Danaher Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello. My name is Todd, and I will be your conference facilitator this morning. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Danaher Corporation's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Bedford, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Bedford, you may begin your conference.

[John Bedford, Vice President, Investor Relations at Danaher]

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call. With us today are Rainer Blair, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Matt McGrew, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

I'd like to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call, and a note containing details of historical and anticipated future financial performance are all available on the Investors section of our website www.danaher.com, under the heading Quarterly Earnings.

The audio portion of this call will be archived on the Investors section of our website later today under the heading Events & Presentations and will remain archived until our next quarterly call. A replay of this call will also be available until May 7, 2024.

During the presentation, we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. The supplemental materials describe additional factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Unless otherwise noted, all references in these remarks and supplemental materials to company-specific financial metrics relate to results from continuing operations and relate to the first quarter of 2024 and all references to period-to-period increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. We may also describe certain products and devices, which have applications submitted and pending for certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets.

During the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including those set forth in our SEC filings, and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rainer.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks very much, John, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. We're off to a good start in 2024, with our team delivering better-than-expected revenue, earnings and cash flow. We were especially pleased to see improving order trends in our bioprocessing business and believe we continued to gain market share at Cepheid in the quarter. Now this better-than-expected start to the year, paired with improving funnel and order trends further supports our full year outlook, which is unchanged from our previous guidance.

Our first quarter results also reflect the unique positioning of Danaher's portfolio today. Our businesses are well positioned in attractive end markets, all underpinned by long-term secular growth drivers with high margin, high recurring revenue business models. Our strong free cash flow generation also positions us well to further enhance our portfolio going forward.

Now, it's not just the portfolio that differentiates Danaher, it's how we run the business using the Danaher Business System or DBS. Our team's commitment to executing with DBS enables us to deliver impactful new innovations to our customers and drive meaningful process improvements in our businesses, both of which are helping position Danaher for sustainable long-term performance.

Now, prime example of the power of DBS is the CEO Kaizen, we kicked off just two weeks ago. During this pivotal annual event, our most senior leaders operating company President, and thousands of associates come together to address some of our most significant opportunities for material and sustained improvement in our businesses.

In fact, just last week, I rolled up my sleeves at one of our filtration manufacturing facilities in Pensacola, Florida, to focus on increasing manufacturing throughput and reducing lead times. DBS is our culture, and this year's CEO Kaizen, underscores how our commitment to continuous improvement at all levels of the organization can contribute to a better customer experience and lasting competitive advantage across our businesses.

So with that, let's take a closer look at our first quarter 2024 results. Sales were $5.8 billion in the first quarter, and core revenue declined 4%. Geographically, core revenues and developed markets were down slightly with broad-based strength across diagnostics offset by declines in biotechnology. High growth markets declined low-double digits, including a high teens decline in China, where the economic landscape remains challenging.

Our gross profit margin for the first quarter was 60%. Our adjusted operating profit margin of 30.1% was down 170 basis points as the favorable impact of cost savings initiative was more than offset by lower volume. Adjusted diluted net earnings per common share were $1.92. We generated $1.4 billion of free cash flow in the quarter, resulting in a free cash flow to net income conversion ratio of more than 130%.

So now let's take a closer look at our results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end markets today. Core revenue in our biotechnology segments declined 17% with bioprocessing down high teens and discovery and medical down approximately 20%. In bioprocessing, we had a modestly better-than-expected start to the year. Orders increased mid-single digits sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2023, and our book-to-bill ratio increased to approximately 0.95. Now, this is particularly encouraging as we typically see a seasonal order decline between the fourth quarter and the first quarter.

In North America and Europe, our larger customers are making steady progress, working through their excess inventory, with many returning to their regular order patterns. We expect inventory level that these customers have largely normalized, exiting the second quarter. We're also encouraged with improvements in the overall funding environment. While we don't expect these improvements to impact order activity in the near term, it is a positive indicator for the long-term health of the bioprocessing market.

Now in China, demand and underlying activity levels remain weak as customers are continuing to conserve capital and prioritize programs. Now for the full year 2024, there is no change to our expectation of a low-single digit core revenue decline in our bioprocessing business. And there's also no change to our assumption of a gradual improvement through the year to a core revenue growth rate of high-single digits or better as we exit 2024.

