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Welcome to the Waters Corporation Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. If anyone has objections, please disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Caspar Tudor, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Waters Corporation's third quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Dr. Udit Batra, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Amol Chaubal, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance. We will provide guidance and commentary on possible future results and potential market and business conditions that may impact Waters over the fourth quarter of 2026, full year 2026 and 2027. These statements are only our present expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please see the risk factors in our SEC filings and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release.

During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are in our earnings release and the appendix of today's slide presentation.

Unless stated otherwise, all organic revenue growth rates are presented on a constant currency basis and are in comparison to the third quarter of 2025. For acquired business revenue, unless stated otherwise, all growth rates are presented on an as-reported basis, covering the current period in comparison to the revenue as reported by BD for the prior year comparable period that predates Water's ownership.

Finally, we do not intend to update our guidance, predictions or projections except as part of a regularly scheduled earnings release or as otherwise required by law.

On today's call, Udit will open with our key messages and business highlights. Amol will then walk through our financial results and updated guidance and we will close with your questions. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Udit.

Thank you, Caspar, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by thanking our colleagues around the globe who continue to work with rigor and with speed to accelerate the benefits of pioneering science. We delivered another quarter of exceptional results with outstanding year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter momentum across our divisions. We grew double digits organically, extending our long-standing trend of delivering industry-leading results with revenue stepping up approximately 5% from the second quarter.

In our acquired businesses, we are well ahead of our expected pace of transformation and integration with underlying growth building as our commercial actions, new product launches and revenue synergies take hold.

New sources of growth are also amplifying our results as improving end markets and rising customer lab activity, lift demand, lips demand for our products in preclinical and downstream settings.

Together, these trends give us a fantastic fourth quarter outlook with our guidance calling for double-digit growth across both our organic and acquired businesses on a days adjusted basis. They also drive a USD 43 million raise to our full year revenue guidance.

In our third quarter, total company as reported revenue was $1.767 billion, comprising of $871 million of organic revenue and $896 million of Waters Bioscience and Waters Diagnostic Solutions.

Organic revenue was 9% as reported and 10% in constant currency at the high end of our constant currency guidance range with orders outpacing sales by approximately $20 million.

Biosciences and Diagnostics grew revenue by 1% on a reported basis, slightly ahead of plan and consistent with our guided seasonality assumptions. Adjusted EPS grew 21% to $4.10 and driven by strong top line momentum, operational excellence and the cost actions we announced last quarter, which are now flowing through the P&L.

Let me now cover these drivers of strength in more detail. Beginning with the Analytical Sciences division, growth was 8% as reported and 9% in constant currency, led by 12% growth in chemistry, low double-digit growth in instruments and high single-digit growth in service. Pharma grew double digits with broad-based strength across ethical pharma, generics, CROs, CDMOs and biotech. All before reshoring has begun to contribute. Growth was strong in every region, led by over 20% growth in China, mid-teens in India, high single digits in the U.S. and mid-single digits in Europe. Non-pharma grew mid-single digits with broad demand across industrial, food and environmental testing.

The Biosciences division grew 2% as reported led by high single-digit growth in both research and clinical reagents. Customer traction for our newly launched FACSDiscover A7 Flow Cytometer has been strong since its mid-September launch, and we expect it to become a meaningful contributor to instrument growth starting in the fourth quarter.

In China, we returned to growth following a low double-digit decline last quarter, as localization came online ahead of schedule and new leadership drove better execution. This is the first quarter of positive growth for Biosciences in China in 10 quarters.

The Advanced Diagnostics division grew 2% on a reported basis. The acquired Diagnostic Solutions business was flat on a reported basis as expected. China DRG diluted growth by approximately 200 basis points in the final quarter before it analyzes into the baseline.

As we outlined last quarter, we are managing channel inventory to end customer demand compared with last quarter's third quarter build, excluding both underlying growth was approximately 5%.

Also within the division, the organic clinical business unit grew 17% as reported and 18% in constant currency. We grew double digits across all regions, fueled by test and portfolio expansion in LC-MS diagnostics and due to lead sharing from our acquired molecular diagnostics business.

The Material Sciences division grew 7% as reported and 9% in constant currency, sustaining the high single-digit growth we returned to last quarter. Growth was led by materials testing for semiconductors and data center build-outs, along with thermal analysis for aerospace and defense. Separately, we saw a broad rebound in China which grew well into the double digits. Several parts of the portfolio stand out where growth accelerated meaningfully versus the second quarter.

In Flow reagents, reported growth accelerated 400 basis points to 8% as research reagents grew high single digits, up from low single digits last quarter on stronger commercial execution, improving end markets and pricing. Growth was led by our highly differentiated Horizon [ realize ] which grew mid-double digits.

In chemistry consumables, growth accelerated 200 basis points to 12%. This marks our sixth quarter -- sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, again, led by bioseparations, where MaxPeak Premier columns grew mid-double digits.

Since the second quarter, we have observed a contribution from AI-driven workflows in pharma R&D settings, which has helped sustain double-digit chemistry growth against double-digit comparisons. LC-MS instrument growth accelerated 200 basis points to 10% or 11%, including clinical LC-MS driven by robust instrument replacement and strong adoption of our new products.

Complex Biologics spanning bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization is where our capabilities, portfolio and differentiation show most clearly. This is a result of a deliberate multiyear strategy of entering faster-growing adjacencies in large molecule applications, where our leading solutions continue to outperform the market.

The Xevo MRT mass spectrometer is a clear example of our innovation network with sales more than tripling year-over-year. The recent launch of the Xevo MRT P10 system build on the success by setting a new standard for speed and throughput in omics research.

We have also delivered strong clinical mass spec growth throughout the year, marking further success in our LC-MS into diagnostics, high-growth adjacency in hospitals and specialty labs as well as for DMPK and other pharma clinical workflows.

Our position in these labs has been further strengthened by the recent launch of our Xevo TQ Absolute XR IVD instrument, the industry's most sensitive and robust clinical mass spec.

Now turning to our acquired businesses. The rapid execution initiatives under our 180-day growth revitalization plan are delivering tangible results and the benefits are progressively taking poll.

On pricing, net price realization scaled to 120 basis points, up from 90 basis points last quarter, giving us further confidence that we will meet or exceed the 150 basis points over the next several quarters. On reagent rental compliance, our dedicated team is now addressing the global opportunity we identified. We expect to begin recapturing low to mid-single-digit millions of dollars per quarter beginning in the fourth quarter and further adding to our opportunity ahead.

In Biosciences, local manufacturing in China came online ahead of schedule and was a key driver of the geographies return to growth. Looking ahead versus first half levels, local manufacturing better execution, including faster export license approvals and DRG annualizing into the baseline should together add about 200 basis points to Biosciences growth over the next several quarters.

Together, these actions have driven a clear inflection in growth. Our guidance implies 5% constant currency growth for our acquired businesses in the second half of 2026 and with further runway to grow faster as these benefits continue to take hold.

In addition, as part of our second phase of execution initiatives, we have now launched a localization initiative for our microbiology portfolio in China which we expect to further augment growth in the quarters ahead.

In parallel, the first full tranche of revenue synergies from our combination is now entering our results. With the BACTEC FXI culture system and the FACSDiscover A7 Flow Cytometer now launched, service plan attachment pricing and new digital channels beginning to generate incremental sales. The fourth quarter marks the first in which all of these levers contribute together.

With this progress, we firmly remain on track to deliver $50 million of revenue synergies in 2026. We're also applying our launch excellence model to our [ Onclarity HPV self-collection ] kit launch in molecular diagnostics. This FDA-cleared solution enables individuals to collect their own sample at home expanding access for the more than 24 million people in the U.S. who are unscreened or underscreened for HPV, the cause of nearly all cervical cancers. We recently announced commercial partnerships for this breakthrough innovation with Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, who are adding it to their test menus with revenue expected to begin next year as samples are processed on our BD core platform.

Turning to legacy Waters. Our strategy across commercial execution, new product innovation and deliberate expansion into faster-growing adjacencies continues to play out successfully, delivering the high single-digit growth we committed to at our Investor Day in early 2025.

Over the past quarters, we have averaged approximately 8% organic constant currency growth, well ahead of 2% for the life science tools market and 5% for our closest peer. We remain in the middle innings of the instrument replacement cycle, which continues to drive strong instrument growth.

Separate from replacement are idiosyncratic growth drivers across GLP-1s, PFAS testing, India generics and biologics are still scaling. We continue to estimate they will add more than 200 basis points of annual growth through 2030.

China has also improved significantly this year with organic growth of 11% year-to-date, making it accretive to company growth once again. The resurgence in China, biotech, CRO and CDMO activity is becoming a structural tailwind reinforced by China's latest 5-year plan and its bold 2030 targets for biopharma.

With these attractive and diversified sources of growth, legacy Waters is a durable high single-digit grower.

In addition, new growth vectors are set to add further momentum across pharma, reshoring, semiconductor and data center testing and AI-driven demand in the quarters ahead.

Given strong conversion trends, we also expect our Empower subscription transition to turn neutral to growth next year.

For pharma reshoring, we have already received double-digit millions of dollars in orders tied to new sites as projects move from construction into instrument outfitting.

In semiconductor and data testing, growth is accelerating in the Material Sciences division as chip production output and data center build out scale further. Next year, we also expect to increasingly capture this opportunity in analytical sciences. Across both divisions, we serve an addressable market of approximately $600 million, growing double digits with clear room to gain share.

For AI-driven demand, I will now cover this in three parts. The shift we are seeing with our customers, the strategy that positions waters to lead and the growth it is unlocking in our portfolio.

Over the past several months, I've spent significant time with our pharma customers. Artificial intelligence has become a key topic in these conversations. Realizing its benefits has quickly become a key enterprise priority for our customers, not just in research but in development and quality control as well.

At Waters, we managed this fast emerging space with a weekly AI concept, which I chair and which reaches into the organization.

Our customers view Waters as a key partner in the AI transformation of the lab and for good reason. Over several years, we have developed a clear strategy and launched leading solutions that leverage our unique market position in several ways.

In research, our customers are using AI to supercharge discovery output, like others, our strategy advances lab in the loop science by enabling agents to autonomously run AI designed experiments on our instruments.

Where Waters stands apart is what happens next. Our cloud-based platform answers a clear customer need, allowing this work to transfer seamlessly between labs globally and move downstream into Empower on a single platform with no handoff.

In development, our customers' objective is to accelerate drug development and streamline regulatory submission. Empower is the compliance system of record for regulated chromatography, holding terabytes of validated data for each customer, a data set that is unique in our industry.

As a central part of our strategy, we are deploying Empower AI features that unlock insights from this data to increase productivity and to improve accuracy.

In Q3, our customers' objective is to boost efficiency and improve accuracy while maintaining compliance. Here, our strategy is bringing AI, ML and automation directly into the validated environment on our customers on our Empower platform, preserving data integrity with a complete audit trail for regulators.

This matters. This matters because data remains compliant only while it stays within Empower. That is why these capabilities must live inside our platform and be trusted to keep data safe.

Together, this positions waters for distinct sources of AI-driven growth, spanning discovery, development in QC, enabling growth across both higher volume and higher value vectors. Let me explain what that means in practice.

The first is higher volume. In research, AI is already generating more hypotheses and creating more physical samples that must be separated purified and measured driving more LC-MS runs and greater column consumption. This demand is coming from two sources. Our instrument systems and separation solutions are placed in AI-enabled labs at 8 of the top 10 global pharma companies where experiment volume is rising.

At the same time, a new class of customer is emerging. AI-native biotech companies are reimagining the lab from a clean sheet using AI to create de novo labs run by agents and selecting Waters instruments to test the molecules that their model is designed. So far, in 2026, dozens of these companies in the U.S. and China have become first-time waters customers.

Last month, we took a step in supporting these customers with the launch of Waters' AI Link, which aligns our instruments with Anthropic, model context protocol and model hardware standard. This reduces the time to connect AI agents to our instruments from weeks to hours and strengthens our leading role as labs move towards AI directed autonomous operations.

This progress is particularly valuable as we have the widest portfolio of instruments for bioanalytical characterization across LC-MS, light scattering, flow, CDMS and other techniques. In downstream applications, we are connecting these instruments through automated workflows that run as one process from sample to readout with Empower, then bringing the data together.

The same dynamic is lifting our consumables growth. MaxPeak premier columns are unique in the industry because their innovative surface technology eliminates hours of column conditioning time and reduces speeding time in between injections. It also delivers sharper peaks and more accurate results from less sample.

This is exactly what these AI workflows need most, higher throughput efficient sample use and better data to train models. And it is one reason why both large pharma and tech buyers are choosing waters as they scale.

The second is higher value. In late-stage development and manufacturing QC, we are turning Empower into a connected intelligent platform consistent with the strategy we laid out at our March 2025 Investor Day. We're bringing new AI-enabled features to the more than 500,000 Empower users who support the release of our -- of over 80% of medicines globally, delivered by a premium tier in our subscription model.

For the first time, these features make our unique data set a core part of the Empower product, turning compliant data that has long set within Empower into a source of insight and value. We launched the first of these AI-powered anomaly detection in February of 2025. Last week, we announced AI-powered peak integration, which automates one of the most manual and variable steps in chromatography. In a pilot with a large pharma customer, it reduced manual interventions by up to 95%, with 76% greater accuracy and 72% lower user-to-user variability.

Several more AI applications are set to launch in the first half of 2027 and which will accelerate column selection, method development and release time lines. Each new capability makes Empower more valuable to the labs already running it and is accelerating the transition to our subscription model.

On top of that transition, the premium tier, these features sit on is expected to generate a substantial increase in revenue per lab over time. Beyond our customers, AI is also changing how we run Waters, most visibly in our integration. AI tools helped us complete our organizational restructuring and reach our target cost structure well ahead of plan, a key reason why we are set to achieve the $200 million of run rate cost savings more than 2 years ahead of schedule.

AI is also accelerating procurement savings with data cube negotiation advisers that consolidate spend across our organic and acquired businesses. This lets us identify savings instantly, optimize pricing and move contracts from BD to Waters faster.

Finally, we have integrated AI into our products and services, launching 10 lighthouse programs several years ago to apply AI and machine learning across the portfolio. One example is our [ Service AI Advisor ], which turns decades of free-form service nodes into answers that engineers and customers can access in everyday language. It has saved millions of dollars in parts, improved fixed rates by 10% and awarded hundreds of unnecessary service visits making our already differentiated service even stronger.

We have also built intelligence directly into our instruments. Our Alliance iS [ HPLC ] system, for example, uses guided setup automated checks and built in error detection to prevent up to 40% of common user errors before they affect the result.

Extending our reach in large molecules this morning, we announced the acquisition of [ MobileIron ] Systems, the pioneer of slim high-resolution ion mobility separation technology. While a small tuck-in financially, it gives Waters a unique advantage in proteomics, enabling us to lead first in research and over time in the clinic.

The acquisition broadens our entry into Discovery Proteomics, a $2.2 billion market growing high single digits by pairing slims separation power with our Xevo MRT Mass Spectrometer for superior analysis of complex proteins. Xevo MRT offers an unparalleled combination of resolution and sensitivity at speed. Together with Slim, it enables data generation at the scale that foundation and frontier models need opening the door for accelerated proteomics discovery.

It also leverages our ability to take proteomics downstream. Over time, we will bear this technology with our industry-leading tandem quatro [indiscernible] portfolio creating a long-term opportunity to translate protein biomarker discoveries into validation in clinical trial cohorts.

From there, our large installed base of mass specs in routine clinical settings provides the platform to turn these discoveries into validated tests, expanding our menu into blood-based screening for early detection, such as [ NCD ], Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and for minimal residual disease monitoring.

I will now cover our updated full year 2026 guidance and provide our initial commentary on 2027 ahead of formal guidance in February. For 2026, our strong third quarter results and our fourth quarter outlook, which is meaningfully faster than our prior guidance implied, underpinned a $43 million raise to our full year revenue guidance at the midpoint, which I already detailed.

This reflects 7% combined company constant currency growth in the second half, comprising approximately 9% for the legacy Waters business and approximately 5% for the legacy BD business despite 4 fewer selling days in the fourth quarter. We expect strong momentum to continue thereafter and we will enter 2027 with more diversified sources of growth than at any point in our history. This gives us the confidence to share a starting framework for next year.

As a starting assumption, we expect legacy Waters to grow high single digits and legacy BD to grow mid-single digits. Together, these combined to mid-single-digit plus organic growth for the combined company ahead of our deal model.

Importantly, this is while making starting assumptions for both businesses that are prudently below their second half base despite our existing growth drivers carrying into next year and being joined by numerous incremental growth vectors. Our ambition is higher than the starting point with execution initiatives, pricing, revenue synergies, pharma reshoring and AI-driven demand, all expected to gain pace, we see a critical path to a high single-digit growth potential for the combined company in 2027.

On adjusted operating margin, our starting framework calls for 100 basis points of expansion to 29.2%, already underwritten by the 2027 carryover of cost synergies taken this year. Volume leverage and further cost synergy realization offer upside potential net of reinvestment. This supports low teens adjusted EPS growth in 2027 as a starting point on a 2026 EPS that is well ahead of our deal model and with mid-teens as the upside case as these drivers build throughout the year. Even on these starting assumptions, we are set for industry-leading growth and margin expansion in 2027.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Amol to cover our financial results and guidance in more detail.

Thank you, Udit, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter of 2026, we delivered total company as reported revenue of 1.767 billion. Organic revenue was $871 million, up 9% as reported and 10% in constant currency. Sequentially, revenue stepped up 5.2%, well ahead of 3.6% sequential step-up embedded in our guidance midpoint, and meaningfully above prior year levels.

Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions generated $896 million of revenue, slightly ahead of our guidance and representing 1% reported growth versus the prior year comparable period. By geography, as reported revenue was $749 million in the Americas, $523 million in Europe, and $495 million in Asia. Adjusted gross margin was 55.8% and adjusted operating margin was 30.1%, driven by strong top line momentum operational excellence and cost synergies flowing through the P&L as planned. Our operating tax rate was 15.4% and net interest expense was $53 million. Together, this resulted in adjusted EPS growth of 21% to $4.10, $0.05 above the high end of our guidance range.

On a GAAP basis, diluted earnings per share were $0.82, reflecting acquisition-related purchase accounting charges, integration and acquisition-related costs and restructuring costs. Free cash flow was $68 million after approximately $81 million of BD integration, restructuring and SAP-related costs and $240 million of timing items primarily related to higher receivables from strong sequential sales and SAP migration. With our successful SAP go live, we expect timing items to normalize in 2027.

Turning to our results by operating segments. The Analytical Sciences division delivered as reported revenue of $703 million, up 8% as reported and 9% in constant currency.

In constant currency, instruments grew 10% and chemistry grew 12% and service grew 8%. Pharma grew low double digits, while non-pharma grew mid-single digits led by industrial.

The Biosciences division delivered as reported revenue of $396 million, representing 2% reported growth versus the prior year comparable period.

Flow Clinical grew 4%, led by high single-digit reagent growth on strong execution and customer activity. Flow Research grew 1%, led by [ RGO ] reagents, which grew high single digits on strong execution, pricing and improving customer activity trends.

The Advanced Diagnostics division delivered as reported revenue of $575 million, representing 2% reported growth versus the prior year comparable period. Diagnostic Solutions delivered $500 million of reported revenue, flat year-over-year. In microbiology, reported revenue was $346 million, reflecting 4% growth. Ex China growth was 6%, while China declined more than 20% due to headwinds which annualized into the baseline beginning the fourth quarter.

In Molecular Diagnostics and Point of Care, reported revenue was $154 million, down 6% and reflecting channel inventory timing and lower respiratory testing.

The clinical business unit, which reflects our mass spec diagnostic portfolio, delivered $75 million of revenue, up 17% as reported and 18% in constant currency, with double-digit growth across all regions.

The Material Sciences division delivered as reported revenue of $93 million, up 7% as reported and 9% in constant currency, led by electronic testing for semiconductors and data center applications and thermal analysis for aerospace and defects.

Now turning to our full year outlook and fourth quarter guidance. We entered the fourth quarter with long-standing industry-leading growth at our legacy businesses, strengthening performance at our acquired businesses, improving trends in China and AI-driven experimental volumes rising from large pharma and tech buyers.

Beginning with organic revenue, we are raising our full year 2026 organic constant currency revenue growth guidance by 140 basis points at the midpoint to 9.1% to 9.7%. Including the effect of foreign exchange translation, 2026 organic reported revenue is now expected to be $3.429 billion to $3.447 billion.

Turning to our acquired businesses. We now expect Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions to deliver approximately $3.05 billion of reported revenue in 2026, raising our prior guidance by $5 million, which reflects an $8 million underlying raise, partially offset by $3 million of incremental FX impact.

Together, total 2026 reported revenue is expected to be approximately $ 6.479 billion to $6.497 billion, a $43 million raise at the midpoint. We expect to deliver full year adjusted EBIT margin of 28.2%, net interest expense of $196 million and a 15.4% tax rate. Putting this all together, we are also raising our full year 2026 adjusted earnings per fully diluted share guide to the range of $14.60 to $14.70. This represents year-over-year growth of 11% to 12% and 13% to 14% in constant currency.

For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect organic constant currency revenue growth to be in the range of 7% to 9%. Including the effect of currency translation, organic reported revenue is expected to be in the range of $984 million to $1.002 billion.

We expect Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions revenue to be approximately $817 million, representing 6.7% reported growth versus prior year comparable period. Together, this results in total reported fourth quarter 2026 revenue of $1.801 billion to $1.819 billion.

Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per fully diluted share is expected to be in the range of $4.58 to $4.68. At the midpoint, our organic revenue guidance calls for a 14% quarter-over-quarter step-up between third and the fourth quarter, prudently below the seasonal patterns of the last 2 years.

On a days adjusted basis, given the 4 fewer days in the quarter, our fourth quarter guidance reflects 9% to 11% organic growth and approximately 10% reported growth for our acquired businesses underscoring strong momentum heading into year-end without assuming a budget [ fix ].

With that, I will hand it back to Caspar.

Thank you, Amol. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to open the lines and take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

I appreciate you guys laying out the framework here for '27. I guess maybe if we think about what could accelerate here, can you just talk a little bit, BD, obviously, your low single digit this quarter. What does it take to get back to the 5% to 6% longer-term growth algo there? And then overall, you said there's a potential path here to high single-digit combined, what would it take to get there versus the mid-single-digit starting point?

Thank you, Tycho, for the question. Look, as you saw an extremely strong Q3 print, I mean, we're growing double digits for our Waters legacy business. And for the acquired businesses, we orchestrated a spot landing as we had planned.

Now as you look into Q4 for both the businesses on a days adjusted basis, you see double-digit growth, right, as Amol just pointed out.

And now as we think about 2027, I mean you have to look at the second half -- you have to look at the second half of the year. And when you look at that, you basically find that the acquired businesses on an organic constant currency basis, are growing at 5% and the base business, the base Waters business is growing at 9%, right? So 5% and 9% for 50% of the businesses.

So mid-single-digit plus is a prudent starting point if you just take that as a jumping off point from the second half of the year, right? So that's where we started. And we'll get into a lot more detail in February. But when you think of upside, which was your question, I mean, we've already done 120 basis points of pricing in this quarter, well ahead of plan. We expect that to be at least 150 basis points going forward.

New products as an [ A7 FXI core ] are starting to generate momentum already as we go to the end of the year. And our execution muscle is now sort of permeated across all of Waters. Pair that with improving end markets you start to see really very tangible levers for growth.

Now there are three things that I'd point out that can add even more, which are reshoring, which is not in the numbers. As I said, they're already double-digit million of orders. We've not put that into this mid-single-digit plus starting point. AI benefits are not in the mid-single-digit plus. And then remember, China has been accretive already year-to-date on our base business. It's grown 11% versus close to a double-digit growth for the base business. Going forward, we expect China to be at least neutral if not accretive. So several growth drivers starting from really stable execution, new levers across pricing, new products, reshoring AI China and, of course, semiconductor and data center demand. So we feel pretty good about where we're starting.

Okay. Great. And then just one follow-up on the fourth quarter guide. You've taken revenue above the Street. EPS, you're just rolling over the 3Q beat, anything here to think about in the near term that would lead to the conservatism for 4Q earnings? And how do we think about the leverage for next year on the owning side?

Yes. I mean, look, at the end of the day, we've taken the midpoint of our revenue up by $43 million, and we've passed EPS raise roughly at operating margin, 28% or $0.10. Now one could say acquire you not passing it at a gross margin level. Now some of the gross margin that is generated by that incremental raise gets used in things like commission and variable bonuses, call it 1/3, the remaining 2/3, we are investing is roughly about $6 million, $7 million into accelerating higher growth programs like rapid sterility as an example, or like what we announced this morning, proteomic as an example. And so we are passing operating margin level benefit from that $43 million sales raise.

Your next question will come from the line of Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI.

Maybe on your comments around things that are not contemplated in fiscal '27 right? Like you mentioned AI. I'm curious, is there a way to quantify what AI means from a revenue contribution, you have legacy -- you had some legacy assumptions, right? I think the business to us mid-singles and then during periods of replacement cycles to get a couple of hundred basis points higher growth, and that's how you put it up to high signals. But NAV is AI incremental to that, any way to quantify or size it if you will, please.

I mean I made several remarks and my -- several comments in my prepared remarks on AI. Let me sort of pick up the most important theme here, right, which is extremely tangible.

I mean Waters has a privileged position in quality control of medicines across the industry where in Empower for over 80% of medicines globally resides terabytes of data that has been collected over decades that we've just started to mine the insights from. We have turned Empower into a connected intelligent platform consistent with the strategy that we presented as you referred to in March of 2025 at our Investor Day.

Now as an example, we launched our AI-powered anomaly detection in 2025 already. And last week -- and listened to this, right? So last week, we announced our AI-powered peak integration, which now reduces manual interventions by 95%, while improving the user experience so you and I can use this product and reducing variability dramatically. So yes, there are tangible benefits that are measurable. And several more applications are coming in the first half of 2027, so that customers can mine insights without ever having the fear of losing compliance. So this is a very tangible outcome where Waters has a unique position.

On drug discovery, I went through quite a bit. And here, the AI link that we've launched allows us to sort of use Anthropic's model context protocol, their model hardware standard to make it easy to connect to water. So we will benefit as drug discovery accelerates because we are present in all of these labs, including the tech bios. And we've also shown that we've used AI to deliver marked improvements in cost synergies and accelerated it.

But with all of that said, I think it's too early to start quantifying things. I mean we've grown at a sustained high single-digit level over the last 2 years. We've set ambitious targets. We meet them by having concrete plans. So I feel very good about where we are on Empower, very good about applications across our portfolio, delivering benefits and synergies. We're very well placed on the drug discovery side, but I think it's too early to start quantifying the impact.

Understood. And then maybe one for you. I think on this margin assumptions for '27, we're at $200 million run rate of cost savings, correct. And I think by my math, the incremental next year is about $125 million. So you should be north of 150 bps of margin expansion. I'm curious, is there some reinvestments and it's which is offsetting what the synergy and math implies for margins?

Yes. With I don't forget that we did not have the first 6 weeks of BD in our '26 numbers. And those first 6 weeks, you don't sell much, but you still have costs that are largely straight line, like you pay salaries for people, et cetera. So those 6 weeks when they come into our P&L next year are roughly 70 basis points headwind to the margin.

And so that, coupled with the cost synergies that we have already puts us in spot for the 29.2% that we said is the starting assumption. And then what we generate from volume leverage, pricing, et cetera, sort of gives us a framework for the upside.

Your next question will come from the line of [ Doug Schenkel ] with UBS.

Thank you for taking my questions. So -- you've been very clear about your guidance philosophy. I just want to make sure nothing is changing as we kind of think about the framework for 2027. Those are robust and impressive targets. I just want to make sure nothing is changing there. And specifically, as we think about free cash flow within that construct, the Street's at roughly $1.5 billion.

Given your framework and the margin trajectory you're on -- is there scope for meaningful upside to that estimate? Or are there cash costs or working capital requirements we should be contemplating?

So let me start, Doug, with the guidance philosophy topic, and then Amol will address the free cash flow question, right?

So on the guidance philosophy, nothing changes, right? I mean, as you said, we've delivered sustained high single-digit growth, meaning 8% on average over the last 8 quarters, which is industry-leading. So we set ambitious targets, and we step-by-step sort of overcome them, right?

I mean, remember, we started 2026 with a 5.5% to 7% guidance range on an organic basis. And we're ending the year with over 330 basis points ahead of that number at the midpoint of the guide, right? So we start the year having sort of a firm footing, which is mid-single digits plus for the next year. And then step-by-step, we get constructive through the year. We clearly have levers that we've outlined that allow us to reach the high single-digit domain. I outlined some of them to Tycho's question. And those are quantified teams are working on them. but we like to look at data and then move forward.

So the philosophy has not changed. It will be a stepwise step price process over the next year as it was this year. And as I said, I mean, it was a 300 basis point gap from the starting point to the endpoint. Amol on free cash flow.

Yes. And a great question on free cash flow. And the way I would think about it is, look, I mean, historically, Waters was 25% net income and free cash flow is also 25% of sales, which is like 100% conversion of adjusted net income. And that is how the combined businesses will get to.

But think of it in four layers, right? So the underlying layer is we are starting at 27% operating margin, 21% net income margin, and we've committed to go to 32% operating margin by and 25% net income margin by 2030. So the base free cash flow should be 100% conversion at that 21%, 25% level.

Now the second layer on that comes with all these onetime integration costs and onetime transaction costs that are very heavy in the initial years. But as you get to '29, '30, they fade out, right? And so that is sort of dragging the free cash flow down in years like 2026. And that drag will progressively come down. And that drag in the beginning is like 8%. And as you get out to the out years, like '28, '29 it will become like 1%, 2%.

The third thing is because this is the first year with the BD [ TSAs ], we have close to $150 million receivable from BD because BD pays us at a certain delay to their activity. And as we exit the ERPs in '28 and '29 or sort of in the '28 time frame when we bring these businesses on to our [indiscernible], that $150 million will go away and will be -- with a use of cash this year will be a source of cash in '28.

And then the last pieces are inventory levels. We're not happy where they are close to 160 days. Historically, we've been at 110 days for legacy Waters. Our teams are working towards getting there over the course of the next 4, 5 years. And as they cover ground, that will be accretive or source of cash over the next 5 years.

Yes. I mean -- and to the last point, Doug -- and [indiscernible] congratulations also on your new role. Look, on the last point, we are deploying AI tools to start a look at optimizing our receivables and payables. And that's really, really showing tangible benefit. This is to the first question that was asked already, but I think this is a tangible example of improving free cash flow.

Your next question will come from the line of Dan Brennan with TD Cowen.

Congrats on the quarter. Maybe just on BD to start. I know you made the shift this quarter given the fiscal year-end is kind of tilting next year to December.

So just give us a little color underneath like how the quarter kind of came in, any backlog you guys might have built as you made that shift. And I know you've already given color about what's implied for the fourth quarter, but just any more granularity on what you're seeing in the different businesses right now as we head into year-end.

Sure, Dan. Thank you for the question. So as I started by saying earlier, I mean, it's a spot landing, and it was very deliberate. We wanted to lower the inventory on trade. I would say we exceeded to spot landing by 1 million. So that's quite nicely done.

Now to the two businesses on Bioscience, I mean the business came in at 2% in actual rates. But the endearing thing here is that flow reagents on the research and the clinical side, are growing high single digits. I'll remind you that the recurring part of that business in Bioscience is close to 70%, 75% of the business, right? So reagents are growing nicely, driven by the [ realize ] on the research side. really strong execution also on pricing. We saw a 120 basis points of incremental price coming through this quarter as our tactical plan started to take hold.

And the most interesting thing here is that China after 10 quarters of decline was positive, right? I went into positive growth territory where we sort of localized our portfolio, and we were pretty clear early on that we were going to do this, it localized faster, and we saw positive growth in China.

And finally, A7 was launched in the middle of September, has a fantastic funnel, which should lead to a great instrument growth in Q4. So that's on the Bioscience side for the quarter.

On Diagnostic Solutions, the business basically orchestrated spot landing, as I said, ex China, it was 2% ex [ POC ], which is where we sort of lowered the inventory in trade, the business was basically growing at 5%. Microbiology, again, was mid-single digits and ex China added 200 basis points to that growth. Here again, pricing was 120 basis points with reagent rental recovery starting to contribute -- will start to contribute in Q4 at a low single-digit millions level.

And again, here also, we have fantastic new products in FXI or where you would have read our press releases in our commercial agreements with LabCorp and Quest, I mean, momentum is building there as well, right?

So in Q2, we installed 15 BD cores in Q3. We installed 25 and Q4 is ahead of that pace already, right? So really nice momentum underlying the business, net of that net of that inventory and trade that we wanted to lower.

Now as you look at the setup for the balance of the year and 2027, it's really strong, right? So second half of the year, the two businesses are traversing at 5% constant currency growth. And as you go into 2027, that becomes a nice starting point for the business with several levers for upside as execution improves, pricing improves, localization in China starts to show benefit. New products start contributing and revenue synergies start to pick up momentum. So feel very good about where we are and happy that we are starting to see the execution sort of that we see in legacy Waters flow into bioscience and diagnostic solutions.

Your next question will come from the line of Jack Meehan with Operon Research.

Udit, I wanted to pick up on your commentary around the HPV relationships you're forging with the National Labs. Can you just add color, are you displacing incumbents in this situation? Or are you augmenting existing capacity? And maybe just talk about why they decided to add the BD core and future menu potential?

Yes, Jack, thanks for the question. Look, I mean, this is an exciting area where -- I mean, there's roughly 24 million people in the United States alone that are unscreened or partially screened. And we know HPV infections generally lead to cervical cancer. So it's a serious need. And having At Home Solutions has been a serious value proposition for every collaborator that we work with, including the two national labs that you talked about, you talked about, LabCorp and Quest. We're excited to partner with them.

At this point, it's not necessarily displacement. They're adding our cores into their laboratories initially starting with the HPV assay and then building on it several of our other assays that are in development.

So an exciting partnership. I've spoken to both the CEOs and we're all excited to sort of partner and ensure that every person around the globe has access to this test. So I don't think we're thinking about it as a replacement or anything else. We're just thinking of getting to patients as fast as possible.

Great. And just one broader question. I was wondering if you could provide color in this 2027 framework you laid out, how are you thinking about revenue synergies? So you're on track for $50 million this year. How much do you think that step up next year and where the source is coming from?

Jack, so as a starting assumption in line with how we underwrote, we underwrote $290 million progressively over 5 years. So another $60 million added in 2027 over and above 50 that we have in 2026. But again, that's the starting assumption.

Your next question will come from the line of Dave Westenberg with Piper Sandler.

Congrats on the quarter. I wanted to ask everything we want to know about flow cytometry. First, what drove the 400 basis points in incremental flow reagent revenue? How confident are we that the A7 is going to be the largest beneficiary in the replacement cycle? And then can you confirm that flow cytometry is maybe an AI beneficiary. We are hearing some of the AI companies start seeing that. And then lastly, how does the AI play along? Are you finding that budgets are big enough for these kind of larger flow cytometers that also include imaging.

Thank you...

I don't know everything you want to know about flow.

Yes. It has a lesson on this in a quick fire, right? So flow reagents, 400 basis points. growth comes from pricing, from e-commerce adoption and thirdly, from our realize, which are a true differentiation in the market, right?

So now when you think of A7 itself, just take a step back, right? A solves a long-standing customer need to increase reproducibility of flow cytometry experiments. If you talk to anybody in flow cores, they'll tell you, cheese, I can't reproduce my experiments from user-to-user, from lab to lab. And now A7 solves that problem, especially in CROs and in pharma where high volumes are critical, right? So A7 is now a critical tool for us to drive the replacement of the 10,000 instruments that are ready for replacement across the industry.

A8 is a higher-end instrument with [ Cell VE ] technology that allows you to image cells as well. So think of A7 as high volume, think of A8 as even a superior analyzer and as isolate cells for analysis without destroying them. So each of these occupies a different spot in the portfolio and the needs for our customers.

On AI, right? So the best sort of use case is our partnership with [ IMU Biosciences ], who are building a precision immunology platform for population-wide immune mapping and it's expected to become the world's largest immune data set using our flow cytometry instruments and reagents. So when they saw A7, I mean these guys were super excited. I've met the two founders. And with the launch of A7, we increased the reproducibility, they are training AI models. And again, as you talk to heads of flow cores, as you talk to people in pharma, as you talk to the founders of IMU Biosciences, they are thrilled to bits on the reproducibility that they see with A7. And flow cytometry with the vast streams of data is tailor-made using AI and these advanced chips. So we feel very good about our Bioscience business, I hope that gives a quick fire lesson on flow cytometry.

Your next question will be from Dan Leonard with RBC Capital Markets.

Thank you very much I just have a question on China. I'm hoping you could comment on the outlook for China broadly and especially in Diagnostics, where you mentioned that the DRG headwinds will lap in Q4 .

Yes. So thanks, Dan. Look, I mean, China overall, I mean, legacy waters is growing 20%. I mean we've already talked about CDMO, biotech becoming a structural advantage. On the Bioscience side, the localization has happened faster and that's leading to growth already after 10 quarters of decline.

And your questions on diagnostics. As of Q4, the DRG headwinds will be in the baseline. And incrementally, the new policy is neutral to positive for microbiology and LC-MS, both in terms of consumption and in terms of pricing. And we will augment this with further localization of our BACTEC FXI which should happen sometime next year, which will again add another source of growth.

So we feel good about our Diagnostic Solutions business, especially in China. Overall, China is taking a full step back is neutral to accretive to the overall growth of Waters, which is something that hasn't happened in a long, long time, right? So we've seen that throughout this year, and we expect that to be the case even in our legacy businesses as we enter next year.

Thank you. This will conclude the Q&A portion of the call. I will now hand the call back to management for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Brian. This concludes our call. We look forward to connecting with many of you at our upcoming events and conferences.

Please welcome Udit Batra, President and Chief Executive Officer of Waters Corp interviewed by Casey Woodring at JPMorgan.

Great. Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Thanks to Udit for joining us and making the trip out here for us.

Maybe, Udit, to start, just level setting here, you had a very strong 2Q, right, 9% organic growth above the 6% to 8% guide for the quarter. Orders again outpaced sales, Becton accelerated. Maybe like what were the most important takeaways from the quarter from your perspective? And where would you say growth outpaced your expectations?

Yes. I think, firstly, thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. I mean the quarter came in ahead of expectations, as you said. On the base business, across the board, we saw acceleration, right? We saw instruments growing high single digits, service growing high single digits, chemistry yet again double digits. And if you accounted for the pull forward that occurred due to Liberation Day same time last year, it grew 16%.

Geographically, we saw U.S. mid- to high single digits. Europe was mid-single digits. But China and India were in excess of -- India was in excess of 20%, and China was again double-digit growth. And again, if you account for the pull forward, China was mid-teens. When you look at end markets, pharma was again double digits with the replacement cycle contributing in the U.S. and Europe with large pharma, India benefiting from generics. And the good news was the best coming out of China, where, again, pharma grew in excess of 24%, 25%. First quarter was 50% growth in pharma in China. So pharma recovered nicely.

Industrial was low single digits. Academic and government, the end market was double-digit growth, and that was largely driven by nice budget release in Europe. And even in that number, there was no stimulus from China, right? So across the board, the Analytical Science business and the Material Science business did extremely well. This is a legacy Waters business.

Where we were even more pleased is how the integration has started with the Becton, Dickinson businesses. They both, on average, grew roughly 4-ish percent. China was -- had a 200 basis points headwind. So that, if you extract, it was a 6% growth, already mid-single-digit plus growth. And the more important thing is what was underneath contributing to it, our 180-day plan to accelerate sales activity, to accelerate pricing, which was 90 basis points versus 50 in legacy BD. The growth in China that we expect to start to come in Q4, all the tactics were starting -- are starting to contribute. We saw cross-selling contribute as well.

So overall, from a revenue perspective, things are going reasonably well, knock on wood, and the leading indicators are very good. Now on the cost side, what we also shared is from a cost synergy perspective, by the end of the year, we will have a run rate of $200 million as we go into next year.

You remember that $200 million was the number that we had targeted at the end of 3 years for cost synergies. So within 9 months, we're already there. And there's a -- there are a lot more initiatives to contribute there. So as you enter -- as you finish '26, and we're not yet even done with Q3, we think we're very well set up for 2027 where the BD businesses should accelerate. Our base business is now a sustainably high single-digit grower. So sets us up very nicely for what's to come ahead of us.

Yes. A lot to dig into there. But I want to start off, this has been dominating the conversation certainly at this conference and other conversations about AI. I guess, it sounds like you're beginning to observe some incremental demand in consumables tied to AI-driven workflows in pharma. Maybe just talk a little bit about that. What's Waters' exposure here? And just maybe go into a little bit more detail on what you...

I think there are two topics that have sort of dominated conversation and tools for the last few months. One is AI, the other is reshoring.

That's the next...

And if the reshoring conversation is any -- gives you any evidence, we are a reluctant contributor to the discussion until we see facts, right? Now with AI, since we knew a lot of people are interested, we sort of dug in with the teams, and I'm going to give you first a frame and then some evidence that it's having impact on Waters' business.

When you think of labs, labs can be broken into three pieces. First, there is a sample prep part, where you're taking reagents and samples and putting them through a workflow. And once that workflow is perfected, you can automate it and then you can have an agent run it, not before that, right? So just keep that in mind. So in reagents, you first have to sort of get it standardized and then only the AI model can be unleashed on it.

Second is the instrument. And in the instrument, the protocols are generally refined and different users have different protocols. And third is software. These are the three parts of a lab, right, of an experiment in a lab. If you take that logic of reagent standardization and you go into quality control and late-stage development, that's where the variation is very little, right? Because in quality control, the reagents that you use to analyze samples are the same. If you run the experiment versus I run the experiment, that's the part of doing quality control that you want minimum variability.

Second, the instrument protocol is the same. And third and most important, in QA/QC and late-stage development, the software of record in pharma is Empower, 4 in 5 molecules use Empower, right? So you cannot pull the data out of Empower and put it back into Empower and have the regulator look at it. So it's the software of record. And so that software has a certain protocol itself. Now where we have seen evidence of the adoption of AI is on all three fronts, especially on the software side in QC, where customers are buying more seats in order to train agents on an already perfected workflow on the reagent side, on the instrument protocol and, of course, then the software, right?

So in QC, you start to see the adoption of agents and use of agents in labs much faster than you see in Discovery. Now you take the same logic and go to drug discovery. In drug discovery, everyone runs an experiment, differently using different reagents. So first, you have to standardize that. We are seeing increasing consumption of reagents and columns in that segment as well, but not at the same pace as we are seeing in QC.

Second, once you've done that, the protocols have to be standardized so the agent can run it, that also requires a bit of work. And there is no software of record. There are many different softwares that are used to analyze different types of samples. So our belief and the facts suggest to us that the adoption of AI models and AI agents is much faster in QC and manufacturing than it is in drug discovery. I know the discussion is largely dominated by discovery discussions. The reagents consumption as we compare our two businesses in BD Life Science -- in BD Biosciences, the reagent consumption is higher on the discovery side.

