $160 million. QIAcuity around $100 million and QDI around $125 million. As you clearly see, our focus remains on disciplined execution and operational excellence. In 2025, adjusted diluted EPS grew to $2.40 at CER, and we continue to return capital to shareholders. With the completion of the $500 million share repurchase at the beginning of 2026, we delivered on our commitment for solid profitable growth. Those results are keeping us on track against our 2028 ambitions of about 7% sales CAGR, at least 31% adjusted operating income margin at least $2 billion of sales from our growth pillars and the shareholder returns of at least $1 billion, which, as I just said, we already exceeded.

With that, I'd like to thank you again for your attention and hand back to Daniel and the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Thierry. Operator, I think we can now go into the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

I want to start out on some of the new product launches. QIAcuity, QIAstat, adding 200 basis points to growth in the back half of the year. Maybe just give us a little more color on the products? Is this about new markets or deeper penetration? And what gives you confidence that will contribute to growth out of the gate? And then on QIAcuity, help us bridge to the $250 million target by 2028 because you have missed your targets there in the last couple of years. So talk about what you think really gets you to that target by 2028? And then just one follow-up on QuantiFERON, the assumptions for the back half of the year bridge. I think you previously said growth targets would include competitive entry. Is that still baked in and by how much?

Thank you, Tycho, and I will try to make sure that I'm not forgetting any of your questions. On the new products and the impact of at least 2% extra growth from H2 to compared to H1 of '26. The way you need to see it is that at least 3 of those new launches are opening completely new markets from QIAGEN. Of course, the new panel of QIAstat, the blood culture panel is opening new segment of customers, new needs. So it's an add-on. In Sample tech, QlAsprint marks the entry of QIAGEN into very high sample technologies, where we are not at the moment, therefore, new market. calamine is offering or will offer automation for low throughput labs or very small volume research, new markets. So you can see that it's justified and realistic to add growth in the second half of the year because of those impact. QIAsymphony Connect will be not only upgraded QIAsymphony, but probably also convince other customers to adopt this technology. So that's why we are confident in this number. On QIAcuity, you are perfectly right, Tycho, over the last 2 years because our sales on digital PCR, are mainly directed at the moment in research and academia, we have disclosed that we have been impacted by a more sluggish environment of capital expenses in research and academia. So that created a bit of delay in revenues coming from instrumentation from Digital Pass. The consumables have been good for the last 3 years, we systematically grew at double digits. But in 3 months, were a bit below our expectation. But again, what are we talking about here? When we see -- when we say below our expectation, if I take 2025 as an example, we still put more than 500 new QIAcuity on the market. If you look at Q4, we put more than 100 systems in Q4, 100 new QIAcuity. Those systems will obviously generate consumables tomorrow. So we have indeed given a target of $250 million of revenues by '28 for Digital PCR at QIAGEN. We might have a slight delay because of the sluggish capital expense environment, but what is important to us is that we continue to grow, we capture new market and we grow consumables at double digit while still placing a significant number of instruments every year.

Now for QuantiFERON. We explained the profile of the growth for '26. H1 is impacted by base effect coming by tenders and significant contract in Q4 of '24 and Q1 of '25. You will see QuantiFERON picking up in Q2. And obviously, those base effects will progressively disappear. And you'll see QuantiFERON accelerating to achieve probably above 6% growth, let's say, between 6% and 7% growth in 2027 -- in '26, I'm sorry, which is perfectly aligned with the target that we gave during our Capital Market Day in June '24, QuantiFERON will be $600 million revenues by 2028.

We'll take our next question from Jack Meehan with Nephron.

Thierry, I wanted to get your thoughts. There were headlines a few weeks ago around QIAGEN as a potential deal target. Again, I was wondering what comments, if any, you can share on that.

Thanks for the question, Jack, and I was expecting a question on this. I mean it's fair to say that -- our market is still and will still going through consolidation. That's point number one. At the same time, QIAGEN is delivering and focusing on delivering on our solid plan for the coming years, the plan that we disclosed in New York in June '24, 7% CAGR on the top line, at least 31% EBIT margin, $2 billion from our pillars of growth. So this is where we are focusing. At the same time, we do not comment on rumors we are always open for discussion that could create value for shareholders and I cannot say more at this stage.

Understood. And appreciate the execution has been really solid, and you still have your hand firmly on the wheel but also did want to ask about the CEO succession search. Just was wondering when you think might have an update on that?