Despite near term headwinds, robust underlying market trends reinforce our confidence in the health and long-term growth profile of the biologics market. Underlying demand for biologic medicine is projected to grow at a high-single digit or better rate, again for the full year 2024. There's also an increasing number of therapies advancing through the development pipeline and reaching the market. In fact, the number of new FDA approvals for biologic and genomic medicines grew more than 50% last year. These positive trends reinforce our conviction in the significant opportunity ahead in the high-single digit long-term core revenue growth trajectory for our leading bioprocessing franchise.

Now, we continue to make substantial investments in innovation geared towards helping our customers reduce the time and cost of biologic drug production. Cytiva's recently released Xcellerex magnetic mixing system is a great example of how we are improving productivity and reducing risk in biologic drug manufacturing. This innovative single-use cell culture media mixer enables faster and more consistent mixing and is specifically designed to prevent leaks common with other large scale mixing systems that can lead to complete batch loss. This also marks another significant milestone for Cytiva, as the first new product release to be developed, leveraging the capabilities of our recently combined Pall Life Sciences and Cytiva R&D team.

Now let's turn to our Life Science segment, where core revenues decreased by 3%. Core revenue in our life sciences instruments businesses collectively declined mid-single digits with trends in the first quarter largely consistent with what we saw in the second half of 2023. In developed markets, pharma and biotech activity remain stable, but at lower levels of demand. We did see improving funnel activity as the quarter progressed, but this increased activity is not yet translated to orders. Academic and applied markets perform comparatively better, particularly for our more advanced instrumentation.

In China, declines were driven by difficult comparisons as a result of the prior year stimulus programs and lower demand as a result of weaker underlying activity levels. Our genomics consumables business delivered low-single digit core revenue growth in the quarter. Double-digit growth across plasmids and proteins was partially offset by declines in next generation sequencing and gene writing and editing solutions.

While current end market conditions remain challenging, our life sciences businesses are well positioned for the long-term. A combination of investments and innovation and strategic acquisitions over the last several years has increased our exposure to attractive end markets and life sciences and accelerated our growth trajectory. Additionally, with high margin recurring revenue now comprising more than 60% of the segment, we see opportunities for future margin improvement.

Let's move to our Diagnostics segment, where core revenue increased by 7.5%. Our clinical diagnostics businesses collectively delivered mid-single digit core revenue growth. Beckman Coulter Diagnostics was at mid-single digits for the fifth consecutive quarter, with solid growth in both instruments and consumables. Beckman's recent strong performance is a direct result of leveraging the Danaher Business System to improve both innovation and commercial execution. New product introductions over the last few years, including the DxI 9000 immunoassay analyzer, the DxC 500 chemistry analyzer and the DxA 5000 fit automation system have expanded our offerings and improved Beckman's competitive positioning. We're also seeing better win and retention rates across the portfolio.

At Leica Biosystems, the Aperio GT 450 DX digital pathology slide scanner recently received FDA 510(k) clearance. Now, with this significant milestone, the GT 450 can now be more widely used in pathology labs, moving digital pathology one step closer to becoming the standard of care for clinicians. Digital pathology provides many benefits to clinicians, including improving analytical capabilities through predictive algorithms, enhancing slide imaging and increasing productivity, all of which help provide a more accurate and timely diagnosis to patients. So this clearance also highlights how proprietary innovation is driving long-term core growth of Leica.

In molecular diagnostics, Cepheid's core revenue increased double-digits. And as I mentioned earlier, we believe the team continued to gain market share during the quarter. Cepheid's respiratory revenue of approximately $675 million in the quarter, exceeded our expectation of $575 million, driven by both higher volumes and a favorable mix of our four-in-one test for COVID-19, Flu A, Flu B, and RSV. Now, based on current global trends and respiratory infection rates, we continue to expect respiratory revenue of approximately $1.6 billion for the full year of 2024.

Cepheid's installed base continued to grow in the quarter to over 55,000 systems globally, a more than three-fold increase, since 2019. The team's thoughtful approach to placing systems at customers with clinical use cases beyond the pandemic has continued to drive, increased menu adoption and utilization. We're seeing this today through growth rates in assays such as Group A Strep and sexual health, which were each up more than 40% in the first quarter. We're also seeing customers return to testing protocols that were suspended during the pandemic, which helped drive mid-teens growth in hospital-acquired infection assays.