In the legacy Waters business, the column consumption and the reagent consumption, the software agents are much higher than they are in discovery. So I hope that gives you sort of a contrast, but we are seeing early signals already in discovery, and we're seeing more robust signals in QC. I will wait to share the quantitative impact once we have more than a few ideas from our customers. I want to have a few data points and then we can talk about the quantitative impact.

No, that's...

That whets the appetite of AI.

No, that's super helpful, especially on the QA/QC point. Maybe we can circle back to that later. But maybe just going back to the most recent quarter, right? You raised the organic guide for the year, and that implies the second half cadence that you've described as prudent. The midpoint implies sequential steps up in 3Q and 4Q that are below normal seasonal patterns. So -- maybe just walk through, kind of where within the guide you are embedding this prudence across your different businesses? And then maybe like what are the key swing factors that would bring you to the upper versus lower end of the guide?

So I think -- I mean, on the base business, it's been growing 8% for the last 7 quarters on average, right? So almost 2 years, it's been high single digits. For the first half of the year, in fact, the average growth rate is double digits. So momentum is actually picking up. And there's some logic behind it, right? When you look at our LRP that we had discussed at the Analyst Day at the beginning of last year, it contemplated high single digit to high single-digit plus growth. But the market growth that was contemplated there was 4% to 6%. And we know looking left and right at our markets, that's not where the peer group has been. It's been lower than that. And despite that, we've sort of grown at high single digits.

Now as the markets improve in biotech, in drug discovery, in CROs, that baseline comes up, so the overall growth rate should even be higher. But we have decided to guide in a way so that gives us some room to overachieve, right? And that's especially prominent in Q4, right? If you look at our guidance, Q4 contemplates a 4% growth, you adjust for days, that gets to 6%. But as I said, we're growing double digits since the first half of the year. So no reason to believe that it will slow down. And you see that in the leading indicators in the funnels. You see that in the reagent consumptions. You see China growing rapidly, and we didn't see any stimulus in the first half of the year. There's stimulus contemplated in the second half of the year, but it's not in the guide. So there's room to overachieve with the stimulus. There's room to overachieve with instruments, with chemistry, with service. So across the board, it looks pretty good.

On the BD side of the business, as you look at the second half of the year. The first half of the year, roughly at least the own period is mid-single digit growing, right? It's growing mid-single digits, 4% for Q2. If you adjust for China, it's 6%. As you go into the latter half of the year, especially in Q4, the headwinds from China abate. So that's a 200 basis points uplift.

In terms of quarterization, one thing I want you to keep in mind is it's very difficult to understand the quarterly profiles of an acquired business. It was the same when we acquired Sigma-Aldrich when I was at EMD Millipore, right? So I would just look at the first half versus the second half. Overall, there's momentum picking up in the second half. And when you look at Q4, in particular, we contemplate growing roughly 6-plus percent in Q4 for the acquired businesses. This is on a baseline of minus 10%. The better way to look at it is on a 2-year basis, mathematically, on a 2-year basis, Q2, Q3 are growing 1% to 2%. Q4 in the guide is minus 2% to 3%, right?

And so if you adjust that mathematically, you see there's room to overachieve there as well. And this is on the back of China sort of localization occurring in Bioscience and in diagnostics with increasing momentum from our revenue synergies, better execution with our launches. The launches just start to hit towards the end of this month. So the setup is extremely good as we enter the second half of the year.

You touched on it a little bit in that answer. Just the instrument replacement cycle. I think you've talked about instruments have grown around 2.5% organic since the first half of 2019, well below the 5% average historically prior to that from 2009 to 2019. You've also described this current replacement cycle is more elongated versus the typical 2- to 3-year duration, right, given the multiphase recovery that we've seen since 2024. I guess putting that all together, we're in kind of this year 2 of an elongated cycle with a sizable gap between historical and current volumes. Like how do you see the replacement cycle continuing as we look towards '27, '28?

Yes. I mean -- usually, you have line of sight to year and change in the instrument business in the LC, LC-MS, given the funnels, we see clear line of sight to take this to the end of -- take us to the end of '27. And you can look at it from many different vantage points. You already talked about the arithmetic piece, which is 2.5% CAGR from 2019 to now, it should get to 5%. And I'll remind you that the 2.5% includes better pricing than historic pricing by about 100 basis points. It includes newer products and upgrades to newer products. So it's -- and it includes some idiosyncratic growth drivers that might not have been present in the past.

The 2.5% is probably a lower number if you adjust for all of those. So we have arithmetically quite a bit of line of sight there. Second, when we look at the instrument replacement volume quantitatively, we can see in our funnels, a very strong set of instruments to be replaced in the years ahead. So this goes on at least until the end of 2027. And there's clear line of sight and the execution is pretty darn good on the instrument replacement in the business.

Are there any customer groups that have lagged from a replacement setting?

So it's -- when you look at it historically, right? So all customer segments started to replace together because that replacement cycle is generally dependent on macroeconomic cycles. In this particular case, biotech, CROs, drug discovery have lagged and they're starting to replace now. The only one that's not replacing is generics in China, which is a small portion of our business. So -- the cycle has been elongated largely because not all segments have replaced at the same rate. And now as the other segments start to replace, you start to see that augment the initial growth rate.

But as I said before, we've seen a high single-digit instrument growth rate for a while now. Part of the contribution is the idiosyncratic growth drivers. Part of the contribution is pricing and innovation. But equally, there's a backlog of replacements that we see quantitatively in front of us in addition to the arithmetic that you did on the 2.5%.

Can't talk about instruments without reshoring. You've talked about, I think, half of the U.S. pharma sites are now under construction. 70% of those are tied to high share Waters accounts. I think you've talked about reshoring being an incremental growth driver from '27 to 2030. Just help us understand what you're seeing in terms of orders right now and activity right now? The actual timing as these sites move construction to equipping? And any further color you can share on reshoring?

So I think you sort of summarized the context very well. There are two things I will add. One, when you think of instrument placement, generally, the cycle time, the sales cycle for an instrument LC or LC-MS is between 3 and 6 months. Our orders can outpace sales, but the quantitative value of the orders is not terribly higher than sales for any given quarter. You can go back in the history of Waters or other LC-MS players. So that generally means that you usually know concretely exactly what is going to get placed 3 to 6 months in advance of actual placement.

Given that ground has been broken now in many of the sites, the announcements were made a year ago, it stands to reason that they will actually be constructing labs in a year from now. So we'll see 3 to 6 months from now concrete orders, right? So that's the first thing I would keep in mind. That's why we're reluctant to say, "Hey, exactly this is the order value." While we have line of sight on all the sites that we've talked about, while we have a probability-adjusted model internally that says, "Hey, this is the value of the $100 billion CapEx that has been announced that will accrue to Waters," I'm reluctant to share it until I see the first few data points, but this is just generally true at Waters, right? So that's the first thing I would add.

The second is, as you think of instrument placements in these reshored contracts, what you also have to understand is -- and I have empathy for -- not sympathy, but empathy for others who might be talking about orders coming in already because there's a bit of confusion at the customer sites as well. So I'll give you two examples. One of our large customers, in fact, the largest customer that we have for LC replacement has a site in North Carolina.

They have expanded the site and they placed a $10 million order in Q2 with us. And they said, "Hey, this is replaced -- this is reshoring related." And our teams came internally because internally -- sorry for the digression. Internally, we have incentives, not just for the overall amount that the sales teams are achieving, but also for what they are able to bring home from reshoring. So reps are incentivized to classify things as reshoring. And so we have a lot of scrutiny on that to say, "Hey, this is reshoring and this is not."

In that particular case, we said this is not reshoring because it's site expansion that would have occurred regardless. Show me the cause and effect. Show me the cause of reduction in CapEx somewhere else that has led to an increase in CapEx here. So the burden of proof in classifying something as reshoring at Waters is high, right? And the same thing happened with another customer in Wilmington, Delaware, where they expanded a site and $4 million came in, in Q2 that we could have classified as reshoring. But internally, we said, no, this is not reshoring. This is just capacity expansion. So I have empathy when people say they have orders that have come in that they're calling reshoring. I don't have any sympathy because that's -- I think intellectually, you could go in different directions. And if you want to be pure, you want to keep it in the way we are doing it.

But at the end, what really matters is total CapEx, right? And the total CapEx is going to be higher. It doesn't matter for Waters, if it's placed in Europe or in the U.S., we will see a benefit. And I'll remind you that any time there's a new site, a new product, Waters wins more than we lose, given our product portfolio. So we feel pretty good about the fact that these are newer sites where there will be new business, we'll win more than we'll lose versus our competition. In the U.S., we have higher share in LC and LC-MS than we do in Europe. So I feel pretty good about where we sit. Just reluctant to quantify the exact impact from the $100 billion, what accrues to us. Once we start seeing the data concretely show up as orders that we classify as orders, I will talk about it. But I think at the end, you should just look at the overall CapEx. Otherwise, we're just sort of double counting.

Okay. Fair enough. You brought it up the competitive dynamics in LC, LC-MS? We've talked a little bit about how replacements are driving growth, but you have launched a few new products. So maybe talk about new product traction and how that's contributing to growth and competitive share.

And I think competitively, there is very little sort of third-party data that gives you clear evidence who's gaining share, who's losing share, right? And in many of these markets, it's two players, and it's not -- it's pretty easy to see who's growing faster versus not. And when you look at Waters for the last 2 years, our LC and LC mass spec growth has been higher than competition. They are reported in our reported numbers. And so I think it stands to reason that we're growing faster. Now you can call it share shift, you can call it upsell, you can call it anything else. I don't really care, but we're growing faster, right? So I think that is incontrovertible, right? And that's backward-looking. Facts are backward looking and projections are forward looking. So I think there, I'm very comfortable, and we know sort of why that would be happening with new products, et cetera.

I think what -- coming back to sort of our playbook, I mean, when you look at the instrument business, LC, LC mass spec and now increasingly some of the other pieces of the business, it really has two to three parts. First, it's the replacement business, right? So where you look at the installed base and say, how much do you have to replace. And there, we're doing pretty well.

Second, it is new products, right? New products trigger replacements often, but they are also incremental sales. So the Alliance iS has been setting the standard in QA/QC for pharmaceuticals. The TQ Absolute XR and the TQ Absolute in mass spec, it's the most sensitive instrument for PFAS testing. We have launched some high-resolution mass spec instruments with Xevo MRT. And they are setting the standard in speed and in resolution from a benchtop high-resolution mass spec instrument. That has just started to go into drug discovery and will increasingly go into drug development. It's now used also by some of our largest customers in China for impurity testing of GLP-1s, right? So innovation is sort of leading and augmenting the growth.

And the third are specific idiosyncratic growth drivers, right? GLP-1 testing has benefited from Alliance iS. PFAS testing has benefited from Xevo TQ Absolute and TQ Absolute XR. India Generics has benefited not just from our strong market share in India, but also the Alliance iS and our service offering. So overall, as you look ahead, we feel very well -- that we're very well positioned from a portfolio perspective, from a commercial execution perspective.

Okay. There's a lot to talk about with Becton, but just sticking with the legacy Waters business, Chemistry also had a strong quarter in 2Q, growing 10%. You've launched new products in that business as well. Maybe just talk about the chemistry durability in the second half of this year. You have a selling day headwind in 4Q, but just maybe walk through mix of pricing, installed base pull-through, e-commerce adoption and all that?

I think -- the Chemistry business, I think we've been pretty public about it, has benefited from initially e-commerce adoption and then increasingly, our innovative portfolio and bioseparations. And what is highly interesting is that a lot of these products are not just placed in QA/QC and development, they're placed in discovery, right? They're placed in drug discovery. Anytime somebody is coming up with a new molecule, they're calling Waters to say, "Hey, I need to separate this, which of your columns can I use or can you develop a new column?" And we feel really good about our placements there. Our share has increased quite dramatically. That bodes very well for when these molecules move into late-stage development and they become high-volume runners, right? So that is a significant change from history. We've sort of moved upstream with our columns.

Second, as you look at our column business, it's starting to benefit from the AI discussion that we had earlier, right? People are buying more columns, some bulk orders, both in discovery, but increasingly in QA/QC to train models.

And finally, on pricing, in some cases, since we are the only one that offers a solution for high-value products for our customers, in some cases, there's double-digit pricing with a 100% stick rate. So Chemistry for the foreseeable future is a high single-digit to a double-digit growth business. And we feel very good about what we have in front of us. We see the demands from the customers. And finally, I'll make one more comment on GLP-1 testing. I mean we had displaced a competitor there. And there, the growth is pretty dramatic as well, right? So we feel pretty good about where we stand with the Chemistry business.

Okay. Now let's turn to Becton here. Maybe starting on Flow. So Flow Clinical grew 8% in the quarter and Flow Research just returned to growth. I'd like to hear your thoughts on kind of the split between those two end markets. And as we look forward, and the moving parts of Flow, I guess, like how much of the A7 launch is going to contribute to growth here exiting the year? How much China localization will reaccelerate the business there? Maybe walk through the moving parts of that.

So when you look at the Bioscience business, right, it grew 3% for the quarter. Ex China, it was 5% growth for Q2. As you look ahead, first starting with just China and the headwinds there. Basically, the Bioscience business had no access to several pieces of our flow cytometry instrument portfolio. They were not localized, so they could not participate in tenders. The spectral instruments were not accessible in China due to import restrictions. We have debottlenecked both of those things.

In fact, we've localized our flow cytometry portfolio for high-volume user already. And the first sale will likely occur at the end of this quarter. There are some orders there as well, definitely in Q4, right? So that will sort of lift the baseline there. Second, on the spectral instruments, we have reduced the time for export approval since we don't have local production of those. In China, we've reduced it from about 3 months to 2 weeks, right?

So any time an order is being placed in China, you have less than 2 weeks to sort of consummate it given how much time we need for approval. So both of those are going to be tailwinds as we go into Q4.

And third, from an instrument portfolio perspective, A7 was launched on September 14. Basically, that instrument sets a standard for spectral instruments in transferability, right? So when you -- and reproducibility. Again, remember, Waters is a company that performs well in high-volume regulated settings. Flow cytometry, especially spectral flow cytometry or high-end flow cytometry is marred with reproducibility if one user runs the experiment, the second time or interoperability between instruments. With the A7, this is the first instrument in the spectral space, that increases reproducibility dramatically so that you can use it in high-volume settings, right? And that is a differentiated value proposition that we are starting to see benefits of as we go into Q4.

So nice orders for A7. I won't quantify exactly sort of the impact of it, but nice orders in the U.S., in Europe and increasingly, China that will get consummated as time goes on. So from an instrument perspective, the Flow business is set up nicely as we enter the latter part of the year. From a reagents perspective, the clinical reagents part of the business grew high single digits, and that's really levered to the use of flow cytometry in detecting cancer, right, and doing clinical trials in oncology.

And so that, as you know, is an area which has -- where there's a lot of investment from our customers. So there, the trend is pretty nice. The pricing is better, given that we're implementing the Waters playbook there. The research reagents part of the business over the years had lost traction versus a key competitor who was able to deliver antibodies much faster than we could.

Second, pricing had not been as differentiated. We've sort of adjusted both of those topics, right? So -- on pricing, we went from roughly 50 basis points to 90 basis points of pricing for the Bioscience business. On the research side, in particular, we segmented the portfolio of our research antibodies. And there are specific antibodies, they are called Real Dyes, which is about 20% of the portfolio, where there is no competitor, where we've taken differentiated pricing like our columns business, right, double-digit price increases where there's no other competitor. So you can sort of command that price and the value proposition is so differentiated that the customers are willing to pay for it.

And so you see differentiated value -- differentiated pricing. And in addition, the delivery has improved dramatically as we've implemented our e-commerce playbook, right? So that led to sort of growth of research reagents in Q2. And as we enter the second half of the year, it's not just that part that is going to contribute and pricing and better e-commerce, but additional use of reagents in drug discovery. So Bioscience business looks pretty well set up. China sort of coming up the curve, research reagents and clinical reagents doing pretty well. So we feel pretty good about where we're headed there.

That's helpful. And maybe just turning to microbio. That was another good quarter, 6% growth ex China. I understand that pricing tailwinds are starting to come through. We can talk about that a little bit. But I want to focus on the replacement opportunity here, 12,000 aged systems. How should we think about the pace of that conversion? And maybe just walk us through how investors should think about it given the reagent rental model, the differences between...

I think -- I mean, roughly 12,000 instruments that are over 5 years old, more than half of them are over 10 years old. The way the replacement works there, I mean, the mechanics is the same. So you go in and replace a box, but the revenue recognition model is different. Roughly half of it is cash globally, and half of it is reagent rental.

On the cash side, the logic is the same as Waters, where as you buy a new instrument, you take the volume, you take the pricing and you add on top the replacement, right? So if you take that logic, volume grows between 3% and 4% in the microbiology business. Pricing is roughly 200 to a bit higher than that as you introduce a new instrument. When you look at our nearest competitor, bioMerieux, they basically took pricing up between 200 and 500 basis points. And when you introduce a new product, it could be on the higher end, but let's assume 200. And then when you're replacing 200 to 300 basis points of accretion on the instrument side. So that's the algorithm on the cash side.

Now you have to take the growth and amortize that on the reagents business, for the 50% that is reagent rental. But mathematically, if you take reagents and instruments, the logic would be the same overall, right? So overall, for the microbiology business, you should see at least 200 to 300 basis points of accretion in addition to volume and pricing during a replacement cycle, just like the legacy Waters business. Now it should be a bit faster than that, just given where we're starting. But as a starting assumption, you should assume that you will see 200 basis points of accretion from instrument replacement, 200 to 300 from pricing.

Okay. Understood. We just talked a little bit about pricing. Maybe we'll move on. I think something that's not talked about as much is the molecular business within Becton and -- or just diagnostics as a whole between molecular and point of care. That's been growing nicely. I think you got a new HPV offering there. Maybe walk us through that piece. How durable is the HPV-led momentum that you're seeing in this business? And is there more in terms of new product launches or new tests, menu build-outs in this business, too?

It's a fantastic question, right? So on the molecular side, there are two platforms, BD MAX and BD COR, right? So -- the MAX is an open platform that is one of one. So there are other closed platforms that are doing pretty well that are in our competitors' hands, but MAX is doing well because it's an open platform and customers can develop their own tests and validate it on our instrument. The BD COR is basically a high throughput instrument. Just to sort of give you some facts.

In 2025, for the full year, the team had installed 4 BD CORs. In Q2 alone, we installed 15, right? So the pace of commercial execution has increased dramatically. Some of that is due to the fact that we have a home and self-test option for HPV testing, right? And that's a very significant advance with a very broad genomic profile, right? So highly differentiated test that allows us to have the conversation with customers who are looking for a high-volume instrument that gets us into the labs. But it only sustains if you have additional assays that come on to it. Our vaginitis panels, our STI panels are doing pretty well on the MAX and the intent is to sort of move them to the COR, right?

So as we are getting more and more placements where we have plans to sort of get some of the tests on the MAX onto the COR. I feel pretty good about the starting point of that business given history and given how slow it was. In the short run, we've had to sort of ensure -- given that we are a new player in that space, we've had to ensure that the instruments work as planned, the service has to be as good as what is a service in the past. So we've had to overinvest on the service side. Often one service person per box is -- I mean, so there's 15 installed, there's 15 service people sitting next to the box, 24/7 saying, "Hey, I'm available if your box goes down so that you don't have any issues." Over time, we, of course, expect that to deplete. But we will have more and more placements over time, right? So we feel very good about the start, but work to do in ensuring that the service efficiency improves over time.

And then early revenue synergies are continuing to build in 2Q. Maybe help us understand what that cross-sell looks like in practice, which mass spec platforms are really resonating the most when they're sold into pharma and then the whole DMPK opportunity, I should say. Just how is the progress towards the $50 million revenue synergy target for this year kind of looking at like?

So I think just to sort of answer your question on cross-selling, and then I'll give you sort of a broader frame on revenue synergies. On the cross-sell, we saw additional $10 million of incremental sales into DMPK, mass spec sales into DMPK due to our customer contacts in Bioscience, right? So that contribution will be roughly $35 million to $40 million until the end of the year. In addition, there are other pieces of revenue synergies, and it's simpler to think of it in 3 buckets. The first one are ones that come in our 180-day plan, right? Improvement in pricing, improvement in sales activities, localization in China. That all contributes -- sort of that is the first bucket that's already started to contribute.

The second bucket are operational activities that were perfected at Waters are now being applied to our acquired businesses. This includes instrument replacement. This includes service attachment. This includes e-commerce penetration. This includes launch excellence, such that we talked about legacy Waters 5 years ago, right? And so we don't have a sexy name for our business model, but synergies come from taking our capabilities and applying it to any new business, right? So that's the second bucket of synergies that is tangible. that's starting to sort of contribute now.

And the third bucket are what you were referring to, our broader cross-selling and strategic synergies, right? On the broader cross-selling, it's not just mass spec into DMPK. It's LC-MS into the Diagnostics segment. Given that we have such a broad reach into hospitals with our advanced diagnostics business, we are selling more LC-MS instruments into those labs.

Flow into QA/QC, right? We had only underwritten flow cytometry sales into drug development for cell therapy. The intent is to actually take it into QA/QC. The software part of that will take a little bit longer, but the basic placements are occurring.

And then lastly, bioseparations. We had sort of said, you know what, we'll have 2 to 3 programs that we will take from legacy Waters that currently source antibodies from outside. We'll use our Bioscience business to supply them. There are roughly 10 programs where that's happening already, right? That -- basically, the strategic synergies, the third bucket takes a little bit longer to consummate. But you have enough in the other tools that augments the growth in the short to midterm.

Okay. Understood. Maybe on the cost side, we talked a little bit about this earlier. You've pulled forward the $200 million run rate savings. How should we think about implications of that dynamic in terms of margins for next year? I know we talked a little bit about some sort of reinvestment expected there. Kind of -- how should we think about margins overall in '27? And then how the -- there?

I mean, Casey, for '27 and the like, there's more time to sort of talk about it and we'll do it at the right time when we give guidance. But conceptually, the moving parts are as follows, right? So we've given guidance already for the full year at 28.2%, right? And when you look at what happened in the first 6 weeks of the year when we acquired the BD businesses, we got the cost, but not the revenue. So basically have a 70 basis point headwind on that number. So your starting point in 2027 is 27.5%.

But then you take the cost synergies, the $200 million run rate the operating leverage from the faster growth rates, so high single digit for the base business, let's say, mid-single digit to high single digit for the acquired businesses. You have operating leverage there. You have additional cost synergies that come from additional levers across procurement, across manufacturing optimization, distribution optimization.

You have the revenue synergies picking up, not just sort of the strategic buckets, but also the operational ones, with instrument replacement, e-commerce, service attachment. You add all that up, it's a very significant margin expansion. We will use some of that to reinvest back in the business. I think when I look at the Street models, people are roughly around 29%, 29.2%, that's a reasonable starting point. I'd be surprised if we don't do way better than that, just given how much opportunity there is. What we would like to do is to take that and reinvest in industrial stability to accelerate the growth of bioseparation. So 3 to 5 years from now, we're looking back and saying, wow, these reinvestments actually yielded something like our bioseparations business or our bioanalytical business. And that is the intent.

Understood. Something else that came up in conversations earlier today. Like you kind of talked a little bit about how reshoring and AI, maybe less visibility there, not as much data to really call what that could look like for the forward outlook. But it sounded like you had more confidence in China and what was going on there. Maybe just walk through the underlying market activity across pharma and biotech in China.

I take a full step back when you look at the algorithm we talked about with our base business in early 2025 at the Analyst Day, we had the base business growing at 4% to 6% -- or the market growing at 4% to 6%. Then we said, there's instrument replacement, which adds about 200 basis points, which is still ongoing. Pricing is accretive by 100 basis points versus history. China was dilutive at the time, about by 100 basis points. But India was offsetting it with idiosyncratic growth drivers contributing roughly 170 basis points. And that took you to high single digit to high single-digit plus growth, which is where we are today, right?

But if you look at that, China was dilutive by 100 basis points. China has not been dilutive for the last 3 quarters. In fact, it's been accretive. And it doesn't include the stimulus yet. We're seeing no end to the biotech investment in China. If anything, that is a secular trend. And if you read the 5-year plan that has just been shared by the Chinese government, you see that the intention is to grow pharma by 20% every year, right? So you basically have a significant tailwind on the pharma business, which is where we are strong in China. And we feel very good about saying that China is not going to be dilutive to a high single-digit growth going forward.

The same is true for reshoring, which adds another positive vector, again, yet to be quantified. And the AI-led increased consumption in software as well as in reagents in the short term, right? So we think there are additional drivers that give us confidence on the high single-digit growth algorithm. And if you add it up, it seems like a bit higher, especially given that the 4% to 6% we haven't seen in the overall market for a while, but now that looks a bit more robust with biotech, CROs and drug discovery also recovering, right? So as those end markets recover, the 4% to 6% becomes more robust and you have additional drivers in the overall waterfall for growth. So we feel pretty good about our long-term algorithm of high single-digit growth.

Okay. I wanted to shift gears a little bit in the last few minutes we have here and just ask about the Merck and Moderna data, and what the read-through looks like for your business. I think personalized medicine was something that got a lot of airtime pre-COVID, not as much kind of post-COVID. Do you see that data is catalyzing some reinvestment in that space? And would you benefit from?

Firstly, it's fantastic for patients, right? I mean if we continue to have therapies that are solving unmet needs, I mean, it's fantastic. The good news for Waters is that, especially with our columns, we're placed in all these novel modalities. When you look at KEYTRUDA, Waters' columns are used to do QC for KEYTRUDA. When you look at the mRNA molecules for Moderna, Waters' columns are used to do QC with Moderna's columns. And if you take a step further, close to 80% of the Phase II Phase III molecules for mRNA have Waters' columns spec'd in, right?

So as the industry goes towards personalized medicine and more and more complex molecules, we feel very well placed, especially with our innovation in chemistry, our innovation in biologics to sort of accrete to the overall growth rate. So we feel very good. The fact that patients are benefiting from this. We think it's going to be a slow burn given it's patient by patient. But that said, Waters is extremely well placed, especially from a column perspective as more novel modalities come down the line. And 80%, as I said, of mRNA molecules use our columns.

Okay. And then a completely separate topic here, just to end on Materials Science grew high singles in 2Q was driven by electronics, research testing, semiconductors, data centers, and then you also had advanced materials and aerospace and defense. Maybe just walk us through what you're seeing like on the more industrial side of the business.

So it started -- what you have to keep in mind is the baseline was lower last year, right? So given there were headwinds for that particular business. But very happy with what we're seeing, especially in Asia for semiconductors, even battery testing, the new products, especially our coin cell DSC is contributing nicely to -- and integrating into workflows for our battery testing customers.

You see defense spending contributing nicely in Europe as well as in the United States. And as we look ahead, the funnels are extremely strong in that business as well, right? And as I said, the baseline was a bit weaker last year. So if anything, that is accretive to our overall legacy Waters business for the balance of the year.

So again, good setup. I think you haven't asked, but I do want to say, not everything is rosy. And there is a lot of work that's happening on integration behind the scenes. Remember, we are carving out a business from a large company. This is not a standard integration. And when you carve out something, you're dependent on the other company to provide services, that requires daily attention. The BD colleagues are awesome, but it stands to reason that they pay less attention to something that's going over the pond.

Second, as you bring things back into Waters, we have just sort of stood up our processes and systems. And now on top, you're adding a similar sized business. So there is a lot of strain on the processes and systems that we put together. And there's a ton of work that happens there. And that's always a risk that one has to mitigate. So -- while there are nice growth drivers, the teams are highly focused on revenue synergies, cost synergies, we have to keep in mind, it's still a large integration. And people have asked me, "Hey, what's next and what's going on?" Nothing. We want to focus on getting this done properly, and we have ample time to talk about anything else down the line.

Okay. Well, that's probably a great place to end. Thank you, Udit, for doing this with us. Thank you, everybody, for joining us, and have a great rest of the conference.

Welcome, everyone. Welcome back to day 2 of the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference. We're excited to have Waters here on stage, Udit Batra, CEO. Welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Evan.

Maybe the best place to start is just on 2Q. Really strong quarter, 9% organic growth, above the high end of the guide, book-to-bill above 1, real highlight on BD was kind of ahead of expectations. What were the most important drivers here? And where did you most exceed your plan?

So firstly, thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to see you again. Look, I mean, Q2 was on the base business, a continuation of what's been happening for the last 7 to 8 quarters, right? We've been growing high single digits, about 8-ish percent for that time frame. And the drivers are somehow consistent, right? Instruments grew high single digits again, LC, LC-MS, no matter how you look at it, geographically, the same sort of growth rate. Recurring revenue, really nice growth, chemistry double digits. And if you adjust for the Liberty Day pull forward, it was 16%. Service was high single digits. So the portfolio has been doing extremely well across the board.

End markets, Pharma, double digits, Academia and Government, also double digits despite the fact that we're seeing -- we've sort of talked about slowdown in different geographies. I mean, we saw a double-digit growth. And again, even academic customers reward innovation. They find money if you have something meaningful for them to solve problems.

And then if you look at it geographically, China, grew sort of 6-ish percent. But if you take -- again, take out the pull forward from Liberation Day was 10%. And Pharma in China was 24% growth, right? And so really strength across the board geographically, portfolio-wise and customer-wise on the base business. And same was true with the acquired businesses where we saw nice momentum buildup. We're already at mid-single-digit growth rate. And the second half of the year, we'll see more acceleration versus what we've seen in the first half even for the acquired businesses.

So the setup is exceptionally good. The end markets are even better than what we started with when we started the transformation.

I guess you can just leave it there, I mean. It sounds like everything is obviously doing -- the whole portfolio is doing really well, which is really good to see. Maybe just quickly on guidance. I mean the guide, I know everything is performing really well, but the guide does imply some deceleration in 4Q, I think mid-single-digit growth. And then BD, I mean, it's really easy comp and really -- I think it's minus 11%. I mean, so how should we think about the level of prudence? I think that's how you guys typically talk about it. I think embedded in that.

I mean think about it qualitatively and quantitatively, right? I'll try to address -- I think your question was quantitative, but let me sort of give you the qualitative underlying basis.

On the base business, we just went through the litany of reasons why there's momentum. There's no reason for the underlying momentum to slow down. We see the funnels are very strong. Customer conversations are stronger. Geographically, China is going from strength to strength and even the stimulus was is not even in the guide. So qualitatively, there's no reason for the base business to slow down. And when you just stay on the base business, from Q2 -- from Q3 to Q4, we usually talk about step-up and step downs. The step-up usually in the last 2 years has been high teens in terms of growth rate. And even if you adjust for days, we see only a 13% step-up in guide, right? So there is room for overachievement in Q4, long way of saying quantitatively and qualitatively that there is room for overachievement on the base business.

On the BD side, the better way, given it's an acquisition year, it's better to look at sort of a 2-year CAGR, right? And if you look at a 2-year CAGR, Q2 and Q3 guide are roughly 1% to 2% growth, Q4 is minus 2% to 3%. So there's room there as well. So we simply have given ourselves room in Q4. Now what is important to remember for the base business is, I mean, we're traversing at the high end of our old market, and we're growing pretty nicely ending 2026. For the BD acquired businesses, Q4 will likely exit around 6 -- at least around 6%, if not more. Now I would not want that to be a starting point for anything going forward. But the setup, the drivers, the execution is really going well, right? So it sets us up nicely for 2027.

Got you. Yes. I mean maybe we'll stick with BD. I mean that's got -- I mean, a lot of attention there, obviously, especially the acceleration and turn to growth in 2Q, I think surprised people ahead of expectations. Can you really just talk high level about the 180-day plan? Where are we in the process? Any positive or negative surprises that you run into now you've had the business for a full quarter?

So on the momentum that we saw in Q2 and its continuation, the 180-day plan had 3 components, right? The first was just sort of funnel management and how do you look at the customer order pattern and how do you get visibility on it, what is the discipline, very happy with what we're seeing. So every quarter, I review with the region heads, that is direct reports of my direct reports, certain pieces of execution, right? And that review was earlier this week across all the regions. So there's -- now we have 4 divisions. So you have 12 different people who show up in those meetings. And we review how everyone is doing funnel management. It's fantastic, right? Everyone sort of picked up the same sort of rhythm and some of the acquired business folks learning from the others, but it's -- there's one way of doing funnel management now at Waters, right? So that's gone pretty well.

Second piece was pricing, right? And pricing had 2 components. And there, I think nothing speaks more than facts. Already in the full owned quarter, we saw 90 basis points of price increase versus 0 to 50 that we have seen in the legacy businesses in the past. And there's a lot of work going on, on that front with deal desk, the adoption of it, the visibility, the buy-in into that. Because remember, as commercial folks, people will adopt processes and systems that help them achieve their targets without doing anything heroic, right? So these are processes. And if you have better tracking tools, you're able to pass on pricing much more easily. It was just a question of having the courage to do it, having the processes and follow-up to do it.

The second was reagent rentals, right? Reagent rental compliance. And as we said, there's roughly 700 customers, which were not in compliance in the U.S. alone. We have them tracked. You shouldn't expect us to sort of claw all of that back in one go. The idea is to use that to embed some of our other pieces of the portfolio, right? Like FXI for diagnostics.

And the third piece is around China. And our China business in both sides on Diagnostics as well as flow on Bioscience was declining quite rapidly. A lot of that had to do with not having a local portfolio. So the portfolio had not been localized. Some of that had to do with export restrictions, both areas that we've addressed, and you should start to see a nice ramp in Q4 as a consequence, right? So the first products that are localized will already be sold at the end of this quarter and into Q4. And then the baseline in Q4 is low enough that with the arrival of some meaningful new products like the A7 flow cytometer, the FXI, you should start to see a nice ramp there as well.

Great. Maybe -- yes, on pricing, I mean, obviously, you've -- I mean -- let's see. Let's maybe move to China. I think that was -- I mean you touched on it a little bit, but maybe just dig a little bit deeper into the issues that you were seeing there, I guess, both on the diagnostics and the tool side. And kind of where are we in the process of lapping those headwinds?

Yes. So I mean, it's worthwhile just taking a step back. China for legacy Waters, let me start there, and then I'll go into the BD side. It used to be 20% of our base business. It went all the way down to 12%. And at our Analyst Day, we said, look, China will be dilutive to our growth going forward. It used to be 100 basis points accretive. It will be dilutive. We said that in March of 2025. Turns out China has been accretive to our growth for the first half of the year, and it's going really well, right? A lot of that has to do with the improvement in the biotech industry there, that then fueling the growth in CDMOs and as a consequence, creating the impetus to form a local homegrown large pharma company in China, right? So really nice growth on the pharma segment, and we grew over 50% in Q1 in pharma in China. In the second quarter, it was close to 25% and the growth is not slowing down, right? So it's a fantastic setup.

And so we have the model that we used when the business slowed down back in 2023 due to BIOSECURE. Business went down by 25%. We restructured, we reorganized, we localized our portfolio, we improved commercial execution. And here we are less than 2 years later, really growing nicely, right, in a market which admittedly has not been generous to everyone, right? We're applying the same sort of principles to Bioscience, exactly the same thing where the product portfolio was not localized. We were going direct to customers where we could have used a distributor, and we were going to customers with distributors where we should have gone direct.

So to give you an example, in academia, we're going direct, where there are so many academic customers across China. And in pharma, we were going through distributors where there are very few pharma players, and we have very deep relationships in Waters. So we're just flipping that now, right, from a commercial standpoint. We didn't have a local portfolio. Now we've localized our -- a good portion of our Bioscience portfolio. On the flow cytometry side, some of our most innovative dyes were not available in China. Don't ask me why, but now they're available, right? So you'll start to see the Bioscience business turn as a consequence.

And then when you go to the Diagnostics business, there are some interesting external things that have changed, and there's some internal self-help that has to be implemented as well. From an external standpoint, the Chinese government just issued their new pricing guidelines. And we stand to benefit from it, right? So from a microbiology standpoint, we'll basically be reimbursed for each individual bottle as opposed to per patient. That's an advantage. Second, the government is going to reimburse the use of each antibiotic and Waters has the broadest portfolio of antibiotics in its AST test versus any other competitor, right? So each antibiotic gets reimbursed. So if you use 5 antibiotics per patient, all 5 get reimbursed separately as opposed to panel.

And third, in the past, there was no reimbursement for analysis and recommendations. Now there is reimbursement for that. So the market structure has dramatically improved after many years of VBP implementation on the diagnostic solutions -- on the BD Diagnostic Solutions side. And on LC-MS, given that it's an innovative technology that can uncover some things that cannot be uncovered by other techniques, that gets reimbursed as well.

So the reimbursement environment for that business has improved dramatically. And the self-help sort of tools are exactly the same as Bioscience. There's a localization to be done. There's improvement in supply chain, there's improvement in execution. And you'll see the benefits of those start to show up in the latter part of this year, but mostly in 2027.

When you say localization, that just means it's not a different portfolio. It's just making it...

Same portfolio and basically satisfying the requirements for something to be local, so that we can compete in local tenders. Especially for academic customers and government-funded customers, there is a requirement in tenders that you must have a certain part of your supply chain local.

Yes. Just maybe sticking with China, you did -- you brought up 2 things. So you talked about reimbursement, which actually has been a headwind to most people's businesses. I'm not aware of that. So was that coming from the country? Or were these regional, province decisions?

No, it's a country-level decision, but implemented at a province level, like anything in China. country-level ruling and provinces decide.

Okay. And then on -- you also earlier mentioned some stimulus.

I didn't. But...

You did not. Okay. I just asked because one of your peers has brought that up. And I'm just curious, have you heard about potential stimulus?

Yes, sure. So I mean there is a potential for stimulus in the latter half of the year, very concrete, concretely so. It's not in our guide. And we usually -- as a matter of approach, we usually talk about stimulus impact in retrospect, not prospectively, right? So our academic -- to sort of take a step back, our academic and government end market has been growing double digits overall globally. In China, it's been flat to slightly declining. But for the first half of the year, and that's without stimulus, right? With stimulus, I mean, for the second half of the year, we'll see.

Is that geared directly towards life science tools, this stimulus?

Yes, yes. Life science tools and it largely initially focuses on food and environmental segments. And then the academic segment, right? And again, I mean, this is directly related to having a localized portfolio, right? And in the past, say, 2, 3 years ago, even the Waters legacy portfolio was not localized to the extent it is localized now. So we compete very effectively in stimulus -- for stimulus dollars.

Excellent. Okay. Moving to Diagnostics. Really strong performance there. I think 15% growth, and that was across both parts of the business. But Diagnostic Solutions, I think it sounds like the main issue you're having there was reagent rental non-compliance, and that's really what you've gone out to fix. Can you help explain that, what you're doing, if there's been any kind of pushback and maybe some of the other opportunities you see in the business, including the issues you're seeing in China?

So Diagnostic Solutions is basically 7 -- if I don't take the legacy Waters business, just take that out for a minute, that grew 15% in the quarter. Diagnostic Solutions, legacy BD business grew mid-single digits for the quarter. And microbiology in that grew 4%. Molecular diagnostics grew high single digits, okay? The drivers in the microbiology business were twofold. One, we -- threefold. One, we started to charge better pricing, 90 basis points of pricing versus what we've seen in the past, which was flat to sometimes even declining.

Second, we saw better uptake of our BACTEC bottles, which were out of supply in the past. The theoretical maximum that the team had said is we would get back to about 85% of our -- we had a supply crisis before we acquired the business. And we basically went down to almost 50% of the volume that we used to supply in the past. They said the theoretical maximum will be 85%. We achieved that already sort of in the partial quarter that we had, this quarter, it was even higher, right? So theoretical maximum, we exceeded and we said, well, why shouldn't it be 100%? And so we're chasing the 100% penetration versus the past, right? And so those 2 alone were impacting the pricing of bottles and their volume.

And the third piece was around instruments. FXI launch has been exceptionally good, right? It has already started to contribute. It's an instrument which is used as an incubator for microbiology. And it was launched in Japan and Europe first. In Japan, the customer feedback was exceptional. And one customer came back and said, we improved efficiency by 80%. So they used to have 10 people, they had 2 people to do that job after the instrument was installed. So really dramatic customer testimonials, and there are 12,000 such instruments globally that need replacement. And so we're sort of getting that moving.

And then on the molecular side, we have launched this HPV assay with our BD COR. In Q2, we launched 14 instruments. Full year last year, we launched only 4, right? So rather a dramatic improvement in commercial excellence, right? So both parts of the business have started to accelerate. Now as you look at the second half of the year, remember, Q3 is the fiscal year-end for BD. It has severe dynamics also because it was a quarter before we signed the deal, right? So you can never quarterize things well enough. But the second half of the year, you'll see more momentum in our guide than you saw in the first half of the year. And Q4, you will see a nice acceleration.

Okay. Great. Maybe going to Analytical Sciences, your kind of legacy Waters business. I mean, 9% growth, I mean, that's probably the best in all tools, if I had to guess. But I mean, how much of the strength is LC replacement cycle versus idiosyncratic growth drivers? And then I know on the last call, you did have one slide where you continue to point out that the CAGR, 5-year CAGR is still just 2.5% versus historical 5%. So like where are we now in the cycle? And how much more runway do you think we have? Because I think it's been 2 years? 2-ish years? 3-ish years?

Yes. So it will be 2 years at the end of Q3 when the replacement cycle started. I think that's where your question is going.

On the instrument side, look, qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, the funnels are super strong. We have nice visibility on orders. We see really good uptake of new products. And I'm just talking instruments for a minute. And when you look at it mathematically, the 6-year CAGR is still 2.5%. And in that, there are idiosyncratic growth drivers. There's better pricing. So from a volume perspective, it is way below average, which is 5% from the past, right? So we have a long way to go to catch up to the sort of average growth rate of instruments over a 20-year period for Waters. And now with better new products, with better pricing, with better innovation, we expect that to continue for a while, right? So it will continue at least until the end of 2027 is what we can say.

And now in addition to pharma replacing and part of industrial replacing, we're starting to see biotech and CROs start to replace instruments as well, right? So about 90% of our installed base is now in the midst of a replacement cycle. There's 10%, which is branded generics in China, which has still not come to the table. But that's a pretty good step forward.

Okay. And I mean, also on the last call, you did talk about -- I mean, I think you kind of gave a similar time frame, '27, '28. But you talked about kind of an extension of that cycle because of reshoring, kind of that layering in on top of kind of maybe a fading replacement cycle. So I mean, you talked about $100 billion of CapEx, can you kind of help us frame what that means? Like how much of that is addressable by waters? And how -- when we think about '27, '28 and then how much longer could kind of reshoring add on top of that to kind of keep your...

