Azenta (NASDAQ:AZTA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

6:34 Greetings, and welcome to Azenta Q2 twenty twenty six Fiscal Financial Results. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, 05/06/2026. I will now turn the conference over to Yvonne Perron, Vice President, FP and A and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Greetings, and welcome to Azenta Q2 twenty twenty six Fiscal Financial Results. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session.

7:22 As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Wednesday, 05/06/2026. I will now turn the conference over to Yvonne Perron, Vice President, FP and A and Investor Relations. Thank you, operator, and good morning to everyone on the line today. We would like to welcome you to our earnings conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year twenty twenty six. Our second quarter earnings press release was issued yesterday after market and is available on our Investor Relations website located at investors.azenta.com in addition to the supplementary information and PowerPoint slides that will be used during the prepared remarks today. Please note that effective the first fiscal quarter of twenty twenty five, the results of the medical systems are treated as discontinued operations.

8:15 I would like to remind everyone that during the course of the call, we will be making a number of forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward looking statements. I would refer you to the section of our earnings release titled Safe Harbor Statement, the Safe Harbor Slide on the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website and our various filings with the SEC, including our annual reports on Form 10 ks and our quarterly reports on Form 10 Q. We make no obligation to update these statements should future financial data or events occur that differ from the forward looking statements presented today.

9:02 We may refer to a number of non GAAP financial measures, which are used in addition to and in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. We believe the non GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance, but when considered with GAAP financial results and the reconciliation of GAAP measures, they provide an even more complete understanding of the Azenta business. Non GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the GAAP measures themselves. On the call with me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, John Marotta, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Lawrence Lynn. We will open the call with remarks from John. Then Lawrence will provide a detailed look into our financial results and our outlook for fiscal year 2026.

9:54 We will then take your questions at the end of the prepared remarks. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, John Morata. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our second quarter earnings call. Candidly, we are not satisfied with our second quarter results. Overall, second quarter organic revenue was down 3% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.4% did not meet our expectations. While our teams remain disciplined and are delivering progress in key areas, there have been execution related shortfalls within our control, and we are addressing them with urgency. At the same time, we are operating in a more cautious, prolonged demand environment, particularly in North America, where customer spending and research funding remain constrained.

10:43 Within that context, we saw continued growth in multiomics in Europe and in Asia. In addition, sample repository solutions, product services, and consumables and instruments delivered sustained growth, reflecting the strength of our recurring revenue offerings. This performance reinforces the durability of these parts of our portfolio and their role in supporting more consistent results over time. Turning to specific drivers of the second quarter performance. In Multiomics, while both Europe and Asia Pacific volumes remained strong, performance was driven by softer demand across key end markets in North America and competitive pressure resulting in lower volumes and reduced fixed cost absorption.

11:30 In Sample Management Solutions, we remain pleased with Sample Repository Solutions performance that remains strong, delivering solid growth and reinforcing the value of our reoccurring revenue service based model, as did product services and consumables and instruments. This was offset at a segment level by continued softness in automated and cryogenic store systems that reflected a more pronounced step down in capital related demand. With respect to the automated stores quality issues, there are three remaining stores where remediation is progressing, but is taking longer than anticipated. The scope of the quality issues has not changed, and now we expect the remaining work to be completed by the end of the third quarter. As a result of these pressures, we have revised our full year fiscal twenty twenty six outlook and have taken a cautious approach to assessing our pipeline as order conversion remains less predictable.

12:25 The life sciences funding environment remains measured, with ongoing variability in academic and government related funding flows, including NIH related activity, as well as more selective capital deployment across biotech and pharma customers. We now expect organic revenue to range from down 2% to up 1% year over year, reflecting a prolonged period of constrained capital deployment for larger automated stores in cryo investments, as well as continued demand softness in multiomics in North America. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from down approximately 125 basis points to flat year over year, reflecting the impact of lower volumes. Importantly, we continue to invest in targeted growth and productivity initiatives as part of our broader transformation agenda.