Now January, Cepheid received expanded FDA clearance with a CLIA waiver for the Xpert Xpress MVP test, which is the latest addition to our growing women's health portfolio. With the addition of the CLIA waiver, Cepheid's customers can now provide critical testing and care settings that are more easily accessible to patients, like a physician's office or local clinic, reducing the need for multiple office visits and significantly narrowing the tested treatment gaps often associated with therapeutic failure. This is a great example of how bringing accurate, easy-to-use molecular testing closer to patients is improving treatment outcomes and driving long-term growth at Cepheid.

So now let's briefly look ahead at expectations for the second quarter and the full year 2024. In the second quarter, we expect core revenue to decline in the mid-single digit percent range. Additionally, we expect a second quarter adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 26%. For the full year 2024, there is no change to our previous guidance. As a reminder, we anticipate a core revenue decline in the low-single digit percent range and a full year adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 29%.

So to wrap up, we're pleased to deliver first quarter results ahead of our expectations and look forward to building on this momentum as we move through the year. Our team's commitment to innovating and executing with DBS is driving meaningful improvements in our businesses and enabling us to deliver more breakthrough solutions to our customers. So there's a bright future ahead for Danaher, the transformation in our portfolio, paired with our organic growth investments has created a lineup of outstanding franchises that are all well positioned in highly attractive end markets.

We are a focused life science and diagnostics leader positioned for higher long-term growth, expanded margins and stronger cash flow. So we believe this unique combination of our incredibly talented team, the strength and differentiation of our portfolio and leading financial profile provides us with a strong foundation to create sustainable, long-term shareholder value.

And so with that, I'll turn the call back over to John.

[John Bedford, Vice President, Investor Relations at Danaher]

Thank you, Rainer. That concludes our formal comments. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

Questions and Answers

[Operator]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Jack Meehan with Nephron Research. Please go ahead.

[Jack Meehan, Analyst at Nephron Research]

Thank you. Good morning. Wanted to focus on the bioprocessing business here. So orders to start the year bucking the seasonal trend in a positive way, Rainer, can you unpack for us what do you think is driving that? Any commentary across customer types like pharma versus CDMO? And any comments on cancellation trends would be great.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Good morning, Jack, and thanks for the question. Maybe we start off with Q1 and what we're seeing today. So as we talked about from a revenue perspective, we had a modestly better-than-expected start to the year. And looking at orders, we grew mid-single digits sequentially. And typically order decline from Q4 to Q1. So that's encouraging. And our book-to-bill increased to approximately 0.95, which was right in the middle of our expected range, Jack.

So, we've also gotten some questions here regarding recurring versus equipment orders and sales. I thought I'd talk about that for a minute. And I'd characterize both our equipment and recurring orders and revenues as in line with our expectations. Our recurring business was better than equipment growth in both orders and revenue and grew sequentially versus the fourth quarter. And our equipment was down sequentially versus the fourth quarter and while we saw some modest headwinds, those were as we expected. So there's really no new news here.

Geographically, our larger customers in North America, Western Europe, are increasingly returning to pre-pandemic ordering patterns. So we continue to expect destocking to be largely behind us as we enter the second half of the year. Now, while the emerging biotech funding environment is improving, we're not yet seeing it translate into orders. So early days, but helpful.

Moving on to China; demand and underlying activity levels remain weak. So, if you put it all together, the first quarter was an encouraging start to the year. As we look ahead to the second quarter and the rest of the year, there's really no change to how we're thinking about the full year. We expect the first half to be down mid-teens. As we talked about in January, we continue to believe we'll exit the year with high single digits or better core revenue growth.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

And Jack, as far as cancellations goes, I know you brought that up. So I would say that during the quarter, like Rainer said, the book-to-bill was kind of 0.95-ish right around there. It wouldn't have been much different. Cancellations really were pretty minimal here this quarter, which I think is another sort of positive sign. I mean, I think, we saw the last several quarters, they were much, much bigger than they were here in the quarter. So a little bit of a tailwind there as well.