The way to think about reshoring is, look, you're taking products that were developed somewhere else or being manufactured somewhere else, transferring them because there is a benefit in general to produce in the U.S. These are largely innovative products, right, where there's market access advantage. All told, when we looked at the customer set so far, there's about 77 customers who were bona fide producing new or breaking ground or plan to -- had plans to break ground for reshoring and not for just adding volume in their existing plants, right? And that was a pretty strict exercise that we made. We said, look, what is bona fide existing volume that is just increasing and what is reshoring. So we did a pretty rigorous exercise. We said 77 customers are breaking ground, and that number keeps increasing because as we look at the market, the number rises.

More than half of them or about half of them have actually already started to build, right, and have broken ground. So 77 were going to break ground, about 36, 37 have already broken ground and 70% of those are primarily Waters' customers. That's an important fact, right? So we've done a pretty granular analysis. We are wherever people are having these discussions and the analysis suggests that 70% are Waters' customers. We're having pretty good discussions with them on what they want to order, when they want to order. The planning is there on paper. We know when the orders will come. We don't usually talk about concrete orders this far in advance, right? So we want to sort of wait until things become much more precise.

Second, our market share in the U.S. is at least 10% higher than it is in Europe. And lastly, I think this is something I've talked about in the past, any time there is a new opportunity, our win rate is higher than our incumbent replacements or our incumbent customers, right? So it's a very good setup on reshoring. I wouldn't get too excited about it right now. I know folks are talking about concrete orders right now. I don't know, but I mean we are very sort of diligent about what we call reshoring versus not. So for instance, if Lilly expands their site, which they are, that could potentially have gone to Europe, but we're not counting that as reshoring. Unless there is a concrete cause and effect from a European site to the U.S. site or an ex-U.S. site or a U.S. site, we don't call it reshoring, right? So just so you understand the math. And at the end, just look at the results. I don't think the rest of it is all sort of conjecture.

Right, right. That's helpful. I mean I guess people are just trying to understand that if there as a replacement cycle, maybe peters out in 2028, how -- I guess, how long you can kind of continue -- potentially continue that...

I mean I think you can be sure that reshoring is a real event. It will dovetail into the replacement cycle. But let's not get too sort of precise about it. When it happens and it doesn't happen, I don't know. I think what is more important to realize on the replacement side on the base business is in 2021, coming out of the pandemic, we had a massive replacement year, right? And those instruments are coming due for replacement in 2028, '29, right?

So in a strange way, you have a confluence of factors that keep the instrument growth rate higher. And I think what you also have to keep in mind, the replacement cycle generally started well before any of our peers started talking about it. Usually -- it's usually triggered by something that you're offering customers that they don't have. So innovation leads to a faster replacement cycle, a prolonged cycle. And now we're not just talking LC and LC-MS for us. We have a much broader portfolio that is benefiting from biologics, right?

So I think if you want to do the mathematical exercise of instruments, which is roughly 20% of our portfolio, there are enough drivers to assume that the instrument growth rate will be high single digits for a while to come, including innovation, including new products, et cetera, including replacement, including reshoring. If that's sort of the mathematical exercise you're trying to do, I think you can be pretty safe that it's going to be high single digits for a while.

Pretty crazy. I was already talking about replacement cycle of COVID, COVID instruments. You put some perspective how long ago that was. It doesn't seem like it. Maybe looking at A&G, I mean, -- you guys 11% growth in A&G, double-digit growth in Asia. And you even saw -- you talked about 6% growth in the Americas. I think you mentioned semiconductor research as an area as one driver in the U.S. But what's driving your outperformance here relative to peers?

I mean, again, I cannot judge what others are seeing exactly. I mean what we're doing is pretty straightforward, right? So we sort of scour the funding landscape. We look at applications, and we go to specifically those customers. It doesn't matter if they were previous customers or not, right? So in the past, what we used to do is, okay, if you're selling to Harvard, we'll keep going to Harvard. But now we say, well, no, if Harvard doesn't have money for this application, somebody else does. And that's what the funding -- and the funding is pretty transparent in the U.S., by the way, right? The grants are pretty transparent. So if you have a database that is live and you're close to the customers, you know when this is happening. Usually, when it appears in the database, it's too late. You have to have enough contacts and enough other leading indicators to find out where the funding is going. So that's number one.

Number two, no matter what end market, customers pay for innovation. When you have a new product like the Xevo MRT P10, which is a desktop mass spectrometer, high-resolution mass spectrometer that sets a standard in speed and resolution, and it is half the price of floor-standing high-resolution mass specs that our competitors supply, customers find money to pay for it for metabolomics applications as well as our other applications, right? So if there's an innovative product, the customers will find money to pay for it, right? So that's the second piece.

The third is around the applications that you're talking about, it's semiconductors, it's battery testing, it's PFAS testing. When PFAS goes from environmental matrices to food matrices to textile, academic institutions lead the charge, public health institutions lead the charge. And knowing where that is, is part of the trick. And then, of course, having the Xevo TQ Absolute XR, which is, again, the most sensitive quantitative mass spec in the market, the customers will pay for it, right?

So I think it's a lot of blocking and tackling. And this double-digit growth rate for the first half of the year is without a China stimulus. The stimulus, as you asked earlier, is anticipated in the second half of the year, and that's not in our guide, but we've grown outside of that in academia. Now I would caution in assuming that the academic market on average is going to be double digits. That's just simply not the case. It's a low single-digit grower over the long term, but we are very fortunate to have good commercial teams and good leading indicators.

That's super helpful. Maybe going back to BD. I mean, I think you're well ahead on the cost synergy side of things. I mean you talked about run rate $200 million by the end of this year, which I think is -- was your expectation for year 3, if I'm not mistaken. I mean that's pretty impressive. So where -- are you finding more opportunities? Or are you just finding it easier to attack them? And how...

Nothing is easy, man.

Yes. But it's been only 1.5 quarters or so, a quarter, and you're clearly either finding more or you're just finding it quicker. So like how should we think about the ultimate opportunity here?

I think, firstly, the teams are doing an incredible job, right? I mean this is hard work anytime you do an integration, and I have the dubious distinction of doing 2 large ones like this, one at MilliporeSigma and the other one here. On the cost side, I think you'll recall us saying, look, I mean, the average in general is 7% to 8% of the cost base, at least in Sigma, which we did 7.5% and we have signed up for 4%. So therein gives you already the indicator. We came out of the gates very fast. And I believe that whenever you have to do restructuring in an organization, you're better off doing it as fast as possible so that the teams have stability and then they can just build from there.

And that was the intent, and you see the result of that on the $200 million on a run rate basis that's already been delivered, but we're far from done. We haven't even started the manufacturing footprint optimization, which is a very significant component, the distribution optimization, the direct and indirect procurement that is a long way to go, right? So there's a lot more here.

Now the question behind the question is the margin progression, right? And I think there, there are puts and takes. The $200 million plus all the other pieces will show up in the margin, but we also want to invest for growth for the future. And we'll talk more about that as the year progresses, and we have even more data by the time we guide for next year. But we're well ahead of the model, and I think we'll remain ahead of the model for a while to come.

Okay. Maybe -- and just moving to -- you've talked about organic growth for the base business. It sounds like high single digits is a decent place to think about things. But I mean, BD is also now at mid-single digits. And that's just only after really one full quarter of being in your hands. And then on top of that, you have new products there. You've talked about replacement cycles in BD. So I mean, like -- I mean, how -- when you kind of put these 2 things together and BD becomes organic next year, I mean, what is the potential for Waters from a top line perspective?

So I think -- I mean, go back to sort of the deal model and our earlier thoughts on this, right? On average, the acquired businesses grow faster than our base Waters business historically, over a 20-year period, the base business grew between 5% and 6%, closer to 6%. The acquired businesses grew north of that, right? So if you keep that in mind as a starting point and say history can be used as a way to sort of project the future after this sort of perturbation of the acquisition, right? And now we've taken that 6% to the high single-digit domain for the Analytical Science business.

The ambition is similar for the BD business. It won't happen overnight. The levers are pretty clear, right? The levers are operational improvement, 180-day plan, and then you have the revenue synergies with instrument replacement, service, e-commerce, pricing and the like. And then you have the strategic synergies where you're basically going into the industrial facility segment, and I can go on repeating what I've said in the past, but that then allows you to take the business from where we inherited it already at mid-single digits. We'll exit Q4 closer to 6%. I'm not saying that's a jump-off point for the next year.

But the answer is between that and what we inherited it, right? And we'll have enough time to have looked at the full year and then guide beyond that. But midterm, you should absolutely expect Waters to make this whole thing a high single-digit business pro forma. And we are absolutely confident just given the number of drivers we have, given the market structure that we have. I mean, the market structure in the acquired businesses is even better. You have 1 to 2 competitors in every segment. You have a differentiated value proposition. The unmet needs are significant. The R&D spend has always been high. The question is, can you direct it in the right places, right? So really good setup for the future.

Sounds great. I have a bunch more questions, but we're out of time. It was really great to talk to you, and thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Evan. Good to see you.

Good to see you, too.

Welcome to the Waters Corporation Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. If anyone has objections, please disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Caspar Tudor, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Leila, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Waters Corporation second quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Dr. Udit Batra, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Amol Chaubal, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. including the financial and operational impact of Waters, Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses acquired from Becton, Dickinson and Company or BD. We will provide guidance regarding possible future results and commentary on potential market and business conditions that may impact Waters Corporation over the third quarter of 2026 and full year 2026.

These statements are only our present expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please see the risk factors included within our Form 10-K, our Form 10-Qs or other SEC filings and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release. During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release and in the appendix of the slide presentation accompanying today's call. Unless stated otherwise, all organic revenue growth rates are presented on a constant currency basis and are in comparison to the second quarter of 2025.

For acquired business revenue unless stated otherwise, all growth rates are presented on an as-reported basis, covering the current period in comparison to the revenue as reported by BD for the prior year comparable period that predates Water's ownership. Finally, we do not intend to update our guidance, predictions or projections, except as part of a regularly scheduled earnings release or as otherwise required by law. On today's call, Udit will begin with our key messages and business highlights. Amol will then review our financial results and updated guidance. After that, we will open up the lines for questions. I'll now turn the call over to Udit.

Thank you, Caspar, and good morning, everyone. We delivered an excellent second quarter executing ahead of guidance across all 4 divisions as a powerful new era of growth extends across Waters. We sustained industry-leading results at our legacy businesses, fueled by strong commercial performance and pioneering innovation in our product portfolio. While recovery in our end markets broadened into previously lagging customer segments and further augment our growth. We've built outstanding momentum in our newly acquired businesses in their first full quarter under Waters' leadership driving an acceleration to mid-single-digit growth as the control actions from our 180-day plan have quickly taken hold and are already reshaping their trajectory. .

We also took further decisive steps towards building our new platform for sustained long-term growth, executing flawlessly on our revenue synergies and cost actions as we enter our next phase of growth. Over the last few months, I've visited many sites and many customers. Our teams are executing with rigor and speed and advancing our value creation road map faster than we expected. I want to thank them for their dedication before we turn to the results.

In the second quarter, total company as reported revenue was USD 1.645 billion, comprising of $828 million of organic revenue and $817 million of Waters Bioscience and Diagnostic Solutions. Organic revenue grew 7% as reported and 9% in constant currency, exceeding the high end of our currency guidance range by approximately 100 basis points, with orders again outpacing sales. Underlying growth was double digits as this performance absorbed a 1% headwind from pull forward in last year's second quarter.

Bioscience and Diagnostic Solutions revenue also exceeded our guidance. Revenue outpaced guidance by $15 million and grew 4% on a reported basis versus the prior year comparable period. With these businesses under our leadership for the entirety of the quarter, we achieved a 400 basis point improvement in reported growth versus last quarter's flat full quarter growth rate. Our strong momentum and disciplined cost management offset adverse foreign exchange translation as the U.S. dollar strengthened since our last call. Adjusted EPS grew 3% to $3.05, landing at the high end of our guidance range.

Let me now cover these drivers of strength in more detail. Beginning with the Analytical Sciences division, growth was 7% as reported and [ 9% ] in constant currency with instruments up 8%, chemistry up 10% and service up 9%. We grew double digits in both our pharma and academic and government end markets for the second consecutive quarter, driven by improving market conditions, strong commercial execution and the merits of new product innovation in our industry-leading portfolio. Thanks to continued cross-divisional collaboration, we placed approximately $10 million of mass spec instruments into pharma DMPK settings in the quarter as early revenue synergies continued to build.

In Analytical Sciences, we have continued to build our innovation leadership position with a number of new product launches in recent months. At ASMS, we launched 2 new high-resolution mass spec products, the cyclic IMS 20 and the Xevo MRTP 10. Both delivered step change improvements in sensitivity as the cyclic IMS P20 raises the in structural and spatial omics, while the Xevo MRTP not only sets a new standard for speed and throughput in multiomics but does so in a highly efficient benchtop format, which is unique in high-resolution mass spec. In bio separations, we launched our BioResolve, peptide and GTS resolve lipid columns. Both delivered industry-first particle optimization, reliably separating structurally and chemically similar impurities in GLP-1 peptides insulin and nanoparticles with twice the resolving power and sensitivity of competing products.

The Biosciences division grew 3% as reported, improving 400 basis points from the 1% full quarter decline in the first quarter, excluding China, which represented a 2% headwind to growth, the division grew 5%. The growth acceleration was primarily driven by Flow Clinical, which grew 8% on a reported basis, improving versus both the 7% partial growth rate and flat full quarter growth rate in the first quarter. Performance was led by mid-teens growth outside of China, reflecting sharpened execution, greater commercial activity from new KPIs and early benefits of our incremental pricing initiatives. In Flow Research, Reagents returned to positive growth in the quarter, reflecting an improvement in customer activity levels.

At the divisional level, advanced diagnostics grew 7% on a reported basis even with China remaining a notable drag on growth due to ongoing DRG headwinds. Within the division, the acquired Diagnostic Solutions business grew 5% as reported, accelerating versus the 1% full quarter growth rate in Q1. Excluding China, growth was 7%. In microbiology, we grew mid-single digits as we drove a relentless focus on execution, improved utilization of black tech bottles and began to enact list price increases across the portfolio. In molecular diagnostics and point of care, we grew high single digits, driven by strong placements in molecular diagnostics related to HPV testing on BD core.

Also within the division, the organic clinical business unit grew 15% as reported and 14% in constant currency, led by double-digit strength in the Americas and Europe. We recently launched the Xevo TQ Absolute XR IVD mass spec, the industry's most sensitive and robust clinical IVD system. It delivers 5x greater sensitivity and a sixfold increase in robustness for critical applications, including women's health, cancer assessment and toxicology, further expanding our technological advantage in the IVD market.

The Materials Science division returned to high single-digit growth in constant currency. Strength was driven by electronic research testing, semiconductor and data center applications together with advanced materials testing in aerospace and defense applications. Our leadership in battery safety testing was recently expanded with the launch of our on-cell differential scanning calrimeter, which represents a significant advancement in battery thermal analysis simultaneously capturing thermal evolved gas and electrochemical data.

Our organic growth results reflect a successful strategy that has played out over the past several years across commercial execution, new product innovation and entering faster-growing adjacencies. Having delivered in each of these areas, we have achieved our promise of high single-digit growth over the past 7 quarters. This is the long-term trajectory strategy was built to deliver and legacy Waters is now structurally a durable high single-digit growth business.

So far, in 2026, our organic business has accelerated further, marked by 10% constant currency growth for the first half of the year. These industry-leading results reflect outstanding growth momentum now amplified as our end markets have continued to strengthen and early cross-selling revenue synergies have continued to build. Looking within analytical sciences, the best of this performance is clear. In pharma, we've grown double digits this year, driven by robust CapEx spending trends across large pharma, contract organizations and generics. This has been augmented by our idiosyncratic growth drivers tied to GLP-1 testing, India and biologics, which includes bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization.

Notably though, U.S. biotech and CROs have moved over the past 2 quarters, adding a new layer of demand to the recovery. At the same time, we have seen a strong recovery from our pharma customers in China with double-digit growth in the first half of the year, accelerating versus last year's 6% growth rate and making China now accretive to our growth again. This reflects excellent commercial execution alongside a resurgence in biotech, CDMOs and CRO activity as Chinese companies buoyed by the commercial success of their research and out-licensing model attract investment and reinvest into R&D.

Beyond the near-term recovery, this points to a broader structural tailwind. As Chinese discovery output continues to scale, and the out-licensing model matures, we are well indexed to the team since molecules developed on Waters platforms transfer cleanly into western development and regulatory pathways. In our nonpharma end market, we have seen growth rate acceleration led by double-digit growth in academic and government. Performance was broad-based across geographies, including a return to positive growth in the Americas in the second quarter.

In Industrial, which grew low single digits in the Analytical Science division, PFAS has remained a source of strength and has grown double digits this year. Our growth is led by food analysis, which has now surpassed environmental analysis as our largest PFAS application for the first time. The broad strength of our customers bodes well for the instrument replacement cycle, where we remain firmly in the middle innings with a significant run rate still ahead. Despite recent strong growth trends, our instrument revenue has grown only 2.5% on an organic constant currency CAGR basis versus 2019, well below the 5% long-term historical growth rate from 2009 to 2019. This gap reflects the multiphase recovery that has emerged since the middle of 2024, which has elongated the replacement cycle beyond what has historically been a 2- to 3-year typical duration.

Beyond the replacement cycle, pharma reshoring also represents an increasingly well-defined incremental growth opportunity for Waters in the years ahead. We've been tracking 76 expansion sites linked to U.S. pharma investment announcements. Roughly half are now under active construction, representing approximately $100 billion in CapEx spend, confirming that at least a portion of these commitments are beginning to translate into real capital deployment on the ground. Weighing the focus, modality and analytical intensity of each site, we expect instrument outfitting to drive a revenue tailwind for our analytical sciences division over the next 3 to 5 years.

As sites move into -- from construction to equipping, we are well positioned to capture a disproportionate share of the resulting demand given that approximately 70% of the track sites are linked to customer accounts where Waters hold a high market share. We are already seeing funnel activity tied to a number of these sites. In our acquired businesses, we have continued to drive positive impact from our 180-day growth revitalization plan with each of our 3 near-term rapid execution initiatives already contributing to our results.

Our first priority, driving urgency accountability and transparency, the commercial discipline and KPI focus we quickly established at the close of the transaction is now embedded and compounding across the acquired businesses. As a result, funnel conversion rates are rising, field activity has stepped up materially and the outbound momentum we built in Q1 has rested further through the second quarter. On our second priority, pine excellence and contract compliance -- we have made fast moves to embed the same discipline at Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions that we established at legacy Waters. We've hired -- we have hired dedicated pricing directors for each division structured our 2026 and 2027 pricing actions to drive incremental price realization and have already enacted list price increases across parts of the acquired portfolio, achieving 90 basis points of net price realization in the second quarter alone.

We are well on our way towards our goal of achieving 150 basis points of price contribution in the acquired businesses. On Reagent rental compliance, a review of global Diagnostic Solutions contracts remains active. The mediation efforts are underway across the approximately 700 U.S. contracts already identified as out of compliance. To supplement this effort, we have brought in a dedicated operational leader with deep industry experience who has managed similar programs before.

On our third priority, regaining share in flow research, we've made meaningful progress across several fronts. In China, we have significantly improved the speed and efficiency of export license approvals generating twice the number of license approvals in the second quarter versus the first full quarter and helping to reverse the share loss dynamics that constrained prior performance. Results have been tangible. China Flow Research, which declined 30% in the full first quarter improved to mid-single-digit decline in the second quarter, a swing of approximately 25 percentage points. Meanwhile, our localized manufacturing program for flow instruments is well underway and expected to begin contributing to growth in the fourth quarter.

With a successful transformation behind him, [ Ching Lee, ] our General Manager for the -- as China business has now taken on the added responsibility of revitalizing growth for Biosciences in China. Ching and his team are moving decisively to implement new commercial rigor and accountability while sharpening our focus on the pharma market given the recent in Chinese biotechs, CDMO and CRO activity. Across our geographies, we also have an attractive share recapture and instrument replacement opportunity in flow cytometry with the fax discover A7 cell analyzer, which we unveiled at SITO and is set to launch on September 15.

The A7 fills a key gap in our portfolio while setting a new benchmark in spectrum flow cytometry, bringing IVD-level standardization and reproducibility to a spectral analyzer for the first time. Leveraging automation and self calibration, it also enables workflows to easily transition between instruments and users, representing meaningful innovation for our customers. In Advanced diagnostics, BACTEC FXI, our next-generation blood culture system recently received FDA 510(k) clearance, enabling U.S. commercialization as we scale the launch globally in microbiology. With placements now beginning in Japan and Europe, we are excited about the instrument replacement potential that BACTEC FXI holds, particularly given the early customer feedback we've received.

BACTEC FXI is a groundbreaking system. It detects bloodstream infections up to 3 hours faster than competing systems offers 2 to 3x the input capacity and provides customers with meaningful productivity advantages and labor cost savings. It leads across each of the critical attributes that matter to our customers and is now the flagship product of the industry. Depending on daily volume, customers can extend up to 10 days of annualized time savings versus the prior generation systems. And we have already -- we are already seeing benefits in practice as 1 of our early adopter sites in Japan, reported an 80% reduction in hands on time after switching to FXI.

With these notable new advantages the funnel is building and the commercial opportunity ahead is substantial. With over 12,000 aged BACTEC systems past due for replacement, we have a large, well-defined installed base that we intend to convert. Much like how Alliance iS has given -- has driven durable replacement revenue in HPLC, we expect BACTEC FXI to be a multiyear growth engine in microbiology. Beyond our near-term execution, we're also making early trials into high-growth adjacency in biosciences that we believe will become increasingly important over time.

As AI models continue to become more capable of designing -- as AI models grow more capable of designing new antibodies, proteins and genetic constructs, the limiting factor is shifting from competition to biology. Generating large-scale immune and disease data sets, these models depend on and require physical biology testing. Flow cytometry is well positioned as an enabling hardware layer given its unique ability to capture high-parameter single-cell resolution at real-time clinical scale. Our recently announced strategic partnership with IMU Biosciences is an early proof point of our important role supporting next-generation immune profiling and AI-enabled precision medicine in clinical diagnostic applications.

IMU has raised over $50 million to date as it accelerates its work to decode the immune system and transform how we understand, diagnose and treat disease. Together, we're scaling a precision immunology platform for population-wide immune mapping and disease characterization in what is expected to become the world's largest immune data set.

Turning now to our cost actions and updated guidance. We have completed our planned cost actions for 2026 as our teams flawlessly implemented our restructuring plan with speed and discipline. In operations, we have unlocked spend control, driven by early direct procurement savings, restructured field operations in service and begun optimizing manufacturing and supply chain costs. Across functions, we've made significant progress on cost efficiency by optimizing spans and layers, eliminating redundancy and achieving a leaner centralized cost structure. These actions also carry an important strategic dimension beyond the cost benefit. They sharpen the structure of acquired businesses, reduce bureaucracy and accelerate information flow. They also support the direction of accountability and commercial focus that will make them structurally stronger over time.

Together, these actions reflect $75 million in cumulative cost savings expected in 2026, supporting solid margin progression in the second half of the year. They also represent approximately $200 million of expected run rate savings, placing us ahead of schedule that we had already laid out. They put us in a strong position to hit our margin expansion goals and drive mid-teens adjusted EPS growth over the next several years.

To close, let me frame our 2026 guidance and give an update on our value creation road map. With momentum building across our portfolio and end markets, we are raising every component of our full year 2026 guidance, which Amol will detail shortly. Our growth strategy has delivered and legacy Waters is now a sustainable high single-digit grower. For the acquired businesses, we are running ahead of our goals for the first half of the year and are positioned for growth acceleration in the second half of the year. The 180-day plan has progressed rapidly. Revenue synergies are already contributing to our results, and we are launching category-defining new products. This positions us to build further momentum in the second half where cross-selling synergies are joined by instrument replacement, service plan attachment and digital channel adoption.

In total, we remain well on track to deliver $50 million of revenue synergies this year. In Biosciences, we will benefit from China localization and new commercial leadership in the second half, positioning us well with the local biotech and CDMO community and driving faster growth. While the launch of fax discovered A7 coincides nicely with a strengthening biotech and academic end market in the U.S. In Advanced Diagnostics, we delivered high single-digit growth despite a 2% China DRG headwind that rolls into the baseline in the fourth quarter with BACTEC FXI and on Clarity, HPV at home testing solution now launching, the setup for the second half is excellent.

As end market conditions continue to strengthen and our growth strategy compounds, Waters is better positioned today than at any point in recent history with a broad portfolio, a larger installed base and the cleanest set of growth catalysts we've ever had. With that, I will now turn the call over to Amol to cover our financial results and guidance in more detail.

Thank you, Udit, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter of 2026, we delivered total company as reported revenue of $1.645 billion. Organic revenue was $828 million, growing 7% as reported and 9% in constant currency. Versus our guidance, constant currency sales were 100 basis points above the high end of the guidance range, while foreign exchange translation was 150 basis points. Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions generated $870 million of revenue, representing 4% reported growth versus the prior year comparable period, led by 6% growth outside of China. .

By geography, as reported revenue was $690 million in Americas, $505 million in Europe and $450 million in Asia. Total company adjusted gross margin came in line with our expectations at 54%, reflecting an anticipated sequential step down as our ownership of the acquired businesses normalized to a full quarter versus a partial quarter in the last period. Total company adjusted operating margin was also consistent with our expectations at 25%. Our tax rate was 15.6%, and net interest expense was $55 million with adjusted EPS of $3.05 landing at the high end of our guidance range.

On a GAAP basis, we reported a diluted loss per share of $1.39, reflecting acquisition-related purchase accounting charges, including amortization of acquired intangibles and inventory step-up as is typical following a transaction of this care. Free cash flow for the quarter was $202 million after approximately $21 million in severance payments, $27 million of integration cost payments and given timing of net cash settlement. At the end of June, the net cash settlement due to orders from BD was $157 million.

Turning to our results by operating segment. The Analytical Sciences division delivered as reported revenue of $669 million, up 7% as reported and 9% in constant currency. In constant currency, instruments grew 8% and chemistry grew 10% and service grew 9%. By end market, Pharma grew 11%, while non-pharma grew 4% as academic and government grew 11% and industrial grew 1%. Within pharma, strength was driven by a robust replacement activity, our idiosyncratic growth drivers and further traction in pharma DMPK clinical settings. We also saw further improvement in market conditions with stronger U.S. biotech and CRO spending, adding a new layer of demand to the recovery.

Growth was led by the U.S., China and the rest of Asia, each up double digits or better. Within academic and government, strength was driven by mid-teens growth in Europe, double-digit growth in Asia and 6% growth in the Americas. Demand remains strong for our revitalized mass spectrometry portfolio in discovery applications, including for the Xevo MRT, which is seeing strong customer traction. We also saw an emerged contribution in ANG from semiconductor research.

Within Industrial, continued strength in food and environmental, led by double-digit growth in PFAS applications was partially offset by softness in chemical analysis, where customer ordering pattern can be lumpy and more macro sensitive. The Biosciences division delivered as reported revenue of $368 million, representing 3% reported growth versus the prior year comparable period and a 400 basis point acceleration in year year-over-year growth versus the full first quarter rates.

Flow Clinical grew 8% on strong commercial execution, pricing, and improving end market conditions. Flow research declined 2% with the trajectory improving through the quarter as the regions returned to growth. In Flow Clinical, we grew mid-teens outside of China, while China declined 20% due to ongoing DRG constraints and lack of localized product portfolio, which we are in the process of addressing. In Flow Research, the return to positive growth for RUO Reagents reflects an improvement in execution, pricing and underlying customer activity levels as market conditions continue to strengthen.

Our annual way of commercial actions tied to RUO share recovery also began to contribute such as improvement in China research instrument growth trends tied to export license approval volumes. The Advanced Diagnostics division comprised the formal BD Diagnostic Solutions business and the clinical business unit previously reported within Waters division. Total as reported revenue for the division was $521 million, representing 7% reported growth versus prior year comparable period. Within the division, Diagnostic Solutions were $449 million of as reported revenue, representing 5% growth in the quarter and also a 400 basis points acceleration in growth versus full first quarter trend.

The clinical business unit delivered $72 million of revenue, up 15% as reported and 14% in constant currency. In microbiology, reported revenue was $319 million, reflecting 4% growth driven by improved commercial execution and incremental pricing actions. Growth outside of China was 6%, while China declined 13%, which was better than expected. In molecular diagnostics and point of care, reported revenue was $129 million, reflecting 9% growth in the quarter, driven by strong placements in HPV testing on our BD core platform. In the clinical business unit growth was led by double-digit strength in the Americas and Europe, with early commercial collaboration across advanced diagnostics also beginning to contribute.

The Material Sciences division delivered as reported revenue of $87 million in the quarter, representing an increase of 6% as reported and 8% in constant currency as spending trends improved across our range of applications, including aerospace and defense and electronics testing for semiconductors and data center applications. Now I will share further commentary on our full year outlook and provide our third quarter guidance. Beginning with organic revenue, we have achieved excellent results so far in '26 as our sustained growth trajectory is being augmented by additional customer segments now returning to growth. With this strong momentum, we are raising our full year 2026 organic constant currency revenue growth guidance to 7% to 9%. Foreign exchange translation is now expected to be a headwind of approximately 60 basis points, resulting in 2026, organic reported revenue of $3.37 billion to $3.431 billion.

Turn to our acquired businesses, we now expect Biosciences and diagnostic solutions to deliver approximately $3.045 billion of reported revenue in 2026, raising our prior guidance by $10 million, which reflects an underlying improvement of $25 million, offset by $15 million of FX. Together, total 2026 reported revenue is expected to be approximately $6.415 billion to $6.476 billion based on latest FX rates. Our full year adjusted EBIT margin is expected to be 28.2% in 2026, consistent with our prior expectations as foreign exchange translation is offset by the $20 million of overachievement from our 2026 cost actions.

Net interest expense is now expected to be approximately $190 million and our full year tax rate is now expected to be approximately 15.5%. Putting all this together, full year 2026 adjusted earnings per fully diluted share is now expected to be $14.45 to $14.65. This represents year-over-year growth of 10% to 12% and is 12% to 14% in constant currency. For the third quarter of 2026, we expect organic constant currency revenue growth to be in the range of 8% to 10%. And Including the effect of currency lesion, organic reported revenue is expected to be in the range of $850 million to $867 million. We expect revenue from Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions to be approximately [ $ 95 million ] in the third quarter of 2026, in line with the typical sequential seasonality for these businesses.

Together, these results in total reported third quarter 2026 revenue of $1.745 billion to $1.762 billion. Third quarter adjusted earnings per fully diluted share is expected to be in the range of $3.95 to $4.05, which is 16% to 19% growth. Turning to our implied guidance assumptions during the second half of the year. At the midpoint, our organic revenue guidance prudently calls for a 3.6% quarter-over-quarter step-up between the second and the third quarter, below the seasonality patterns we've seen over the last 2 years. Additionally, it prudently implies a 12.8% step-up in the fourth quarter, which is also below recent seasonal patterns.

In the overall P&L, our cost actions are expected to yield a $25 million adjusted operating income benefit in the third quarter and a $50 million benefit in the fourth quarter for a combined positive estimated P&L impact of approximately $75 million, underwriting the solid margin progression in the second half guidance. With that, I will now hand it back to Caspar.

Thanks, Amol. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to open the lines and take your questions. .

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. .

Congrats on a nice print here. Udit, maybe a first 1 for you on BD Life Sciences, it likely grew north of a 5% constant currency this is well above deal model, right? We're like 5 months into the deal, we're doing north of 5%. This is despite China headwinds persisting before any contribution from new products like your BACTEC FXI and pricing actions. Like how should we think about BDLS in the medium term? Is this now like a north of 6% asset in your mind?

Vijay, thanks for the question, and good morning to you. Look, first just setting the context, I am ecstatic about the execution that we're seeing from our teams in Life Science -- in BD Life Sciences and BD Biosciences and Diagnostics. It is A plus, right? And Water is an execution machine, but I wait this as A plus really fantastic mid-single-digit growth for the acquired businesses already. As we move into the second half of 2026 and into '27 enabled by leadership changes, strengthen execution, as you mentioned, across pricing, instrument replacement, digital commerce. We have a fantastic operating with them, right? And for Bioscience, A7, FACSDiscover A7 is launching on September 15, in now a much improved biotech and academic funding environment.

In China, we've localized our portfolio and we have the full flow cytometry portfolio available in Q4. So that should bring some nice there. For diagnostic solutions, FXI has launched well in Japan and in Europe and now available in the U.S. with the 510(k) approval, roughly 4,500 instruments in the U.S. alone waiting for replacement. And in China in Q4, the DRG headwinds will be in the baseline. So if you put it all together, we expect to exit the year with 6% or better growth rate for the 2 businesses and that sets us up really well entering into 2027. So I could not be more pleased with the execution we are seeing. .

That's helpful, Udit. And Amol, maybe 1 for you. Organic revenues for raise your cost action estimates were raised, but EPS increase of $0.05 that just reflects the second quarter bit being carried forward, right? Are we being conservative here on the EPS fall through? And can you just clarify if any tariff refund assumptions were baked into this EPS? .

There's a couple of things there, right? So look, I mean, between the organic sales raise and the higher cost actions, we get about $0.03 of EPS. But then about $0.25 of EPS are eaten up by stronger U.S. dollar. And that's why you sort of see $0.05 EPS raise for the full year. Two, if you look at how the implied guidance for Q4 for the organic business, it is a like 4% constant currency growth. No doubt, we have about 3 less working days in Q4, but they will translate to about 1%, 1.5% headwind to growth.

And I think where the business trajectory is at this point, we're quite confident that the business is performing really well and will relatively stay there. It's a prudent guide for Q4. and we see how it plays out in Q4 on that context. And then the last piece is on the tariff refund, right? I mean, as you know, from last year, we were the first ones out of the gate to rapidly neutralize the impact of tariffs in our P&L by early October, the P&L was neutralized. So when the tariff refunds would come, we will also have to go back on some of the surcharges we've charged customers, right? So net-net, it will be net neutral.

Your next question will come from Evie Koslosky with Goldman Sachs.

So you mentioned you're starting to see pricing flow through on the BD business. Maybe walk us through how much of the guidance raise in the raise in the acquired business is related to pricing? And then how quickly we could ramp to the 150 basis points? And I guess anything you're hearing customers as you work through these implementations? .

Yes. So Q2, EV, we did 0.9% versus the traditional 0.5. 0.5 was embedded in our guide last time. So we are increasing to 0.9 for the remainder of the year. The goal and aspiration is still to get as quickly as possible to 150 basis points. .

Yes. I mean just to build on that EV for 1 second, you will also remember we talked about the reagent rental compliance. We have 700 accounts in the U.S. that we've profiled segmented. We've hired an expert from outside who is actually used to renegotiating these contracts and getting benefit for the company. So we expect that to help not just improve pricing, but also accelerate the uptake of our new products in those customer segments. So very excited about what we're seeing on that front. .

Okay. Great. And then I wanted to touch on some of your comments on reshoring. How much of this is incremental versus just kind of shifting geographies? And then should we expect this to be additive to your organic growth expectations or more of just kind of a shifting forward? And then anything you could provide in terms of timing of when you expect this to flow through? .

Look, I mean, first, on incremental growth. Look, we've been growing 8% on average for the last 7 quarters in what's been an up and down market for many of our peers, right? So we don't need reshoring to add on, but it is incremental in the short to medium term. Over the long term, it's probably left pocket, right pocket as you look at the global pill count. In the short term, by short term, I mean 2027 to '30. I mean, we have incredible visibility on customers who have broken ground. I mean we talked about 37 or so of them, there is another similar number that are planning to break ground there, we feel we have a very strong position. Roughly 70% of those customers are Waters accounts. So as they shift from 1 geography to the other, we expect to maintain our share or gain share. So really excited about that.

Overall, the reshoring benefit, I mean, if you take just 2 things away from our prepared remarks and what I'm saying now, one, it's a concrete opportunity in -- from 2027 to 2030. And two, we are very well placed to capture the opportunity. I won't quantify at this stage, what we're going to see, and you'll see that coming through over the next few quarters. But very happy with the visibility and the position we have there.

Your next question will come from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

Udit, I want to touch on some of the flow cytometry initiatives. Good to see the return of growth in clinical. Just on the research side, how much of the pressure do you think is just lingering headwinds on U.S. academic and government and biotech versus other factors? You mentioned the China initiatives, but I'm just curious about some of the other initiatives to turn around the flow research business?

Yes. It's a great question, Tycho. On the flow reagent side, that grew this quarter, so low single digits. The headwinds are largely based on the instrument side. Bulk of it is from China. In fact, the U.S. saw growth on the instrument side in Bioscience and we are seeing benefits of an improving academic and biotech market in the U.S. for sure. And just to sort of complete the thought on China. In China, there are sort of independent variables that you need to keep in mind. One, we have a broader flow cytometry portfolio available starting Q4. We've sort of localized our portfolio the same playbook we ran for legacy analytical sciences. .

And two, from an execution standpoint, we've put the guy in charge who has driven really outsized growth in China for us for the last 6, 7 quarters and driven sort of double-digit growth in China for us for the Analytical Science business. This is Ching Lee. So we feel very good about the setup for Biosciences. And as I said in prepared remarks and to an earlier question, we expect to exit here in BioScience north of 6%.

And just the only thing I would add is the S8 and A8 doing fantastic. But then there is the gap that will rapidly be addressed with the launch of A7 and that will take care of the ex China, any remaining headwind.

Yes, fantastic. And on A7, what you need to keep in mind is this is down Waters is fair, right? It's an instrument design for high-volume use where you can transfer methods from 1 flow cytometer to another, 1 user to another. So feel very good about the product. .

Okay. That's full. And then a follow-up on the guidance. Maybe just a little bit more color. I mean, you're raising BD by more than the beat obviously. How much of that's bioscience versus microbio versus molecular? And then on margins, you're maintaining the guide despite taking up cost synergies. I guess, how should we think about the underlying margin trajectory really thinking about '27 here is 100 basis points still on the table for next year? .

Yes. So a couple of things there. So on the BD raise, we are raising the underlying by about $25 million, and then that's partially offset by strong U.S. dollar by about 15%. So the net raises about $10 million. It's relatively evenly spread between Flow versus Diagnostic Solutions and even within Diagnostic Solutions sort of evenly spread between molecular and micro and a little bit lopsided to clinical versus research on the biosciences side. Then when you look at the margin, I mean, no doubt the $20 million of additional cost actions brought in 30 basis points of better margin. But because of the currency mix of our business, the stronger U.S. dollar took away the 30 basis points on margin returning back to [ 28.2]. We're still ahead of our underwriting on margin, right? Because we kind of said we go from 27% to 32% over the course of 5 years, 100 basis points each year. So we're running ahead of the 28% for this year, and our outlook is 100 basis points a year. .

Your next question will come from Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim.

Our checks suggest that you've already implemented a change in how discounting is managed at BD in general. We've heard that even in flow cytometry and to some extent in microbiology. Where are you in the process of how BD manages discounting? How is this driving you towards your eventual pricing goals, meaning is this still early innings? And then lastly, as you make these changes, is there a risk that as you potentially require more approvals to discount, you become less nimble relative to competitors. How do you manage that?

Yes. I think, Subbu, great question. Look, we've implemented this playbook on the legacy Water side, where we set up a deal desk -- in fact, from a bureaucracy standpoint, it reduces the bureaucracy. Everyone is clear on what the escalation is, sometimes the approvals even come to my desk. So the deal desk model is efficient. It's been adopted by both divisions now. We have a deal desk across every region, very clear escalation protocols that allows us to manage the discounting really well. If anything, it's faster.

And in terms of pace, I mean, it's just the beginning, right? So we've already seen 90 basis points in Q2, where implementation of the deal desk and the execution discipline gave us a lift from the historical 50 basis points to 90, we're well honor to get to the 150 basis points. And as I said, you should expect faster approvals as opposed to slower.

Fantastic. And recently, you had a competitor come out and adjust that outlook for China microbiology. Can you give us your latest thoughts on how you see growth potential in that market and the specific ways you expect to maintain your outlook in the region despite reform.

Yes. Look, I mean, first, I mean, if you take a step back on China as a whole on the Diagnostics side, it's mostly microbiology for us. It came in actually better this quarter than we had predicted. It grew -- it basically declined low teens as opposed to 30% that we had put into our models. So did better. And then from a future perspective, we've implemented several changes in the country itself. We are localizing our FX portfolio. That should be available in Q4 in the country. We've made leadership changes, and we've made execution changes on the ground level. So we feel pretty good about where we sit on the microbiology business. And what is ahead of Waters and not just the industry ahead for Waters, not just the industry. So with the availability of FX and FXI that is locally made with the leadership changes, feel pretty good about what we want -- what we expect with China going forward.

Your next question will come from Puneet Souda with Leerink. .

Great. Thanks for the question here. Congrats on a great print here. Good to see the BD acceleration here with it. The first 1 is actually in Water instrumentation and GLP1 Pharma is clearly strong for you here. But just wanted to see how much contribution you saw from GLP-1s in the quarter? And how should we think about that trajectory going forward, both in the developed markets and in India as well. I just recall this being a major contributor that you had talked about at the prior Investor Day, so I wanted to get some color there.

Yes. Let me start and then let Amol add in. Look, GLP-1s, Puneet grew that part GLP-1 testing for part of the business grew over 40% this quarter. Broad-based growth across virtually every geography. Americas over 30%. Europe, over 36%. India almost doubling the business itself. So very broad-based. And also in China, where 1 of the leading contract manufacturers are supporting [ Eli Lilly ] in their contract manufacturing where we have a meaningful share. So very broad-based growth on GLP-1 testing. And as you look ahead, I mean there are no signs of slowing down. The pipeline is very good. The funnel looks both on instruments as well as on the chemistry side. So really no slowdown on that front. In fact, moving ahead -- moving ahead of what we had promised on the GLP-1 testing contribution.

Yes. I mean, look, broadly, we had said the idiosyncratic growth drivers will all add up to about 200 basis points. And the GLP-1 contribution there was about 30 basis points. Clearly, GLP-1s are running well ahead of that. .

Got it. Got it. Great. And then on the BD side, I mean, with the 180-day plus plan, it seems that that's run its course. I mean, you're seeing strong results across the BD Enterprise which of the initiatives are more permanent run rate versus one-timers in the enterprise. I'm wondering how should we start to think about the sort of the annualized revenue contribution here in '27? How should we think about '27 with the BD raise here in '26?

There will be ample time to talk about 2027, Puneet. But I mean, all I can say is add it all up and we exit '26 north of 6%, and that's sort of very aggressive from what we had started with very positive from where we started with a minus 10% last year same time. So really happy with the execution. Our 180-day plan -- these are systemic improvements, right? So the first 1 is on the commercial execution. And we expect that to now be embedded in the organization on funnel management, on pricing and the like. The second 1 is pricing and reagent compliance. I mean we -- as I mentioned earlier, already 90 basis points. We're well on our way to get to 150 basis points. And the Reagent rental compliance, I mean, we know the customers that have been delinquent -- we have value propositions for different segments and those will get implemented over time.