13:16 In a lower volume demand environment like this, operational inefficiencies and execution gaps become more visible and have a greater impact on results. We are addressing these gaps to ensure that the business is structurally efficient, scalable, and positioned to deliver higher and more consistent performance over time, with greater precision, stronger discipline, and clearer accountability. While these challenges impact our near term results, they reinforce the need for the work already underway to transform Azenta. Since I joined the company, we've undertaken decisive steps to structurally reposition the business for improved performance. These actions include leadership changes, organizational redesign, deployment of the Azenta business system to strengthen operational rigor, and a more disciplined long term assessment of portfolio performance and growth investments.

14:12 Operational excellence remains central to how we run the business, and we're seeing tangible results from the Azenta business system. In our consumables and instruments business, on time delivery has improved significantly from approximately 15% to 70%, reflecting stronger execution and greater reliability for our customers. In Multiomics, we're also driving meaningful improvements in turnaround times. With our Lightning RNA Seq offering, we've reduced turnaround time from roughly twenty days to five days, which is the fastest turnaround time currently available in the market and a meaningful differentiator for our customers that just launched. These gains are being driven through Kaizen's and structured problem solving, as well as daily management systems.

15:00 ABS positions us to deliver more consistent, high quality performance. In 2025, our focus was on reshaping Sample Management solutions. Today, SMS has a more stable operating base and a stronger foundation for execution. In 2026, we've shifted our focus to Multiomics, where we are actively executing a comprehensive transformation of the business, in addition to addressing the demand softness through targeted commercial actions. As this work has progressed, we have gained more clarity as to what is required to strengthen execution and drive sustainable performance. We are excited that Trey Martin has joined Azenta as the president of the Multiomics business to lead this transformation. Advancing our gene synthesis regionalization and technology strategy, strengthening commercial discipline, and driving structural improvements.

15:54 Trey brings over thirty years of experience leading and scaling life sciences businesses, most recently as CEO and board member of Maribai Life Sciences, with prior senior leadership roles at Danaher, including President of Integrated DNA Technologies, where he drove global expansion, strong commercial execution, and sustained double digit growth. Trey is exceptionally well positioned to lead the next phase of our multiomics strategy. I'm confident in his ability to lead us forward. Trey and his team are working to accelerate progress across key initiatives. This includes reviewing our site and laboratory footprint to optimize the hub and spoke model and right size the cost structure, strengthening commercial excellence with a greater focus on high value workflows, improving pipeline conversion, and disciplined execution of commercial opportunities.

16:49 Driving operational productivity by accelerating ABS deployment, and implementing the technology and infrastructures to strengthen our competitive positioning. This is not an incremental change, but rather a structural overhaul of the Multiomics platform. While we navigate this environment, we continue to deliver strong free cash flow and maintain a solid balance sheet with significant financial flexibility to support our strategy. Our capital allocation framework remains disciplined and unchanged. Our priorities are investing in productivity and gross margin improvement, driving organic growth through R and D and go to market capabilities, pursuing disciplined and strategic M and A, and returning capital to shareholders when appropriate.

17:36 In March, we announced the acquisition of the UK BioCentre Limited, and the integration is progressing as planned. The acquisition strengthens our ability to deliver end to end life cycle solutions in The UK, a leading life sciences research epicenter, while expanding our presence in Europe by establishing the UK BioCenter as a European wide operational hub to support pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, and public health customers across the region. The acquisition is aligned with our biorepository expansion strategy, and further strengthens our leadership in sample based and biorepository solutions. Integration priorities include hiring key commercial resources, accreditation, and operational readiness.

18:25 This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to investing behind our highest conviction long range plan initiatives. We also recently provided an update on the previously announced B Medical transaction. As of 03/27/2026, we were informed by the counterparty that it had not yet secured the required financing to complete the transaction by the expected closing date of March 31. The agreement remains in place and continues to be subject to customary closing conditions, including financing. We are actively evaluating potential paths forward while the counterparty continues its financing process. We will provide updates as appropriate. As previously announced, we continue to evaluate the timing of execution under our $250,000,000 share repurchase authorization, reflecting our commitment to disciplined capital deployment and shareholder value creation.