[Jack Meehan, Analyst at Nephron Research]

Excellent. And another bioprocessing question. As we get back to the new normal or I guess, what is the new normal here? Everybody is trying to compare and contrast your commentary versus others. I was curious how you see competitive dynamics shifting at all in the industry. Just if you think back over the last couple of years, there is this narrative that second-tier players were picking up some share when Cytiva and others were out of stock. I'm curious if there's anything you would call out in that regard that you're seeing?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Jack, I really wouldn't. I would tell you that through the acquisition of the GE Biopharma business and now bringing Pall Life Sciences and that business together in Cytiva, we really feel like we have a very strong bioprocessing franchise. And we continue with the Kaizen mantra, the continuous improvement mantra to improve what we do every day. And so we believe that, that we have a highly competitive franchise, and that will not only continue to be this case, but increasingly so as we move through the year and, and the near future.

[Jack Meehan, Analyst at Nephron Research]

Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Ryskin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Michael Ryskin, Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Hey, thanks for taking the question guys. And congrats on the strong print [Phonetic]. I'm going to ask one follow-up on bioprocess, and then I'll move on from that topic. So just to start, I mean, Rainer, as you were saying, you were surprised that orders improved 4Q into 1Q, and it seems like you had some positive commentary on inventories exiting the second quarter. So why, why aren't you raising the bioprocess guide for the year, just given where you are sitting at the end of 1Q? Is there any additional conservatism you're putting in, or just like what are you waiting to see from the market to feel more confident than, than you did three months ago, just given the progress you've seen so far?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Michael. Good morning. Well, I mean, like we said, we had an encouraging start to the year, but it's still early. There's, there's really no change, as you said, to our full year core revenue growth of down low single digits. And what we're really looking for here is the order momentum to continue to build through the second quarter and some continued stability in the run rate consumables. And of course, longer term, with a view towards the longer term, we'd like to see equipment demand improve while that's a small part of the business, only about 15%, of course, it's important for the long-term. And it's good to see then the emerging biotech funding solidify, stabilize, but we don't see that materializing in orders yet. So, there's a little bit more to go here, and we think we're properly positioned with the guide.

[Michael Ryskin, Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Okay. I appreciate. That's helpful. And then switching over to the margin side of things, again, really, really solid quarter. When we think about how you came in ahead in 1Q versus expectations, it seems like a combination of just overall volume, but then also mix from Cepheid and bioprocess, I'm sure contribute. Anything we should think about as you go through the rest of the year, you're pointing to 26% margins in the second quarter.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Yeah.

[Michael Ryskin, Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

And then 29% for the year unchanged. I mean in terms of mix, that's leading to that, or just how do we think the key pieces there?

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Yeah, Mike. So for Q2, I think that's definitely right. You talked about approximately 26% adjusted operating margins. That is a sequential decline versus Q1 that was about 30%, and that is all due to lower respiratory volumes at Cepheid. It's, the Q2 respiratory revenue was six, or sorry, Q1 was $675 million. We're thinking more like $200 million for Q2. So a pretty big drop off. And given the margin profile of that business and the operating leverage we get, it's pretty meaningful when that, that declined. So, I would say the 2Q decline is all related to respiratory volume at Cepheid and maybe some FX as well.

But you bring up a good point as we sort of think about the way that you're likely to see sort of maybe different season, seasonality out of our margin progression than you have in the past, given that we're sort of in an endemic state now versus where we were in COVID, and it really does come back to that respiratory season. So, if you think about the respiratory season, which is both Q1 and Q4, those are the highest volume quarters at Cepheid by a lot, right? Q1 and Q4 are going to be quarters that we anticipate being north of $500 million each. You saw that we did $675 million [Phonetic] in Q1. In Q2 and Q3, as we sort of guided to, we're talking about revenue of only a couple of hundred million dollars.

So the margin profile, operating leverage, I think you're going to see Q4 and Q1 be Danaher's higher volume, higher volume and margin quarters going forward. And that's a little different than maybe what we saw in the past pre-pandemic, and that's largely because respiratory was a much smaller business. Only $250 million pre-pandemic 2019 and now it's $1.6 billion. So hopefully, it gives a little bit of color and help people modeling as we go forward, because I do think we have a little bit of a different dynamic that probably is just showing itself a little bit now here as we get through some of this stuff.

[Michael Ryskin, Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Great. Thanks a lot. Very helpful.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

[Scott Davis, Analyst at Melius Research]

Hey, good morning, Rainer and Matt and John.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Hey, Scott.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Good morning, Scott.