And the third 1 was around China, right? I mean once we localize our portfolio in China, that's a gift that should keep giving plus we have 1 of our best GMs in the company, leading now Bioscience in addition to his Analytical Sciences Divisional responsibility. So those are systemic improvements that we expect to contribute going forward. And as you look ahead, remember, our revenue synergies were not just cross-selling of what we talked about earlier, which is $50 million for this year. Total revenue synergies, including cross-selling in drug metabolism, but also cross-selling of LC-MS and diagnostics, instrument replacement, digital commerce service and pricing, all of those will augment to the growth already that you're seeing from the 180-day plan.

So very excited about what we're seeing. I mean, the teams are collaborating really, really well. Couldn't have asked for better execution. As I mentioned earlier, I mean, Waters is a strong execution company, but this is A+ execution.

Your next question will come from Jack Meehan with Nephron Research.

First question, I wanted to follow up on Tyco's second question more around the cost actions, though. So you've built in $75 million for 2026 with a $200 million run rate, is that $50 million in 4Q a good starting point for thinking about what 2027 could look like? Or should -- or is there a different way we should think about kind of the building blocks in the next year on the cost synergy side? .

Yes. I mean great question, Jack. So the $50 million in Q4 is largely in hand because we've already taken these cost actions. People have been communicated, they have their debts, et cetera. And so that already puts us at a $200 million run rate. And that covers a big portion of the scope we outlined. But I mean, as you can imagine, as we look at the business and optimize the business further, there are areas which we continue to look at, such as network consolidation at this point that takes typically time, looking at things such as how we manage inventory and that produces outcomes. So those things will come as we go through the years to come. .

Let me add on a bit, Jack, right? I mean, you'll remember our benchmark that we had shared from some previous deals was about 7.5% of total cost base. I mean, $200 million is 4%. We have a fair number of initiatives that we want to continue to -- continue to implement beyond the $200 million that we've already delivered. It's too early to add that on to 2027 and beyond. And we will have ample time to talk about it. But I think you think your question is the right one. I mean what else do we expect? There's more. I mean, there's no question about that. .

Great. And then Amol, 1 just phasing question for you. So when I look at the acquired revenue, you did $817 million this quarter. You're guiding to $895 million next quarter. How much of that is like the historical seasonality of these BD businesses? Obviously, like they had a different fiscal year-end than water. So I'm wondering whether the seasonality should look similar in Waters hands like just in terms of how the sales force is being incentivized?

Yes. I mean pretty much so, right? I mean, just keep in mind, our transformation is turning ahead of plan, and that could normalize some of that seasonality. But other than that, I mean, there's about consistent with how the businesses have been performing in the last 2 or 3 years. .

Your next question will come from Dan Leonard with RBC Capital Markets.

At a risk of being a bit redundant here, I just want to talk a bit more about the sustainability of the improved trajectory in BD and reconcile some of the math. So Udit I hear you that the exit is greater than 6% growth, but you have a negative 10% comp in Q4. And that $895 Q3 guide, that does assume a deceleration in growth compared to your trend. So sort of similar to Jack, I'm not sure if there's a fiscal versus calendar dynamic, but just hoping you could reconcile some of that math?

Yes, there is some amount of that, right? In the sense, if you specifically, if you look at Q3 being year-end for BD, there was about $20 million of trade inventory build in Q3 that unwound in Q4, and that creates a 3% or so growth headwind in Q3 and a 3% tailwind in Q4. Yes, we don't plan to do that here.

Yes. And on the 6% growth, right, look, I mean Q3 had a higher base, Q4 had a lower base. But I mean, the better way to think about it is the second half of the year, right? First half, we -- basically, the first quarter of full ownership, we finished at 4%. And when you look at the second half, we're accelerating versus the first half of the calendar year, right? So the business is accelerating as you go from the first half to the second half. I mean the quarterization guys is very difficult to predict in a newly acquired business, and this is something that I've seen in the past with the Sigma acquisition as well. We feel very good about the momentum that we're seeing in the business and the 6%, it gives you a very good starting point as we enter 2027. .

And also China is 6% already for both the businesses. And China started to come into baseline so in Q4...

For both business. .

Understood. And then as a follow-up, I was hoping you could share more of your early insight into the diagnostics replacement opportunity. with the FXI, -- would you compared it to the alliance I asked, but just given that the markets are different between diagnostics and pharma, I was hoping to get some of your early learnings. .

Some similarity and some differences. Look, I mean, it's a replacement business regardless. That's the similarity. It's 12,000 instruments that are ripe for replacement. 4500 in the U.S. alone, excellent uptake of FXI, -- it's a differentiated product with a clear value proposition and customers are seeing the benefit wherever we've launched it already. So remember, whenever we talk about replacement cycles, it's not just the math, it's also the value proposition of the new product, right? So the reason we're excited about the replacement cycle that we see with FXI as well as with A7. There's an in stories that is right for replacement. But these are fantastic new products that are meeting clear, clear unmet needs.

So the similarity to Alliance iS is it's a differentiated product with an incumbent installed base that we know, we know the segmentation and the installed base replacement will go exactly according to what happened with Alliance iS, it's a multiyear process. The difference is that it's a Reagent rental model, right, which in itself is actually an advantage because the -- it allows you to take advantage not just of the replacement opportunity but also of delinquent accounts. Where you can go into the customer and say, "Hey, owe me XYZ from the past, let's accelerate your replacement with the FXI BACTEC, right? So the reagent rental model has several advantages, 1 of which is the lack of compliance that we see from the past, and that presents an opportunity.

And the second, it shows up as recurring revenue, where you can add on pricing in a sustainable way. So it's similar and different similar in the sense that it's a replacement cycle, new products, different in the sense that it's actually going to be a sustainable recurring revenue that you will see over a benefit of over many, many years.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I will now hand it back to Caspar.

Thank you, Leila. This concludes our call. We look forward to connecting with many of you at upcoming events and conferences. .

Okay. We're going to go ahead and kick it off. I'm Tycho Peterson from the life science team. It's my pleasure to have Udit from Waters with us today. So welcome, Udit.

Maybe we can just start with a quick look back on 1Q. Obviously, very strong growth in the legacy Waters business. We'll start there, up double digits. Clearly, humming along in the replacement cycle. Just talk about some of the gives and takes, particularly on the biopharma side you saw in the quarter.

Firstly, thank you for having me, Tycho. It's great to be here. A fantastic quarter, double-digit growth. And we saw that this is the legacy business that you're talking about. Instruments still high single digits, LC-MS replacement cycle going very strong. New products doing extremely well, Alliance iS, TQ Absolute, XR, MRT, nice contributions from new products across the board, the idiosyncratic growth drivers with GLP-1 testing, PFAS testing, India generics, all contributing nicely.

On the recurring side, chemistry had another terrific quarter, even with the extra days, which was -- it was about 13% growth. Service grew 12%. Even if you adjust for the extra days, it's high single-digit growth. So really fantastic quarter. And I think you asked about the end markets, especially pharma. Pharma was a standout, mid-teens growth, high single-digit growth in U.S. and Europe, driven by large pharma replacing and new products. India generics doing just as well as it has over the last -- used to high teens growth in India, and that it didn't disappoint.

China was the standout. In pharma, China grew over 50%. And this is driven by the local biotech industry fueling the growth of CDMOs and the local pharma companies. And so fantastic growth, nothing to complain about. And we had virtually something for everyone in this particular quarter across the board. Equally in the guidance itself, we said, look, we're going to use the opportunity. We beat the guidance by about $60-ish million on the top line. The EPS was nice mid -- actually almost 20% growth. And there, too, we had room, but we just said, look, let's just derisk the second half of the year and use this opportunity to create a bit even more prudence in what we see as the latter of the year. So feel very good about where we sit.

And just as a last comment on where we are now, you'll remember at the Analyst Day about 1.5 years ago, we had laid out an algorithm. And we had said, look, if the industry grows between 4% and 6% on top, you add about 100 basis points of additional price versus last several years, take 100 basis points away from China being slower than it has been in the past for the industry and for us. Add the idiosyncratic growth drivers, 170 basis points, we upped that to 200 basis points in the recent times. And then we said, look, as long as the replacement cycle goes on, you should expect us to grow high single digits to high single digit plus. And that's been sort of the ZIP code we've been in for the last 1.5 years, high single digit, high single-digit plus and this time, double-digit growth.

So I feel good about what we set in motion. The operational inertia, the operational sort of tactics that need to get in place after you lay out concepts is out of the system. And so we're executing that plan, I think, really well.

Anything you're willing to say on pharma strength post 1Q? We've heard some of the peers, April and May actually has picked up for a lot of the customers -- can't do it.

We can't. Maybe you can do it. Good try.

Let's double-click on China then. Over 50% growth. It's more CDMO biotech right now than generic, right? So maybe just talk about those end markets. And then obviously we can talk on stimulus and academic?

So I think -- start with biotech. Roughly 1 in every 3 molecules that are in-licensed now out of China into the rest of the world, roughly every 1 in 3 molecules that is in-licensed in the biotech industry comes from China, right? And this is something that's been built up over a long period of time. This has not happened overnight. The Chinese government brought in a lot of talent from the U.S. and Europe into the academic institutions. They have now been funded to start their own biotech companies. The Chinese FDA has made preclinical trials much -- and early-stage clinical trials much simpler to run in China itself. So there are structural advantages of starting work for biotechs in China that is, of course, now supported by world-class CDMOs like WuXi. And equally, which is most important, in my view, is you're starting to see the rise of large pharma companies akin to Pfizer and Merck with discovery-led and research-led institutions in China itself, right?

So [ Zhang Wei ] is starting to build that and a couple of other pharma companies are building their version of Pfizer, GSK, et cetera, in China. So this is not a onetime impact. I don't expect pharma to grow over 50% every year in China for us or every quarter in China for us, but it is now a secular trend, and we intend to take advantage of it.

And I want to just share one example with you. I mean we talk about onshoring and we talk about localization of portfolios and local manufacturing, but equally important is the technology development that is taking place in China now, right? So we saw one of our large CDMOs take our high-resolution mass spec. And this is the first globally, our Xevo MRT, use it for a GLP-1 in quality control. This has never happened before. We've been trying with BioAccord for the last 3 to 4 years. We have a compliance software. It is an enterprise-level software. It serves all the needs to -- enter QC. It has entered QC for some large pharma companies in the West, but at a modest level.

But this is a first for a high-resolution mass spec like Xevo MRT to enter into QC. What does that mean? That means -- and that's for a GLP-1 for one of the large GLP-1 manufacturers globally. What does that mean? That means that once these high-resolution mass specs enter QC for impurity testing in China, they will then -- the same thing will start to happen in the rest of the world. I'm super excited about that, right? And so it's not a laggard. It's not a localization of portfolio. It is a leader. China is a leader for us now in pharma.

I think you were saying last night that WuXi kind of implements the same protocol at every facility around the world?

Yes. And in fact, I mean, there was a complaint from our China head who said, I'm winning all this business with WuXi, but they're doing their production in Singapore. So the APAC region benefits, and I should get $4 million, $5 million of credit. I said, okay. That all is fine. But jokes aside, it's fantastic to work with such engineers who are actually pushing our teams to do things faster. I mean Waters speed is something that we take pride in. But I mean, even we are being pushed in China. It's fantastic. I mean it's really, really good. And it's also true not just in that space for one of the large food testing companies. We've been forever trying to crack a global contract testing organization. One of our competitors has lion's share in it. We've forever been trying to crack it even with better instruments and better workflows, we've not been able to crack it. In China, we did, right? Because there was a pull and they're willing to give new technologies that are better a chance and incumbency has some value, but not infinite value, and it's fantastic.

And then you talked about localizing workflows, manufacturing, you're doing it with flow, right, and streamlining export processes. Just talk a little bit about when that translates into orders and revenues as we think about tenders.

So -- here now you're referring to the Bioscience business, right? So unlike our Analytical Solutions business -- our Analytical Sciences business, which is legacy Waters, where we localized our full portfolio, and we're able to compete in local tenders for any customer for Bioscience, we've been restricted from doing that, right? Because we haven't localized the portfolio. And it's actually true for microbiology as well. And for those businesses, for some reason, the portfolios were not localized even to the slightest degree. So we approved that, right, when the deal closed, and we will start to see orders -- actually sales come in, in Q3 and Q4.

And you would say, well, how can you localize so fast? I mean, localization doesn't mean local production. Localization means different pieces of the value chain have to be localized to be able to compete in local tenders with the promise that you localize more over time. We have a site in Suzhou. Sometimes that is a constraint if you don't have a site itself, which is ready to actually take these workflows. We've already tech transferred them. They're going through local approvals. As I said, we move at Waters speed, only second to China speed. So it's fantastic when the two things come together. So in Q3, you should start to see orders from locally made flow cytometers and next to follow will be locally made BACTEC FXI -- FX instruments.

And maybe just rounding it out on China, how do you think about kind of normalized China growth once the export headwinds roll off?

It's a tough question, especially if you come off the back of an 18%, 20% growth quarter, right? We've still modeled mid-single digits in our guidance. But to pass the red face test, everywhere you look, especially where we are exposed and the choices we've made to be in pharma, to support the biotech industry, to support the academic institution and to support microbiology, I see no reason why it shouldn't start to traverse towards high single digits by the time of the year ends.

Maybe just stepping back and looking at BD, 1Q came in better than expected, obviously, reset numbers on the 4Q call. Maybe just level set us now. It's been a few more months since the deal closed. As we think about what's under your control, where are you most excited? Where are you seeing the most tangible benefits from some of the changes you're enacting? Is it commercial, operational?

So just take a step back, right? I mean, let's just sort of look at the full context, right? Whenever you look at a business, you want to look at the characteristics of the end market, you want to look at commercial execution and then you want to look at innovation, right? I mean those are the choices you make. From an end market perspective, Waters has always been focused on downstream regulated settings where volume is easy to understand, bill count, number of infections, number of patients that you can verify publicly, right? And so we are always looking at those sorts of segments and we want to get stronger in those sorts of segments.

And for the last 5, 6 years at incumbent Waters, we've basically been in that space. We've executed well commercially and then we've introduced new products, to go from what used to be a low single-digit grower to a high single-digit to a double-digit grower. And we are starting the same journey with the acquired businesses now, right? They are largely downstream and they're in high-volume regulated applications like microbiology, like clinical for flow cytometry. The only things that are missing are an intense focus on commercial execution. And then once you've done that, launching new products really well, right? And so those are the two things we'll enact now.

So now to answer your question specifically, I mean, think of the transformation plan and the integration in 3 phases. First is the 180-day plan. This is self-help. This was nowhere underwritten. But when you look at such a business, you say, "Okay, are you actually going to your customers often." At Waters, what we found is we were going to customers 2x as many -- 2x more -- twice as more as some of our BD colleagues were. And so we implemented a tracking mechanism in the U.S., in particular.

Second, we said, okay, that's all well and good. How strong are your funnels, right? Is it just a conversation between two people? Or do you actually know if the lab head actually has funding and if they have approval for funding to buy the instrument that they're saying they're going to buy. so the fidelity of the funnels allowed us to meet our forecast for this particular quarter. And after many quarters, these two businesses have met their forecast. And that has to do with the robustness of the tracking of the funnels.

And then we said, look, that is all well and good. Think about pricing. Are you actually able to command pricing? And what is your pricing mechanism and pricing control mechanism? It's one thing to have a high list price. It's another to have a high landed price. How are you controlling discounts? And Waters has what are called deal desks. These are people who meet twice a week, who review hundreds of different deals over a month and approve them or modify them so that we can win versus competition, right? This is a discipline that's been there at Waters. It's being now implemented in bioscience and diagnostics.

The second part of pricing was contract compliance. These are reagent rental businesses where once you agree to a price volume curve with a customer, the customer has to comply with the volume in order to get that price. And what we saw is close to 50% of the customers in the U.S. diagnostics business were not complying. They're buying lower volume, and that's a double-digit million delinquency that we are now starting to recover.

And then finally -- and this is again self-help, right? Finally, when you talked about China already, we found that the business had not localized products in China, and we were somehow our teams were handicapped versus competition. And we wanted to remove that handicap. We have already done it. And that handicap once removed, will allow us to capture market share and capture the growth that we deserve to capture. That's just the 180-day plan. That I call setting the tone, right? And that gets you -- sort of gets everybody to understand the culture that we're building.

Then you talk about the synergies on the revenue side, right? So there are tactical synergies. These are ones you can feel and touch and you know that we've executed them in the last 5 years. This is increasing service attach, instrument replacement, e-commerce, launching new products, and we have 3 fantastic new products across the businesses. In fact, we had a press release this morning on our FXI approval for microbiology in the U.S. as well. It's already approved in Europe and Japan.

Very excited about the replacement opportunity, about the placement opportunity of that new product. A7 is a high-volume flow cytometer for routine applications that will be launched in the second half of the year. And thirdly, we've launched our HPV solution, home collection kit. These are three massive launches. You're lucky to get one every 3 to 4 years. We're getting three all at the same time, so we have to launch them well. So this is for me the second bucket, which is tactical synergies. Here and now, we can all see it. They're tangible. We've just done that over the last 5 years.

And then there are the strategic synergies. Can you enter the industrial segment with microbiology? There's a market that's already ready. We have to modify our portfolio. We've already assigned a team to do it.

Can you improve your bioseparations growth from double-digit growth to even higher by having access to antibodies? We have access to world-class antibody production. So we're going to do that.

Can you take flow into QA/QC? We're starting to see benefits of cross-selling already with mass specs into drug metabolism. This is in the reverse direction.

And can you automate LC-MS? All of those are in motion. But from short to long, 180-day plan is already showing benefit. The tactical synergies will start to show benefit now in Q2 and onwards and the strategic synergies latter half of the year. So it conceptually is very clear. The accountability is very clear. Now the question is, how do you get the inertial friction out of the system so we can execute like incumbent Waters is executing.

And maybe just diving in on -- first of all, the announcement a couple of hours ago on FXI, you're pulling forward the time line. So maybe just talk about how...

Let's give credit where it's due because when I saw that, and we said, look, we've accelerated the launches. I went to the R&D head at Micro -- in our Diagnostics business and said, "Hey, how could Waters have accelerated the launch? We -- the acceleration is longer than the time from the close to now." And he said, "Look, as soon as we knew we were going to be acquired. And during integration planning, we sort of saw how you guys are operating. People said, okay, we've got to get out of the gates fast." So there is an acceleration, but I wouldn't say that it's happened under Waters' management. It has happened under that team, which is exceptional, right? It goes to show with increased focus, with increased ambition, I mean, people want to do well. And these are fantastic portfolios. As I mentioned, these are great end markets where we have privileged positions. We have a bit of self-help to execute, and then we start to address the significant unmet needs that exist in these areas.

And let's just spend a minute specifically on microbiology because I know that's been a focus and a pressure point. You just had a good first quarter there, right, up -- low double digits ex China. Just talk about where you're feeling better on microbiology, in particular.

So again, I mean go back to the framework I set up upfront, it is just looking at the market itself, the end market. Volume grows on the high end of low single digits, say, 3-ish percent. Our nearest competitor has been commanding pricing between 200 and 400 basis points. From 2019 to '24, that segment -- that end market grew 6.5%, way faster than any diversified tools company, including Waters. Waters was one of the fastest, and we didn't come close to it, right? So it is a fantastic end market. The unmet needs are very significant. I mean for a sepsis patient, it takes roughly 18 hours from the time they enter a hospital to the time they are prescribed the right antibiotic. And every hour delay increases the mortality by 5% to 10%, roughly 300,000 people in the U.S. die of sepsis every year, right?

So unmet needs are significant. Technology solutions need to be brought in. But there is need for self-help, right? I mean we -- it's a market that grows, but we've been underperforming in the market. And in Q1, we got out of the gate strong. As I mentioned, the 180-day plan starts to show impact. Microbiology as a whole grew for the full quarter roughly 5% for the stub period a bit faster than that. And if you look at -- if you take out the China impact, it's even faster, right? China was -- China declined about 15%. So ex China, it grew really rapidly, right?

So you already start to see momentum of just focusing on the business. And that said, there are two or three, as I mentioned, self-help topics. One, we had a supply challenge with our BACTEC bottles. We are still only about 80% to 85% of the utilization prior to the supply challenge. There is zero reason why we shouldn't be 100%. In fact, Brazil is at 110%. So the creative folks have actually used that supply issue to increase penetration and others have said, oh, you know what, maybe I can't supply, right? So we're pushing the team to get back to 100% or 100%-plus, right? So there's an opportunity there.

Second, we have about 12,000 or so instruments that are out there, the FXI instruments. And there is a significant replacement opportunity that are basically instruments that are over 5 years old. And there are roughly 4,000 or 5,000 that are over 10 years old. We have just launched the new version of it, FXI, which is the most automated platform in the industry. It is a closed system. It is able to use the highest number of bottles per unit in an incubator. So a new product has been introduced exactly at the time when the replacement cycle is picking up.

So the self-help pieces will allow us to get -- I mean, I don't want to sort of set the milestones too high, but there is no reason why we shouldn't be growing faster than our competitor because we have trailed them for many, many years. And our consumption on the consumables is lower. Our instruments are aged. So we should be playing catch up like we did with Waters in '21 and '22. We grew faster than the industry because we had catch-up. And so we have catch-up here for the next 1 year, 1.5 years, where microbiology should grow faster than the industry. There's only one other meaningful competitor in the space. We should be commanding better pricing. And then you can address the significant unmet needs, right? So it's a fantastic end market. I mean there's a lot of self-help to be executed there.

Maybe a similar question on the flow side. So research clinical grew 7% in the first quarter. Just unpack what you're seeing by end market, consumables versus instruments. And where do we sit on revenue synergies and starting to kind of push it into QC bioanalytical characterization.

Sure. So let's start with the overall business. So half of it is clinical customers, half of it is what we call research and pharma customers. On the clinical side, the reagents business itself grew 6% for the full quarter. And not just for the stub period. For the stub period, it was much faster, right? I just take the full quarter. And for the full quarter, it was 6%. And that business in itself, our highest margin business across the new Waters is our clinical reagents business from Bioscience. And that's been growing slower than some of our other businesses. So their task is to grow that business faster.

And as I mentioned earlier, there is an issue with contract compliance. And we just reviewed Europe 2 days ago, where the European team has done the same analysis we did with the clinical business in the U.S., and they've also found delinquency in contract compliance on reagent rentals. Now they're going back and trying to figure out the value propositions that we need to offer customers to increase compliance, so you should see that business growing faster. Fantastic business.

The second is the research reagents business, which is also a very good business. There's another competitor here who's now also been public about how they focus on quality and orders and then finally on pricing. So it's a -- the market structure there is also very good. There's only one other meaningful competitor in that space. Our challenge has not been the quality of our products. Our challenge has been on delivery. And there, we're doing two things. One, we're basically improving the front end, which is what we did with Waters to improve the e-commerce platform. And there, we've hired about 100 new people in our Global Capability Center in Bangalore to expedite that process. And finally, the third piece is delivery, which you can't fix overnight. And usually, customers expect 24 -- between 2 hours and 24 hours. If you're in China, they expect their antibodies in 2 hours. If you're outside of China, they will accept 24 hours delivery time for research antibodies. And to get to that point, you need to have your distribution network be global. You can't do that overnight.

So we're going to partner with distributors who have global infrastructures, have them hold inventory for us and then partner with them to improve the demand and delivery. So that's the reagent side, really clear plans to expedite growth. And then on the instrument side, the A7 product, as I mentioned earlier, it's a high-volume use flow cytometer -- a spectral flow cytometer that's being launched in the second half of the year, actually June, July time frame. At [ CYTO ], we'll talk about it more next week. So really excited about that. So on all three fronts, we see, the base business growing faster beyond the 180-day plan as well.

Now you asked about synergies on flow in QA/QC or other synergies with Bioscience. The Bioscience business has already helped us penetrate drug metabolism accounts. We saw roughly $5 million of upside for our analytical business coming from Bioscience accounts. Now equally, on the other side, taking flow cytometry into QA/QC, first, it starts with process development, where our analytical business has a much larger presence, and we're starting to see that sort of the seeds of that being soon.

For it to enter QC, we will have to have flow cytometry be compatible with Empower, that's going to take a little bit longer, 1 to 2 years development time and then you'll start to see the penetration like we did with light scattering, right? So I think that's how I would break it up.

You touched on pricing a couple of times. Just maybe talk a little bit about when we could really start to see this show up in the P&L. I know you've implemented some deal desk...

I mean we've incorporated 50 basis points in the guide. You should see something better than that. It's -- over the long term, we've -- with Waters had roughly 200 basis points of pricing over the last few years. At the Investor Day, we said, look, 100 basis points above the 50 basis points that we've seen historically. So for the new businesses also, you should have the same expectation. 50 basis points is what's been there historically, which is what is in the guide. There's no reason why in 1.5 years from now, you shouldn't be seeing 150 basis points or 200 basis points, which is what we said also in the investor call.

And then just thinking about chemistry on the base business. Talk about what you're seeing and durability above the historical trends there, call it 8% to 9% versus traditional 7%. I think given pricing is sort of unchanged at 5%, it suggests 1% to 2% from new markets, new products. Just talk a little bit about...

And I think you nailed it. I mean the simplest way to -- so first answer your question, the simplest way to think about it is, historically, chemistry has grown 7%. With our bioseparations growth and our products there, you should expect 150 to 200 basis points of faster growth just coming from those, right? So that's the simplest way to think about it, assuming similar pricing.

Now you take a step back, and I think it's instructive to look at the journey about 5-ish years ago, we decided that we're going to spend bulk of our R&D spend in chemistry on bioseparations. So over 70% of R&D spend went towards bioseparations. And step by step, we started to build the portfolio. And last year alone, we launched 12 new products on the back of our MaxPeak Premier column, right? It takes 4, 5 years to sort of build these portfolios and start to see the benefit. And with MaxPeak, the insight was very simple. Large biologics basically get stuck to surfaces. And we said, how do you build an inert surface without having it leach off. We built that with MaxPeak. And then on top of it, we started to sort of come up with better particles, better surface chemistry that would be compatible with the biology of these complex molecules.

Our nearest competitor launched their inert column 5 years later. So we have the market to ourselves for roughly, if I think of it this way, right? So each of these new modalities now that are being separated with our columns has that 4- to 5-year window. And then once they get spec-ed in, they are sort of for the long term, going to grow like bioprocessing does high single digit, double digits. So we are now in a zone where you will see us grow way faster in one quarter, a little bit slower because we are specking into discovery a lot of our columns. So you'll see a spike and then you might see a bit of a slowdown. But over the steady state, you should see a high single-digit growth, right?

And as you think of the balance of the year, we've said, look, it's going to be mid-single digits. Q2, in particular, remember, we had a $10 million pull forward in China in Q2 last year, and that sort of is a headwind that one has to surmount. So that's why we've said chemistry, think of it as a 4-ish percent grower in Q2, maybe a bit higher, maybe a bit lower. But add the $10 million, that's another 6% of growth. That also gets you into the high single-digit, double-digit domain, right? So no matter how you look at it, we're traversing in at least the high single-digit domain for a while in chemistry.

And just part of the excitement around the deal is getting access to the antibody library. When should we think about stranded products -- projects on the BD side start to shake loose?

So two parts to that answer. First, existing antibodies, we looked at the existing library of antibodies. And out of the 12 programs that were stranded, 8 have been kicked off already, right? So we found antibodies that existed that the team is already manufacturing that we have substituted external vendors for our internal capabilities already, right? And it takes, give or take 6 to 12 months to basically do the conjugation, do the experiments, work with the customer to start to see if they're interested in embedding that into their workflows. But 6 to 12 months from the time you start, you start to see first impact, you probably launch the product in 2 years, right? So that's sort of the time frame for these 8 antibodies.

Then there are the additional 4 that we said we need to build sort of develop those antibodies internally, and we're doing something slightly more than that now. We're now looking at our global infrastructure and saying, hey, given that we produce antibodies, should we not think about expanding our library of antibodies and supply them for use in other areas as well, right? So you can already see a hint towards building an antibody business, and why not, right? I mean there is a plan that's ready to build an antibody facility in Singapore. We've sort of nixed it and we said, no, let's look at our internal capabilities in every geography. And can we take -- can we build a brownfield approach. So we're looking -- we're examining that. So they're a two-pronged approach: One, support our bioseparations business; and two, can we expand our antibody production capabilities to have a library of antibodies available for our customers and not just be a producer of flow antibodies.

Great. Just got a few seconds left. I guess, maybe just coming out of ASMS any message you want to take away? Obviously, new introduction here, maybe slowly moving into kind of high-res.

I think incredibly proud of the team that's leading mass spec. I mean it's gone from a team that was obsessed with high-resolution mass spec 6 years ago to one that builds strength in high-volume tandem quads with TQ absolute, TQ Absolute XR, then equally had Skunk Works projects behind the scenes to improve our high-resolution offering with the Xevo MRT and now a benchtop Xevo MRT, which is the fastest high-resolution instrument on benchtop available today in the industry equally improving cyclic, and this is where your question is going to start moving into proteomics, make no mistake. I mean that's an area that's attractive. We just felt 5, 6 years ago, we were in no position to build while we were losing in our home base, which was high-volume mass spec. So we're winning in our home base now. We're attacking drug metabolism as well. We feel we have a right to win there. And yes, the answer to your question is yes. We are interested in proteomics, and we are working on ways of making a difference and stay tuned.

Great. We'll leave [Audio Gap]

Good morning. Welcome to the Waters Corporation First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. If anyone has objections, please disconnect at this time.

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Caspar Tudor, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Lila, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Waters Corporation's First Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Dr. Udit Batra, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Amol Chaubal, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company, including the financial and operational impact of Waters combination with the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business of Becton, Dickinson and Company or BD. We will provide guidance regarding possible future results, as well as commentary on potential market and business Waters Corporation over the second quarter of 2026 and full year 2026. These statements are only our present expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please see the risk factors included within our Form 10-K, our Form 10-Qs, our other SEC filings and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release.

During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release or in the appendix of the slide presentation accompanying today's call. Unless stated otherwise, all organic revenue growth rates are presented on a constant currency basis and are in comparison to the first quarter of 2025. For acquired company revenue, unless stated otherwise, all results cover our period of ownership from the transaction closing date on February 9, 2026, through to the end of the quarter for acquired company revenue growth rates, unless stated otherwise, all growth rates are presented on an estimated as-reported basis, covering the period of ownership in comparison to the prior year equivalent period that predates Water's ownership. Finally, we do not intend to update our guidance, predictions or projections, except as part of a regularly scheduled earnings release. or as otherwise required by law. On today's call, Godet will begin with our key messages and business highlights. Amol will then review our financial results and outlook. After that, we will open up the lines for questions.

I'll now turn the call over to Udit.

Thank you, Caspar, and good morning, everyone. We delivered an excellent first quarter as a combined company, marking the start of a new powerful era of growth across our 4 divisions. We achieved double-digit organic growth in our legacy businesses, delivered meaningfully better-than-expected revenue for our newly acquired businesses and grew adjusted earnings per share by 20%. We also took decisive steps towards building our new platform for sustained long-term growth, driving strong momentum and underpinning our raised full year growth outlook.

Before turning to the numbers, I want to recognize our teams for delivering this strong start to the year. They are enacting immediate operational improvements, continuing to deliver pioneering innovation and collaborating effectively to deliver revenue synergies already, all while ensuring a smooth transition from BD. It is a true privilege to work with my colleagues, and I'm proud of what they have accomplished.

In the first quarter, total company as reported revenue was $1.267 billion, comprising of $747 million of organic revenue and $520 million of Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions following February 9 acquisition closing date. Organic revenue grew 13% as reported and 11% in constant currency, exceeding the high end of our constant currency guidance range by approximately 200 basis points. Orders again, outpaced sales. Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions revenue exceeded guidance by $40 million and grew an estimated 7% on a reported basis versus the prior year equivalent period, a strong opening performance for these businesses under Waters' leadership.

On a full quarter pro forma basis, comparable revenue growth also exceeded expectations and improved meaningfully relative to fourth quarter trends. Execution initiatives launched at the close -- at closing drove flat year-over-year reported growth despite a $20 million headwind in respiratory testing due to the weak flu season. Excluding these impacts, growth was approximately 3% for the full quarter. With our strong top line performance, combined with disciplined cost management and operational excellence across the organization, adjusted EPS grew 20% year-over-year to $2.70 per share, exceeding the high end of our guidance range by $0.35.

Let me now cover these drivers of strength in more detail. Beginning with our organic revenue performance. The Analytical Sciences division grew 12% in constant currency, with instruments up 8%, chemistry up 13% and service up 14%. In pharma, we grew mid-teens with sustained above-market performance supported by our unique exposure to idiosyncratic growth drivers, continued strong instrument replacement and excellent adoption of new products in our high-growth adjacencies. In academic and government, we grew high teens, driven by strength in Europe and broad-based demand for our revitalized high-resolution mass spec portfolio. In industrial, we grew low single digits, led by chemical analysis and continued momentum in PFAS testing applications. Thanks to the effective cross-divisional collaboration, given our diligent integration planning, approximately 1 percentage point of analytical sciences growth was driven by tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry sales through the Biosciences channel and early proof of revenue synergy realization.

Within the Advanced Diagnostics division, the clinical business unit previously reported within the Waters division grew 14% despite DRG weakness in China. Strength was led by double-digit growth in the Americas and Europe. The Material Sciences division grew low single digits, reflecting solid performance across core industrial and high-growth applications given present macro conditions. Turning now to our newly acquired businesses. The Biosciences division delivered $230 million of revenue, representing 7% estimated growth on an as-reported basis from the closing date of the transaction to the end of the quarter. Flow research and Flow clinical, both grew 7%, Reflecting improved execution and increased commercial activity. Reagents grew low double digits, while instruments remain pressured due to U.S. academic and government trends, and ongoing China-related constraints, including export restrictions of high-parameter products and lack of a localized product portfolio. Meanwhile, overall demand for our recently launched FACSDiscover A8 and S8 systems remained strong.

On a full quarter pro forma basis, Biosciences declined 1%, marking a significant improvement from the 10% decline in the fourth quarter of 2025. This inflection is further underscored by our ex-China growth which was 4% for the full quarter. As we localize the China portfolio in the second half of this year, launch additional new products and implement incremental new commercial actions as the year progresses, the business is poised for further acceleration throughout 2026. Within the Advanced Diagnostics division, Diagnostic Solutions delivered $288 million of revenue, representing 8% estimated growth on an as-reported basis from the close date. Microbiology grew 10% and reflecting improved commercial momentum tied to the newly enacted KPI discipline ahead of our BACTEC FXI launch in blood culture. On a full quarter pro forma basis, Diagnostic Solutions business grew 1%, a clear acceleration from high single-digit decline in the fourth quarter of 2025. Excluding respiratory testing headwinds, growth was 6% for the full quarter, reaching mid-single-digit underlying growth sooner than expected.

At the divisional level, including the clinical business unit, Advanced Diagnostics grew 3%. Excluding these same respiratory headwinds, the Advanced Diagnostics division grew 7.5% for the full quarter pro forma basis, reflecting strong underlying momentum. This inflection was delivered even ahead of the full benefit of our commercial execution initiatives and new product launches and despite a 2% China DRG-related headwind that will annualize into the baseline in the second half of the year, positioning the business for continued acceleration as we enter the back half of the year. Less than 90 days post close, we have already made notable progress after taking control of the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses as is evident in our results. Immediately after the February 9 closing date, we launched a 180-day plan to reinvigorate growth centered on a focused set of rapid execution initiatives. Early results have been outstanding, driving a clear and meaningful step in revenue -- a step-up in revenue performance relative to the pre-closed performance trends.

Our first priority was to instill focus, accountability and urgency across our newly acquired businesses. We have since substantially increased the frequency and rigor of forecast and funnel reviews, with deeper inspection of conversion rates, deal progression and pipeline quality. This has driven greater visibility and transparency, faster decision-making and improved commercial execution. In parallel, we have taken deliberate actions to increase commercial activity across the organization. We have raised expectations around customer engagement, driving our sales team to spend more time in the field, getting in front of the customers and increasing outbound activity. This has been reinforced with clear KPIs and daily management, resulting in meaningful increases in call volume customer visits and pipeline generation, which is driving stronger funnel trends and overall commercial momentum.

Our second near-term priority under our 180-day plan is pricing discipline. We have deployed our experienced Waters pricing team across Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions where we have conducted a comprehensive pricing review and are establishing 2 new deal desks. We are already seeing tangible results with pricing actions taken right away in the quarter, already beginning to augment revenue performance. In addition, we are actively reviewing reagent rental contracts and utilization data to identify commercial opportunities. Within U.S. Diagnostic Solutions alone, our initial review of 1,600 contracts has identified approximately 700 that are currently out of compliance, representing a double-digit million shortfall annually. We see meaningful opportunity to improve operational follow-through on these contracts in the quarters ahead.

Our third near-term priority is to regain share in Flow research. We have already approved and initiated actions to localize manufacturing of Flow instruments in China to improve market access and reduce export complexity, addressing a key source of share loss. We intend to begin manufacturing key products in China for China, starting in the third quarter, which is already providing our team a strong impetus to begin competing for tenders that require local manufacturing. We're applying the same playbook that has made our analytical sciences business a growth leader in China. For Flow research reagents, we're improving product availability and speed to customer by adjusting our distribution strategy, leveraging new channels and mobilizing Waters' existing distribution network. These actions are expected to begin resolving prior constraints that have impacted share beginning in the second half of this year.

We remain the market leader in downstream high-volume life science applications, spanning LCMS, light scattering and precision chemistry workflows together with related service and informatics. In the first quarter, we launched our next-generation Microflow LC Chemistry Columns with MaxPeak Premier technology, delivering up to twice the sensitivity of traditional microflow columns for used in high-throughput bioseparations, DMPK and OMEX applications. In light scattering, we also recently launched our omniDAWN Multi Angle Light Scattering Detector, which is an industry first extended range detector for use in UPLC and meeting the rising throughput and resolution requirements of our customers. These new product launches increased our degree of differentiation when serving large molecule applications in our attractive end markets.

In microbiology, we recently announced that our next-generation blood culture system, the BACTEC FXI, has received CE marking under the European Union's In Vitro Diagnostic regulation, representing a key milestone in our microbiology product road map and delivered ahead of schedule. BACTEC FXI is a groundbreaking new product that combines industry-leading automation, allows 60 sample loading and offers a 3-hour faster detection time than the current generation BACTEC, which was launched over a decade ago. This system is now available in Europe and Japan, and we're pursuing additional regulatory approvals in other key global markets in the months ahead. In molecular, we recently received FDA clearance for our BD Onclarity HPV self-collection kit and BD Onclarity HPV assay, enabling at-home cervical cancer screening with extended genotyping for multiple high-risk strains. This solution allows patients to collect their own sample at home, which is then analyzed in the lab using the BD Onclarity HPV assay, removing barriers to the screening access.

Cervical cancer is highly preventable, yet remains significantly underscreened. Nearly 1 in 4 women in the U.S. is not up to date with cervical cancer screening despite HPV being the primary cause of nearly all cervical cancers. Screening gaps persist due to access challenges, discomfort and patient avoidance of pelvic exams, self-collection directly addresses these challenges by offering a less invasive and more convenient alternative with a proven ability to increase screening participation. As the most comprehensive at-home cervical cancer screening tool available, we are empowered by a mission to remove these barriers that prevent individuals from receiving routine screening. Our goals are aligned directly with the priorities established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which identified expanding at-home testing as a top public health priority last year. We have already begun to sign contracts with strategic partners as we bring this solution to market.

Now turning to the synergies. On cost synergies, we remain firmly on track to deliver our $55 million target for 2026 driven by organizational optimization, procurement savings and network optimization with a clear line of sight to deliver. Since February 9, we have moved quickly to enact our restructuring plan and are now in advanced stages of implementation. We expect these actions to improve cost efficiency by optimizing spans and layers, eliminating redundancy and achieving a leaner centralized cost structure as part of the integration. The associated savings will hit the P&L beginning in the third quarter of this year.

We've also activated our centralized spend control tower, increasing visibility into indirect spend and driving more disciplined procurement execution. These actions are enabling us to capture savings across key categories while improving control and accountability. At the same time, we're also taking business level cost actions, separate from our synergy program and rightsizing costs in areas where there is clear opportunity to realign with the revenue base. together with our growth outlook, these actions support solid margin progression in the second half of the year. On revenue synergies, as I mentioned earlier, we're already ahead of plan. We have moved quickly to activate cross-selling across the combined commercial organization, leveraging the Biosciences channel to drive incremental demand for mass spec in pharma clinical settings. We expect further contribution as we continually scale these efforts throughout the year. As we progress through 2026, additional synergy levers will start to build across instrument replacement, service plan attachment and e-commerce. In total, we remain well on track to deliver $50 million of expected revenue synergies this year.

On instrument replacement of the 22,000 ripe for replacement, 12,000 are BACTEC, with over 50% greater than 5 years old and over 25% greater than 10 years old. Since February 9, we have accelerated the U.S. and European launch of BACTEC FXI by 3 to 5 months relative to the inherited business case, creating earlier revenue capture across the significant installed base opportunity. On service plan attachment, we have completed the first ever full coverage analysis of low microbiology and molecular diagnostics installed basis. Beginning this quarter, we are assigning these opportunities to account-level representatives supported by clear KPIs and our water service leadership team. an effort, we expect to drive at least $20 million of incremental revenue over the next 5 years. On e-commerce, we have scaled our digital capabilities team in recent weeks. We now have more than 100 full-time employees in our e-commerce team at our global capability center in Bangalore. This investment is a key enabler of a future best-in-class e-commerce platform, strengthening our competitive position and driving increased customer adoption of digital ordering channels, which is a key synergy.

Turning now to 2026 guidance and our value creation road map. We have begun 2026 with significant momentum, driven by the instrument replacement cycle, idiosyncratic dose drivers and accretion from our high-growth adjacencies. As a result, we are raising our full year 2026 organic constant currency revenue guidance to 6.5% to 8%, reflecting our strong first quarter performance and embedding $15 million of expected revenue synergies from cross-selling of mass spec. For the acquired businesses, we now expect Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions to generate approximately $3.035 billion of reported revenue in 2026, which includes $35 million of expected revenue synergy contribution tied to the vectors I just covered, including instrument replacement, service plan attachment and e-commerce. Together, total 2026 reported revenue is expected to be approximately $6.405 billion to $6.455 billion based on latest FX rates.

Turning now to EPS. Given our strong first quarter results, updated FX assumptions and the prudence embedded in our second half outlook, we are raising our full year adjusted EPS guidance by $0.10 to $14.40 per share to $14.60 per share, reflecting growth of 10% to 11%. With our synergy levers now underway, we have an excellent platform for continued strong performance as a new powerful era of growth begins, unfolding in 3 phases over our midterm outlook. In Phase I, where we are today, the incremental performance at our acquired businesses is tied to immediate operational improvements, such as those outlined in our 180-day plan, together with early revenue synergies from cross-selling. The strong Q1 results give us confidence that this foundation is being built at speed. In Phase II, these operational improvements are then joined by our full first tranche of revenue synergy levers, spanning instrument replacement, service plan attachment and e-commerce. These are near-term well-defined opportunities that are expected to begin contributing starting in the third quarter of this year.