19:23 To close, given the guidance reset this year, we have decided to push out the long range plan we outlined at our Investor Day in December 2025 by one year from 2028 to 2029. The same financial targets remain, and we believe that the market opportunities, strategic priorities, and value creation framework are strong. I want to emphasize our confidence in the long range plan anchored in the strength of our portfolio and our ability to expand our reoccurring revenue base that supports more consistent and durable performance. Across the organization, we are operating with greater focus, stronger discipline, and higher accountability, and clearer execution priorities.

20:09 With that, I'll turn the call over to Lawrence to walk through the financials. Thank you, John, and good morning. I'll begin with our Q2 twenty twenty six fiscal results and the key financial drivers, then cover segment performance, our balance sheet and updated fiscal twenty twenty six guidance. Today's results exclude B Medical Systems, which continue to be classified as discontinued operations unless otherwise noted. During the quarter, we recorded an additional $6,000,000 non cash loss related to assets held for sale. As communicated during the quarter, the transaction has not yet closed and remains subject to financing and customary closing conditions. In the quarter, we recorded a goodwill impairment charge.

20:55 As part of our annual goodwill impairment assessment, we recorded non cash impairment charges of $112,400,000 for Multiomics and $36,600,000 for Sample Management Solutions, both reflected in GAAP operating expenses. This was driven by a combination of factors, including the sustained decline in our stock price, the decrease in our near term outlook, and a more uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, which together reduce the estimated fair value of the units below its carrying value. To supplement my remarks today, I will refer to the slide deck available on our website. Turning to slide three, total reported revenue was $145,000,000 up 1%, including $1,000,000 from UKBC.

21:40 Excluding UKBC and the impact of foreign exchange, revenue was down 3% organically. Second quarter performance came in below our expectations and reflect continued divergence across our segments, with softness in multiomics, driven by lower volumes in North America and a decline in Sample Management Solutions, driven primarily by lower volumes in capital intensive automated and cryogenic store systems. This was partially offset by strong growth in sample repository solutions, reinforcing the strength of our recurring revenue offerings. Non GAAP EPS for the second quarter was a loss of $04 Adjusted EBITDA margin was 5.4%, down three twenty basis points year over year, primarily reflecting lower volumes across the portfolio and reduced fixed cost absorption leading to gross margin pressures, as well as store quality rework costs and an increase in inventory reserves.

22:39 Free cash flow including B Medical was $5,000,000 in the quarter, driven by improvements in working capital and higher deferred revenue. We ended the quarter with $565,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. This provides continued financial flexibility to invest in the business, pursue strategic opportunities and return capital to shareholders over time. Now let's turn to Slide four to take a deeper look at our results in the quarter. Total revenue was $145,000,000 up 1% reported and down 3% organically, with a 3% impact from foreign exchange and 1% from the UKBC acquisition. Multiomics performance reflected lower volumes driven by softer demand and increased competitive intensity in North America.

23:30 Within Sample Management Solutions, results were supported by continued strength in biorepositories, but was negatively impacted by ongoing softness in capital equipment demand, reflecting more cautious customer capital spending behavior. Turning to gross margin, we delivered 44.3% for the quarter, down 110 basis points versus the prior year. The decline was primarily driven by lower North America volumes, which reduced fixed cost leverage, as well as a non cash inventory charge and approximately $2,000,000 of quality costs associated with automated storage rework, which was in line with our expectations. While the quality issues are largely behind us, we expect to have some additional costs in the third quarter.

24:18 We have put changes in place to improve quality and reliability. We've restructured the engineering team into three teams, new product development, current projects, and sustaining in order to drive clear accountability in the R and D organization. As we discussed at Investor Day, we are transitioning from highly customized systems to a more modular product strategy that enables configurable and quality control solutions. In parallel, we have strengthened execution leadership by hiring an experienced project manager with a background in large scale, complex programs, bringing additional discipline, structure, and visibility to execution. Adjusted EBITDA was $7,800,000 or 5.4% of revenue, down three twenty basis points year over year.