[Scott Davis, Analyst at Melius Research]

Guys, I'm looking at the Life Sciences margins, and I see the breakdown of why they're down. They seemed down a little bit more than I would have thought on a minus 3% core. Can you give us a little bit more detail on perhaps some of the ebb and flow there and mix issue?

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Yeah. Scott, I thought the margins in Q2 actually came in probably a little bit above where we thought at 23%. I mean I think if you look at kind of the volume there being down, and also you've got Abcam, that has come in here, and we've got some transition costs related to Abcam that are either in that number as well. And so operating leverage with core growth down low single digits and as expected, kind of had some of the dilutive impact of Abcam is probably the big thing here in the quarter, but I still think it came in around where we thought.

[Scott Davis, Analyst at Melius Research]

Okay. Fair enough. So guys, just going back to Abcam, I mean, you didn't talk about it in your prepared remarks, but you've had a little bit of time with, with the business now. Can you talk us through perhaps some of the early reads of positives and negatives?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Sure. Scott, as you know, we closed in December on the business and now have the first full quarter behind us. And we put a new Danaher President and CFO in place, and they're really focused on the transition into Danaher and implementing the Danaher Business System. So we're going to continue to work through it, and we're going to need a little time to get after some of the growth and cost opportunities we spoke about. And long-term, of course, we continue to believe this is a great high single-digit grower [Phonetic] in a, in a fantastic market.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Yeah. And Scott, we've seen this before. I mean, you've followed us long enough that sometimes these as you put in a new team, you've got a business that had some, had some, some challenges on the cost side. As we introduce DBS, we've sort of seen maybe slow starts before like this. And as we get going, IDT was very, very similar. So, it's sort of, it's not really surprising, but I do like Rainer said, I like where we're at in the long-term. And I think we are going to get after some of the costs here pretty quickly as well. So, I think it will cost some money to do that. But we're getting after it, and I think you should expect us to do that here for the balance of the year as well.

[Scott Davis, Analyst at Melius Research]

Okay. Sounds good. Best of luck, guys. Appreciate it.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Scott.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Scott.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Vijay Kumar, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Hi, Rainer. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Hi, Vijay.

[Vijay Kumar, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

I guess, for my first one, on, on bioprocessing, those comments were helpful. With the 0.95x and the order trends, could you perhaps talk about the progression in the quarter? I know the guide didn't change, but given the 0.95x in customer activity levels, should the exit rates for fiscal '24 change? I think the prior was exiting maybe 1x or north of 1x. And I'm wondering if those assumptions have changed?

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Maybe Vi [Phonetic], I'll take that first, and Rainer can add some color. I would say that as far as the pacing through the quarters goes, I would say that we, we saw a little bit better start in January and that really did continue through the quarter. So I'm not sure that it was a big inflection in any given month. As far as, as the exit rate, I still think we're going to exit here, high single digits, we've talked about that. I don't think there's any change to that. And I would not change anything from, form our initial revenue guidance where we sort of framed that as in order for us to deliver the down low single-digit revenue for the full year, we would need to see every quarter, the book-to-bill in the 0.9s [Phonetic]. And so I think we were right in that range here in Q1, and I don't think that there's any change for that, and that's reflective of why we have also not updated or changed anything with the guidance.

[Vijay Kumar, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Understood. And maybe my follow-up, perhaps, Rainer, on the, this China and IDT commentary. China, I know you mentioned comps, but there's been some noise around new loan programs, stimulus, et cetera. Does that change your view on China? Is this incremental? Does it matter in IDT, I think given some of the business have come up in the BIOSECURE Act. What is IDT's exposure, if any, to China? And I think you mentioned IDT decline in the quarter. Was that China, ex-China? Was the share loss or end market? Any comments would be helpful.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Sure. So starting off with China. I mean, we have not changed our perspective for the full year, which we expect to be down high-single digits. And certainly, we are closely following these discussions around the stimulus that's in play that you know is very broad-based in terms of an equipment replacement program that ranges from agriculture to heavy industry and also includes healthcare markets like our own. But it's very early days, and it's not clear yet how that's to be implemented, whether that's via the central government, whether, whether it trickles through to the provinces. So a lot to be seen there. And at this point, we don't expect that to have a large impact here in 2024, and that's why we stick with our perspective of a high-single digits decline for the year. So of course, we'll keep moderating, monitoring that.