In Phase III, the strategic power of this combination becomes most visible. New product launches and bioseparations taking flow into QC in bioanalytical characterization and our new platform launches such as rapid stability testing are expected to add further incremental growth vectors as we increasingly leverage our joint capabilities. Each of these spaces takes us further up the growth curve from the mid-single-digit pro forma growth rate where our full year guidance sits today, progressively upwards into the high single digits over the next several years. This is very similar to what we have seen at our legacy Waters business over the last 5 years. At the same time, we expect to drive significant margin expansion augmented by our cost synergies and expect to achieve at least 100 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion every year through the end of the decade.

Together, this powerful equation yields a mid-teens adjusted EPS growth algorithm and one we are executing against with increased confidence. In summary, we are laser-focused on delivering value through our execution and operational improvements, innovation launch excellence and synergy realization. With this transformation already underway, this value creation journey is beginning now and we are doing so at speed.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Amol to cover our financial results and guidance in more detail.

Thank you, Udit, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of 2026, we continue to deliver industry-leading growth. We delivered reported revenue of $1.267 billion, which was ahead of expectations. Momentum remained strong at Waters organically, and our newly acquired businesses delivered a strong start as our 180-day growth revitalization plan began to take hold.

Organic revenue was $747 million, growing 13% as reported and 11% in constant currency, which was 200 basis points above the high end of our guidance range. Our newly acquired businesses delivered $520 million of revenue during our period of ownership, $40 million of our guidance and representing 7% estimated as-reported growth versus the comparable prior year [ stop period ]. Importantly, performance was ahead of expectations on a full quarter pro forma basis as well. As reported growth for the full quarter was flat improving notably versus the prior quarter and underscoring the strength of our execution and growth revitalization initiatives. Excluding $20 million of respiratory testing headwind, growth was 3% for the full quarter.

By geography, as reported, revenue was $505 million in the Americas, $412 million in Europe and $350 million in Asia. We effectively managed our supply chain and mitigated elevated freight costs, tariff costs and inflationary pressures while continuing to invest for the long term. Total company adjusted gross margin was 54.7%, approximately 200 basis points better than expected. Adjusted operating margin was 23.6%, also approximately 200 basis points better than expected. This reflects strong margin results in a dynamic macro environment and one achieved before the benefits of our cost synergies and broader cost actions start to flow through the P&L. Our operating tax rate came in at 15.6% and net interest expense was $38 million.

With our top line strength, disciplined cost management and operational excellence, adjusted EPS grew 20% to $2.70. On a GAAP basis, we reported a diluted loss per share of $0.87, reflecting acquisition-related purchase accounting charges, including amortization of acquired intangibles and inventory step-up as is typical following a transaction of this scale. Free cash flow for the quarter was $42 million outlay impacted by deal-related transaction costs and the timing of net cash settlement with BD.

Turning to our results by operating segments. The Analytical Sciences division, which is our legacy waters division, excluding the clinical business unit, delivered as reported revenue of $607 million, up 14% as reported and 12% in constant currency. In constant currency, instruments grew 8%, chemistry grew 13% and service grew 14%. Instrument strength was broad-based across both LC and MS driven by robust replacement activity and our idiosyncratic growth drivers across GLP-1s, PFAS, India generics and biologics. Leveraging the Biosciences sales channel, we also achieved strong mass-spec results in pharma clinical settings, as Udit outlined. Chemistry growth was again led by MaxPeak Premier and new products within bioseparations which have been a vertical success. Our service results reflect strong pull-through from recent expansion in service plan attachment levels.

By end market, pharma grew 14%, non-pharma grew 8% as academic and government grew 18% and industrial grew 3%. Within Pharma, spending trends remain strong across ethical pharma, CDMOs and Chinese biotech. Growth was broad-based with high single-digit growth in Americas and Europe. Asia grew nearly 30%, led by over 50% growth in China, low teens growth in India and low teens growth in Japan. Within academic and government, growth was driven by strong spending trends in Europe and solid demand globally for our revitalized high-resolution mass spectrometry portfolio, including Xevo MRT and Xevo CDMS. In China, we continued strong capture of stimulus standard opportunities. Within Industrial, Asia grew mid-single digits, Europe grew low single digits and the Americas was flat. Growth was led by chemical analysis and PFAS applications. For PFAS, we sustained strong growth despite a tough prior year comparison led by double-digit growth in both Europe and China.

The Biosciences division, which represents the former BD Biosciences business delivered as reported revenue of $232 million, representing 7% estimated as-reported growth from the closing date to the end of the quarter versus the comparable prior year [ stopped period ]. Reagents grew low double digits while instruments remain pressured due to U.S. academic and government trends and China-related constraints such as lack of localized product portfolio. Overall, Flow Research grew 7% and Flow Clinical grew 7% with stronger commercial execution driving increased activity levels across both business areas. Within Flow Research, performance was led by reagents and strength in our FACSDiscover A8 and S8 instruments, particularly in Europe. Within Flow Clinical, ex-China grew 13% while China declined 25% due to DRG headwinds. By geography, Europe grew over 30%, the Americas grew 10% and Asia declined high teens, led by China.

On a full quarter pro forma basis, Biosciences declined 1%, representing significant sequential improvement versus the fourth quarter trend tied to our commercial actions. On an ex China basis, Biosciences growth for the full quarter was 4%. The Advanced Diagnostics division comprises of the former BD Diagnostic Solutions business, and the mass spec Diagnostics clinical business unit previously reported within Waters division. Total as reported revenue for the division was $349 million. Diagnostic Solutions delivered $288 million of as reported revenue, representing 8% estimated underlying growth from the transaction closing date to the end of the quarter. The clinical business unit delivered $61 million of revenue, up 16% as reported and 14% in constant currency.

On an as-reported basis, microbiology revenue was $203 million, reflecting 10% underlying growth for the own period, driven by improved commercial momentum as our execution initiatives began to take hold. Ex China grew low double digits, while China declined 12% due to DRG headwinds, which was better than expected. Molecular Diagnostics and Point of Care revenue was $84 million, reflecting 2% underlying growth for the owned period. On a full quarter pro forma basis at the divisional level, advanced diagnostics grew 3%, which includes a 4.5% headwind from respiratory and a 2% headwind from China. The acquired Diagnostic Solutions business grew 1%, reflecting a significant improvement in growth versus fourth quarter trends. Growth for the full quarter was driven by microbiology, which grew 5% led by high single-digit ex China growth.

Excluding the same respiratory headwind, Diagnostic Solutions grew 6%, setting us up well for the rest of the year as these headwinds are not expected to recur. The Material Sciences division delivered as reported revenue of $79 million in the quarter, representing an increase of 6% as reported and 2% in constant currency. Growth was led by strength in high-growth segments such as batteries and electronics testing as well as aerospace, and we saw continued momentum in electric vehicles and data center applications. However, this was partially offset by soft trends in core industrial applications such as chemicals and materials.

Now I will share further commentary on our full year outlook and provide our second quarter guidance. Beginning with organic revenue, we have entered 2026 with significant momentum, driven by instrument replacement cycle, our idiosyncratic growth drivers and accretion from our high-growth adjacencies. We are raising our full year 2026 organic constant currency revenue growth guidance to the range of 6.5% to 8%, reflecting our strong first quarter performance and embedding $15 million of expected revenue synergy contribution. We now expect foreign exchange translation to have neutral effect on organic sales, which translates to organic reported revenue of $3.37 billion to $3.42 billion in 2026.

Turning to our acquired businesses. We now expect Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses to generate approximately $3.035 billion of revenue in 2026, which includes $35 million of expected revenue synergies. Together, total reported 2026 revenue is expected to be approximately $6.405 billion to $6.455 billion based on latest FX rates. The restructuring actions tied to our cost synergies are taking place towards the end of the second quarter, together with business level cost realignment. This supports solid margin progression in the second half of the year. In addition, we have a range of operational initiatives in place to fully offset anticipated impact of elevated freight, raw materials and component costs due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East for the balance of the year.

Together with our strong first quarter results, we now expect our full year adjusted EBIT margin to be 28.2% in 2026. Below the line, net interest expense is now expected to be approximately $186 million. Given diligent work by our tax team, our full year tax rate is now expected to be approximately 16%, which we expect to persist in future years. This translates to a full year 2026 adjusted earnings per fully diluted share of $14.40 to $14.60, which is a $0.10 raise in our guidance range, reflecting our strong first quarter results, partially offset by incremental prudence embedded in our second half assumptions and updated FX rates. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect organic constant currency revenue growth of 6% to 8%. Foreign exchange represents a headwind of approximately 0.5% at current rates, resulting in organic reported revenue guidance of $814 million to $829 million. We expect revenues from the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses to be approximately $802 million in the second quarter of 2026, which represents approximately 2.5% of reported growth.

Together, these results in our total reported second quarter 2026 revenue of $1.616 billion to $1.631 billion. Second quarter adjusted earnings per fully diluted share is expected to be in the range $2.95 to $3.05, which is flat to 3.4% growth given the full burden of higher interest costs and newly issued shares and ahead of cost synergies and business level cost action benefits that begin to flow through the P&L starting in the third quarter.

Turning to our implied guidance assumptions for the second half of the year. Even with the full year raise in organic growth guidance, our strong first quarter results and the second quarter guided midpoint of 7% implies a prudent 6% organic constant currency growth in the second half of the year. This is deliberately lower than what was implied in our prior guidance as it further derisks our back half organic growth outlook. For the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions, our strong first quarter performance and second quarter guidance also meaningfully derisks our implied second half outlook. Our second half assumptions reflect a prudent growth rate of 1.5 percentage points above our second quarter guidance, well supported by incremental commercial and operational actions already underway and a favorable prior year comparison.

With that, I will now hand it back to Caspar.

Thanks, Amol. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to open the lines and take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

Maybe just starting with the guide here, a number of moving pieces. Obviously, the $40 million beat on the BD side, you've got headwind you called out. So it looks like the base business is getting better by about $5 million on an organic basis. The $35 million in revenue synergies, though, can you maybe just touch on where you think those are coming from earlier? I know you gave a little bit of color, Udit. And then what's captured on pricing? I know you kind of flagged that as maybe showing up a little bit earlier.

Yes. I mean, look, on the revenue synergies, the first phase of revenue synergies is around things such as instrument replacement, service plan attachment and e-commerce and that's what is embedded in that $35 million outlook. What's not embedded in that guide is the pricing actions that we are taking. What's not embedded in that guide is also how we've successfully neutralize the impact of tariffs on our legacy Waters business. And what's not embedded in that guide is the benefits of being more disciplined on our reagent rental contracts.

Yes. So Tycho, just building on that, I think that the revenue synergies that Amol outlined, the 3 levers we've talked about in the past. But what's really new is the 180-day plan, right? I mean we basically work diligently to look at how we were doing funnel reviews, how -- what the activity was in the field. In fact, in some cases, the weekly call rates have actually doubled, right, and especially in the U.S. Advanced Diagnostics business. We've also implemented pricing improvements and with our deal desk both in bioscience and diagnostics. And we're looking at reagent rental contracts across the Diagnostic Solutions business. And having looked at roughly 1,700 or so accounts, close to half of them are out of compliance, and that's a double-digit opportunity. So these will start to now play out in the -- in starting Q2.

And then finally, we are localizing our portfolio in China, really using the same playbook that we did for the Analytical Solutions business, which has incredible growth this quarter, right? So really following that labor. What's not really incorporated is the 180-day plan, which is having quite an early impact.

Okay. And then for the follow-up, Udit, can you talk about biology. Obviously, there was a comp factor there, but 10% growth is notable, up low double digit ex China. Just talk about your confidence in turning that business around, obviously, the new BACTEC coming fairly soon. So yes, maybe just talk about your confidence in recovery there.

So Tycho, maybe first, just some contextual comments, right? Take a step back, I mean, Waters is focused on high volume regulated applications, right? That's what we've done throughout our existence. We take sort of lean brands and then with smart commercial execution, really meaningful new products, deliver what we are seeing as industry-leading growth for our Analytical Sciences business, both growth and margins, right? And we intend to do the same with microbiology, where the unmet needs are very significant and we've gotten off to a fantastic start.

Microbiology has the same characteristics, high-volume regulated applications with significant unmet needs. Really great start, about 5% to 6% growth in spite of the DRG headwinds. And as you go into the back half of the year, the baseline becomes easier and the FXI launch, we're very excited about that should augment not just the revenue synergies from instrument replacement, but the underlying business itself. So really exciting times and significant unmet needs that excites our team. So expect to see that business nicely.

Your next question will come from Patrick Donnelly with Citi.

Udit, maybe one on the core kind of legacy Waters instrumentation side. It seems like LCMS, you had a pretty nice quarter. I know you called out pharma. And then it seemed like [indiscernible] actually improved a little bit. Can you just give a little more color on what you saw how the biopharma conversations trended in the quarter? And then as well, just ack ago, what you're seeing there?

Yes. So sure, Patrick. Look, first on instruments overall, LCMS was high single digits, yet again. The replacement cycle is still underway, contributing nicely, especially in the U.S. and in Europe. It's augmented by the new products, Alliance iS and now the Xevo MRT having a wonderful start and chemistry doing a great job there as well and the idiosyncratic growth drivers, right? You see GLP-1 testing focus on biologics, India generics, all contributing to the instrument growth rate.

Now to your question on pharma itself, I mean, really pleased with what we see, right, to what I said to Tycho as well for a downstream high-volume regulated player, right? And we've seen terrific trends there. We brought new products into that space. We're seeing mid-teens growth overall, high single digits in Americas and in Europe, where ethical pharma is leading the charge with instrument replacement. In China, we saw over 50% growth driven by biotech CDMOs and emerging innovative large pharma companies that are homegrown in China and India continued its track with genetics. So feel extremely good about what's happening in pharma. I mean that remains one of our strengths and really sort of looking forward to what the rest of the year brings in that category.

Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe one on BD. I guess in hindsight, now that you guys have been behind the curtain a little bit here for a few months. When you look back at the 4Q kind of underperformance, how much do you think was just kind of an air pocket as the transition of the management happened? I guess what I'm asking is on the execution improvement versus the actual market improvement, what have you seen from 4Q to 1Q and then the expectations going forward?

Yes. Look, I mean, as we've come into come into the ownership. We've seen tremendous collaboration with -- amongst the teams. The integration plans were put together across the BD teams and the Waters teams and it was, in some ways, an advantage to have time between announcement and close. So that diligence really got the quarter -- the owned period of the quarter off to a fantastic start, right? I mean the diligence that you've seen with Waters in the past with really sort of focusing on high-quality funnels. I mean our funnels look better than they ever have. the forecast accuracy improved as a consequence.

We've implemented the pricing initiatives across the 2 new businesses, really incredible transparency and collaboration on looking at reagent rental contracts and also the China localization piece. So the 180-day plan itself was put together in collaboration with the teams. And to your question on air pockets, et cetera, it's very difficult to judge such things. I mean it was a declining business. But you see an advantage of just giving it focus. And what I'll remind you is that these are 2 businesses that have leading brands, really sort of brands that define the category. They are in high-volume regulated settings, and our Waters playbook is very relevant there, and you're seeing the impact of that.

Your next question will come from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI.

Great. Udit and Amol, congrats on a nice spread and thanks for all the detailed disclosures in the presentation. That was really helpful. Maybe my first one on this BD performance in Q1. And when I look at the full quarter reported growth for BD, it looks like it was flattish, but for the period owned under Waters, it was up 5%. Maybe just talk about this delta between the full quarter versus period owned. Was there any timing shipments, those kind of things that aided performance under Waters ownership. Is this because of extra days? And I'm curious, I think the prior guidance was assumed BD to grow maybe up low singles 2%. Has that changed at all?

Yes. I mean, look, when we put together our guidance, we factored in things such as there will be a few extra days because of the quarter, but also a few days when the situation will be disturbed during the close, right? And that's how we sort of prepared our guidance. The way the teams executed makes us feel really proud that things are working, the 180-day growth revitalization plan is starting to bear fruit, and that's what sort of resulted in this significant $40 million beat, right?

And what we've done with that is we've sort of derisked our second half of the guide and makes it far more palatable. We've sort of taken down sort of point of care in the second half of the year to not be an average, but significantly below average. And that gives us a lot of room to outperform and puts us in a great spot for the remainder of the year.

Understood. And then maybe my follow-up on -- given that you mentioned that days of back here, when you look at core Waters, it 11% organic, what was underlying organic ex days? When you say back half is 6%, is that for core organic or pro forma organic inclusive BD. And given your comment on order strength, I'm curious on why back half couldn't be better.

Yes. So I mean, look, the extra days benefit our recurring revenue. And roughly, we had 4 extra days in terms of working days, and that brings about 4% more recurring revenue, which is roughly 2% more total revenue for the legacy Waters business. But even if you strip that out, I mean, chemistry grew 13% and service grew 14%. So both of them, even after you take out 4% flying at meaningfully elevated levels versus the historical performance, and that's to do with how our teams are executing really well in the field.

For the guidance perspective, our first half growth for the legacy business constant currency is roughly 9%, and we've derisked the second half. One for the 4 or so extra less working days that we have in Q4, 2 just because of the current macro, right? And so the second half embedded constant currency growth guidance is roughly 6%. That puts us in a really solid spot because we're not seeing any of that in our funnel. On all remains very strong, and we continue to fly at the altitude that we are flying at that gives us great confidence on the second half of the year.

So Vijay, just to sort of conclude that thought. As you go into the remainder of the year, I mean there's fantastic momentum on the base business. There's no 2 ways around it. The 180-day plan has sort of got off the acquired businesses to a great start. But remember, there's a lower baseline already starting in Q2 with the respiratory headwinds gone. For the latter half of the year, there is no DRG sort of headwinds anymore as well. And then you augment that with new launches, FXI BACTEC, as well as the A7 in our Bioscience business and the reagents and the revenue synergies that start to play out as well. So we are really sort of positive about the setup that we see for the balance of the year.

Your next question will come from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe.

So first, on competition. One -- I guess there's 2 here. Your team is bringing a new level of discipline to the life science business. I'm just wondering if there's been any notable competitive responses worth calling out. The second question is, there's 2 product areas where you are or will soon be competing with private equity-owned businesses. Generally speaking, how does competing with PE differ? And does this create new opportunities for the business?

Excellent questions, Doug. Look, on waters itself and competition, I mean, I'll repeat what I said earlier, we are diligent about being focused on high-volume regulated settings, right, where the drivers are very well understood and are consumption oriented, and that's allowed us to outpace the market over the last several years.

And in those setups, I mean, we have leading brands. We had it with the legacy Waters business. Now we have it with Bioscience, which defines the flow cytometry category and reagents and with the diagnostic solutions business with microbiology. So we feel very good about the brands we've inherited and we're working hard on bringing the same execution discipline that has bought waters to the top of the league table, both in growth and margins and free cash flow. So as we start, and your question to, sort of, I think the microbiology business that's been acquired by PE players, I mean, we think it's going to be quite rational in terms of pricing. And we are a pricing leader in the categories we compete in because we bring in tremendous innovation into the markets. And we expect something similar from the PE player. So not worried. I mean, I think we are now in a position where, as a team, we're more focused on unmet needs on proof of principle of our new products, commercial execution than anything else.

Your next question will come from Evie Koslosky with Goldman Sachs.

So starting with the core business, can you talk to the mid-teens growth in chemistry. I think it's well above the full year guidance that you previously gave of around 6% to 7%. So how durable is this growth moving forward? And what's the updated guide for chemistry in the full year?

Let me start, and then Amol can talk to the guide. I mean, you can say nothing more than just being ecstatic about what we're seeing with chemistry, right? I mean this is a journey that started a few years ago when we took our R&D dollars and dedicated 70% to 80% of them in bioseparations and the steady stream of new products is driving growth, right? I mean that's what you saw in the latter part of the year last year, and you see it now as virtually all new molecular entities, especially biologics, are first looking at Waters offering and then going elsewhere. So we feel very good about where we stand.

And as you look at the mid- to long term, I mean, there is no reason to believe that all of this will not flow downstream and chemistry on the mid- to long-term basis, should now be instead of a 7% grower, a 9% to 10% grower at least. I'll let Amol comment on the balance of this year and our guide assumptions.

Yes. I mean, look, in Q2, there was a little bit of pull forward, which we outlined in our last year's Q2 earnings call. And in general, we've been cautious given we had such an amazing double-digit growth in industry every quarter last year. We are sort of reducing the guide for this year to like 6.5% full year. Just to be prudent. But I mean, what we are seeing in Q1, 13% growth, that is real and that we expect to continue. The only reason we are guiding at 6.5% is the baseline is pretty strong, and we're being prudent.

Great. And then on the acquired asset, can you talk to the decision to localize the manufacturing in flow cytometry in China? How much of an investment does this represent? What's the local competition like? And then how durable are some of the market growth drivers like MNC pharma funding in the region?

Yes. I mean, look, I, thanks for the question. But let me start sort of at the highest level. I mean pharma in China is doing extremely well. I think we talked about this several quarters ago. roughly 1/3 of all biotech molecules that are unlicensed by large pharma now come from China. That has then helped the CDMO industry grow and also is giving birth to sort of fully integrated innovative pharma companies in China. And pharma for us in China grew over 50%, right, behind these trends and strong, strong execution. And this sort of result was only possible because we have a fantastic team in China that insisted that we localize our portfolio in China to be available to customers across the board, and we did that first for Analytical Sciences business. And we intend to do the same for Biosciences where at this point, not much of the portfolio is localized.

So we're doing that at a rapid pace. We have our own site in Suzhou, where we'll start doing this. And in Q3, you should start seeing the orders flow in from the localized portfolio. There is another headwind in China for the flow business, which relates to export controls. And there, we've streamlined the process dramatically during integration planning and now since the close of the deal. In fact, we've seen the highest number of orders flow in, in the last few days ever since the ban went in place. So it's the same playbook EV that allowed the Analytical Sciences Solutions business to now really set the standard for the industry's growth in China, and we expect to do the same for Bioscience.

Your next question will come from Puneet Souda with Leerink.

The first one on pricing versus volume. Could you talk a bit about how much of the growth was driven by volume in the quarter? You talked quite a bit about pricing initiatives. But wondering if you could drill down a bit and just give us some volume growth metrics in the BD business? And how sustainable is the pricing tailwind just given the competition and, let's say, the microbiologic business?

Yes. So on the legacy Waters business, we did roughly a little over 200 basis points of price, and that's consistent with how we've been performing the last few years. On the BD business, we did just about 0.5 percentage of price, which is in line with how BD has been doing historically. That's also what we've embedded in our full year guide, nothing different from the historic performance. We do see a very meaningful opportunity to bring the BD business where our legacy Waters business is. And as Udit outlined, we've already instituted 2 deal desk. We see tremendous areas of opportunity, not just in pricing but also in tariff mitigation and also in reagent rental contract compliance. All those are opportunities we are pursuing, none of which are in our guide.

Yes. And just to sort of add one other comment on pricing. There are pockets already, Puneet, in the in bioscience and diagnostics, where we see pricing similar to what we've been able to implement in the legacy Waters business. The reason we're not putting it, embedding it into the guide is simply because we want to see that play out and be sort of pervasive across all geographies. And so really good starting point and I expect that to be an upside as we go through the year.

Got it. And then on the core, I mean, congrats on the momentum there. I just wanted to get a sense of -- in the LCMS instrument replacement cycle, where do we stand? Are you seeing sort of a pull forward of that replacement cycle peak that, I think, you were expecting in '27? Could we see that in '26 now? Just wanted to get a sense of where we stand in the replacement cycle.

Yes. I mean, the replacement cycle is going really well. And as we outlined, right, I mean it's first started with large pharma than the CDMO step team. There are still some participants like the CROs and the Chinese branded generics and some of the biotechs that are still not replacing even when their fleets are significantly overaged. And so that gives us a good runway into 2027.

And then keep in mind, 2021, 2022, were very large instrument placement years, and those instruments then come up for replacement in 2029, 2030. And so one would say, hey, you may hit a bit of an air pocket as we go through 2028. And that's exactly where the reinsuring dynamic plays out because a lot of reshoring placements would likely happen second half of '27, all of 2028. So the setup is really good. We could move seamlessly from one instrument replacement cycle to another with the reshoring bridge in between.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I will now hand it back to Caspar.

Thank you, Lila. This concludes our call. We look forward to connecting with many of you at upcoming events and conferences.

Terrific. I think we can start. Dan Brennan, life science tools and diagnostics analyst at TD Cowen. Really pleased here at 46th Annual Conference. To be joined here on stage with Udit Batra, who is the CEO of Waters Corp. So Udit, welcome.

Thank you, Dan. Pleasure to be here.

Terrific. So obviously, it's been quite a start to the year for you, closing the long-waited BD deal, integration ongoing. Listen, you've laid out plans for the business in great detail. Now that you've had a little bit of time owning BD business, maybe just zooming out what are some of your early impressions? Or feel free if you'd like to talk about 4Q and kick off that, just in terms of -- sitting on the table here for the conversation.

I think, firstly, again, thank you for having me here. It's been 3 weeks since the close occurred. So it's been some time, as you say. I've been very busy. Just traveling and going to different sites last week I got some of my colleagues in the U.S. together at our Baltimore site, which is the old diagnostics solution side for BD. This week, I'm heading to Europe then it's Asia after that. So traveling a fair bit, meeting a lot of customers. I think and meeting a lot of colleagues I think 3 things stand out. And the first is these are fantastic businesses.

And how do you tell? You basically ask yourself, is if you talk to some customers, if you talk to them, what flow cytometry, what brand do they mention? And I was telling some people earlier, go search in AI, if you feel like and ask AI whichever tool you prefer to use, I wanted to buy a flow cytometer I want to buy reagents, which company should I go to? BD will be at the top of the list. And now Waters.

Microbiology, go to any hospital, it's one of 2 vendors who supply most of the microbiology workflow in those hospitals. So leading brands, customers have a very strong impression of these and have had them for years. And that you tell by just looking at the gross margin. For most of the business, the gross margin is around 60%, which is healthy. And it's been there for a while. You go and talk to the teams and especially with the R&D teams, I mean -- and you do searches on PubMed or you search in any sort of publication, go to any conference in flow, in microbiology, you'll find BD colleagues presenting. So the teams are highly engaged, and I'll come back to that in a bit.

The challenge has been executed. I think we've been pretty clear about that during the time that we've gotten to this point. But it's pretty clear that the level of precision that is required to run such a business, especially in a dynamic environment, I think needs improvement. I think that's it. I mean so fantastic businesses, great brands, highly engaged teams.

The question is, can you focus on a precise few things? And so I've been spending a fair bit of time with the teams sort of assessing that. And as I said last week, I was with our U.S. teams. What we do is what sort of -- what I'm trying to do now is I'm going to go region by region. I'm going to get the top commercial people together and the top finance people together in a room and go business by business and say, hey, tell me about the past, past 4, 5 years. Tell me about quarter-to-date sales and orders and quarter to-go sales and orders, what are your risks and benefits and tell me about the organization.

And we go team by team. And we say, okay, tell me, tell us about one or the other. And it's just an awesome learning experience. And you see cross-pollination. For instance, our Waters, our incumbent Waters business, the Analytical Science business, has been passing on pricing for a while. We have something called the pricing desk, the deal desk. And they talked about it, and said, this is the deal desk. And yes, during this time, there was some pressure, on A, B, and C customer segment. And this is how we passed on 250 basis points this year.

And you could see the Bioscience colleagues or the Analytical Science colleagues who've had -- 0 to 50 basis points of price being passed on, look at it and say, okay, I can implement this, this and this. So really fantastic discussions.

And to sort of talk about the software side, we had our Town Hall, where we welcomed all the colleagues, roughly 12,000 people joined live. So we did -- we broadcasted across 4 different sites. My leadership team was spread out, and the rest sort of had it on replay. I must say there's a lot of energy in the organization. So very happy with where we are. Very happy with the starting point, and yes, focused on execution now.

Awesome. Maybe just sticking on 4Q for sec since I introduced that. I think the -- obviously, the core Waters business has been doing quite well. BD in their calendar fourth quarter, they had a pretty steep decline 11%. I know there were a bunch of numerous nonrecurring factors, which you kind of flagged and if you strip those out, maybe the growth was more like flattish. So what do you think the message is I think that's been a key factor. Kind of what's the message on BD's 4Q? And should those results in any way, lead to lower confidence in the asset or the outlook.

Look, I mean, it was as much of a surprise to many of you outside as it was for us in some places. Now each individual item can be explained, and we will get out of this idea of explaining all the time. I think that's something that as Waters we don't try and do. If there is a challenge, what did you precisely do to surmount it. But sort of to explain the facts first and then we'll get to 2026 in a minute.

There were 3 nonrecurring items, and we've cross examined this at a -- there's a lot of detail. And I'll get into that in a minute. 3 nonrecurring items and 1 recurring item. And if you take those out, as you said, the business was flat. But you shouldn't be taking those out. Just as a matter of record. The 3 pieces that were nonrecurring were the licensing costs for the licensing revenue for the Bioscience business, that didn't recur. The point-of-care slowdown due to the flu season. And the third was the government shutdown sort of impacting exports into China.

And the recurring item, which is the DRG headwinds in China. We think that will still persist into this year, sunsets in July in the baseline and then the baseline is a bit better.

Now if you take 3 of these in turn just to sort of first stick to the facts and then we'll come back to sort of what we're doing to make it a bit different in the future, overall, the business declined about 10%. You take this out, it's roughly flat. In Q1, we've said, look, the DRG piece is still going to be there. So we're going to guide to minus 2.5% or so 2% to 3% decline in Q1.

As you progress through the year, that gets a bit better. So it's flat to low single-digit growth in Q2 and Q3. And then in the low single digit to mid-single digit in Q4. So sort of a mathematical progression that just benefits from the baseline progressing. That's all it is. And we've said we're going to haircut the versus the deal model, the top line for the full year by 200 basis points, and that's largely due to the DRG headwind in China.

And so we've said, look, we'll take it down by $65 million, which is about a 30% decline on top of what has already taken place. So rather conservative starting point. It does not include improvements in pricing, on tariffs, on the daily sort of sales mechanism I mentioned. It does not include the revenue synergies. So a whole bunch of things are not included in the operational improvements. But we think it's a prudent starting point because it allows us also to adjust the cost base and still delivered the EPS that we had promised.

So even with all of this, we said, look, the EPS commitment is still sacrosanct, and we're going to deliver the EPS growth that we promised. Now to the 4 issues and why I said the explanation business will at some point stop, and I just want to take one case in point, which is the weaker flu season impacting the Diagnostics business by about $30 million. And we looked at it. And so my CFO and I had run a diagnostics, a flu business back in 2008 and '09. And first, you never forecast a flu business to be great. You usually forecast it to be lower. And if it's better, you claim victory. This is what we did when we were in charge of those businesses. But here, we sort of claim -- we said we're going to forecast it at a medium or a high level.

The question is not that you were down by $30 million. The question is precisely in which hospital, in which setting, how many patients, why is that number around number at $30 million, and it's not $3.5 million or $21.8 million. Because the level of precision missing means to me that it was a reason as opposed to being a precise causal impact. And so I think that was a big discussion we had last week when we were sitting together as a team and we cross examined it.

And I think my BD colleagues or my past BD colleagues simply said, look, we've never had that sort of precision being requested. And I said, look, you've got to go back and you got to fix these things yourself. If point-of-care went down, something else must have gone up, why didn't you focus on that. So I think going forward, you should not -- you should expect us not to get into this reasoning for why things missed. And yes, there's force majeure. Things happen. And those everybody in the industry is impacted with, but you will not see unique things.

Maybe just one more kind of on this area, and then we can jump out. But just particularly on the Bioscience business in the U.S. I know that was weak and you had the IP comp. But that business was still down 10%, and those are some questions we got. So on that business itself, kind of you elaborate a little bit on that business being down. And kind of what type of growth are you planning for '26 for that business?

Yes. So I mean similar sort of theme. First, take a step back, I mean, the businesses are exceptional. I mean flow cytometry, BD in the past and our Bioscience business sets the standard with the FACSDiscover with FACSLyric. Our antibodies set the standard in the industry with reagents and dyes that only we produce.

And roughly 50% of the business is in regulated applications that are no different than our QA/QC business. So it's -- the structure of the business is exceptional. When you look at the facts, and you say minus 10%, yes, that's lower than the market. And you sort of do a survey and this we did over the last 2 weeks of all similar competitors, given the markets, the business should have been down low to mid-single digits, not double. So there's a 500 basis points underperformance versus what I would have called the market.

And again, sort of let me go into a little bit of detail and how we're going to fix it. So first, just the math. Into Q1, we're saying this business is still going to be down mid-single digits. Remember, I said 2.5%. The Diagnostics business will be down low single digits. This one will be down mid-single digits. So we want to sort of give the team a bit of time to recover. And that's for the own period. And over the year, it will start to get better.

But digging a little bit deeper on the sources of underperformance and why I'm confident that these types of things will not recur. Let's just take one of the explanations that was -- that I sort of talked about earlier was the decrease in shipment of -- or the decrease in getting licenses for shipment to China. With a 45-day government shutdown.

The government was shut down for 45 days. And remember, I said last week, we had all our U.S. heads together. So I said to them, I said, why don't you review your business by end market. So the U.S. General Manager reviewed his business by end market. And in the U.S., our academic and government segment grew 14%, Americas was up 10%. The shutdown impacted them as well.

How did you manage to grow 14%? Because one university was not growing, another one was growing. We knew the shutdown was coming. So we preloaded some of the orders and had the customers buy in advance of it. And customers did. I mean I'm witnessed to the fact that we had a run-up in orders and sales right up to the government shutdown and an immediate buying and then a slowdown towards the end.

But we saw that, whereas our Bioscience team said 45 days the government to shut down, I can't get licenses. Why didn't you go to the folks and say, hey, you can get these licenses before the shutdown because the shutdown was telegraphed. It was not a surprise. So that showed us the difference in precision and execution.

As I said before, the businesses are great. Customers love them. The teams at the ground level are great. It's a question of precision of management. And being resilient during those times. And I think that piece I expect to have an immediate impact on. And the second one is pricing. I mean, in this business alone with the most differentiated portfolio in the industry on reagents. So I -- at the Town Hall 2 weeks ago, I took our whole set of businesses, and I put them on the XY chart. And I said on the X axis, we'll have growth on the y-axis will have gross margin, and we'll go 2 or 3 levels deeper into the portfolio. The highest margin business in the new company is the reagents business of Bioscience, by a lot. Higher than our chemistry, higher than our informatics. That tells you how profitable that business is.

The challenge is if you do this XY axis the top right is great. I usually tell people don't ask me, just keep going. Top left, is accretive to margins, but growing slower than the company average. And I say just stop everything else, especially if you're the reagent business, find ways to grow. And in that business, we've been getting -- 0 to 50 basis points of pricing. We are the most differentiated reagents company in the market. Why aren't we getting better pricing? Why aren't we getting better distribution?

So the marching orders become clear, and that is 70% of the Bioscience business. You see there are sort of immediate opportunities to impact the business, and that's where my attention is focused. I was sort of talking to my IR head, who is a fantastic guy, Caspar is here, and Caspar keeps sort of -- he says, it's our job also to go and talk to investors. And yes, but I got to go and talk to the teams and got to talk to the customers because the business has to start moving, you said you're not that as necessary as you think you are. So -- but I'm enjoying that part a lot.

So maybe just kind of putting a bow on this conversation. And so you set the guide, you talked about the cushion that you baked in. Then subsequently in the last 2 weeks, you've done a lot of these meetings, Town All, Forensic Analysis. How do you feel after all the Forensic Analysis versus the guy that you set on BD?

I think the 2.5% is sort of our -- as we said in the open -- in the quarterly call as well. I mean it's a prudent estimate. And you know us for several years now. We have 5, 7 ways of getting to 2.5% and more. It doesn't include pricing. It doesn't include the operational improvement. It doesn't include all the reagent stuff that I just talked about, definitely doesn't include the revenue synergies. So I feel pretty good about the 2.5%.

Got it. Okay. So maybe switching gears to core Waters, right? So the core Waters I think 2026, you're like [ 0.0625% ] organic guide for stand-alone. You grew a little bit faster than that in 2025. Maybe what are the puts and takes kind of underneath that guide? Should there be a slight deceleration? Still very healthy growth versus the rest of the industry. But I'm just wondering or is it kind of a rounding error?

Our guidance philosophy has not changed. So we start the year at a certain point, and then we get constructive as the data point comes in. Second, I'd also said this in the call -- in the analyst call earlier, the year has started off well. The funnels look very strong. I mean the end markets have stabilized. So it's quite a good setting. I mean, notwithstanding what's happened over the weekend.

But that said, the end markets have stabilized. The funnels are strong. There's no reason to believe that there should be any deceleration. That said, if you just look at the guide very simply, the lower end of the guide, the 5.5-ish percent or 5-ish percent is the instrument number, at least as a starting point. And the top end of the guide is the recurring number. On the recurring side, chemistry, we assumed grows between 6% and 7%. I'm saying this with a straight face for now. And services 7% to 8%.

Now chemistry has grown 12% in 2025. Service has grown 7% in 2025. On the chemistry side, yes, new products are coming in. We just want some room given the stronger baseline. And on the service side, we've expanded our attachment rate by 400 basis points in 2025. I mean we've given Rob Carpio and his team 100 basis points. So a target, they did 400 so we didn't set the target right. We need to take a look at it. But every time you get 100 basis points of service attachment improvement, the next year, you see 70 basis points of revenue increase.

So that's 250, 280 basis points just like that, that we are spotting for the next year. So we feel pretty good about the guide. As I said, as the runs come on the board we'll start to get more constructive. And to sort of complete the story on instruments on the replacement cycle on a 6-year CAGR basis, we're at 2.5%, still low single digits. The idiosyncratic growth drivers are contributing nicely. We have a very good position in GLP-1, PFAS testing India generics. And new products are now augmented with CDMS with the ever-expanding chemistry portfolio. Super excited about the Empower superhighway, really going from an on-prem to a subscription model. So feel good about the Waters based business, and we have a fantastic group of people managing that business.

So maybe just on the LCMS replacement cycle, you just mentioned where you're stacking on a 6-year CAGR so I think you've talked about getting back to high single digits. So where would you put that duration then? Like where do you think maybe the peak quarter would be on like LCMS?

I think, I mean, we're probably in the mid-innings. So I would think sometime in 2027, it starts to go back to the average. And remember, we haven't yet seen any meaningful replacement in biotech and pharma drug discovery, to some extent, the CROs are starting to come to the table. We haven't seen anything in genetics in China. So those segments are still pending.

And in spite of that, we're seeing nice replacement, especially in large pharma, in U.S. and Europe. That's what's been driving the replacement cycle a lot more. So mid-'27. And then what happens then, and we have sort of good customer discussions on reshoring. I mean we will not quantify that. I mean there's -- we're not afraid to quantify anything. I think there's just not enough facts available to say, precisely, this is what the upside is, but the conversations are there.

The ground has been broken. You look at the different announcements of the pharma companies. And we're all over the -- we're all over those, and we'll see a benefit starting sometime in '27. And that dovetails nicely into the finish of the replacement cycle sometime in 2027, you'll start to see probably another growth cycle for instruments and ironic -- I mean it's not a long-term benefit, this reshoring. But in a strange way, you might see strong LCMS growth for a while.

Right. So typically, when it peaks, the goal would be, what kind of get back to like a 5% growth or what typically happens there?

Yes. 5-ish percent. And it stays there and then it will probably saturate, people get more comfortable with their instruments and they extend the use too much. Our service team is very proud. So they extend the use as well with the customers. And then they realize, geez, this is too late, and there's a new sort of instrument coming in. And then it flips again. So it will always be just human behavior is such that you'll get excited. You get this replaced and then they'll extend the life too much.

It's like driving your car as a graduate student. I mean I remember, I used to drive my wife when I started dating in a car, which had a hole in the middle. So I had to pull the gear shift out and then move it. And she said, hey, I don't -- is this a car as best you can do? I said, yes, you have an extra window. So you find a way.

So since you brought reshoring, just one question. I think Waters is the size of the $300 million, you're not willing to quantify? Do you think -- I mean, any comment on their size?

I think it's too early, Dan. And we'll quantify. Look, I mean, we're very precise on our quantification on the GLP-1s and PFAS, on India generics. I think just let's get a bit more factual before we start to quantify everything.

And then kind of baked in with that 5% growth for instruments this year. What did you assume for LCMS growth in 2026? And what do you think a range of outcomes...

Similar sort of high single-digitish. No different -- I mean, and I can't promise exactly what will happen 1 quarter or the other. I mean, sometimes these are large purchases that will happen at the end of the quarter or the beginning of the quarter, and that might change things. But overall, no real change.

Right. So maybe just on chemistry, I think you just articulated the conservatism or the conservative nature of the guide on several funds. But just on chemistry itself, you talked about the kind of the 300 basis points, 2.5 points of upside that, that could generate. But with the new products, like where -- just talk about some of the new product and the opportunities on the chemistry and if you stack those, where the theoretical upside?

So I mean the strategic reason -- I mean and the strategic board was set sort of 4, 5 years ago, when we said we're going to take our investment and move it from small molecules to large. So over 70% of our R&D spend in chemistry goes into bioseparations. And that has started to pay dividends. I mean, we launched the MaxPeak Premier technology with the bioinert surfaces on top. We build specific columns for large sort of species like AAV with the SEC columns, then we said, hey, oligonucleotide, a specific solutions, so we come up with this thing called slalom. And then we said, look, and this is the latest one, we said we're going to take affinity chromatography from bioprocessing, my previous world, and we're going to move into high pressure chromatography, which is something that most people have not been able to do with reproducible results.

We're going to do it in such a way that you can tune these columns. And that's what we were able to do with our affinity columns with protein A. And now we've launched another column, which is microflow, which is specifically for proteomics applications. So this will keep going. I mean, there are 7 to 8 new launches coming this year. This will keep going for a while. The difference is that this is not only targeted towards QA/QC. This has gone upstream.

And when you go upstream and you are sort of one of the largest players in that space, and if the product is doing what it's supposed to do, that column stays with the molecule. The customer has no reason to change it. Customers do change those as we've experienced ourselves in Phase II, Phase III, usually qualify 2 vendors. But if you are the only solution, and you have customized the separation with the customer, especially with affinity columns, where you sort of are taking a sticker and you're designing the sticker that is only relevant to the molecule that the customer is developing. It's unique. It's a one-to-one link.

That then as it moves downstream, it's like bioprocessing. It's spec-ed in, it's a low double-digit grower. I'm not promising low double digits now. All I'm saying is, as we progress we can -- that is -- there is line of sight to that. 12%, then if I say double digit right now, you say, well, double digit all the way through. No, there will be ups and downs because it's in discovery right now. High single digit to low double digit is a reasonable expectation for chemistry.