25:07 The decline was primarily driven by 120 basis points of pressure in Multiomics from lower volumes and gross margin compression, as well as down three sixty basis points from investments in sales, product marketing and R and D to support future growth. These impacts were partially offset by 80 basis points benefit in Sample Management Solutions, reflecting additional pressure from stores quality rework and inventory reserve and lower volumes offset by the favorable impact of an accounting adjustment. Lastly, there was a benefit of 80 basis points from other income. Importantly, while we continue to take actions to optimize and right size our cost structure, we are committed to our growth investments to support long term growth and strengthen our competitive lower positioning.

25:53 Again, non GAAP EPS was a loss of $04 per share. With that, let's turn to Slide five for a review of our segment quarterly results, starting with Sample Management Solutions or SMS. Sample Management Solutions delivered revenue of $81,000,000 for the quarter, up 2% on a reported basis and down 3% organically. Biorepository Solutions, which is roughly 40% of the SMS segment, delivered high single digit growth, reflecting focused commercial execution and the benefits of the strategic emphasis placed on this business over the past year. Consumables and instruments delivered modest year over year growth supported by steady demand across the installed base. The segment was impacted by external factors with lower capital spending, which impacted orders in automated and cryogenic store systems, resulting in a low double digit decline in core products.

26:49 Gross margin for Sample Management Solutions was 47.4%, up 40 basis points versus the prior year. The result reflected headwinds from lower volumes, store quality rework, and an inventory reserve, which were more than offset by the benefit of an accounting adjustment, as well as improved biorepository margin. Turning next to the Multiomics segment. Multiomics revenue for the quarter was 64,000,000 flat on a reported basis and down 2% organically, reflecting a decline in global Sanger and lower volumes in North America, driven by softer demand and increased competitive intensity. Next generation sequencing grew mid single digits and gene synthesis delivered mid single digit growth supported by continued oligo demand in China.

27:36 Europe and Asia Pacific continue to perform well supported by strong execution and commercial initiatives. In North America, we are focused on improving commercial execution and driving more target engagement across key markets as we move through the remainder of the year. Multiomics non GAAP gross margin was 40.2%, down 300 basis points year over year. The decline was primarily driven by lower fixed cost absorption and unfavorable regional mix, reflecting reduced volumes in North America and the resulting loss of operating leverage. This was partially offset by more stable performance in Europe and Asia, though not sufficient to fully offset the pressure from lower North America volumes. We are taking targeted cost actions to better align our cost structure.

28:24 Next, let's turn to Slide six for a review of the balance sheet. As I mentioned, we ended the quarter with $565,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. We have no debt outstanding. Capital expenditure for the quarter was approximately $7,000,000 reflecting continued investment in automation, capacity expansion and technology to support scalable growth. Turning to guidance on Slide eight. We are updating our fiscal twenty twenty six guidance to reflect first half performance trends and what we are seeing in the market. We expect the total reported revenue to be in the range of approximately $6.00 $3,000,000 to $621,000,000 including the contribution of UKBC. On an organic basis, we expect revenue to range from a decline of approximately 2% to a growth of up to 1%, compared to prior guidance of 3% to 5% growth.

29:19 We expect adjusted EBITDA margin to range from down approximately 125 basis points to flat year over year, compared to prior expectations of approximately 300 basis points expansion, excluding UKBC. This is driven by continued pressure due to lower volumes and a loss of fixed cost leverage. Free cash flow is expected to improve between approximately 10% to 15% year over year, compared to prior expectations of approximately 30% improvement. The low end of the range reflects continued softness in Multiomics in North America and in the capital intensive products within Sample Management Solutions, while the high end reflects a modest increase in demand in North America, additional order closures for stores in cryo, and incremental revenue pull through.

30:11 At the segment level, we now expect Sample Management Solutions to grow approximately low single digits organically versus prior expectation of mid single digit growth, and Multiomics to decline in mid single digits versus prior expectations of low single digit growth. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, I'll offer some directional color to help frame the cadence of performance. In the fiscal third quarter, we expect organic revenue to grow low single digits. For the fiscal fourth quarter, we expect organic revenue to decline low single digits. If you recall, fiscal fourth quarter of twenty twenty five was a record revenue quarter and presents a top comparison. From a profitability standpoint, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to improve sequentially with margins moving into the low double digit range in Q3, and then stepping up more meaningfully in Q4, reflecting the combined impact of volume recovery, cost actions, and second half seasonality.