Now when it comes to IDT. IDT is a very small exposure in China. And that's, that's really not the part of the IDT playbook at this point. IDT is doing well, and we're actually very happy with IDT's performance, which has been growing mid-teens since we've acquired the company and has operating margins over 30%.

[Vijay Kumar, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Fantastic. Thanks, guys.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Vijay.

[Operator]

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question will come from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Doug Schenkel, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, good morning, guys.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Hi, Doug. Welcome back, Doug.

[Doug Schenkel, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Thanks, Rainer. Good to be here. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. So, Life Sciences, that as a segment, that was better than you guided. You talked about instruments declining mid-singles. You sounded actually pretty good on what was going on reagents and consumables. I guess, what I'm wondering is, were instruments a little weaker than you expected? And then sort of by extension, where reagents and activity stronger-than-expected? I'm just trying to think about the trends there and kind of what that could mean for the rest of the year?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Doug. Well, thinking about Life Science tools, which, which you know represents just around 10% of our businesses. What we saw in the first quarter is largely consistent with what we've seen through the second half of '23 with core growth in the first quarter down mid-single digits. And to give you a sense, in developed markets, pharma and biotech customers are stable, albeit at a lower level of demand, and academic and applied markets held up better comparatively particularly for our more advanced instrumentation. So we're actually starting to see improved funnel activity for later in the year, but those haven't translated to orders yet. So, it's good to see more activity, but it's not, it's not showing up in the order book yet with the cycle times being what they are for that, that those kind of deals.

Now, if you think about China, and that's an important part of this market. Of course, last year, we're sort of at the peak of the execution of the stimulus plan in China last year. So, so the comps are tough here, both in Q1 and Q2. And in addition to that, of course, you've got lower end market demand just due to the weaker macro there. And then lastly, and as I mentioned to Vijay, we're closely following those discussions around the stimulus, but it really is early days here, and, and we're not able to include that yet in any view towards the future. So we'll continue to monitor that as we go forward.

And then I'll just conclude here on the life science tools market that what we're seeing is as expected, this normalization trend coming off tough comps in the first half of last year. And we expect that to continue here in the second quarter, but then in the second half, we should see some improvement there.

[Doug Schenkel, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Super helpful, Rainer. One very quick unrelated follow-up. I think as we sit here today, Danaher probably has $30 billion, maybe as much as $40 billion, if you stretched for the right deal in M&A capacity. I'm just wondering, how you're feeling about the environment right now, especially given where rates are and where funding is as we sit here today? Thank you.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Doug, as you know, our bias for capital allocation is towards M&A. But there's no doubt that with higher interest rates, the bar is higher. And as active as our funnel work is, we're not going to compromise on our earnings expectations here, our return on invested capital targets. And that just means that we have to work all the harder here to meet those higher hurdle rates. But nonetheless, we're very active as we always are, and we'll continue as we have with great discipline around M&A.

[Doug Schenkel, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Doug.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'll take our next question from Dan Leonard with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Dan Leonard, Analyst at UBS Group]

Thank you. Rainer, you've mentioned a couple of times that the improvement in biotech funding hasn't benefited the business yet. Can you elaborate a bit on your thinking there? How long of a lag do you think you'd see between improved funding and improved business activity? And how does that differ across your different operating units?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Dan, and good morning to you. So we have seen a stabilization perhaps even the slightest improvement in biotech funding. But for that to be operationalized here, will take some time, in fact, we believe so much time that we have not changed our perspective on our guide in any of the businesses as it relates to biotech funding. So it's early days. It's positive to see and helpful to see the biotech funding stabilize and even showing the slightest of growth. But it's just too early, and that, that will take several quarters here to make any discernible difference across the business.

[Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Danaher]

Just to give you a sense of color on it, we really haven't contemplated anything from an order perspective until kind of next year in how we've thought about our good.