Okay. Maybe jumping over to margins. I think implicit margin assumptions of BD of like mid- to high-teens operating margin to begin the year, and I think they were like low 20s prior to the year. Just talk a little bit about the cost you're digesting, the margin guide and kind of where do you think BD margins are kind of normalize?

So there's a few moving parts. Let me sort of take it in turn. So the most important thing to know is 22.4% is the full year margin. I mean that's sort of BD or bioscience and diagnostics stand-alone, not including synergies. There are 2 or 3 things to keep in mind. One is that the first on the phasing and then on the amounts. On the phasing Q1 is the smallest quarter. So BD has a specific phasing. Q1 is about 23% of sales. Q3 is the largest quarter that used to be their Q4, so that's 27%. And Q2 and Q4 are 25% each. That's the revenue phasing. The cost phasing is such that the Q1 is about 300 basis points lower or 200 basis points or so 2 to 300 basis points lower than the average. And Q3 is 300 basis points higher.

So Q1, 200 basis points lower, Q3, 300 basis points higher in margin just because of the revenue phasing and the way the costs are. So that's the baseline. On top of that, what we've done with the business slowing down last year, we said, look, you haven't implemented tariffs. So we're going to implement tariffs this year, and I just want a -- small anecdote, when we said that, the team said, hey, you're going to implement tariffs. That was a year ago, the customers are not going to respond to it well. Our President is pretty active. So he changed the tariff regime now, and that's the reason to do it now right. So we'll implement tariffs like we did in Waters, we'll offset the whole thing in -- before the beginning of '27, but in 2026, there's a 60 basis points lift due to the tariffs. And then the slowdown in China should have led to a readjustment of the cost structure.

Our colleagues at BD never did that. So we're -- we've already implemented that and you will see the benefit of that in the second half of the year. That's about 120 basis points. So 120 plus 60, 180 basis points you add to what you would have calculated as the baseline, and you get to 22.4%. And the margin progression through the year will reflect a little bit of conservatism at the beginning of the year. We just want to sort of keep a little bit on our back pocket and a bit of a lift due to the cost savings and the tariff implementation towards the back half of the year. And then you superimpose on that the phasing, you'll get the math that is pretty straightforward. So not a lot of rocket science in it.

Again, the more important thing to keep in mind is these actions are in place. They are getting implemented. No cost synergy, no operational improvement isn't it. Pricing is at 50 basis points today. We think we should be at 200 plus given the differentiation in the portfolio. Don't ask me if it comes tomorrow, but it's coming. The weekly sales calls and funnel management, then it was not a discipline. It's happening now as of last week, we sort of showed people exactly what we do at the top level, what we expect at the regional level, what we expect at the sales level. What level of precision we expect in the funnels. And thirdly, if there's any changes, how do you sort of combat it. So I expect that to have a significant impact on the business as well. I believe the 2.5% and the 22.4% are minimum numbers that we should be achieving.

And do you feel on BD, just thinking about BD again like the people that you've seen so far, will there be a lot of like -- like how significant a change do you think you might have to implement there? Is it just pruning around the margin or just...

It's -- Dan, it's always a difficult question to answer, but go back 5 years at Waters. We turn the business without changing any of the top management. I mean you remember in 2021 -- 2021 alone, we had 16% of growth, and that was coming off years of sort of trailing the market, and that was one of the highest growths in the market, that was without changing anybody in the leadership team. And Amol came in the middle of 2021. The others came a bit later. So I don't -- I see the same thing here that at the grassroots level, the sales teams, the R&D teams, the supply chain teams, and people are super dedicated.

I mean there's a lot of pent-up energy. The challenge has been focusing on a few things that are important. I mean focus on getting the reagents business moving and not -- don't just get obsessed with the instrument business, which is struggling because of the end markets. So don't be obsessed with that because 70% of your business is in reagents. That sort of thing.

So focusing people on specifics and then holding them accountable and giving them support. So on pricing, we're asking people to do more, but we're going to train them. On tariffs, we're asking people to do more. We had the training session last Friday. So the method to the madness on this commercial meeting that I'm having with each of the regions is also cross pollination.

I mean, so for instance, in the U.S. A&G market, as I mentioned, slowed down. Our U.S. team found ways around it, and they shared those tactics with our Bioscience team. And so I think I would expect the same sort of turn. And when these turns happen, they happen very rapidly because you're not asking people to learn new things. You're asking them to do what they knew how to do all the way all in the past, and you're taking out barriers from a corporate setup. I mean at a corporate level, our China team wants to localize a bit more of the portfolio in flow, we have done it on LCMS very rapidly. I spoke to the GM there, and he said, hey, Udit, I want to localize. I said, okay, how can I help? I'm not saying I'm not going to do it. I know you know your business best, but just let me know how I can take our barriers from a corporate setup.

So I feel good about the baseline. But yes, there's a bit of discipline that will be put in place.

Well, great. I think that's a great wrap up. We started on BD. We ended on BD. We told the story in between Waters. But thank you, Udit for being here, thanks, everyone, in the audience as well.

Good morning and welcome to the Waters Corporation [indiscernible] 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, please disconnect at this time.

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Caspar Tudor, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Leyla, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Waters Corporation's Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Dr. Udit Batra, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Amol Chaubal, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company, including the expected financial and operational impact of what is combination with the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business of Becton, Dickinson and Company. We will provide guidance regarding possible future results, as well as commentary on potential market and business conditions that may impact Waters Corporation over the first quarter of 2026 and full year 2026. These statements are only our present expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please see the risk factors included within our Form 10-K, our Form 10-Qs, our other SEC filings and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release.

During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release and in the appendix of the slide presentation accompanying today's call. Unless stated otherwise, references to quarterly results increasing or decreasing are in comparison to the fourth quarter of calendar year 2024. In addition, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-year revenue growth rates and ranges given on today's call are on a comparable constant currency basis, and all quarter-over-quarter revenue growth rates and ranges on a comparable constant currency basis. Finally, we do not intend to update our guidance, predictions or projections, except as part of a regularly scheduled earnings release or as otherwise required by law.

I would now like to turn the call over to Udit to begin with our key messages for the quarter. Over to you, Udit.

Thank you, Caspar, and good morning, everyone. We delivered a strong finish to the year, achieving high single-digit reported revenue growth and low double-digit adjusted EPS growth in the fourth quarter. This reflects yet another quarter of industry-leading sales growth. Today also marks a transformative step forward as we complete the acquisition of BD's Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business. We are uniting world-class expertise across chemistry, physics and biology into a scientific powerhouse with category-defining brands and a shared culture of pioneering innovation. We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues later this morning.

It also marks the point at which we will have full operational control over the convey business. With months of rigorous integration planning behind us, we're now moving immediately into execution, applying the same focus and discipline that have driven exceptional results at Waters. We are entering this chapter from a position of strength. Throughout 2025, we have advanced the strategic road map that we laid out 5 years ago.

Commercial execution continues to strengthen with KPIs running ahead of the commitment we made at our March 2025 Investor Day. Innovation remains a powerful growth driver as we launch a new wave of pioneering innovation. Our unique exposure to high-volume testing opportunities across GLP-1s, PFAS and [ India ] generics, again, outpaced expectations. We secured key wins in our transition to Empower as a subscription-based model, and we continue to expand deliberately into our high-growth adjacencies like bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization. These outcomes reflect the strength and discipline of our simple, repeatable business model serving high-volume regulated growth markets. They also reflect the dedication of our team whose focus on customers, science and operational excellence continues to differentiate Waters.

Now turning to the quarter. As reported sales and adjusted EPS landed at the high end of our guidance range. Sales grew 7% on a reported basis and 6% in constant currency, driven by high single-digit growth across our pharma and industrial end markets. Adjusted EPS grew low double digits to $4.53, on a GAAP basis, EPS was $3.77. Recurring revenue grew 9%, led by chemistry growth. Instruments grew 3%, led by yet again high single-digit LCMS growth. TA instruments declined for the quarter due to cautious spending in U.S. and Europe.

During the quarter, we achieved strong wins in our transition to a subscription-based model for Empower, with successful adoption across multiple large pharma customers. While this reduced our overall instrument growth rate by a low single-digit percentage for the quarter, it reflects a strategically attractive shift to a model with superior economics. Together with our new feature releases, this supports accretive tailwinds in 2027 with the incremental recurring revenue that it brings.

For the full year, sales grew 7% on both a reported and constant currency basis. Recurring revenue grew 8%, driven by 12% growth in chemistry. Instrument revenue grew 5%, led by LC-MS, which grew high single digits or better every quarter of the year. Adjusted EPS grew 11% to $13.13, supported by top line strength, operational excellence and effective tariff mitigation. GAAP EPS was $0.76. Let me now highlight the drivers behind our strong performance and why we expect the strong momentum to continue into 2026.

Starting with commercial execution. Our KPIs continue to run ahead of external commitments, and we're progressing well towards our long-term targets. Within instrument replacement, momentum continues to build. Instrument growth is now tracking at 2.5% CAGR approximately versus 2019, up roughly 100 basis points since the start of the replacement cycle. This reflects a steady mean reversion towards the long-term historical instrument growth rate of 5%.

Service plan attachment increased to 54%, reflecting approximately 400 basis points of improvement in a single year. This is the strongest annual expansion we have ever delivered and sets us up for above-average service growth in 2026, supported by the associated revenue pull-through. E-commerce penetration reached approximately 45% of consumables revenue, driving a growth tailwind along with new products across our chemistry portfolio. Contract organizations now represent 27% of pharma sales, up from 15% 5 years ago, positioning us well among diversified sources of CapEx.

Innovation is also augmenting our results. Strong growth from new products launched over the past several years has continued to compound, alongside a new wave of innovation launched throughout 2025. For the full year, Alliance iS HPLC sales more than doubled, reflecting strong adoption of our flagship platform, which reduces errors by up to 40% in QC labs. Xevo TQ Absolute mass spec platforms grew over 30%, driven by PFAS demand and the launch of the Absolute XR, which sets a new benchmark for robustness, together with class-leading sensitivity. MaxPeak Premier Chemistry grew over 35%, underscoring the significant impact our technology has brought to the industry for larger and more complex molecules.

Our successful strategy of entering high-growth areas further enhanced our results in 2025. In bioanalytical characterization, adoption of light scattering and BioAccord continues to build in pharma process development and quality control applications. With the launch of Xevo CDMS, we are now expanding this position to routine characterization of mega molecules such as ADCs and viral vectors.

In [ BioSeparations ], we built on the success of MaxPeak Premier inert surfaces with a new generation of products designed to separate complex large molecules. These include SEC columns for viral vectors, [ slalom ] chromatography for large oligonucleotides and affinity-based separations using specific antibodies. These new products have accelerated chemistry growth to double digits in 2025, meaningfully above our 7% historical average growth rate. For LC-MS into diagnostics, we have continued to grow our assay menu, launching IBD products covering 12 new analytes in endocrinology, and 4 new analytes in therapeutic drug monitoring over the past 2 years.

Turning to our idiosyncratic growth drivers. In 2025, these drivers contributed more than 300 basis points of growth, all tracking ahead of our commitments. GLP-1 testing-related revenue more than doubled, contributing approximately 100 basis points of year-over-year growth. This reflects continued wins in development and manufacturing across the globe, supported by our [ specced-in ] position for both oral and injection-based doses.

PFAS testing growth remained robust, increasing more than 40% year-over-year and adding roughly 80 basis points of growth. Demand was broad-based driven by an expanding regulatory landscape that is evolving towards food, materials and consumer product testing. India, again, delivered strong performance. Ex GLP-1 revenue grew low teens, increasing by approximately $40 million and contributing around 130 basis points of growth, tied to the ongoing patent cliff of blockbuster drugs. Taken together, we grew 7% in 2025 with all regions delivering mid-single-digit growth or better.

Pharma revenue grew 9% with high single-digit growth across Americas and Europe, and low double-digit growth in Asia. In pharma -- in non-pharma end markets, industrial grew 6%, while A&G declined 1%. In China, we grew 9% for the year. Our team delivered exceptional performance by capturing renewed momentum in biotech and CDMOs, executing well in food and environmental applications and winning a series of academic and government stimulus centers.

As we now move into 2026, we expect continued organic strength supported by the instrument replacement cycle and contribution from new product innovation. We're also expanding our idiosyncratic growth driver framework from 3 drivers to 5. In addition to GLP-1s, PFAS and India generics, we're adding biologics and informatics. Biologics reflects future growth linked to bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization from progress we have already made in our high-growth adjacencies before the closing of the transaction. In [ bioseparations ] we anticipate sustained strength driven by new chemistry products already launched and in our near-term road map serving large molecule and novel modality applications. In bioanalytical characterization, we anticipate continued placement of LC-MS, malls and CDMS in process development and in QA/QC.

There is potential upside beyond our current assumptions supported by the FDA's draft biosimilars guidance, which could drive incremental demand by shifting approvals towards comparative analytical assessment rather than clinical outcome studies. For informatics, this reflects the future expected incremental growth linked to the phased transition of Empower from our legacy license-based model to our subscription-based offering. As we have shared previously, we expect to take our informatics business from its present revenue base of approximately $300 million to approximately $500 million by 2030.

The move towards subscription comes with a shift in revenue timing. Under this transition, revenue is recognized consistently over the life of the contract rather than upfront. For a typical customer converting to subscription, the breakeven point where cumulative subscription revenue equals the prior license value is reached in approximately 18 months. From that point forward, it adds incremental high-quality recurring revenue with a long-term visibility and margin benefits. We are executing this change gradually and expect it to become a more positive structural driver in the years ahead, beginning in 2027. Taken together, these 5 drivers are expected to contribute over 200 basis points of annual revenue growth accretion on a stand-alone basis between now and 2030.

Turning now to our integration of BD Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions. This combination is a significant value creation opportunity that further adds to our attractive trajectory across 2 main dimensions. Firstly, it strengthens our position in high-growth adjacencies across bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization by adding critical technologies and expertise. It also adds to our LC-MS diagnostics business with day 1 commercial scale, customer channel access and automation capabilities.

Secondly, it provides a meaningful execution uplift opportunity by applying our operating discipline across instrument replacement, e-commerce adoption and service attachment, we expect to replicate the same growth acceleration that we have successfully achieved in our existing businesses. Together, this positions Waters for sustainable, high single-digit growth over the long term, and well beyond the current instrument replacement cycle.

The transaction also yields attractive cost synergies. Our baseline plan represents less than 5% of the combined cost base with the potential to exceed that level. Consistent with market benchmarks for deals of size and prior large-scale integrations that our leadership team have successfully executed. To ensure we capture this value quickly and consistently, we have aligned the organization around a new operating structure. We have organized Waters into 4 divisions, where each follows our repeatable business model with simple yet sophisticated instruments, compliance software, customized consumables and world-class service. This structure enhances accountability and will provide investors with a clear transparent view into the performance of all our key segments across the company.

First, Waters Analytical Sciences, formerly known as Waters Division, will continue to be led by Rob Carpio, who you all know well. The division comprises LC, mass spec, light scattering and particle analysis, together with our Empower informatics platform, chemistry consumables and our service team. Going forward, revenue from Water's Clinical Business will be reported within our Advanced Diagnostics division. Waters Biosciences, formerly BD Biosciences, will be led by Steve Conley, who has led the business for the past 3.5 years, and has played a key role in the launch of its next-generation flow cytometry platforms. The Waters Biosciences division consists of leading flow cytometry brands like [ Fax Discover ] and [indiscernible], the [ Horizon ] [indiscernible] brand of fluorescent dyes and reagents and [indiscernible] software.

Waters Advanced Diagnostics will be led by [indiscernible] Bennett, who has been running our Clinical and TA business unit over the past several years, and has transformed the top line growth profile of these businesses. [indiscernible] has a strong background in diagnostics, having served as Senior Vice President of High Growth Markets at [ Beckman Coulter ] Diagnostics before joining Waters. The Waters Advanced Diagnostics division consists of leading microbiology testing brands, including Bactec, Phoenix and [ Kaster ], as well as molecular diagnostic solutions with the Max and core platforms, LC-MS based solutions and point-of-care testing.

Waters Material Sciences, formerly TA division will be led by Dan Rush on an interim basis while we appoint a successor to [indiscernible]. Dan is our Senior Vice President of Strategy and Transformation and has a long history of leading commercial and strategy teams. He served as Vice President of worldwide commercialization strategy and innovation at [ Bristol-Myers Squibb ] before joining Waters in 2021. The Material Sciences division consists of products, services and informatics spanning a diverse range of materials characterization techniques, including thermal analysis, rheology and microcalrimetry. These are used in a range of applications such as battery testing for electric vehicles, pharma and medical devices.

Together, these businesses bring leading scientific capabilities serving customers in high-volume regulated applications. They're anchored by a shared operating model that leverages category-defining brands and a universal culture of pioneering innovation.

In parallel, we have aligned early execution priorities to hit the ground running now that we are gaining full operational control of the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business. With several months of integration planning behind us, we have clear line of sight to the initiatives that will drive the most value in the early innings of the integration. In the most recent quarter, BD Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions results came in below expectations due to impacts that became apparent during the quarter. In China, demand weakened due to increased focus on reducing consumption and diagnostics testing, while the U.S. government shutdown affected the Biosciences business as export approvals got delayed. At the same time, the point-of-care business was impacted by a milder flu season compared to the previous year.

As we look ahead, our cost and revenue synergies are firmly on track. In 2026, we will make swift and decisive progress towards achieving the objectives we've laid out. On cost synergies, restructuring, procurement savings and network optimization are key vectors that we expect to begin realizing this year. As a prudent starting assumption, we expect to realize approximately $55 million of adjusted EBIT from cost synergies in 2026.

On revenue synergies, while there is meaningful opportunity across each of our work streams over time, our first priority in 2026 is enhancing commercial execution and forecasting discipline. We will quickly begin to leverage untapped growth vectors in instrument replacement in e-commerce and service attachment, and will immediately establish a deal desk to manage pricing discipline. As a prudent starting assumption, we expect to realize approximately $50 million in revenue, and $25 million in corresponding adjusted EBIT from revenue synergies in 2026.

Let me now describe the first phase of revenue synergy realization in a little bit more detail. These are the same levers you've seen us execute successfully at Waters over the past 5 years. Starting with instrument replacement. There are approximately 22,000 flow and back tech instruments that are ripe for replacement. At the same time, a meaningful wave of new products are being launched, such as [ Fax Discover ] [indiscernible] and [ Back Deck FXI ]. To achieve our revenue synergy target of $20 million by year 5, we need to drive an incremental 100 instrument replacements per year.

To put that into perspective, during our prior indomitable replacement initiative at Waters, we delivered double the target in half the time. Our service plan attachment -- for service plan attachment, our $20 million revenue synergy target can be achieved by increasing attachment by approximately 1 percentage point per year, a rate that is more than consistent with our historical performance of more than 2% annually over the past 5 years. For e-commerce, our target is to increase adoption by approximately 4% annually, which too is a more measured growth trajectory compared to our historical performance.

I will now cover our 2026 guidance. Across our existing businesses, the team is executing well with a revitalized portfolio, leveraging instrument replacement and realizing benefits from our idiosyncratic growth drivers. As a prudent starting point, these dynamics support organic constant currency revenue growth of 5.5% to 7%.

Turning to the acquired business contribution. Following today's expected close of the transaction, we expect the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses to contribute $3 billion of revenue in 2026. While the majority of headwinds that impacted the business in 2025 are already in the baseline, we have further risk adjusted our outlook to ensure a prudent starting point. We're assuming approximately 2.5% underlying growth in 2026 on an owned period basis before any benefit from execution and pricing improvements, or planned organizational simplification.

Taken together with the revenue synergies I just mentioned, this results in total 2026 reported revenue of approximately $6.405 billion to $6.455 billion. These starting assumptions imply a blended year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 5.3% at the midpoint of the combined company in 2026. This is an industry-leading growth guidance and carries clear opportunity for outperformance as the year progresses. From a profitability perspective, we expect to deliver a 2026 adjusted operating margin percentage of approximately 28.1%, which is already more than 100 basis points of margin expansion compared with our deal model in 2025. This translates to full year 2026 adjusted EPS of $14.30 to $14.50, which is also an attractive starting point, reflecting 8.9% to 10.4% growth. It includes $0.10 of accretion from the transaction versus Waters' adjusted EPS on a stand-alone basis even before reaching a full year of ownership.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Amol to review the financials and walk through our guidance in more detail.

Thank you, Udit, and good morning, everyone. In the fourth quarter, we delivered a strong finish to the year with as reported sales and adjusted EPS landing at the high end of our guidance. Sales of $932 million grew 7% as reported and 6% in constant currency. Orders growth outpaced sales growth in the quarter. By end market, pharma grew 7%. Industrial grew 8%, while academic and government declined 3%. In Pharma, growth was led by mid-teens performance in Asia, high single-digit growth in Europe and low single-digit growth in Americas. Instrument replacement remains strong along with new product adoption in both our instrument and chemistry portfolios.

In Industrial, Waters division grew low teens with double-digit strength across chemical analysis, food and environmental testing. Performance was supported by continued momentum in PFAS-related workflows, led by the sensitivity and robustness of the Xevo TQ Absolute XR mass spec system. TA division was flat, reflecting an improvement versus the first half of the year as customer spending trends continue to recover.

In academic and government, strong double-digit growth in Americas was offset by year-over-year spending declines in other regions. By region, Asia grew low double digits, while Americas and Europe grew mid-single digits. Within Asia, India grew high teens, reflecting continued strength in pharma generics. In China, sales grew 3% as strength in pharma and industrial was partially offset by timing of stimulus-related funding in academic and government. By product line, instrument sales grew 3%. High single-digit LC-MS growth was partially offset by a low single-digit decline in TA system sales. We also incurred a low single-digit percentage growth impact from successful customer migration to empower subscription agreements, which carry long-term recurring revenue benefits. Recurring revenues grew 9%, driven by 8% growth in service and 12% growth in chemistry.

We again saw fantastic customer adoption of our bioseparation columns which have been a vertical success in the market. Adjusted earnings per share grew 10% to $4.53, GAAP earnings per share were $3.77. For the full year, sales grew 7% on both a reported and constant currency basis. By end market, pharma grew 9%. Industrial grew 6%, while academic and government declined 1%.

In pharma, all regions delivered high single-digit growth or better, led by Asia, which grew low double digits. In Industrial, [ Waters division ] grew low double digits with broad-based double-digit strength across chemical analysis, food and environmental testing. This was partially offset by a 1% decline in TA division. In academic and government, the Americas and China grew mid-single digits, while Europe declined 5%. By region, Asia grew low teens while Americas and Europe grew mid-single digits. Within Asia, India grew high teens and China grew 9%. Our strength in China was driven by broad-based growth across pharma, industrial and [ ANG ]. This was supported by share gains in biotech and CDMOs, chemical and environmental workflows and ANG.

By product line, instrument sales grew 5%, led by high single-digit LC-MS growth. Recurring revenues grew 8% with 7% service growth and 12% chemistry growth. For the full year, adjusted earnings per share grew 11% to $13.13. On a GAAP basis, EPS was $10.76. Within the P&L, gross margin was 61.1% for the quarter and 59.3% for the full year, which was better than expected. Adjusted operating margin was 35.2% for the quarter and 30.5% for the year. This reflects the deliberate acceleration of strategic R&D investments in chemistry and informatics, along with the impact of regional sales mix and tariff surcharges. Our operating tax rate came in at 15.7% for both the quarter and the year. The full year rate includes approximately 50 basis points of discrete benefit related to a change in U.S. tax legislation enacted in 2025.

Turning to cash generation and the balance sheet. Free cash flow was $125 million in the quarter after funding $39 million of capital expenditures, and $15 million of transaction-related costs. For the full year, free cash flow totaled $677 million, after funding $113 million of capital expenditures, inclusive of tariff-related mitigation actions and $29 million of transaction-related costs. Our net debt position at the end of the year was $820 million.

Now I will share further commentary on our 2026 outlook and provide our first quarter guidance. We are executing well with a revitalized portfolio leveraging instrument replacement and benefiting from our idiosyncratic growth drivers. We expect this momentum to continue into 2026. As a prudent starting point, these dynamics support stand-alone full year 2026 organic constant currency revenue growth of 5.5% to 7%. We expect favorable foreign exchange translation to provide 0.5% tailwind to organic sales, which translates to organic reported revenue of $3.355 billion to $3.405 billion in 2026.

Turning to the acquired business contribution, following today's expected closing of the transaction, we expect the acquired Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses to contribute $3 billion of revenue in 2026. In setting this expectation, we have risk-adjusted the underlying growth assumptions, even though most of the headwinds that impacted the business in 2025 are already in the baseline as we enter 2026. Our guidance prudently assumes approximately 2.5% underlying constant currency growth for these businesses in 2026 on an owned period basis before any benefit from execution and pricing improvements or our organizational changes. In addition, we expect to realize approximately $50 million of revenue synergies in 2026, reflecting the initial contribution from the first wave of commercial excellence initiatives discussed earlier. Taken together, this results in a total reported 2026 revenue of $6.405 billion to $6.455 billion. These starting consumptions imply blended year-over-year constant currency growth of approximately 5.3% for the combined company in 2026.

From a profitability perspective, we expect to deliver an adjusted EBIT margin of 28.1% in 2026, consistent with our deal model. This reflects approximately 80 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion at Waters on a stand-alone basis, consistent with our Investor Day algorithm to approximately 31.3%. An adjusted operating margin percentage of approximately 22.4% for Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions, a $25 million contribution from the $50 million anticipated revenue synergies, and $55 million contribution from anticipated cost synergies.

Below the line, net interest expense is expected to be approximately $179 million and our full year tax rate is expected to be approximately 16.6%. From a share count perspective, our updated capital structure results in approximately 94.3 million diluted shares outstanding on a full year average basis in 2026. At closing, our new share count is 98.4 million shares. This translates to full year 2026 adjusted earnings per fully diluted share of $14.30 to $14.50, and represents 8.9% to 10.4% growth. It includes $0.10 of adjusted EPS accretion versus Water stand-alone non-GAAP EPS profile due to the transaction already before a first full year of ownership. It is important to note that quarterly EPS figures are not additive to the full year EPS due to a significant change in average shares outstanding between the first quarter and the remainder of the year.

For the first quarter of 2026, we are beginning the year with strong momentum across our core businesses. We expect stand-alone organic constant currency revenue growth of 7% to 9%. With tailwinds from favorable foreign exchange translation, the reported stand-alone revenue is expected to be approximately $718 million to $731 million.

Turning to the acquired business contribution. We expect the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions businesses to contribute $480 million of revenue in the partial first quarter of 2026. This calls for a low single-digit revenue decline. Quarterly rate trends reinforce our confidence in this outlook. Taken together, this results in a total reported first quarter 2026 revenue of $1.198 billion to $1.211 billion. For modeling purposes, first quarter average share count is expected to be $82 million and tax rate is expected to be consistent with our full year outlook. While the transaction is expected to be EPS accretive for the full year 2026, the first quarter will reflect the full burden of interest expense and the higher share count, with synergies beginning to ramp up in subsequent quarters. As a result, the first quarter adjusted earnings per fully diluted share is expected to be in the range of $2.25 to $2.35, which is flat to 4.4% growth. Embedded within this guide is stand-alone EPS of $2.50, or 10% growth versus prior year at midpoint.

With that, I will now hand the call back to Udit.

Thank you, Amol. So to summarize, with a revitalized core portfolio expanded high-growth adjacencies and tangible synergy levers now underway we are entering 2026 with strong momentum and a highly compelling growth outlook. Our growth outlook of 5.3% at midpoint for the combined company is appropriately prudent, yet industry-leading even before factoring in the full benefits of upcoming execution improvements, which we will now work decisively to implement. Within the P&L, we are confident in our ability to accelerate value creation as the year progresses. We look forward to updating you on our progress as we move through the year.

So with that, I will now turn the call back to Caspar.

Thanks, Udit. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to open the lines and take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

Udit, I think the two things people really want to dig into here are obviously the BD results this morning and the numbers, obviously, have deteriorated relative to the original deal model. So maybe just talk a little bit about your take on the numbers this morning, particularly for the lagging parts of the portfolio, U.S. academic government, China, early-stage research on the BD side. And how do we think about the path to recovery there?

And then the second thing is instruments, right? And the Empower impact on that transition. I understand it's, call it, 250 basis point headwind this quarter. But how do we think about the go-forward P&L impact on instruments from this Empower transition?

So Tycho, thanks for the two questions. So let me start with the BD Diagnostic Solutions and Bioscience business first.

Look, several issues emerged in Q4 that impacted the growth of both of those businesses that were not fully known in Q3. And I'll let Amol describe those in a few minutes. But what is important is that all of these will now be present in a lower baseline for us in 2026 to basically help us deliver the 2.5%, which we think has several upsides.

Now this reminds me of Waters almost 5 years ago, right? You couple this with a host of innovative new products in both diagnostic solutions and in Bioscience across flow cytometry, as well as across the microbiology business and the molecular diagnostics business. You start at a fresh portfolio. And -- so we are now really squarely focused on, first, improving the operational execution, for instance, by implementing a deal desk for pricing discipline and discounting discipline, ensuring launch readiness of this fantastic portfolio, just like we did with Alliance iS and improving forecast accuracy to minimize surprises.

And equally, after months of detailed integration planning, we're now ready to deliver the synergies. Be it around instrument replacement, e-commerce or service attach. And look, I mean, the service attach was starting at a 40% number. And you've seen what we've already done in 2025 alone. So we're very confident to deliver the $50 million in revenue synergies and more. You add this to what a stand-alone guidance is and you end up with over 5%, close to 5.3% in at the midpoint of the guide for the combined business. So we're feeling pretty good about that industry-leading growth rate as we head into 2026.

Amol, do you want to comment on the dynamics of the two businesses in 2025?

Yes. I mean, look, coming into the fourth quarter, we were starting to see the [ DRG ] headwind in China. And then we knew Q4 had a higher baseline from the prior year IP onetime revenue, right? But then a couple of other things sort of crept in, which is a weaker flu season, coupled with challenges getting exemptions on shipments to China because of the government shutdown.

Now as we get into Q1, three out of the four are sort of behind us in terms of the baseline for the flu season, no IP issues in the baseline for the first quarter as well as, remember, the China export ban started at the beginning of the first quarter last year. So from a baseline point of view, it's pretty clean, except for the DRG issue, which will start to come in the baseline late Q3. And quarter-to-date trends give us a lot of confidence that where we are guiding, which is a low single-digit decline for Q1 is sort of a reasonable guide.

So now turning to your second question on instruments. Really happy with instruments performance. LC-MS grew high single digits again. And this is like through the year, every quarter has been high single digits to double digits for LC-MS with the same drivers, instrument replacement cycle still going strong, as well as the idiosyncratic growth drivers plus the new products. TA was a drag at a low single-digit percentage to the overall instrument number given the weakness in both the U.S. and Europe.

And -- what's great news is something that we've been telegraphing for a while is the transition of Empower from on-prem to subscription where several large pharma customers transitioned in Q4, and that was about a low single-digit headwind to the overall instrument number. So overall, LC-MS high single-digit growth. TA was a low single-digit percentage headwind just given the challenges in U.S. and Europe. And Empower really a wonderful transition that we told you that we will talk about it. We will talk about it in the rearview mirror.

Now as you look ahead into 2026, Q1 started off extremely well on the instrument side. The funnel is extremely strong. Orders grew faster than sales in Q4. So we feel very good about where we're starting. And the guide we have given for Q1 and the full year. And all the drivers are currently fully intact. And we've also accounted in the guidance that we've given for the Empower headwinds that we expect during the year as customers transition from the CapEx to a recurring revenue model. So all going according to plan and really happy with, especially the Empower transition that [indiscernible]

And it's a fantastic problem to have, right? Two of the top 5 pharmas converted. And I mean, Q1 [ funnel ] is strong, so we're not [indiscernible]

Your next question will come from Catherine Schulte with Baird.

Maybe first, just for the full year guide of 5.5% to 7% after starting at 7% to 9% in the first quarter [indiscernible] some deceleration for the balance of the year. Is that just prudence to start the year? Is it comp driven? Or are there some other dynamics we should be aware of?

So first on the full year guide, the 5.5% to 7%, Catherine. Look, our guidance philosophy has generally not changed, right? I mean, the lower end of the guide constitutes where we think instruments are going to end up and I'd given a lot of detail to Tycho's question on that front already. So we feel very good about where we're starting on the instrument side at 5.5%. And on the 7% at the top end of the guide, that is our recurring revenue, sort of, guidance for the year.

This basically again constitutes several upsides that we've not baked into the guide itself. I mean we've assumed that the academic and government drug discovery from our research segments don't recover. In China, we've assumed a mid-single-digit growth versus what we've done this year, which is about 9%. I mean, a fantastic growth in China, but we've assumed mid-single-digit and not included any sort of stimulus revenue. We've incorporated already the Empower headwinds from converting from CapEx to a recurring revenue. This does not include reshoring revenues. And finally, for the full year, we've assumed that chemistry is roughly 6% in our guide, while finishing the year at 12% in chemistry growth rates. So several areas to basically have risk on the upside. And so I feel pretty good about where we're starting with the guide.

On Q1, Amol, do you want to talk about the 7% to 9%?

Yes. I mean in general, the momentum coming into Q1 is really strong, and that coupled with 4 extra working days sort of supports our guide. And that then sort of derisks the remainder of the year.

Okay. Got it. And apologies if I missed it in your response to Tycho's question. But on -- for the outlook for the BD assets, any comment on pacing there? And maybe what we should expect from a fourth quarter exit rate for BD on the path to recovery?

Yes. I mean, look, we expect sort of a low single-digit decline in Q1 and then growth sort of gradually starting to ramp up. as we go through the remainder of the year as some of the headwind gets more and more rooted in the baseline, particularly as we enter Q3 and Q4 when the DRG headwind is in the baseline.

Yes. And Catherine, look, equally, you should know that we are squarely focused on improving the operational execution. And as I mentioned before, this is around ensuring that there is a forecast accuracy in the business. There is a pricing discipline, not just on setting the price but also on discounting, which impacts both the top and the bottom line, and we've done that successfully at Waters. And also ensuring that the launches for the new products that are coming through go extremely well and something we've done by targeting segmenting very precisely for our Alliance iS and TQ Absolute products.

And equally, we're squarely focused on taking all the work that's happened in integration planning, and implementing that throughout the year to increase momentum on the revenue synergy side. Instrument replacement service attach and e-commerce should contribute immediately. So feel very good about the starting point after a lot of planning.

Our next question will come from Jack Meehan with Nephron.

Udit, on BD, you talked a couple of times about setting up a deal desk for pricing. Can you talk about which product areas are in focus and how you think -- how you think that's been optimized in the past?

Yes. So look, I mean, almost 5 years ago, we set up the same process at Waters, and it has 2, maybe 3 parts. The first is a centralized examination of what the list is prices are, as well as what the discounting is, and that escalates all the way up to me as discounting requests come from the different regions. So we've -- basically, we take away the ability for regions and sales teams to discount. So any time there's a list price increase, the stick rate is much higher.

This is especially relevant for products in the instrument category. Now here, you have a couple of new products that have been launched across the Biosciences and diagnostics businesses. The most of all being the [indiscernible] as well as now the [ S7 and A7 ] that are coming up. And for instruments, it's extremely important to not sort of lose the pricing discipline as you negotiate the deals, it's pretty easy to sort of give away pricing on highly innovative products, if you're not disciplined.

And on the recurring revenue side, we see a benefit both on the service piece so that we are charging for installation. We're charging for spare parts in an appropriate way, but also on the reagent side, where there is no reason for BD to not command the same sort of price premium that our chemistry revenue does. These are highly differentiated dies and antibodies that only BD producers, and these are of the highest quality. So there is zero reason why there should be discounting there. So we expect those to immediately impact and those impact both the top line and the bottom line, Jack.

Great. And then for Amol, can you give us an update on the pro forma leverage for Waters and how you expect that to evolve over the year? And kind of similarly, what is the guide for interest expense assumed for any refinancing?

Yes. So I mean, look, we will be roughly at a net debt of somewhere around $4.6 billion, $4.7 billion, right? And that would translate to roughly around 2.4x net debt to EBITDA, slightly more than what we announced because the deal closed earlier than what we had anticipated, which is great. And then we expect to be below 2x within sort of 18 months time frame. And then interest expense on a pro forma basis is about $179 million for 2026. .

Our next question will come from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe.

I actually just have one topic I'd like to cover, just on the synergy targets. I think your initial year 1 guidance assumes you cut 5% to 6% of the acquired businesses OpEx, assuming I have that math right? So I guess one question would be, do I have that math right? And if so, recognizing this is on day 1, and I think it's about twice what you previously outlined. What's driving this increase? And recognizing this is a pretty big number to start, I'm just wondering how you're thinking about potential upside to that year 1 target, given what seems to be strong momentum in identifying opportunities in the early going?

Doug. So look, I mean, our underwriting model assumed roughly 4% -- 4%, 4.5% of the pro forma cost base of Waters stand-alone plus the acquired business. And that had certain elements baked into it, like site consolidations, like sort of commercial and technology. And also, it did not include certain elements in the underwriting. When you compare and contrast it versus deals of this size, you typically see sort of 6% number. What Udit [indiscernible] achieved at [ Sigma Millipore ] was more like 8% number. We haven't baked in that level of targets in our underwriting because, one, we want to give ourselves some space. And we to -- for a deal of this size, there's always skeletons that you find and gives this room to cover for that.

If you now look at our guide, we're pretty much on track to deliver exactly what we said in our deal announcement. And we feel really good that after having done a lot of work over the last several months we are well on track to deliver our deal announcement commitments.

Your next question will come from Matt Larew with William Blair.

Sticking with BD, maybe thinking about the revenue synergy side, the results from the most recent quarter called out a number of issues, but maybe even over the last couple of years, might be suggestive of a business in need of commercial investment to improve execution. How do you think about the level of investment needed for the business long term, and how that perhaps works with the idea of the EBIT contribution you're hoping to get from revenue synergies?

So Matt, that's a really good question and something that we invested a lot of time in doing the integration planning. Now you take -- you take what I mentioned on the pricing discipline or launch readiness. We have central teams that we will now deploy into the businesses -- into the acquired businesses to implement this pricing discipline and train the teams locally, and eventually leave a few of these people behind to manage that on a day-to-day basis. Something we've done in the past as well. So the pricing discipline that we've seen at Waters, or TA, or clinical in the past will now be applied to the new divisions in the same way. So there will be commercial investment to ensure operational excellence, be it on launch readiness, be it on pricing.

And equally, we've looked at separately the amount of resources that are going after the launches. Be it the FXI on the microbiology business, be it BD Core, where it is enhancing HPV testing across the overall population. Or on the flow cytometry side, we've taken specialists and move them into the different businesses equally investing further in commercial readiness. So we feel pretty good about the resources we've put against improving the execution rhythm, but also getting a stronger uptake of the new products.

Your next question will come from Casey Woodring with JPMorgan.

So another strong quarter of chemistry performance. Curious if you could just unpack that for us. How much of that was price? How much was new product contribution in bioseparations? As a follow-up on pricing, can you just elaborate -- you had talked about, I think it was 100 to 200 basis points of pricing improvement with a high stick rate in that business. So how do you see pricing evolving here in chemistry within that 6%, 2026 guidance framework?

Let me start with this, Casey, and Amol will elaborate. Look, very happy with what we're seeing on chemistry, 12% growth for the year. Seeing really nice momentum already in Q1 with the innovation. And I mean, basically, it's a mix of what you just mentioned earlier. These are highly innovative products that command a price premium.

From a pipeline and product perspective, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we've built on the MaxPeak Premier technology, which is -- which targets [indiscernible] surfaces of all types. With SEC columns, with oligonucleotides, with [ slalom ] chromatography, and sort of the newest kid on the block is the affinity chromatography where we're attaching antibodies to particles. And here, super excited about what's going to come from BD with the capability in biology and antibody preparation, so we can prepare specific antibodies to conjugate to our particle.

So we feel very good about what's been happening and a nice momentum already at the start of the year. Amol, do you want to talk about pricing?

Yes. I mean on chemistry alone Casey, as we had outlined chemistry, we are able to get an amazing stick rate on our list price increases. So for like-for-like SKU, like-for-like geography, we are generating close to 400, 450 basis points on chemistry. On the overall portfolio basis, we're generating about 200 basis points of like-for-like SKU, like-for-like geography. That doesn't include upsell, and that's sort of running ahead of what we outlined at our Investor Day.

But more critically, that's a significant opportunity that lies ahead of us for BD. Remember, because Waters back pre COVID was 50-ish basis points of year-over-year price and now we are consistently delivering 200 basis points plus. And BD is exactly that, right? Like historically, they've done somewhere between 40 to 50 basis points and a meaningful opportunity ahead of us to reapply our blueprint that has been so successful.

Your next question will come from Puneet Souda with Leerink.

If I could circle back to an earlier question around the conservatism you're taking in the acquired assets growth. Obviously, those numbers are lower versus the expectations you had earlier. I understand that you're baking in pricing and KPI discipline that you're going to bring about. But you are in markets that are different to what pharma QA/QC have been.

So maybe just -- I would love to understand if you could, how much of a cushion there is in these numbers? How adjusted are they? If you could give us a sense, because I think that's the #1 question we're getting from investors as to the prudence you're baking in for the acquired portfolio.

So let me start, and then Amol will give you the parts. Look, I mean, we're not baking in just to sort of correct the question itself. We're not baking in the pricing improvements, or the deal desk and the launch readiness into the numbers. Amol, do you want to describe the details?

Yes. I mean, look, we are baking in primarily the headwind from China [indiscernible] And at this point, it's only prudent to sort of take that in. And we are also baking in some continued slowness coming out of other elements that are associated with China, or the academic and government market.

But again, when you look at our own water stand-alone U.S. [ A&G ] performance, it's tale of [ two worlds ], right? So there is a clear meaningful upside. If we can reapply our success to some of these parts, like what we've done in China, like what we've done with U.S. A&G. But at the beginning of the year, right out of the gate, we want to be prudent.

Got it. That's helpful. And then was there any contribution from extra selling days in Q1 that you're contemplating?

So I mean, our Q1 guide reflects 4 extra working days.

Your next question will come from Subu Nambi with Guggenheim.

What does operating margin progression look like this year with the addition to BD? What prudence is in those risk-adjusted assumption given it's a cleaner base?

Yes. Look, I mean, as we came into fourth quarter, we said we have few strategic R&D investments that could accelerate growth, particularly in bioseparations and informatics, and you're seeing the results of that growth on our top line. So we took the opportunity to accelerate some of those investments without changing our long-term margin on algorithm, right? So coming into 2026, we're back to 31.3%, which we feel really good about. And the BD Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business is coming in at 22.4%. So net of revenue and cost synergies that allows us to deliver 28.1% margin, which is perfectly in line with how we announced the deal where we said, look, we'll expand the margin of the pro forma company from 27% to 32% over 5 years. And where we are coming in on 2026 is exactly in line with the lower 100 basis points in the first year.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I will now hand it back to Udit.