What is important for the Board and for the company is to find the best person for the job. So we have a search ongoing, as we said in Q4 of '25, this is both an external and internal search. It's advancing very well, but we need to take the necessary time once again to find the best person for the job. In the meantime, we do have a management fully dedicated to QIAGEN. It's not only theory, it's the entire relegate committee and also 5,700 of QIAGEN all over the world. We will obviously update you as we can progress.

We'll take our next question from Casey Woodring with JPMorgan.

Wanted to ask on the margin expansion piece. The bridge to 2026 didn't seem to include any operating margin improvement this year outside of the efficiency program, which will part in tariff headwinds unless I'm misinterpreting your comments there. So maybe just can you walk us through how you're thinking about organic operating leverage across the business and how some of the new product volume is expected to contribute to the bottom line this year?

As, again, I do think actually that '26 will be another significant margin improvement year for QIAGEN because I think it's really fair to say that we do expect we announced headwinds from the acquisitions of Parse. As you know, that is an acquisition where we're doubling up on the R&D -- doubling down on the R&D investment. So there's clearly a certain dilution for us to expect for this year, and that is around 100 basis points for 2026. In addition to that, we have a combined headwind again also from tariffs and FX in '26. So there will be a net margin improvement -- or gross margin improvement for around about 160 basis points for this year, which again will be compensated, as I said, from pass and tariffs and expected currency headwinds. So 160 basis points, how does this break down? A larger part actually this year comes, and we talked about that in the past, from gross margin improvement. I would say probably somewhere between 75 and plus basis points in '26 comes from gross margin improvement. Have in mind, you will see an acceleration, quite significant acceleration in Sample [indiscernible]. And clearly, Sample preparation is also 1 of the product groups, which has a significant gross margin contribution to QIAGEN. So that should be helpful. And in addition to that, we still continue to see outstanding growth trend around QIAstat. And you also know that we in the past talked about that we're still running an underutilization in terms of production utilization for QIAstat. So also here, better utilization will drive gross margin improvement. Last but not least, we still have ongoing 40 QIA efficiency program on the operational expense side, they all will contribute not only in '26 also beyond. So again, we expect margin improvement this year. We expect to continue that in '27 '28. And as [indiscernible] said in his remarks, we clearly do believe we will see a significant step up north of the 31%, which was announced for '28.

We'll take our next question from Aisyah Noor with with Morgan Stanley.

My one question is on China. So can you confirm if you're exposed to VBP or any large tender renewals that we should be aware about? And what's the kind of growth outlook embedded in your guidance?

Thanks for the question. Aisyah, we keep the same attitude and consideration towards China. As we have said for the last 3 years, it's not significant in our revenues anymore. Our exposure is 4% to China. It's a large market. It's too large of a market to be ignored. At the same time, it's too specific and too politically driven as a market to make it an investment case. We are not specifically more impacted by VBP because VBP has been implemented across molecular solution at least for the last 3 years in China. So it's nothing new for us. Last year was negative. We continue to think that China will be between low single-digit to negative to a very base flat, and we do not expect in the current political situation, economic situation and market situation of China to see a return of growth in the visible future. But again, our exposure is very limited, as I said, 4% of sales.

We'll now take our next question from Odysseas Manesiotis with BNP Paribas.

Firstly, on QIAstat. You finally have a complete high-volume platform during what seems to be a material year for replacing such instruments. Is it fair to assume that you do much better than the 600 placements you did in '26 -- in '25?

Well, I appreciate that always want more, but more than 600 placements in 2025, it's already a good performance. So I prefer to leave it like this. We grew at 25% for Q4, we grew at much more than double digit for '25. We gave you an objective of more than $160 million for '26, which shows again a double-digit growth. We are a solid #2 in this market. This is exactly what we wanted to achieve. And if we can beat our objective or new placement, we will do it. But let's execute first on the $160 million. Let's execute on the product launches on the market penetration, and that will be already good.

And a follow-up on QuantiFERON. Could you give us of additional color on the Q1 guidance here? I mean, is there any price component to your conservativeness there? And how exactly were these one-off tenders, given the low shelf life of the kit?

Yes. I think it's not a question of sales life. It's a fair question, but it's just a comparison quarter-on-quarter on deals that we have been able to include in ourselves. It's a base effect. If you look at QIAGEN recent communication on QuantiFERON