[Dan Leonard, Analyst at UBS Group]

Got it. Appreciate that. And just a quick follow-up on China. I know you framed the high-teens core decline as being in line with plan, but curious how different end markets within China progress versus plan? And also curious whether that comment you made on improving funnels in Life Sciences, whether that applies to China as well or are the trends in China different?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

So back to the first quarter, in China, our Biotechnology segment was, was down nearly 40%, which is in line with what we've seen over the last quarters here. In Life Sciences, we were down high-teens that gives you a sense of not only what's going on in the market, but the high comp of the prior first half in 2023. And then in diagnostics, we were down low-single digits to give you a sense of, of how that's developing.

As it relates to biotech funding, you are correct that we expect the biotech funding to be skewed more towards developed markets, than in China, and it remains to be seen when that returns. So, while we're seeing a stabilization there, that stabilization is at a very low level in contrast to what we see in the developed markets.

[Dan Leonard, Analyst at UBS Group]

Thanks for the color.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Dan.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our last question will come from Rachel Vatnsdal with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Rachel Vatnsdal, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.]

Okay. Thank you, guys and congratulations on the quarter. So I just wanted to ask on BIOSECURE Act, and how you're thinking about the potential impact to bioprocessing. So we've already heard that some pharma and biotech companies are starting to look at their supply chains and working with some of these Chinese CDMOs given some of the headlines we've seen around BIOSECURE. So can you just walk us through what are you hearing from customer conversations on your end with the Chinese CDMOs, but also with pharma and biotech customers and their willingness to partner there?

And then additionally, I guess, how should we think about this from a longer-term implication standpoint? Could this shift growth to other geographies? And if so, could there be some type of timing or air pocket dynamic as you shift manufacturing from China to other geographies?

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, Rachel. Good morning. So the BIOSECURE Act, it is, as you can imagine, very difficult to say how this ultimately plays out, if we look at potential passage or not, that sort of thing. And of course, there's many details, details are not known yet. And having said that, and as you suggested, customers are starting to call this out as a risk factor to their business, and of course are starting to take measures to de-risk their business in terms of the molecules that they've developed and ultimately want to manufacture. So, if manufacturing and clinical trials, should they shift [Phonetic] to other locations, of course, our solutions follow the molecule. It's really important to note that with our global business and our capability, perhaps more so than anybody, we can deliver our solutions anywhere around the globe with full support from a technology and service perspective. So, we have that ability to follow those solutions.

In terms of timing, again, this is a business where pharmaceutical companies need to minimize and mitigate risk. So in terms of air pockets, that remains to be seen as pharmaceutical companies perhaps search for other partners for their clinical trials and their manufacturing. And of course, we're going to do great work there and should it be necessary in terms of technology transfers and making sure that any transitions here from one service supplier to the next run as smoothly as possible.

[Rachel Vatnsdal, Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.]

Perfect. Thank you. And then just as a follow-up on bioprocessing, you highlighted that equipment was weaker, consumables where kind of where the strength was in 1Q. Can you just walk us through on your assumptions for both of those trends for the rest of the year to get to the full year guide? And then specifically by year-end, you pointed towards high-single digits or above growth in bioprocessing on a core basis. What's really assume from that from a recovery cycle standpoint on consumables versus equipment? And then any geography trends as well? Thanks.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Rachel, we, we actually don't break it down in terms of how we guide for a quarter or a full year between consumables and equipment. We stay at the top level. And as we pointed out, we were happy to see the sequential growth here in the first quarter of 5%, and what I can say is that the recurring revenue represents about 85% of bioprocessing. And of course, that was also the major driver of the improvement in orders that you saw and the book-to-bill in the quarter. And of course, that's where our focus was, is that's where the destocking was taking place here over the prior quarters.

So, if you think about our guide here for the full year for bioprocessing, down low-single digits, 85% of the business is recurring and roughly 15% is equipment. I think that's the best way to think about that in terms of our guide and how that split.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to John Bedford for any additional or closing remarks.

[John Bedford, Vice President, Investor Relations at Danaher]

Thank you, everyone for joining us today. We'll be around all day and rest of the week for follow-ups. Have a good, have a good day.

[Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Danaher]

Thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Participants

Corporate Executives

• John Bedford, Vice President, Investor Relations
• Rainer M. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer
• Matt McGrew, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Jack Meehan, Nephron Research
• Michael Ryskin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Scott Davis, Melius Research
• Vijay Kumar, Evercore ISI
• Doug Schenkel, Wolfe Research
• Dan Leonard, UBS Group AG
• Rachel Vatnsdal, JPMorgan Chase & Co.