Thank you. Look, I mean guys, thank you very much for your attention today. As we get into the new chapter for Waters, we're starting our guidance for 2026, with, again, an industry-leading growth for the pro forma business. Really coming out of the gate strong on operational execution and synergies with $55 million on cost and $50 million on revenue side, which yields 100 basis points of margin expansion already in year 1, and almost a 1% accretion in less than a year. So I feel very good about where we're starting. Thank you very much for your support and look forward to talking to you again.

All right. Great. Welcome to JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. I'm Casey Woodring from the Life Science Tools and Diagnostics team. Pleased to be joined by Waters' CEO, Udit Batra.

Udit is going to go through the corporate presentation, and then we'll leave some time at the end for Q&A. Udit, all you.

Thank you, Casey, and good afternoon, everyone. Roughly five years ago, we started a transformation process that has led to an increase in our commercial strength, revitalization of innovation and entry into fast-growing adjacencies for Waters. And that has then allowed us to make the acquisition of BD's Bioscience and Diagnostics business.

So today, I'll talk to you a bit about how we're executing from a position of strength. With the acquisition of BD's Bioscience and Diagnostics business, how we see the next few years for value creation for our corporation. And finally, I'll give you a bit of a hint on what's to come from a strategic and financial perspective over the next few years.

So let's start. For those of you who are not familiar with the Waters story, this chart is new. Basically, on the left-hand side, you see that we start with significant unmet needs for our customers that invest roughly 10% of product sales in R&D to take highly complex instrumentation and turn them into systems that are useful and used in high-volume regulated applications. These systems have four parts. First, instruments, roughly 170,000 of those are placed across all our customers in regulated laboratories and other laboratories. The data from these instruments is then transmitted via regulated software or compliance software. And a prime example of that is our Empower software, which is used to submit data for about 80% of all novel medicines to FDA, NMPA and the EMA.

The third part of this ecosystem is our chemistry and consumables capabilities. We are a leader in customizing separation columns to the molecule that we're trying to separate, and we are the only company in the industry that has a full control on the value chain. That gives assurance to our customers that they have no lot-to-lot variability, which is extremely important in quality control applications.

And finally, this whole wheel only works with our service team, which is roughly 1/3 of our overall revenue. Roughly 2,000 folks are in our service team with most of them with advanced degrees, many of them come from our customers. And the NPS scores that we receive are roughly 20% higher than the weighted average of all service industries. And so the NPS score is the highest across the industry. So a simple and repeatable business model that takes complex instrumentation, turns them into a simple system, yet sophisticated for application in highly regulated settings.

This business model, we've been applying in attractive volume-driven markets. And on the left-hand side of this chart is where we started back in 2020. These are our core markets. So we started with pharma QA/QC, late-stage drug development, food and environmental safety, chemical analysis, materials testing, in all roughly $11 billion in size, growing mid-single digit-ish where Waters grew slightly higher than that over the last 15, 20 years.

We then took our business model and we said, where else can we apply it where we could advance our growth, where we could accelerate our growth. And the first place, of course, to hunt is in the biologics space, which grows double digits, and there are two parts to this. First is bioseparations, basically orchestrating the separation of more and more complex biologics using the same column chemistry that we've perfected over many years.

Second, increasing and augmenting our existing portfolio of analytical instruments for all those that are applicable in biologics laboratories. So those are bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization.

Third is taking our LC mass spec capabilities into specialty diagnostics. And then lastly, taking our materials capabilities from our TA business and applying it to the battery testing arena. And that particular part of the market is roughly $7-ish billion, growing high single digits to low double digits. And in all, if you combine it, it's about a $19 billion, $20 billion TAM, growing mid- to high single digits. So taking this simple and repeatable business model and applying it across our core markets and entering faster-growing adjacencies.

Over the last five years, and I'll take you through the story. Our team has worked extremely hard to accelerate the benefits of pioneering science by regaining our commercial momentum, delivering pioneering innovation and entering faster-growing adjacencies. I'll take you through each one of these. We're nothing if we're not boring. You saw this chart five years ago on the left-hand side. These are the five execution initiatives that I talked about then and every year, we've given you an update. And there were five initiatives. The first one was instrument replacement. We had about a 13,000 instrument deficit that we needed to replace almost immediately. Over a two-year period, we basically added over $40 million in incremental sales just based on the instrument replacement initiative initially. And then now it's part of our commercial execution model at Waters.

Second, we focused on service attachment rate. Remember, I said we have about 170,000 instruments placed across laboratories around the globe. The service attachment rate was about 43% back in 2019. Today, it's about 54%. That's about 2.2% increase every single year in service attach.

Third, we said we want to sell more consumables through e-commerce channels. Five years ago, we sold roughly 20% of our columns through e-commerce. Today, that number is in excess of 45%. So roughly 5% increase every single year.

Number four is expanding into faster-growing contract organizations. Five years ago, this number was at 15% as a proportion of our total pharma business. Today, it's in excess of so an increase of roughly 10%, 12% over the last five years. And finally, as I said, we invest roughly 10% of product sales in R&D, and we had a burgeoning pipeline. We wanted to do it justice. So we launched an initiative to ensure that every launch had excellence associated with it. So these five initiatives have followed diligently -- we followed diligently over the last five years.

And now turning to the fifth one. We basically said, look, what can we do to advance innovation in the company? We pioneered innovation across our portfolio so that Waters has again gained podium position across each of our portfolios.

I just have three examples here. First is in the LC space, where Alliance iS is the leading instrument in the category. It reduces errors in the quality control space by 40%. It's in the second year of its launch, and it grew 270% versus last year, same time last year. The Xevo TQ Absolute is a quantitative mass spec that is used for PFAS testing. It is the most sensitive mass spec in the industry. In addition, it is the most robust, making it grow roughly 40% in the second -- in the third year of its launch. And the MaxPeak Premier Columns is the best story of all. It's now in the fifth year. These are bio-inert columns that are well suited for biologics characterization are growing year-on-year 35%. So in all of these areas where we compete, we have regained a podium position and set a new standard for innovation.

Number three, we wanted to build new vectors for growth, right? Remember, in the past, Waters was focused on small molecules and food and environmental testing. We wanted to enter faster-growing adjacencies. And here, on the left-hand side, I list three of them: bioanalytical characterization, bioseparations and taking LC mass spec into specialty diagnostics.

Bioanalytical characterization and bioseparations together form our focus on biologics and creating a biologics QC environment that mimics the simplicity of small molecules.

On bioanalytical characterization, we -- I just have picked two examples on this slide, one from the past and one from the present. This is -- the first one is the BioAccord instrument, which we launched back in 2019, 2020. We've taken that instrument. It was initially designed for QC laboratories. We've taken that into raw material testing, in process testing with a high degree of success. Second, we just recently launched our charge detection mass spec, which is basically suited for mega molecules. Basically think lipid nanoparticles, think AAVs, think antibody drug conjugates. It's one of a kind, and that's really helping us build our bioanalytical characterization portfolio organically.

Second, on the bioseparation side, this category of columns has grown 50% year-on-year. Started with our MaxPeak Premier Columns, which basically, as I mentioned on the previous slide, have grown 35%. And based on those bio-inert surfaces, we launched size exclusion chromatography aimed at large viral-like particles. Then we introduced slalom chromatography. I know this is -- I'm geeking out a little bit. This is exciting for me, and I hope it is -- at least some of it is memorable for you.

The second meaningful innovation was called slalom chromatography. Think slalom as you go down the hill while skiing. And this was especially designed for large oligonucleotides.

And the third and the most interesting one was affinity chromatography, where we've created customized columns that we can stick antibodies to allow separation for all sorts of large molecules, something that we're extremely excited about, and I'll talk about it a bit more as well.

From an inorganic standpoint, we made a couple of acquisitions to increase our portfolio of bioanalytical characterization equipment. We acquired Halo Labs for particle characterization and Wyatt Laboratories' light scattering portfolio to take it into quality control. So acceleration across adjacencies that, again, I started with about 5 years ago -- that I mentioned five years ago.

And on the right-hand side, you see Waters-specific growth drivers. We were also equally pragmatic as we saw growth drivers emerge, not the least of which is the GLP-1 testing domain, which will add roughly $30 million in incremental sales to Waters revenue in 2025. Roughly 95 basis points of accretion this year alone. PFAS testing adds 70 basis points or $20 million to the top line growth. And the third is generics, generics testing in India. India grows high teens for us, and that adds roughly $30 million to the top line or 95 basis points. And if you add all of that, that is over 250 basis points of accretion from these water-specific idiosyncratic growth drivers.

And for those of you who were at our Analyst Day, you see these numbers compare quite favorably to what we had presented back in March of 2025 as our target. So as I said, we're nothing if we're not boring, we say something and we go back and look at it and we deliver against it. And so I just wanted to show you the report card before we went on talking about the future. Now accelerating commercial momentum, launching new products, entering faster-growing adjacencies, of course, it leads to an industry-leading or best-in-class financial profile.

So, on the right-hand side, you see some facts. This is trailing 12 months of data across the life science tools space, scale players across the life science tools space. In the middle column, you see adjusted operating margin. I mean, for those of you who know the water story, we've always been a margin leader. We remain so, roughly 180 basis points higher than the next competitor. And then as you go down the list, you see a significant lead versus the rest of the industry. But what is more enduring is now we're a growth leader as well. For the last 12 months, we've grown roughly 8%. The next competitor is at 5%. If you take a weighted average across, we're 3x faster than the rest of the industry. So quite a nice report card, which, of course, leads to a double-digit EPS growth that you see on the right-hand side. So a strong focus in transforming the company that has led to quite nice financial results.

And so before Casey asked me in the Q&A, what 2026 looks like, you should expect more of the same. Basically, from a growth perspective, our replacement cycle is in its middle innings. On a six-year basis, on a six-year CAGR, it's still in the low single-digit growth. So it's still well below our average 5% to 6% growth for instruments over a certain period of time. Second, our idiosyncratic growth drivers, GLP-1 testing, PFAS testing, generics in India continue to be very strong and should contribute equally or nicely in 2026. And then you see two new rows at the bottom of this chart. The first one is biologics. This is bioseparations, bioanalytical characterization, both of which combined should add on to the commitment that we have made on the other idiosyncratic growth drivers. And finally, informatics. We have roughly a $300 million informatics business. anchored in our Empower software, which I mentioned earlier. We expect this to grow double digits over the next few years as we move from on-prem to subscription models, add value with new applications that our customers can use that are cloud native and add on a whole bunch of portfolio of instruments that are compatible with Empower. So in all, these five growth drivers, water-specific growth drivers should add roughly 200 basis points at least to our top line growth.

So I think you'll agree with me that Waters is in a reasonably strong position at this point in time, which, of course, gave us the confidence to acquire BD's Diagnostics and Biosciences business. And I want to talk about the value creation that's ahead of us for the next few years on the basis of that business.

Let's start with just looking at the Bioscience and Diagnostics business of Becton, Dickinson first. It's a $3.3 billion business, which grew roughly 5% CAGR from 2019 to 2024, which compares favorably to the rest of the industry. It's a well-established portfolio of brands with a large installed base, a pretty deep sales channel. When you look at the revenue itself, roughly 80% of it recurs every year. And on the right-hand side at the bottom, you see the geographic footprint. Close to 50% of the business is in Americas, slightly higher than what Waters' footprint is. When you go to Europe, it's roughly 30% of the overall turnover, which is similar to Waters. And Asia Pacific and China, a bit underweighted versus Waters, roughly at 20%, right? So balanced geographic footprint, 80% recurring revenue.

On the right-hand side, you see the two business units. The first one is Biosciences, which is roughly $1.5 billion in revenue. Here, BD command's leadership position with flow cytometers and specific and flow-specific antibodies. Roughly 50% of the customers are in high-volume applications like Waters, in clinical diagnostics, in elucidating the endpoints for clinical studies. The rest of the 50% serves pharma R&D, drug discovery, biotech and academia and government. And then there's roughly a 2% of the business is focused on single-cell multiomics.

The second business unit is the Diagnostic Solutions business unit. It's roughly $1.8 billion in size. 2/3 of that business is a microbiology business where BD has created that category several years ago and has leading brands like BACTEC and Phoenix, which basically are focused on reducing hospital-acquired infections and combating antimicrobial resistance. 25%, 26% of the business is focused on molecular diagnostics with the BD MAX platform, which is the only open LDT platform for PCR testing in the industry, growing double digits over the last several years. And the BD COR platform, which is a high throughput automated platform, which is now setting the standard for HPV testing and now is benefiting from guidance that the HHS has issued for home collection for HPV testing, which should have a serious impact on cervical cancer. And then the smallest portion of this business is about $100 million point-of-care business.

So, in all, a $3.3 billion business, growing mid-single digits with a lot of vectors for growth going forward. 80% of the business is recurs every year, and 80% of it is also focused on iconic brands.

Let me now talk a bit about the combination of the two Waters and Becton, Dickinson. And I want to break this up into two parts. First, I want to talk strategically on how the acquisition allows us to accelerate our journey even further into high-growth adjacencies. And then I'll talk a bit about the synergies and the immediate uplift that we should see already in 2026.

So, first, on flow cytometry, BD Bioscience. Remember, I said we want to create an analytical laboratory in large -- for large molecules that mimics the simplicity and the compliance that you find for small molecules. And there are two parts to this. First, we need to be able to separate and purify all sorts of large molecules. This is the bioseparations portfolio that you see on the left-hand side. Waters has already built a very strong position in that area. That business grows roughly 50% year-on-year. And we were on the hunt for specific antibodies to continue to improve our portfolio for affinity chromatography. Roughly 12 to 15 of our programs will immediately get accelerated, and we've validated that during integration planning, will immediately get accelerated with access to the wide range of antibodies that BD manufactures.

On the right-hand side, you see bioanalytical characterization. The laboratory of the future for biologics will look like small molecules only if we can have all these instruments be compatible with a compliant software like Empower. We've already traversed that journey for HPLC with UV detection, for mass detection for capillary electrophoresis, for multi-angle light scattering with Wyatt, and now we intend to do the same with flow cytometry. And so that in the future, when customers want to characterize complex large molecules, they can do it in the laboratory, both from a chemistry standpoint, from a physics standpoint, but also from a binding to assess the binding of these large molecules on cell. This is especially important given the guidance that the FDA has recently issued for analytical equivalents of biosimilars as opposed to biological equivalent. So this is quite an important tool to have in armamentarium.

Why molecular diagnostics? As I said before, we've been on a journey to take LC-MS into diagnostics. It's -- we've got a small entrepreneurial business, roughly $265 million in sales, which has been growing every year, high single digits to low double digits, really performing well. We've increased the number of analytes that are available for therapeutic drug monitoring for endocrinology, but we are limited in its -- we are limited by the commercial infrastructure and the service infrastructure we have. With BD, we acquire a much larger commercial and service infrastructure that immediately accelerates the growth of this business. Second, we also get access to globally relevant regulatory and medical affairs capabilities as well as automation, which again should automate these laboratories and allow LC-MS to continue to grow faster. So significant value creation ahead for molecular diagnostics or for LC-MS using the capabilities that we acquired from BD.

Why microbiology? Now this is 2/3 of the diagnostics business. It is extra credit. Basically, this is not underwritten in the deal model. And you see significant benefit both on the revenue side and on the cost side. Let me start on the revenue side. If you just traverse your eye to the left-hand side of this chart, what you find is we currently -- or BD currently has a competitor's MALDI-TOF mass spec that they use for microbial identification. Waters is a leader in mass spectrometry, and we intend to replace the competitor's mass spec with our own. This should yield at least $100 million in top line accretion over the next few years. Second, while BD defined the category of microbiology for hospitals, it had not entered with the same workflow in pharma QC as well as industrial testing, areas where Waters has a significant infrastructure and expertise, and we intend to take this workflow of microbiology into those segments, leading to about a $50 million upside. So significant upside over the next few years from these two Waters-specific levers.

And then on the right-hand side, you see efficiency improvements. The gross margin of the microbiology business is roughly 1,100 basis points lower than our nearest competitor. If you adjust for product mix, there's a 700 basis points gap between the gross margin of the competitor and ours. We intend to close that gap by, of course, implementing more disciplined pricing that we see at Waters already. Second, we want to basically build a more closed system where our products have preference. And then finally, with the improvement of the organization, we expect to add another 300 basis points. So, in all, over the next few years, we expect to claw back or close the gap between us and the competitor on gross margin. So across the portfolio, across flow cytometry, molecular diagnostics and microbiology, we see Waters-specific strategic drivers that should help strengthen our business for many, many years to come.

Let me now turn to the financials to the synergies. And there are two parts, of course, cost synergies and revenue. So let me start with cost. Traverse by to the bottom of the chart, we've signed up for roughly $200 million of cost synergies over the next three years. When you compare this to what some of us were part of in the EMD Millipore and Sigma-Aldrich merger, that number was roughly 8% of the combined cost base. We've signed up for roughly 5% of the combined cost base. If you adjust for that, we should be well above $300 million in cost synergies alone.

Now if I take you a little bit into the details, the cost synergies are divided into three parts: manufacturing and supply chain, commercial and service and R&D and G&A. The first two buckets are roughly $75 million to $80 million each, and the R&D, G&A is roughly $45 million. Now in 2026, we expect the overhead reduction in manufacturing, in G&A functions, in commercial to immediately hit and the direct and indirect procurement initiatives to also be accretive immediately in 2026. So cost synergies, we think there is quite a bit of room to overachieve, plus we expect to hit the ground running in 2026 when the deal closes.

Turning now to revenue synergies. There are three buckets: commercial excellence, so application of Waters is commercial excellence levers that I talked about earlier. Second, entry into higher-growth adjacencies or strengthening our position into higher growth adjacencies; and third, cross-selling. Let me talk about the second and the third bucket. I'll spend a little bit more time on commercial excellence on the next page. On high-growth adjacencies, roughly $115 million of revenue synergies is expected across the three adjacencies I mentioned earlier. For bioanalytical characterization, we intend to take flow cytometers, the FACSLyric flow cytometer that BD has into many more process development labs and QC labs and eventually make it compatible with Empower, adding roughly $40 million in top line accretion at the end of the fifth year. Same with bioseparations with -- as I mentioned earlier, there's about 12 to 15 programs that have been stranded in the Waters portfolio that will immediately get a benefit from access to a much larger antibody portfolio at BD. And third, as I mentioned earlier, LC-MS and diagnostics, with a wider commercial infrastructure and capabilities in regulatory and automation, we should be able to accelerate the journey there as well, roughly adding $40 million in overall accretion to our revenue.

On cross-selling, BD has a much stronger infrastructure in commercial infrastructure in academic and government labs, in drug discovery, in biotech, where Waters is not present as strongly. We expect to take our LC-MS portfolio and the rest of our portfolio into these laboratories with BD's commercial infrastructure. So that's high-growth adjacencies and cross-selling.

Let me now turn to commercial excellence. These should sound familiar, instrument replacement, service plan attach and e-commerce. BD has roughly 22,000 instruments across flow and diagnostics that are due for replacement. The number at Waters back in 2020 was 13,000. Remember, I said earlier, in two years alone, we added roughly $43 million in incremental sales just due to the replacement initiative. We've signed up for $20 million here by the end of year five. So less than half the revenue accretion in more than double the time. So there is room for overachievement here, and that's roughly 100 incremental units every single year.

Service plan attachment. Remember, we said for Waters, we took the service plan attachment from 43% to 54% over a five-year period, roughly 2.2% accretion every single year. Here, we have signed up for roughly 1% accretion every single year, yielding $20 million by the end of year five. And on e-commerce, we intend to take the 20% number of consumables sold through e-commerce to close to 14%, which is 4% increase every single year. At Waters, we've done 5%. So we've perfected or we've improved our ability to execute these commercial levers, and now we intend to apply them to BD with quite a bit of room for overachievement. So we feel pretty good about where we are on the application of these commercial initiatives. So we're executing from a position of strength. I've laid out what we expect from a value creation perspective with a combination of BD and Waters over the next five years.

Let me now turn to the strategic and financial perspective over the next five years. From a strategic perspective, it's a bit of a complex chart, but let me sort of walk you through it. Our business model is in the middle. So instruments, informatics, consumables and service in compliant high-volume applications, right?

So that's our capability. Back -- start at 12:00 o'clock, we started with small molecules back in 2020. We had some strength in food and environmental testing, which we've been leveraging with PFAS testing. That's at 2:00 o'clock. Turn to between 3:00 o'clock and 5:00 o'clock. We moved decisively into large molecule pharma. We started with BioAccord, added CDMS to it. Now we have the BD flow cytometry and antibody business.

Turn between 5:00 o'clock and 6:00 o'clock. It's the clinical diagnostics business. This is the molecular diagnostics plus LC-MS business. Not only do we have our portfolio from Waters, now we bring in BD MAX and BD COR and their software to the portfolio. Turn to 7:00 o'clock, there's the microbiology business, one that BD created the category for with BD Synapsys, BACTEC, Phoenix and Kiestra leading brands. And then now between 7:00 o'clock and 9:00 o'clock is our TA business. We've led materials characterization for many, many years. We've taken that into the double-digit growth arena of battery testing. And finally, at 10:00 o'clock, 11:00 o'clock, you see in-process analytical testing, taking the tools that we use in quality control and in manufacturing to the manufacturing suite itself. And there are three -- at least three examples where we've had a lot of success recently with our patrol system for GLP-1 testing, our light scattering instruments for polysaccharide testing and our BioAccord instrumentation for clone selection.

So across -- this is sort of the layout of our portfolio. It started with -- if you traverse your eye from 12:00 o'clock all the way back to 12 o'clock, it started with a mid-single-digit growth end market to now you see in green, low double-digit, mid-single-digit plus and double-digit grower. So really a decisive move of the portfolio into higher growth end markets. So that's our strategy on the page. And as you think about Waters of the future and capital allocation, this chart should help you sort of ground yourself.

Financially, what does that look like? I mean it's the same layout I showed earlier for 2025. Basically, from a revenue perspective, we've underwritten 7% growth CAGR over the next 5 years. When you look at sell-side reports, our peer average is roughly 4-ish percent. The margin expansion, which yields -- and we've signed up for a margin expansion of roughly 500 basis points, which again compares favorably to the peer group. And that all then, of course, leads to a mid-teen EPS growth, which is not so shabby as we look ahead.

So, let me finish with where I started. Waters is indeed executing from a position of strength, which allowed us to make the acquisition of BD's Bioscience and Diagnostics business and should lead yet again to an industry-leading financial outlook over the future. Thank you for your attention.

Super helpful overview. I think you nailed it my first question is on 2026. So you haven't provided guidance at this point, but you just said to expect more of the same. So can you just elaborate on that? What type of framework should investors be using when thinking about this upcoming year for Waters?

Firstly, thank you. And more of the same. So we'll provide formal guidance when we finish the year and share Q4 results. But you should think about it, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, you should basically on the top line, just simply be thinking about an instrument replacement cycle that's in its mid-innings. So the 5-, 6-year CAGR is still at the low single-digit level. So a lot of room to sort of add to that. And then you can add the idiosyncratic growth drivers, right? So GLP-1 testing, PFAS testing, generics in India, we added biologics and Empower growth to it, so roughly 200 basis points of accretion from that. And then the new products like CDMS adding on.

So similar sort of frame going forward as we've seen. And we will guide when we issue the Q4 earnings. And as we usually do, we get constructive as the year goes along.

And before we dig into the specifics on the business, I wanted to just bring up reshoring. Where do you see Waters opportunity there, both in terms of the total addressable market and then Waters specific potential revenue opportunity? And any sort of color you have around the potential timing of when we could start seeing.

Look, I mean, it's always seductive to get too quantitative when you have qualitative trends. I mean we are not shy of issuing targets and sort of beating them. But in this particular case, let me just start with the facts, right? We know that there's roughly a $350 billion to $400 billion CapEx that is generally committed by our customers. We also know from customer conversations that they will start to sort of impact our portfolio probably at the end of '26, sometime in '27. We know that Waters wins more than it loses in greenfield opportunities. We've shown that with the relative growth rates -- our relative growth rates versus the rest of the industry already. But what we don't know is the magnitude, right? And I would caution against being in a rush, right? Let's just wait, get more quantitation on this, and there's ample time in quantifying the upside.

The other interesting side effect of the timing is that you might see several years of high single-digit instrument growth, right? So let me explain. Our instrument replacement cycle will likely taper off sometime in 2027, when the reshoring CapEx should pick up. And then by the time that starts to taper off, we'll have another replacement starting from instruments that we placed back in 2021 and 2022. So, in a strange way, you might see a high single-digit growth of instruments for a significant period of time.

Okay. That's helpful. You just touched on instruments, but I'd like to touch on chemistry. Year-to-date, chemistry has grown 11% as of 3Q, which is above the historical growth rate for that business. You touched on several growth drivers in the presentation, driving that recent outperformance, price, volume growth across molecules, new product launches and bioseparations, for example. So can you elaborate on which of these drivers you expect to remain a tailwind to your chemistry business in 2026 and how you're thinking about the long term?

Chemistry is a gift that keeps on giving, right? So we have columns that were spec back in the 1970s that are still used, right? So once you spec in a column, it doesn't change unless the molecule is withdrawn from the market, right? So think of chemistry as an annuity, right? And it's a high gross margin. There's a pricing resilience, especially if you have innovative products. And from an innovation standpoint, our bioseparations portfolio has grown roughly 50%, starting with the Bioinert MaxPeak Premier Columns, which have grown 35%. On top of that, we built our size exclusion chromatography, which is target to sort of targeted towards LNPs and AAVs. And then we moved to slalom chromatography for oligonucleotides. And the most recent development is our affinity chromatography columns, which are customizable for any type of biologic.

So you give us a biologic, and we will work with you to try and figure out what antibody binds to it and then conjugate it to columns that you can purchase, right? It's fantastic. And it's rather foolproof. So once you sort of have it tagged along, you can create a large pipeline of columns.

So we think this will continue to add growth. Now of course, I mean, we grew 11% year-to-date in chemistry, historical growth rates sort of roughly 7% to 8% I wouldn't expect that to continue forever. We've seen benefits of innovation that came last year. But there is no reason to believe that chemistry cannot reverse a high single-digit to low double-digit domain once all of this portfolio starts to get embedded.

Okay. I want to hit on BACTEC. So I think a lot of the investor focus has been the targets that you've laid out, cost synergies and revenue synergies. You've straightlined both in terms of what you're expecting for -- in each year. Curious what you view as most actionable in 2026 on both the cost and revenue side and where potential areas of upside or opportunities to pull forward some of those synergy time lines forward?

No, I think -- I mean, we laid out the report card or at least the report card that you should hold us to pretty openly, right? From a cost perspective, you should expect the overhead reduction or G&A initiatives to hit already in 2026. At least the actions to be taken as fast as possible in 2026. indirect and direct procurement to hit already in 2026. So those should add immediately. I won't quantify that beyond what we've already quantified for 2026 in the past. Let the deal close, and we'll have a lot more to talk about it. Second, on the revenue side, we've spent a ton of time during integration planning, sort of validating the synergies and getting teams together to see where we can immediately see growth.

I talked about the commercial growth drivers, instrument replacement, e-commerce, service attach, things that we know how to do. We want to apply them to the larger portfolio, and we expect that to add value immediately. Cross-selling across LC-MS, across flow cytometry in PD, in process development, we expect that to add value rather immediately. So we feel quite good about what we have signed up for.

I won't say more at this stage. Let the integration planning finish and let the deal close, and then we can look back in the rearview mirror and see what's happened.

Okay. Maybe one more question on BACTEC and to the extent that you can talk about this is just the China piece for the legacy BACTEC business. Just talk about the exposure there, how they're exposed to the reimbursement dynamics in the region, pretty volatile as you've seen from your peers. So just the thought process around how you're going to handle that.

About 11% of BD's business is focused on China. I mean your focus is more on the diagnostics -- your question is more on the diagnostics side, where there is no molecular diagnostics business in China. It's mostly microbiology. And the microbiology business is very different compared to the other reimbursement pressures that you're seeing. It's basically two large competitors serving most of the hospitals. We do see pressure or BD does see pressure in reducing the utilization of bottles in hospitals as a result of the cost pressures. But we've seen that started to subside already towards the end of the last quarter.

Okay. Got you. Looks like we have 30 seconds here. Maybe as you look across the business, you have an exciting integration plan ahead of you. Maybe what are you most excited for in 2026 and the year ahead?

Lots, maintaining a focus on a few things and not sort of getting excited with every opportunity that comes. But I mean, look, it's our dream to build the biologics QC of the future. With bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization, I think we will play a huge role in ensuring that biosimilars get market access way faster than they have done in the past with analytical characterization tools that we've developed.

So I'm super excited about that and super excited about the microbiology business. But definitely, if I had to pick one, something that we set out to do five years ago, we did it organically as best as we could. And now we have a much larger portfolio and a much stronger position to be able to accelerate that journey.

All right. Sounds good. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Udit. Thank you.

Thank you.

Enjoy the rest of the conference.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. We're going to kick it off. I'm Tycho Peterson from Life Science team. I'm pleased to have Udit with me from Waters. Welcome.

Maybe we could -- I think, if we were sitting here a year ago, we'd be talking about the replacement cycle starting to kick off. We're a year into it. Maybe just talk a little bit about some of the trends you saw in 3Q, orders obviously outpacing revenues. So, talk about the momentum, the durability and how the pharma discussions are going now.

Yes. Firstly, thank you for having me here, Tycho, and it's great to be here. I'm not surprised the first question was on the replacement cycle. Look, it started about a year ago, as you said. Our instrument growth rate, this is LC-MS, remains in the high single-digit arena. And it's got three drivers.

The first one is the instrument replacement cycle. We're still, I would say, probably not even midway through it, given that it's only been a year, and several of the customer segments have not even started to replace, right?

So if you -- and another way to look at it is, to look at a 5-, 6-year CAGR. When you look at a 6-year CAGR, we're still in the low single digits for LC-MS growth, right? So that's quite an important indicator. So, we're far away from finishing the instrument replacement cycle. The funnels are good. So, the trends are very good there.

The second driver were our idiosyncratic growth drivers, right? GLP-1 testing, the revenues doubled there. PFAS testing still 30% order growth. India growing again, high teens. So, everything that we had said sort of on track from the Investor Day last year.

And then third and most enduring and the most important thing is our -- the products that we're developing are meeting significant unmet needs in the market, and they have incredible traction, right? So be it Alliance iS and you had the opportunity yesterday to visit our site, all the mass spec portfolio, including TQ Absolute XR for PFAS testing, for DMPK, and now CDMS is coming up for next year. Chemistry is doing extremely well.

And then finally, informatics is at the table as well. So innovation across the board is contributing nicely. So, see good trends and nothing, sort of, is changing. In fact, a couple of new growth drivers have been added.

Now yes, if you just look at pharma itself, there are two or three segments that are still not strong, right? CROs are starting to stabilize. Biotech, early-stage discovery is still sort of flattish, still declining a little bit. And China generics, which is a significant part of our China business is still declining, right? So, you have two or three segments in pharma that have not yet recovered.

And chemistry was up 13%, up double digits, low double digits year-to-date. You are well above the kind of pre-COVID run rate of typically 6%, 7%. So given new product cadence, is this the new norm?

Not 11%, not 13%, but trending in the right direction. Look, let's break it down a little bit, right? So, we started to invest in bioseparations 5 years ago quite significantly. Over 70% of our R&D spend in our columns is now towards biologic applications, right? So, that's a significant change from the past.

And over the last 3 to 4 years, you've seen very significant innovations come to the market. First was -- were the MaxPeak Premier columns. This is a bio-inert surface, which is relevant for all large molecules, right? So large molecules are sticky. They stick to many surfaces. We created a bio-inert surface. And that then allowed us to build on it.

We've launched SEC columns for size exclusion. The columns that did extremely well versus last year and this is where you saw incredible growth where some of the SEC columns, which are highly targeted, but also our protein A columns. Here we basically took antibodies and attach them to particles. And this is a very significant new platform. These products have grown faster than any products that we've launched in the history of Waters. And so, that's why you saw a spike in the growth, 13% this quarter, 11% year-to-date.

Over the mid- to long term, I would expect our chemistry growth rate to go from 6% to 7% to high single digits, just given the amount of -- given the fraction of portfolio that is now targeted towards large molecules, which grow faster.

Another way to think about it is the bioseparations -- the bioprocessing market. There, the consumables are proportional to biologics, biologics production, right? And the same thing will be true for bioseparations. So, that's another way to sort of anchor the logic.

And so yes, the answer to your question, it's a long answer to your question. I wanted to give you all the caveats, so you don't start modeling 11% already. But over time, we expect the growth rate in chemistry to be high single digits to low double digits for sure.

And with BD coming in, it unlocks several programs rather quickly. And so, you will probably see some of these spikes go up and down, and the slope of the line will continue to rise.

And then, we're going to hit on BD in a minute, but just maybe touch on the pricing opportunity on large molecule because that's very good for columns as well.

Yes. It's -- I mean, in general, chemistry, our pricing is pretty sticky, right? So generally 5%, 100% stick rate, and that's 20% of our business, so you get 200 basis points -- 100 basis points just like that.

With biologics, the pricing opportunity is more significant if you're solving very difficult problems, be it in separating viral vectors, be it in separating antibody drug conjugates, be it in separating vaccines, right? So the pricing opportunity there is much more significant and much stickier than small molecules as well.

I want to go back to the pharma performance and your comments earlier, trends are up 11% in the third quarter on pharma. You had a tougher comp. America, up low double, China up significantly. Maybe just touch a little bit on -- it doesn't seem like there's any slowdown in the cycle ahead of some of these CapEx developments here in the U.S.? And then on CROs, touch on that as well because that biotech funding that's driving that?

You promised no three questions in one. So -- but there are three questions in this one. So let's just take pharma and break it down a little bit. So double-digit growth in pharma yet again. U.S. and Europe, driven by the replacement cycle, the idiosyncratic growth drivers largely GLP-1 testing and DMPK in this case, and new products, right? So that's relevant for U.S. and Europe, and I went through that earlier as well. And this is large pharma and where the replacement cycle is driving the growth as well.

You go to China. In China, the growth is driven by CDMOs, who are supporting the local biotech industry. And the local -- basically, the local biotech industry has rejuvenated quite dramatically, roughly 1/3 of the global in-licensing comes from China now, right? And that's a dual benefit for us. We have significant share in global CDMOs that are Chinese based. And as they transfer the -- as the biotechs gets sold or as the molecules get out-licensed, the CDMOs keep the molecule and they transfer the process from China to ex China facilities, right? So it's a long-term benefit for us as well. But in the short term, China has grown double digits in pharma, largely on the back of CDMO growth. Branded generics is still pretty slow, right, still negative.

And then if you go to India, India is driven by genetics, right? So high teens growth, the generics demand remains pretty high, right? So different drivers geographically, so it's not a monolith, and it requires different ways to compete in the different markets.

What was your second and third question?

Just the comments on CRO on the third quarter call and what's driving that? Is that all biotech funding or...

Yes. So, CRO is still pretty slow, Tycho, right? I mean -- but stabilized. It's not declining anymore, and we start to see a bit more stability in the biotech industry, even in the U.S. as a customer. But I wouldn't call it a victory yet, right? So, it's not going back to 2021, 2022, but it's starting to stabilize. It's not declining as rapidly anymore.

Any tailwind from anti-involution in China in terms of kind of bidding and regulatory quality pharmas in there?

Not in pharma. I think that's mostly relevant for the industrial markets. And even there, we don't see much of it, right? If anything, the need for high-quality producers is even higher as you start looking at different parts of the market, so no real impact.

Innovation, I want to spend a minute on. It was great to see some of that at your site yesterday. Talk a little bit about the CDMS opportunity? How are you thinking about that market?

It's fantastic. It's rare that -- I'm an engineer by training, so I get excited about these kinds of things. It's fair that you see something that looks so shabby when you start with it. It looked like my PhD experiments, where on the side of a wall we had the CDMS instrument with high-voltage signs and pumps. And I think you saw the previous version of it as well. And for those of you who have access to our Q3 earnings, there was a picture in there, and that's a real picture, from 2022.

And customers had already started to -- started to look for that technology because it uses 100x less sample. It's 10x faster than analytical ultracentrifugation. It's nondestructive, it's a fantastic technology. And even in that pre-beta version, you could analyze large molecules and their molecular weight and their mass to charge ratio. It's not important what those characteristics are. It's just very difficult to measure them with small amounts of sample. And so this meets a very significant unmet need relevant for 40% of the biologics pipeline.

And over the last 2 to 3 years, and you saw our Wilmslow site yesterday, the team there converted this Frankenstein experiment into a sleek-looking box that sits on a bench top and is able to analyze 40% of these large molecules and give you a mass and a mass to charge ratio, which is not possible to do with any other instrument.

We have sized it and it's very difficult to size something like this when you're creating a new category, right? So it's a new category that's been created. The current techniques roughly captured $350 million sales annually. They grow high single digits to double digits. We think chances are we will take most of it over the next 5 to 10 years.

I suspect others will come up with similar technologies as well. But over the next 5 years, I mean, the ambitions are pretty significant. So, I won't say more than that. Let's look at the facts as they roll out. Let's look at the customer adoption, and we'll share more as we go further, but it's a very significant opportunity. And it's a fantastic instrument.

As I said, it's rare in your career. When you see an unmet need, you see a prototype instrument and you in-license it and within a reasonable period of time, it becomes a product that customers want. And the first shipment actually, by the way, occurred to a customer in China, right? So it's global demand, and it's just a fantastic product.

Maybe we could shift over to BD and curious thoughts on their 3Q results and how did that track relative to your own internal model?

I think -- look, I mean, it's an interesting question and one that we get a lot. One thing I would tell you is we don't run the business today. So whatever I say is with hesitation and also with not a ton of confidence, because we are not dug into everything, right? But that said, it's going according to our model, according to our plan, pluses and minuses, right? So the plus is being that the FACSDiscover S8, as I spoke to several customers, small pharma, academia, large pharma, universally, this is the best product in the market.

And since it was launched, there's been a funding slowdown. So there's a lot of pent-up demand, right? And that started to pick up, especially in the U.S. and in Europe. So that's an upside, while on the diagnostics side in microbiology, BioMérieux reported as well, they were a bit slower as was BD's business.

So puts and takes, but by and large, within error bars of what we had modeled. And don't expect it to be much different in the guidance either, right? So as I said, we are spending now more time doing integration planning, as opposed to going back to the model and saying, what did we get it? What do we get wrong? Right now, my entire focus is on day 1 planning, day 100 planning. So everybody who comes into the new company has a boss and has a seat and they go to a desk, they actually have a laptop. So we need to make sure that happens. So when the lights turn on, everybody's desktop turns on.

Second, we're taking what we talked about with you externally as well on the synergies. We've broken them down into roughly 400 initiatives with individual owners, and those are now being populated, right? So that's where the time is spent, and I'm enjoying that a lot.

Maybe just touch on some of the innovation there too, new flow, new back tech. Talk a little bit about how you're thinking about those in the next year.

So, I think, I mean it's difficult to sort of take a wide portfolio and talk about everything, but let's pick three to four, right? So the FACSDiscover S8 is a flow cytometer that basically measures 50 parameters and has an imaging technology with it. It's the only one in the industry. So KOLs and key customers can't wait to get their hands on it.

Second, the simpler version of it is going to be launched in 2026, that is relevant for cell therapy and clinical use, right? So there's a pipeline of products that are coming on that front.

Second is the FXI, which is the incubator for microbiology. It is a product that's been in the pipeline for a while for BD. It's frankly speaking, they've been a bit slower than the only competitor who has a product there and the product is going to get launched in Q1, Q2 next year and slowly going to get rolled out across the globe, and there's roughly 20,000 of those instruments that need to be replaced. Right? So something that we know how to do at Waters, and we feel very good that we'll be able to accelerate that.

So, those are two very significant innovations. The third one is BD COR. This is basically HPV testing. It's a high-throughput HPV testing, molecular high-throughput testing clinical diagnostic tool. And it is the only one with home collection, especially in the U.S. So, once that's been approved, we expect that to grow rather rapidly. So these are three pretty significant new platforms that are getting launched. And feel very good about what we're going to be able to do to get them moving.

Anywhere you've been most surprised on the integration planning front? You announced a deal in July, you'll close the end of March. So you have a long kind of runway here to plan it out.

Yes. I think more positive surprises than negative. Right? Significant opportunity on the microbiology workflow. Now there's an unmet need there to do rapid identification of microbes and determine the antibiotic that is needed to kill it, right?

So, the workflow itself has a lot of improvements that one can bring. But equally, as we looked at where Waters can immediately add value. The first place is to take that workflow into QA/QC in sterile testing of pharmaceuticals, right? That's roughly a $300 million market, growing double digits. BioMérieux has most of that market, and we think we can enter that with our commercial footprint.

And second is the MALDI-TOF that currently is sourced from a competitor. We have our own prototypes. It's already existing at Water. So there are three different work streams already in play to try and replace that over a certain period of time. So pretty excited about what we're seeing there.

So I would say, learning more, not negative surprises, but more positive surprises on what else we can do. And then, of course, the market dynamics is the market dynamics, right? So academia, et cetera, a bit slower than one would have imagined early on, but nothing dramatic.

I want to make sure we spend some time on software, because that was certainly something we focused on, on the visit yesterday. And you've talked about the super highway for Empower, you've put it on light scattering technology from Wyatt now. Talk a little bit about the road map there and how you think about it? And we put a $1 billion target...

Yes, I'll leave it to you to set public targets. Look, it's just to sort of set the current context. It's a $300 million business. And Empower is used to submit 80% -- the dossiers for 80% of QA/QC data for 80% of the drugs that are filed to the FDA, EMA and NMPA. So it's a very significant part of Waters' portfolio but also significant part of QA/QC for the pharma industry, right?

There are three areas where we are trying to add value, right? The first is to add other instruments to the Empower super highway as we call it. So today in the bioanalytical lab, not many instruments are compatible with Empower, right? So basically, we took multi-angle light scattering and made it compatible with Empower in the past. We've done capillary electrophoresis. Mass spec is in progress. LC has already been done T.he next step would be flow cytometry, right? So that's the first piece of the initiative.

The second is adding -- today, roughly 450,000 users have access to Empower. So imagine how much data exists in our customers databases, both on instruments and on the product. Both of those can be mined for insights, right? So we're basically building apps that access that data and give customers utilization data, give customers data on integration of peak, so they can have better anomaly detection. And in some cases, we've seen customers who used to have 90 out of 100 errors, now have 5 out of 100 errors in first-time integrations, right? So really significant advancement that customers are deriving value from.

So second initiative is basically launching new applications just using the existing data that we have access to. And the third and the most important one is changing the commercial model from what is called an on-prem model where a customer pays for a -- pays capital on day 1 and then has charged a service fee to maintain the software. The challenge with that sort of model is that, if you sell 500 licenses to a customer, they can easily substitute one user for another, and we found a few customers. In fact, one who had bought 500 licenses but had 1,000 users, right?