31:10 In closing, while we are updating our full year fiscal outlook to reflect the current demand environment, we remain focused on disciplined execution and operational control across the business. We're taking the necessary actions to align our cost structure and to improve the performance across both segments. Importantly, we remain confident in the long term fundamentals of our markets and in our ability to achieve improved performance over time, supported by the progress we continue to make across the organization. As John mentioned, given the guidance reset this year, we have decided to push out the long range plan we outlined at our Investor Day in December 2025 by one year, from 2028 to 2029. The same financial targets remain, and we believe that the market opportunity, strategic priorities, and value creation frameworks are strong.

32:01 This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll pass the call to John for a few closing remarks. To close, we are encouraged by the continued strength and resilience of the reoccurring revenue base of our portfolio. We are taking decisive actions to strengthen commercial and operational execution and drive more consistent and improved performance. We are also pleased with the progress of the UK BioCenter acquisition and look forward to the opportunities ahead of this strategic action. Finally, we remain disciplined in our capital allocation, continuing to invest to drive organic growth through R and D and a go to market capabilities, pursuing discipline and strategic M and A, and returning capital to shareholders when appropriate.

32:48 With that, operator, we're ready to open the line for questions. Thank you. In a moment, we will open the call to questions. The company requests that all callers limit each turn to two questions from each analyst, one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, and The first question comes from David Saxon with Needham. Please go ahead.

33:39 Great. Good morning, John and Lawrence. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe I'll just ask one on fiscal second quarter. So, would love to understand kind of the cadence you saw throughout the quarter. Like, how did they start off? How did they progress? Were there any meaningful orders or customers that got slipped or pushed out? Just trying to understand the exit velocity as we go into the fiscal second half. Yeah, hi David, good to hear from you. You know, maybe why don't we kind of start with what we saw in Q1 really quickly and then walk to Q2, right? So, in Multiomics, what we saw in Q1 was bookings were slow in North America.

34:29 As a reminder, Multiomics North America is roughly 50% of the revenue for the segment. This was attributable to the October shutdown and the NIH funding delay. You know, we had key sales leaders and sales reps that were no longer in a company that created a bit of a commercial gap. Now, Europe and APAC performed well, and we thought these were transitory events. So now let's step into q two for Multiomics. You know, we expected several dynamics to improve as the quarter progressed. In North America, the first two months, saw improved bookings demand. Our month three spike seasonality just did not materialize. Usually, you see a pretty big hockey stick, in terms of demand.

35:16 On a commercial execution perspective, we saw rep productivity, but we still saw gaps. As you know, we brought in several new reps, but there were still commercial execution challenges. When you look at the competitive dynamic, particularly in North America, really did intensify in the quarter, particularly in gene synthesis. Now, on the bright side, as I mentioned earlier, Europe and APAC continue to perform, and this is really isolated to a North America issue in multi omics. Okay? Now, let me pivot to SMS. So what did we see in Q1? We saw slow bookings in stores and cryo. You know, a lot of these capital intensive products, we were seeing push outs.

36:08 Positive note, bio repository were high single digit growth, C and I was low single digit growth in the quarter. When we move into second quarter, while we had really good visibility in our capital equipment pipeline by opportunity, we did not see these order conversions in the quarter. Let me give you a couple examples. One, we had a multimillion dollar cryo deal with a biotech firm that got pushed out. Secondly, we had a multimillion dollar automated government store that got pushed out. We haven't lost these orders, but they are just now delayed. Timing issues such as these funding delays or site readiness has really caused us to get these items pushed out through the balance of the year.

36:53 But again, positively in the quarter, biorepositories were high single digit growth, C and I was low single digit growth. We just really had some challenges around our capital intensive products. And as I mentioned earlier, these lower volumes I just described really create this locked leverage with our existing cost infrastructure. So hopefully that provides the color you're looking for, David. Yes, was helpful. Thanks for that. And then, I guess, just in terms of some of the initiatives you've already put in place, like pricing in SRS, I think you have some pricing coming through in C and I after that backlog is kind of worked through. You have moving to a more modular systems on the store side. So I guess the question is, do we start to see the benefit of that?