So, there is no chance to go back and inspect what's happening. What we've decided to do is move towards a subscription model, meaning each individual user is an individual unique subscriber, each instrument is a unique subscriber. So, any time now you change the instrument version, you have to pay up. Any time you change the user, you have pay up, right? And basically, you go from, say, $1 and then $0.20 for service all the way through and covering all upgrades for Empower now to a $0.35 or $0.40 per subscriber charge in perpetuity, right? So that's a significant change in the commercial model.

And we've had quite a bit of success with small to medium pharma already. They don't have large networks of instruments. They have transitioned and most customers prefer a non-CapEx model. They like it in their OpEx. So it's much easier for them to manage. We are in late-stage conversations with two very large pharma companies where it could be a very significant outlay.

Now so, if you add all that up, it's not unreasonable to think that the Empower business could be doubled in the next 5 years and to your target probably in a 10-year time frame. Yes. So it's -- because you're adding bioanalytical instruments, that's equally -- that is just about the same size of small molecules. The subscription model gives you a revenue uplift and so do the application. So you've put the target out there, but it's not unreasonable.

We gave you 10 to 15 years. Is your win rate in large molecule comparable to small molecule? I mean, it's been dominant for a small molecule. I mean, does that competitive advantage translate?

I think it depends in the area, right? So, where you have a unique value proposition, so for chemistry for sure, right? I mean, chemistry, each time, I think it's each time we have a head-to-head with anyone I think we usually win. So, if you're at the table because our chemistry and engineering teams usually customize for the user, right? So, for instance, one customer wanted to reduce the pore size in these SEC columns and the commercially available one was 250 angstroms, our guys built up 125 angstroms -- sorry, 125-micron pore size SEC column. So, the customization allows us to win a lot of share.

So, it depends in the area. Now where you have a unique value proposition like flow, like multi-angle light scattering, the win rates are pretty significant, right? So when you think about in-line testing, multi-angle light scattering compatible with Empower, BioAccord connected to bioreactors are two areas that are also starting to gain traction. And this was after the MFN deals were starting to be signed. Basically, pharma companies have started to become a little bit more relaxed about their CapEx even in R&D, right? And that has allowed them to buy these instruments.

There's another bucket for you. We kind of call it idiosyncratic growth drivers, right? It's PFAS. It's GLP. Talk about how these markets, I guess, have evolved relative to expectation. And if we're sitting here a year or 2 years from now, are there new ones that are popping up?

Very early days on PFAS, right? It's grown 40% again year-to-date of a $55 million or $56 million base from last year. We had signed up for half of that. The market is growing half of that rate. So, ahead of target on PFAS testing. The unmet needs are still pretty significant. The TQ Absolute XR wins more than it loses, given its sensitivity and there, I think you probably saw it in Wilmslow as well, instead of having to service the instrument after 2 weeks, you can now service it after 20 weeks, just the enhancement that was made recently on that particular product.

GLP-1 testing revenue, think of it in three different dimensions: the columns. We are specked into the two largest GLP-1 providers, we are specked into the late-stage oral compound, we are specked into generics. So you can see on the GLP-1 testing, on the columns, on instruments, on in-line testing, it's a very significant share there. And that revenue doubled from last year, right?

And India, in our model at the Investor Day, we had said 70 to 100 basis points of accretive -- accretion on our baseline growth. It's been growing well ahead of that. That was a mid-teens growth. We've been growing high teens with India.

So, all three going in the right direction. I think at some point, you'll see these get into the baseline. And at that point, the new initiatives with the BD acquisition, with bioanalytical, bioseparations, and LC-MS in diagnostics will start to kick in and create the sustainable growth rate to be at a higher level.

Great. Maybe in the last minute, and Amol is not here, so I can push you on '26. I think 6% to 8% is kind of the framework on the top line. Talk a little bit about some of the other dynamics that you can for next year.

I mean, the setup is good, right? The growth drivers remain the same, right? So the replacement cycle is still in its, as I said, middle innings. The idiosyncratic growth drivers, we just went through new products. Now you add -- you have Alliance iS, TQ Absolute XR, you have the chemistry that we sort of saw benefits already in this past quarter, add on -- add to that informatics, there will be some significant releases next year.

On that front, CDMS will start to pick up. BioAccord and multi-angle light scattering on innovation are starting to catch up on the biologics side. So, feel very good about the setup on the business, right? So, I won't give you a number, but the setup is very good.

Great. We're out of time. I'll leave it at that. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you, Tycho.

Welcome to the Waters Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. This call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, please disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Caspar Tudor, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Leila, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Waters Corporation's Third Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Dr. Udit Batra, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Amol Chaubal, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. Additionally, we will comment on the expected timing for completion of Water's pending combination with the Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business, of Becton Dickenson & Company as well as the expected financial and operational impacts of this combination on borders. These statements are only our present expectations based on information available to us as of today. As well as the forecast and assumptions of Water's management and are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of Water's control.

Actual events or results may differ materially from the statements made on today's call. Please see the risk factors included within our Form 10-K, our Form 10-Qs or other SEC filings and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release. During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release and in the appendix of the slide presentation accompanying today's call. Both are available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Unless stated otherwise, references to quarterly results increasing or decreasing are in comparison to the third quarter of fiscal year 2024. In addition, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-year revenue growth rates and ranges given on today's call are on a comparable constant currency basis.

Finally, we do not intend to update our guidance predictions or projections, except as part of a scheduling a regularly scheduled earnings release or as otherwise required by law. On today's call, Udit will begin by covering our key messages for the quarter. Amol will then take you through our results and updated guidance in more detail, then we will open the phone line up for questions.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Udit.

Thank you, Casper, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by saying, it is a true privilege to be on this journey with such dedicated and talented colleagues. As I reflect on my 5-year anniversary at Waters, I'm filled with gratitude.

Over these years, our team has consistently delivered on our commitments and strengthened the foundation of this company. Today, we celebrate another quarter of outstanding commercial momentum. We marked another breakthrough innovation with Xevo CDMS, the next generation of mass spectrometry and prepared to combine with BD's Bioscience and Diagnostic Solutions business, ushering in an exciting new era for Waters.

Now turning to our third quarter results. We are pleased to report another excellent quarter with top and bottom line results exceeding the high end of our guidance. This performance reflects the combined positive impact of innovation and execution, along with clear benefits from our strategic expansion into high-growth areas. It also reflects the dedication and hard work of our teams whose focus on customers, science and operational excellence continues to power Water's success.

We achieved strong results in the third quarter. Sales grew 8% as reported and 8% in constant currency. Instruments grew 6%, led by high single-digit growth in our LC/MS portfolio. Recurring revenue grew 9%, driven by 7% service growth and 13% chemistry growth. We grew non-GAAP earnings per share by 16% to $3.40, which was $0.20 above the midpoint of our guidance. A year ago, we signaled the start of a new instrument replacement cycle. Since then, sales activity has surged and our momentum has continued to build. We see meaningful runway ahead as customers progress through the multiyear process of replacing their aged instrument fleets. Instrument growth is currently tracking at a low single-digit CAGR versus 2019, reflecting steady mean reversion toward the long-term historical rate of 5%.

Beyond replacement activity, customers are increasingly choosing Waters for new capacity investments, setting us up well for the years ahead. Our idiosyncratic growth drivers, GLP-1 testing, PFAS testing and India generics continue to perform very well. At the same time, our innovative products are also solving clear unmet needs in bioanalytical characterization and gaining adoption. As reported, instrument sales grew 11% quarter-over-quarter, representing the largest third quarter ramp in our company's history outside of the 2020 COVID year, with orders once again exceeding shipments. The strong sequential performance underscores the strong momentum in our business. Year-over-year, Alliance IS sales grew over 30% in as the customer adoption of our flagship HPLC product remains a clear success.

Xevo TQ Absolute platforms grew 30%, with continued strength bolstered by the launch of the new Xevo TQ Absolute XR earlier this year. GLP-1 testing-related revenue more than doubled, reflecting continued wins in development and manufacturing settings in the Americas and Europe, along with expanding demand from genetic semaglutide manufacturing build-outs in India. PFAS growth remains robust with orders growing approximately 30%, similar to last quarter. We saw strength across all major regions, highlighted by strong demand in Japan as labs prepare for new drinking water regulations and continued momentum from U.S. federal, state and municipal labs.

Our India team once again delivered excellent performance with revenue up high teens. This was driven by strong demand from genetics manufacturers and CDMOs as we continue to benefit from volume growth trends tied to the ongoing patent cliff of blockbuster drugs. Further enhancing our core performance are the unique capabilities we've built to address unmet needs in large molecule workflows. We are seeing clear progress in bioseparations and bioanalytical characterization reflecting the success of our deliberate long-term strategy and the investments we've made, both organically and through our acquisition of Wyatt.

In bioanalytical characterization, we saw strong growth of multi-angle light scattering instruments in pharma QA/QC applications as large pharma began new waves of instrument purchasing in quality labs. This was enabled by the recent launch of Empower onto wired light scattering platforms. BioCode system sales also saw strong growth, underscoring the sustained momentum and expanding adoption of this platform in the bioprocessing domain as customers increasingly standardize on its proven performance and ease of use in routine large molecule workflows.

In the quarter, chemistry grew 13%, and fueled by the positive market reception of our newly launched SEC and Affinity bioseparation columns with strength that more than offset pull-forward dynamics from the second quarter. Bioseparations grew more than 20% with small molecule applications growing 10%. 5 years ago, Waters Max peak premier columns set a new standard of performance in reverse phase separations across both small and large molecule pharmaceutical applications.

Today, this high-performance surface technology remains the benchmark for customers seeking the clearest peaks, maximum reproducibility and highest confidence in results. All of this helps accelerate analytical decisions across discovery, development and manufacturing. Since 2023, we have made further advances in combining the bio inert benefits of Max peak Premier with our novel innovations in other chromatography techniques such as size exclusion chromatography and affinity chromatography, both critical to bioseparations. These products have an immediate success serving pre and post clinical development and manufacturing applications of novel large molecule therapeutics. New products launched over the past 5 years grew approximately 50% in the quarter and have been a key contributor to our 11% year-to-date chemistry growth. By end market, our results were led by pharma which grew 11%, driven by double-digit growth in Americas and Asia and high single-digit growth in Europe.

In Asia, we saw particularly strong growth in China, where pharma sales grew by more than 20%, reflecting continued spending improvement amongst Chinese CDMOs and biotech customers. In our Industrial segment, sales grew mid-single digits, with the TA division returning to positive growth sooner than expected. In the Academic and Government segment, sales grew 1%, driven by stimulus tender wins in China and a lower-than-expected decline in the United States, where our teams delivered strong results at customers' fiscal year-end.

Our growth strategy is delivering, driving exceptional performance and positioning us for sustained momentum ahead. At the same time, the external environment continues to improve across our key end markets, supported by more stable global trade conditions and a clearer policy backdrop for our pharma customers.

With our strong third quarter performance, we are raising our full year 2025 guidance. We now expect constant currency sales growth in the range of 6.7% to 7.3%. This represents a 7% midpoint, which is an increase from our prior outlook. We are also raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance and now expect a range of $13.05 to $13.15, which represents double-digit growth.

Looking ahead to 2026, we are well positioned to build on our momentum. The same growth drivers that have powered our performance this year, instrument replacement, higher service attachment and increased product adoption through e-commerce will remain key contributors. We also expect the innovation tied to our idiosyncratic growth drivers and our unique offerings within bio separations and bioanalytical characterizations to deliver a sustained contribution to our growth. This puts us in a fantastic position to deliver strong performance again in 2026, further reinforcing our outlook for next year, we are launching a wave of new products that build on our recent success. At the same time, our pending combination with BD's Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business, represents a powerful catalyst for near-term synergy realization and long-term value creation. A few weeks ago, we launched our Xevo charge detection mass spectrometer, which marks a new era in mass spectrometry. It is a perfect example of how our team takes complex technology that meet clear unmet needs and turns them into simple and easy-to-use instruments without losing the sophistication of the measurement.

Xevo CDMS represents a transformative breakthrough in bioanalytical characterization. It enables direct high-resolution measurement of largest and most complex therapeutics in high-volume applications. The system is a major advancement offering faster results, easier operation and requiring much smaller sample sizes and traditional methods such as ultracentrifugation.

It provides process development and lot release characterization insights up to 10x faster while requiring 1% of the sample volume accelerating what was previously required days of analysis. This launch is relevant for 40% of the large molecule pharmaceutical pipeline and serves a total [indiscernible] approximately $350 million, which is growing between high single digits and low double digits. We also have exciting updates ahead for Empower, which has long set the standard for compliant informatics and pharmaceutical applications. It is used in more than 80% of novel drug approvals by the FDA, EMA and China's NMPA. Over the last several years, we have steadily expanded the value and reach of Empower, adding new detectors to the platform.

Earlier this year, for example, we successfully launched multi-angle light scattering from our acquisition of [indiscernible] on to Empower. These advancements are helping us extend Empower's leadership from small molecule analysis into the faster-growing large molecule applications where biologics and complex modalities now represent more than half of the global pharma pipeline. Looking ahead, Empower will continue to evolve as a more complete panel for bioanalytical characterization across multiple techniques, including flow cytometry, creating a unified, compliant data environment for our customers' most advanced analytical workflows.

In 2026, we we will begin a significant release cadence introducing a series of premium features that will progressively evolve Empower into a modern, connected and more intelligent platform. These cloud-native features will leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce manual interventions, save analyst time and minimize compliance risks from human error, which are all key value drivers in QA/QC labs. They will also enhance instrument utilization and uptime through predictive maintenance and automated operational insights. The value add that these new features offer will answer our customers' unmet needs and will help accelerate our customers as transition from a perpetual license model to a subscription-based model where we are already seeing growing traction with several large pharma customers. This shift will unlock long-term growth accretion within informatics and deepen customer engagement across Waters' digital ecosystem.

Further development could expand the opportunity ahead in bioanalytical characterization came last week as the U.S. FDA issued new draft guidance aimed at modernizing and accelerating the development of biosimilar drugs. The proposed framework will reduce the need for routine comparative clinical efficacy studies and instead rely primarily on advanced analytical characterization. This could represent a meaningful shift towards analytical testing becoming the primary gatekeeper for biosimilar approval which has the potential to increase demand for analytical instruments and compliance-ready workflows such as our BioCore LCMS system, multi-angle light scattering and flow cytometry.

Taken together, these developments strengthen our confidence in the high-growth opportunity that exists in the years ahead across bio separations, bioanalytical characterization and large molecule compliant informatics. Now turning to our pending combination with BD's Bioscience and Diagnostic Solutions business. We have a compelling opportunity to create value for our shareholders and begin realizing year 1 synergies following completion of the transaction.

Our goal is to hit the ground running and quickly apply the same execution and operational discipline that has defined Waters over the past few years. Integration planning is well underway and progressing rapidly. We've hosted 2 highly energizing integration summits at our Milford headquarters, bringing together 120 leaders from both organizations to establish a unified vision. We have refined our pre-day 1, day 1 and day 100 master plans and achieved alignment on operationalization of transition service agreements in collaboration with the BD team.

And we are well on our way to readying our synergy delivery action plan, 6 big business unit work streams and 10 functional work streams are now fully mobilized and focused on day 1 readiness. We remain on track to complete the combination of BD's Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business with Waters Corporation around the end of the first quarter of calendar year 2026.

I will now turn the call over to Amol to cover our financial results in more detail and provide further details on our guidance.

Thank you, Udit, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, we delivered sales of $800 million up 8% as reported and 8% in constant currency. Momentum remained strong with as reported sales increasing 4% quarter-over-quarter, while orders continue to outpace shipments leading to backlog growth. By end market, pharma grew 11%. Industrial grew 4% and academic and government grew 1%.

In pharma, all major geographies grew high single digits or above led by low double-digit growth in the Americas and Asia. This trend reflects robust instrument replacement activity key wins in greenfield CapEx projects, such as those related to our idiosyncratic growth drivers and new instrument system deployment in bioanalytical characterization. We also saw significant market uptake on our new chemistry products such as those serving bioseparations which grew mid-double digits. In Industrial, Waters provision grew mid-single digits led by mid-teens growth in food and environmental testing where we facilitated demand has remained a key growth driver.

PA performed better than expected and returned to growth with sales up 2% as improving macro sentiment grow stronger customer spending. In academic and government, growth was led by China, which grew approximately 20% as we leveraged our local presence and new product innovation to capture stimulus tender opportunities. Meanwhile, the Americas saw a low single-digit decline as spending came in better than reflected in our assumptions. By region, Asia grew 13%, while Europe and the Americas, each grew 5%. In China, sales grew 12%, driven by double-digit growth in pharma and academic and government.

India grew in high teens, reflecting continued strength in pharma generics where we are benefiting from the ongoing patent cliff. By product line, instrument sales grew 6%, led by high single-digit growth in LC/MS systems, reflecting continued strong performance as we move beyond the first year of the instrument replacement cycle.

Recurring revenues grew 9% with service up 7% and chemistry up 13%. Our strong chemistry performance was driven by price optimization and volume growth in small and large molecule applications and new product introductions, which more than offset the pull-forward dynamics from the second quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $3.40, representing 16% growth. GAAP earnings per share were $2.50.

Gross margin for the quarter was 59%, which was a 70 basis point sequential increase versus the prior quarter, reflecting normalization of tariff remediation costs. Adjusted operating margin was 30.3%. Our operating tax rate came in at approximately 14%. Free cash flow was $160 million after funding $25 million of capital expenditures and $14 million of transaction-related expenses. Our net debt stood at $948 million at the end of the quarter.

Now I will share further commentary on our full year outlook and provide our fourth quarter guidance. Our growth strategy is delivering, driving exceptional performance and positioning us for sustained momentum ahead. At the same time, the external environment continues to improve across our key end markets, supported by more stable global trade conditions and a clearer policy backdrop for our pharma customers.

With our strong third quarter performance, we are raising our full year 2025 constant currency sales growth guidance now to a 7% midpoint in the range of 6.7% to 7.3%. Net of currency translation, full year reported sales growth is now expected to be in a range of 6.5% to 7.1%. We expect full year 2025 gross margin to be approximately 59.2% above our prior outlook and adjusted operating margin is expected to be approximately 31%.

Below the line, we expect $36 million in net interest expense and average diluted share count of $59.7 million and tax rate of 16.5%. With these updates, we are raising our full year 2025 adjusted earnings per fully diluted share guidance to the range of $13.05 to $13.15. This is approximately 10% to 11% growth. This guidance incorporates the expected impact of the current tariff structure on our business including the recent increases in tariff rates since our last update.

Turning to the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect constant currency sales growth in the range of 5% to 7%. And Net of currency translation, reported sales growth is expected to be 5.2% to 7.2%. At the midpoint, this guidance assumes a 16% quarter-over-quarter increase in the reported sales between the third and the fourth quarter, prudently below the seasonal pattern we observed last year. We also have one additional day in the fourth quarter versus the prior year, representing roughly 100 basis points tailwind to recurring revenue sales growth. We anticipate our fourth quarter adjusted earnings per fully diluted share to be in the range of $4.45 and $4.55, which reflects a year-over-year growth of approximately 9% to 11%.

With that, I will now hand it back to Udit.

Thank you, Amol. So in summary, momentum in our business remains strong. We have continued to deliver high single-digit growth as we move into the second year of the instrument replacement cycle. -- driven by consistent execution and the positive impact of innovation across our portfolio.

Reflecting this trend, our raised full year -- full year 2025 outlook now calls for high single-digit sales growth and double-digit adjusted EPS growth at the midpoint, underscoring the success of our global teams delivering on our long-term growth strategy. Looking ahead, we will enter 2026 with a robust cadence of breakthrough product launches, expanding adoption in large molecule applications and an exciting opportunity to unlock meaningful near-term synergies and long-term value creation through our pending combination with BD's Bioscience and Diagnostic Solutions business.

I will now turn the call back to Casper.

Thanks, Udit. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to open the lines and take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Tycho Peterson with Jefferies.

Nice, nice quarter. I'd love to unpack the pharma strength to start. America is up low double digits, China, up over 20%. Can you maybe just provide a little more color on both those markets in the U.S., how much of this is on the back of the onco announcements? And how are you thinking about kind of year 2 of the replacement cycle -- and then durability of momentum in China, is this increased R&D investment? Is it a multinational activity? And how do you think about anti-evolution there? It seems like that could be a tailwind in China going forward. And then lastly, just on chemistry up double digits. Can you maybe just provide a little bit more color [indiscernible] what's driving that? Because you are tracking above historical growth trends.

Look, very happy with what we're seeing in pharma. It grew double digits again this quarter. And as you mentioned, the growth is across all regions. Starting with the Americas. Look, I mean, double-digit growth overall. But if you just take U.S. and Europe as a combination. I mean the growth was driven by the success of our replacement cycle in large pharma and equally the traction of our new products, right? I mean you'll note now Alliance IS grew -- grew 300% versus last year.

Xevo TQ Absolute start to enter the DMPK space, and that's benefiting the pharma growth in the U.S. and across Europe quite a bit. GLP-1 testing is doubled versus last year and increasingly our biologics characterization instruments as well as our bioseparations portfolio is doing extremely well with large pharma across U.S. and Europe. If you go to China, in China, same as last quarter, activities being driven by CDMOs supporting the local biotech industry. And again, here, our new product portfolio is doing extremely well, right? I mean these customers are supporting biotech customers who then have to transition many of these molecules globally, and they want the best characterization techniques, the best chemistry, and that's benefiting us quite a bit. and not to leave India out, I mean the India generics market continues to grow in the high teens.

Now that said, there are still pockets of low growth, right? Like we mentioned in the past, China generics pharma discovery pharma discovery and CROs are still a bit slower. So as those improve, the setup is extremely good as we go forward for pharma and as we look ahead. So great execution across U.S. and Europe and globally, great traction with new products and still some pending end markets or subsegments that are not yet flowing.

Now turning to your question on chemistry, right? I mean this is a real success story of our focus on innovation, especially in bioseparations. Like this quarter, we grew 13%. Year-to-date, the growth is 11%, and there is a significant contribution of our bioseparations portfolio, right? So we launched Max peak Premier roughly 5 years ago that created the bio inert surface category. And on top of that, we've been step-by-step launching new products targeted to different types of novel modalities and large molecules.

First came the SEC columns, basically helping us resolve large molecules that we can separate through porous particles. We launched affinity chromatography last year, again, with the Max Peak Premier as a base and that is growing really, really nicely.

Let me have Amol jump in just to sort of give you some help on the modeling as you think about this in the future and the contribution of new products.

Yes. And just to build on what did said, right? I mean, think of it this way. Our teams are pursuing critical customer unmet needs. So when they are able to solve those unmet needs, very quickly, the demand and the sales pickup on that new product and reach sort of $8 million a 10 million, right? And if you have 2 such launches in a year, you're quickly adding $20 million, $25 million in that year when it happens. And on a base of a little over $600 million of chemistry, that's like 300 basis points accretive in the year that happens.

And then think of it from a BD vantage point, right, like BD just unlock 8 to 12 projects that were stranded that gives us a very meaningful runway in the next 5 to 7 years to unlock this accretive growth through bioseparations.

Look, I mean, at the end, the success in pharma, the success in bioseparations or chemistry is all due to sort of a deliberate focus that we put a few years ago on launching products that meet unmet needs across our customer segments. And we're seeing fantastic uptake of these products.

Your next question will come from Jack Meehan with Nephron.

Pretty strong results here. I had 2 questions for you. The first is on the BV transaction. It sounds like there's a lot of efforts underway. I was curious your latest thoughts on the revenue synergies and confident to issue that and then my second question on is, last week, there was an FDA update around biosimilars for analytical assessments without CMS. Just curious if you could help us understand what that might mean orders.

Thank you, Jack, and I think your line was breaking up a little bit, but your first question was around BD, right? Look, a very busy few months since we last spoke. I've had the opportunity to visit several customers across Bioscience and microbiology.

Equally, we've had a lot of discussions with our future colleagues in workshops -- so let me just give you some color on both of those, and then I'll let Amol comment on the immediate impact of different types of synergies. Look, from a customer standpoint, the fax discover S8 and 8 are a significant advancement in the field of flow cytometry. I had the opportunity to visit academic customers. small pharma customers and large pharma customers. And now you couple this with a more stable CapEx environment going forward where customers are able to plan without many perturbations.

The CapEx, I mean we see a very significant opportunity there to increase the uptake of fax Discover, S8 and 8. I mean this was fantastic to see with the customers myself. On the microbiology side had an opportunity to visit automated and manual laboratories. Now to just illustrate the difference between the 2 in manual laboratories, you get hundreds of samples in a day and about 80 or so technicians will be in any laboratory basically doing a lot of these experiments manually. And if you compare that to an automated lab, you will need roughly 5 to 7 technicians to do the same throughput or even a higher throughput of experiments, right?

So significant savings. And to put that in perspective, BD's [indiscernible] platform has roughly 10% to 20% growth in Europe over the last couple of years, whereas in the U.S., the penetration is at a very low level. So we think there's a significant opportunity there as well.

So I'm thrilled to bits to see things that we had put on paper and really verify them with customers and meet new colleagues. Now in terms of integration planning. We've had roughly 120, 130 colleagues come to Milford our headquarters twice in the last few months. The last workshop really focused on day 0, day 1, day 100 planning.

So there is no, nothing lost in transition from 1 organization to another. And then we spend a significant amount of time taking the synergies that we had signed up for and elaborating the plans with milestones and targets and assigning those to individuals across the 2 organizations and take a significant amount of progress made on that front.

And I'll let Amol comment on which synergies will contribute rather quickly in the next year or so.

Yes. Just to build on what Udit said, right? I mean these 2 summits were fantastic. We got an opportunity to validate both our revenue synergy assumptions and cost synergy assumptions in a large group setting with leaders who will be responsible for delivering these synergies and working them out in the countries, in the market. And that gives us confidence that we will not only be accretive from an EPS point of view in the first 12 months, but also in the partial year that we will have in 2026, where we will get maybe 9 months in the year.

And I mean what hits the ground running day 1 are things like improving service plan attachment, deploying premium service plans to our LCMS customers getting into customers that we today don't serve with our LCMS in diagnostic offering, getting into DMPK labs getting flow and PCR into process development labs, where we have built strong channels across Biocad and light scattering and implementing our pricing discipline algorithm, which even in today's settings is delivering like-for-like SKU, like-for-like geography, 200 basis points of year-over-year increase.

So I mean just to build on that, really looking forward to bringing the execution focus and it's being received extremely well with our new colleagues and a sharp focus on unmet needs as we unlock many growth areas for the future.

Now to your question on biosimilars, really excited to see that the guidance is now guidance is now moving towards using analytical instruments and analytical testing instead of clinical studies to show equivalents between biosimilars and originators this could provide a significant upside as we go ahead. And if you go back a few years, we've talked about this. This is -- this and being able to substitute 1 1 tool for another without having to redo process development and redo manufacturing submissions is the impetus for creating our bioseparations and bioanalytical portfolio. So this plays right into the hands of our strategy. And I'm really excited, a bit cautious. I mean, to see how fast the ramp will be.

So I would not start modeling all biosimilars with bioanalytical characterization yet Jack. Let's look at one or 2 customers adopting it and then we'll go forward. But I'm very excited to see this.

Your next question will come from Puneet Souda with Leerink.

Yes Amol, First one on the 4Q guidance and then I have a broader follow-up. On 4Q, just wondering if you're expecting a budget flush in the fourth quarter. If there are any pull forwards in the third quarter that you saw you had a pull forward in 2Q in China, but you grew strongly again 13% in China, I believe. So wondering if you can clarify on the pull forwards. Or should we expect a normal seasonality in the fourth quarter? And fourth quarter contribution instruments versus chemistry, if you could elaborate?

So let me start, and then I'll pass over to Amol on the breakup. Look, we need I mean it's a very strong setup going into the fourth quarter, right? The drivers are the same instrument replacement cycle, idiosyncratic growth drivers, innovation, really kicking hard. So feel very good about what we are seeing going into the fourth quarter. I mean -- and as usual, we have maintained our guidance philosophy, right? So when you look at the full year guide, I mean, we basically said 7% at the midpoint, high single-digit growth, EPS double-digit growth.

That means that Q4 is at 5% to 7%, right? And when you take that math at the midpoint of the guidance, it's slightly less than a 16% ramp from Q3 to Q4, which is substantially lower than what we've seen on average for Waters, which is roughly 22% and even lower than what we saw last year, which was at 18%, right? So that gives us -- and it is the same philosophy as we've had through the year, we will look at it in the rearview mirror and claim success, but I can simply say, I mean, there is a significant amount of prudence built into what we have guided for Q4. Amol?

Yes, just to add to that, right, I mean, as we had outlined, the guidance is prudent 16% versus 18% last year, historical 22% ramp. And keep in mind, there's 1 extra day on the recurring revenue, which adds about 100 basis points. So the way it breaks down is chemistry, roughly 6% because still some working down of the Q2 pull forward, service about 8% because it has one extra day and then instruments at 5%, sort of aggregating all to 6% midpoint.

I'm sorry, I didn't address your pull-forward question. No pull forward at all, right? Orders grew more than sales this quarter, and we've built a healthy backlog. So feeling very good about the overall momentum that we see going forward.

Got it. Just a quick follow-up, if I may, on Empower. If you could outlined for us, obviously, a very important core product for execution in QA/QC for Waters. With the subscription-based model, how should we think about the incremental upside here versus the prior Empower model?

Yes. Look, Puneet, I mean really excited about what we're seeing from our software teams. And this empower innovation model or as we call it internally, the Empower super highway has 3 parts, right? I mean we want to take every analytical instrument that is used to characterize biologics and be compatible with Empower.

So when our customers choose to take it into QA/QC they have no reluctance, right? And you see that, as an example, with multi-angle light scattering on Empower, customers are moving that into QA/QC. You've already seen that with mass detection, capital press, and we intend to do the same with flow cytometry and down the line with PCR as well. So that's the first part. The second is then taking our large installed base that you just referred to. There's roughly 450,000 users of Empower globally, right? And it is the compliant informatic software of choice for our pharma customers. We intend to give them more value-added services with -- and applications with a cloud-ready software, right? So for instance, customers want to get utilization data. Our system monitoring software already provides that, provided you have your products on Empower.

Second, we're offering our customers a data viewer, which allows them to detect anomalies in their -- in different peaks allows them to do integrations much, much more smoothly just leveraging their own data through advanced machine learning algorithms. And finally, the data intelligence software, which is the most exciting allows regulators and customers to determine where an audit trail might have been -- where we would -- where you might have deviated from an audit trail electronically, so they can focus on the exact challenge that they need to address in compliance. And put this all together, this then really gives customers and impetus to go from a CapEx and a service model to a subscription-based model, and that has significant benefits. It's too early to start quantifying exactly what that is.

I can tell you that there are a significant number of customers who've already transitioned in small to midsize pharma. There are several large pharma customers, where we are in late-stage discussions and just to sort of give you an example, one customer transitioning their fleet across the globe can yield roughly low double-digit millions just very, very quickly in upside. So we'll start to quantify that as the runs come on the board like we usually do. But as you can intuitively see, this is a very significant opportunity.

Your next question will come from Casey Woodring with JPMorgan.

Great. have 2 here. The first is on TA. You said that business came back faster than expected. I think you had previously assumed would be down 5% in the second half, and you grew 2% here in 3Q. So maybe walk us through your latest expectations as we exit the year in -- and then on the instrument order funnel, you talked about orders exceeding shipments again in the quarter.

Maybe walk us through what you're seeing from an order funnel perspective. And I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the replacement cycle runway. You've historically said that the cycle usually lasts around 2 to 3 years. But just wondering if this current cycle could last longer, just given the strength that you've seen here, coupled with new product launches, the FDA update Jack referenced earlier and perhaps any sort of reshoring benefit?

Thanks, Casey. So quickly on TA, right? I mean the thing that was causing sort of the pain in Americas was largely driven by the volatility around tariffs with some of our large industrial customers. And as that is starting to stabilize, these customers are coming back to business and releasing capital for projects that were installed and then that, coupled with an interest rate outlook that is improving, opens projects that were stranded for last several quarters.

So in general, we feel good that the business is tracking towards a good direction. And in terms of the funnel and the order book, I mean, a lot of things are going well, right? In the sense you have large pharmas and CDMOs in middle of a replacement cycle. The innovation that we've put out in the market across both LC and MS is resonating and solving critical unmet need. And that is further than amplified by by analytical characterization and bio separations where we continue to make big headways.

So the funnel is pretty rich and strong. Now having said that, 3 customer groups are still on the sideline. CROs, biotechs and branded generics in China. We start to see CROs come into the mix as we come towards the end of the year, which is great because then they add to the replacement cycle as we get into 2026 and there is still a significant runway left on both large pharma and CDMOs that positions us severely well for the upcoming year. And then at some point, branded generics in China and drug discovery have to consider replacement because these instruments have aged far more than their typical useful life.

Excellent. Look, I mean, just maybe in belting on 2 points that Amol has covered. One, the replacement cycle. I mean, if you look at the 6-year CAGR, we're still in the low single digits on instruments. So there's a long way to go. And I think you mentioned reshoring. Look, the recent clarity on MFN, as you see large pharma negotiating with the government, really it's been a relief, right, across our customers and across our company because it allows you to plan a lot more systematically, right? And I would not underestimate the benefit of being able to do that, that then allows the customers to adopt. As I mentioned earlier, BD's track discover SA[indiscernible] Much more confidently. It allows them to adopt our new products much more confidently as CapEx gets released.

So we feel very good given that we have a differentiated portfolio that is meeting needs with the further clarity in the end markets. And that's sort of a side effect of the negotiations that have taken place on the MFN.

Your next question will come from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe.

Two questions. It was a really strong quarter. That said, when I look at our model, there's some interesting pacing dynamics. And I know you said there wasn't any pull forward or push out. But if I look at just our model and I think street models, you beat the quarter from a revenue standpoint, but you increased full year guidance by less than the magnitude of the beat Secondly, margins were light, but you assume a big jump in operating margin in Q4 more than previously expected.

And then tax rate was low in the quarter and really helped some of the EPS upside, but then you expect a big jump in tax rate I'm just wondering how much weight we should put on some of these puts and takes when it comes to timing dynamics as they run through the P&L? Like should we focus much on those? Or is the bigger thing just to in your opinion, kind of say like, hey, there's going to be puts and takes in any quarter, but if you look at the year as a whole, you're tracking ahead of plan top to bottom. So that's the first one. And then really building off of that. you have some really strong momentum heading into next year. The downside to that is the comps are difficult. I just want to make sure, as we sit here today, are you still comfortable with us modeling something like 6% to 8% core growth at the top line even with these comparisons given the strength and something like 50 to 100 basis points of margin expansion.

I mean, look, at the end of the day, you have to look at the full year, right? I mean there's always puts and takes in a given quarter, like for example, in -- we are running ahead of plan. So we had to sort of true up for the annual bonus payout to reflect that. And then there is also incremental commission associated with outperforming your plan that comes in. When it comes to tax, there is always timing of discrete items and when they show up and when they get trued up.

So on a full year basis, we're still at 16.5% on the tax rate. And as Udit outlined, I mean, we have tremendous growth catalysts out there for 2026. And if there is an opportunity to accelerate some of them or to derisk some of them, we will absolutely take it as long as it's within our guide and within our P&L. And we continue to do that as we come across investment opportunities that accelerate growth.

To answer your second question on next year. First, I'll tell you this year is not over, and we're laser-focused on delivering a fantastic year, high single-digit growth, double-digit EPS growth. I mean puts and takes and from 1 quarter to the other, notwithstanding, I mean, the full year is fantastic, fantastic performance.

2026, the setup is the same, Doug, as this year with incremental drivers from a more stable policy environment, especially across pharma the largest customer, stable environment also across academia as we start to go into next year. So a better -- even a better setup from an end market perspective. From waters, the setup is excellent, right? our instrument replacement cycle is still sort of in the mid innings. We are traversing at a low single-digit CAGR versus 2019. Idiosyncratic growth driver, GLP-1 testing, the revenues doubled this quarter versus last year, there's still a long runway to go as the volume keeps increasing and now you have some aglutide generics coming to the market. India is putting up really nice runs on the board with high-teens growth and as PFAS testing talk about innovation. I mean, our pipeline is doing extremely well. The move towards bioanalytical characterization bioseparations is paying off extremely well, as you saw in this quarter's results and year-to-date results and we expect that to continue next year. Now that's augmented further by strength in CDMS, which is a game-changing launch for large molecule mass spec -- you then have informatics building on top of it, with malls going into Empower in the instrument space. So there are several catalysts for next year that are not even there this year.

So we feel extremely good going into 2026 on our top line growth. Now as you know, we generally don't give specific guidance in Q3. We'll talk more about that than the year-ends and at Q4, but the setup is extremely good from an end market perspective, our execution perspective and how much traction all our new products have and that allows us to deliver the performance we're delivering in a dynamic environment.

Your next question will come from Dan Arias with Stifel.

Just did a follow-up on the biosimilar opportunity over the next few years. If you look at the revenue number for the drug sales over time, they move up nicely each year, 260 higher than this year. And then '27 and '28 move up pretty significantly as well.

Obviously, there was a pricing component there. So when you look under the cover, so to speak, to what extent do you see pill count increases underpinning that such that you can think about an incrementally larger opportunity being available to you each year because it looks good from a dollar standpoint, but I'm wondering what is the change for you when it comes to what matters most, which is obviously just the number of bills.

So look, I mean, Dan, that's a fantastic question. And it's exactly the right way to look at the biosimilars opportunity. You take any drug class. I mean you take oncology drugs or you take what you find is the penetration for these really advanced therapies that make a massive difference in a patient's life, the penetration is still extremely low, right? And some of that has to do with pricing and affordability. And when you are able to introduce more biosimilars and do them without having a further requirement for clinical studies and just use bioanalytical characterization that motors would provide you allow for many more biosimilars to come into the market.

Hence, the price goes down and the price goes down, the access increases and the penetration increases, we think this is a significant volume growth opportunity. And more importantly, it will make access to many more biologics available to a significant number of patients around the globe. So of all the things that I've seen in policy improvements over the last few years, if this one takes traction, it is a significant improvement in patients' health.

Okay. Maybe just a second, just a follow-up for Amol. Amol sounds like you have a good number of new products coming to market over the next 12 months. Is there a margin impact that we should be mindful of there? I know in the early days there can actually be some downward pressure even on a product that has a higher gross margin profile just until that product itself actually kind of gets up to scale. So I'm just wondering if there's something to be to think about there.

I think of it this way, right? I mean the products that are coming to market are a healthy combination of bio analytical characterization, IO separations and Empower. And clearly, bioseparations being chemistry and Empower being software are meaningfully accretive to our underlying gross margin profile and that will offset sort of any instrument-related new products, which, as you know, out of the gate are not fully value engineered. And then keep in mind that products like Alliance IS and TQ Absolute and TQ Absolute XR, while they were not fully value engineered out of the gate in the last 2 years, it now becomes a time for us to value engineer the MRR teams are laser-focused on that, and you'll start to see the accretive effect of that value engineering flow through.

Your next question will come from Catherine Schultz with Baird.

I'll just go ahead and ask my 2. First on BD, I know we'll have to wait for later this week to get the full results. But in their preliminary announcement, they called out some incremental headwinds in academia for Biosciences. So can you just talk to your confidence in that 4% to 4.5% top line for that asset next year? And then maybe on chemistry for the 4Q guide, I think you said up 6%, which would be a low single-digit sequential increase. We haven't seen less than a high single-digit sequential increase in the fourth quarter since 2012. So I just wanted to understand that a bit more. Was there less burn through the second quarter pull forward in the third quarter than you expected or any other timing dynamics we should be thinking about there?

Yes. So let me take the chemistry one first. That's simple, right? As we guide, we assume chemistry is 7% grower. We adjusted it a little bit for the Q2 pull-forward dynamics and tax. We didn't sort of relate the Q3 performance into Q4, just to be prudent at this stage, right? On the BD side, right? I mean, look, we had meaningfully reduced the ANG numbers because in our models, in U.S. A&G came down by as much as 40%.

Over the time, 25% to 27% in our underwriting. So what we are seeing in the ANG market is largely in line with what we underwrote. But then in any business, there's always going to be new headwinds and new tailwinds like we had with wire, right? I mean, right after the wire transaction, the biotech market meaningfully softened -- and as a true resilient team, we rose up to that challenge, and we accelerated synergies and found ways to make sure that we deliver the numbers we committed to -- the Street, right? And so that's generally the DNA of this team. whatever the cards are. We always lies up. We look at every crisis is an opportunity. And we make sure we deliver what we commit.

So Catherine, just to build on what Amol has said, we feel very good about what we are seeing with BD. As I mentioned, I visited customers myself had a chance to talk to academic customers, small pharma and large pharma customers. And on the Biosciences business, especially with the fax Discover S8A8, which are clearly setting a new benchmark in that category. I mean we're seeing very, very good reception. And now couple that with a more stable pharma environment, you should see CapEx start to go up in that environment, a more stable academic environment, you should see -- you should start to see that go up. And as far as the sort of early indication from BD on that market, it is largely in line, in fact, even better than what we have assumed for that business.

So really feel very good about our assumptions going forward.

Your next question will come from Brandon Couillard with Wells Fargo.

Second quarter in a row china has been up double digits, a lot better than peers. Do you think that's unique to bagging your portfolio and what do you assume for China for the year? And how sustainable is that as you look out to '26 based on kind of how you're going back the macro there?

Look, I mean, yes, China again grew double digits. And Pharma first grew largely because of our CDMO customers supporting the local biotech industry. And again, our new products allow us to to basically again show what I would call more differentiated performance and this is largely to do with execution and new products. When you look at the academic end market, that also grew almost 20%, and there, again, we took actions a couple of years ago to localize our full portfolio, expand our distribution. You couple that with fantastic execution -- fantastic commercial execution at the ground level and we've been able to win a significant share of the latest stimulus that has come through.

So the academic end market has been doing pretty well. As we look at Q4, I mean, we're seeing the same trends persist. We are modeling a high single-digit growth, a bit of a slowdown from Q1 from Q2 and Q3 which if you just take it in all, the first half grew double digits and the second half grew double digits. So China would have had a double-digit year who would have thought that, that's possible in this environment.

So I'm extremely proud of what the teams are doing on the ground and how they're taking new products and really operating effectively in a pretty dynamic environment.

The only thing I would add there, Brandon, is the academic and government stimulus-related revenue, you have to take it with a grain of salt, right? I mean, we very well know in our industry that it is just moving money from one year to another. And once the stimulus is done, you hit an air pocket, right? So that's not new or specific to anyone. And as we outlined at our Investor Day, we are modeling China low to mid-single digits in the 5-year time frame, and this outperformance versus that assumption is amazing.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I will now hand it back to Caspar.

Thank you, Lila. This concludes our call. We look forward to connecting with many of you at upcoming events and conferences.