37:50 And as you think about the cadence over the fiscal twenty nine LRP now, zooming out, like, should we think about the true directory over that period? Thanks so much. David, thank you for the question. Let me start with the '29 LRP and kind of get us back anchored into IR day. If you look at the total SAM, talking about a $6,000,000,000 SAM. Let's go kind of strategic vector by strategic vector and get us kind of anchored back into that. So in our biorepository business, it's a nearly about a billion dollar business at mid to high single digit.

38:37 We're well positioned there because there's a number of growth drivers there. So ultra cold, you've got good research volumes coming out in terms of the sheer volume of samples. There's a lot of emphasis around productivity, more therapeutics coming out and those sorts of things. That's a key market driver and we're well positioned there. We're going to continue to invest behind that. So that gives us some confidence around our LRP certainly. Second is around gene synthesis. So that's north of a billion dollars. That market is growing double digit in certain areas. And this is an area that we are investing behind clearly with bringing Trey in. We certainly have to do a little more work on the cost side to get this business better positioned.

39:25 Now what's driving that double digit growth? Selling gene therapy. A lot more research and therapeutics are driving the gene synthesis market and we're investing behind that. And thirdly, is our automated solutions. So that's north of a billion growing at mid to high single digits. We are investing clearly around small stores and modules. What's the growth driver in that end market as well? Everything is moving to ultra cold and cold. We're well positioned there. The number of assets that are in the field right now going from thousands to millions, people want to automate that. And so the stores, automated stores and automated cryo units are kind of the epicenter of all of that. There is a clear push for productivity and a clear push around cell and gene therapy and the investments behind that. Okay, that gives us the confidence around our LRP because we're holding our growth investments in there specifically.

40:26 We could dramatically improve our margins today if we came off of some of those growth investments. And I realize also we've got some room to improve forecasting both internally and externally here. But I've got some confidence around this specifically around our LRP. Hopefully, you're going to see some more detail coming out around our external, around how we're looking at things externally in terms of the earnings supplement that was put out. That's going to continue here. And then internally, we've got our GMs in place. And certainly, we've got our finance leads in place in each of the businesses as well. So there's people waking up every day to drive performance in these businesses, in these strategic areas. And they've got the finance leads that are in place as well.

41:19 Great. Thanks for that. And yeah, that's earning supplement is super helpful. So looking forward to that going forward. Thank you for the feedback. Thank you. The next question comes from Matt Stanton with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thanks. Maybe two parter on the on the reset. So multiomics going from low singles to down mid singles. Maybe just talk a little bit more about what you saw. I think you talked about competitive pressure. I think you guys have been hiring twenty, twenty five people on the commercial side. Are you saying those are no longer a tailwind to the back half of the year? I guess what changed to help us bridge the guide down on multiomics here? Then maybe John, just stepping back on the LRP reset. I mean, if you're gonna touch that less than six months later from the Investor Day, why not maybe revisit the numbers to de risk those?

42:21 If you're gonna push it out here, was there any consideration to move any of the numbers either on the margin or the growth side, help de risk that bridge from call it flat growth this year to high singles now in 2019? Thanks. Yeah, you bet, Matt. Thanks for the question. So both Lawrence and I will give you some color here. So let's talk about multiomics. I mean, we had clearly kind of a human capital reboot in North America right now. North America sales, we had some folks that left and then BD. We've added headcount in all of the regions right now. And where you can see there are bright spots right now from a growth perspective and double digit growth is clearly in Europe and China right now. So those teams are performing well.

43:13 Where we've got where we're kind of going back at things in North America is, in fact, we think there's still a tailwind there in NGS. We've got to do a little more work around gene synthesis in North America. There's some competitive dynamics that are going out on there that Trey is going to be coming in and we're going to be solving for. And then lastly, in the North America business, we've talked about this is from a structural point of view. We've got 14 labs, we're going to be rethinking that business. I can tell you specifically around Sanger and how we drive performance going forward. Regarding the LRP, I'll touch on the LRP, then I'm going hand it over to Lawrence here. Regarding the LRP, we did think about clearly think about what the revenue profile looks like over time.

44:05 And we really went into the plan detail by detail looking at the waterfall of the plan, the phasing by years. We've kept nearly $20,000,000 of growth investments in the business right now. And Matt, that's where we're coming down. It was one of the reasons I wanted to share kind of how we view the market in biorepository, gene synthesis and automated solutions. Those are mid double digit growers across all three of those right now. We're holding our growth investments and we've got conviction around that plan over the three years that we outlined. And more importantly, seeing those growth investments through gives us the confidence around this phase shift in the program right now. The opportunity is clearly still in front of us.

44:54 And we've got to go get that. I mean, think it's one of the things that I continue when I say we're guiding us annually. That's what I mean by that is this opportunity is still in front of us and we're investing behind that with the numbers that I just shared with you. Loris, you want to talk about some of the numbers around Multiomics? Yes. In terms of guidance and hi, Matt. When you look at the overall guide, right, as I mentioned earlier, the low end of the range of down two on revenue really just going to reflect the greater softness in Multiomics in North America. And then, really, you look at the plus one is we reflect a slight pickup in overall Multiomics North America bookings.

45:41 Again, Europe and APAC continues to be strong for us in the Multiomics business. Certainly, there's to John's point, there's a bit of a reset around the commercial engine in North America, and we've accounted for that in our low end guide to de risk it. Thanks. And then maybe just a little bit of cleanup. So, B Medical, appreciate the update. I mean, do we think about the scenarios from here? So the timeline was the end of March. I think you guys are continuing to work through it. I mean, do we expect the resolution sooner rather than later? And then Lawrence, could you just help us? How long can you keep this in discontinued ops in the scenario where it needs to come back into continuing ops?

46:29 Any chance you can kind of remind us of what the margin profile of that asset is today? Thank you. Sure. I'll take the first part of the question and Lawrence can take the second. So right now where we sit, we feel pretty good about where we are. We're getting weekly updates from the team right now. Yes, there was a financing delay, certainly outside of our control. A lot of things going on in that part of the world right now, specifically in some of the end markets that they serve. And so I think the team is back on track. We've had direct conversations with the banks and we've got more conviction on that close right now. Yeah, Matt, in terms of if there is a need to reconsolidate, that would happen at the next quarter point, June 30.

47:24 Okay. And anything you'd say on just margins if that does happen in that scenario? Yeah, we'll evaluate that time and we'll provide an update if that happens. But like John says, we feel confident that this will close. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Mac Itosh with Stephens. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Maybe just to start following up on some of the multiomics conversation that you've already had.

48:11 Margins have been under pressure, growth expectations are coming down for this fiscal year. But can you just unpack how much of the margin pressure is really driven by those temporary factors like utilization versus the more structural dynamics? And how that informs your confidence in the recovery and in the LRP as well. Yeah, Mac, thanks for the question. So, you know, as we look at the overall guide for the year around multiomics, around leverage, you know, for the year it's about $14,000,000 in terms of loss leverage 80% of that is related to multiomics. Now, what I will say is, we've taken actions in the second quarter, and we've done partial restructuring that will yield $7,000,000 of annualized savings and $3,000,000 in year.

49:09 As John mentioned earlier, we're also evaluating currently the rooftops and labs. So let me give you a little bit more color. When we look at the overall fixed costs in the business, there's just too much cost. There's 14 labs that were built to support a much larger Sanger footprint than the demand environment supports today. So with the sustained lower volumes, this has really created pressure on profitability. Appreciate that. Yeah. I guess just to follow-up on that. How how are these efforts kind of factored into your updated LRP? I know you're just pushing it out by a year and there's not really any update between the different segments, but any terms of like anything in terms of like a gating factor between the year or FY '26, 2728 might be helpful for our context.

50:12 Yeah, I think it's a great question. Certainly, when we look at overall confidence in LRP, right, that's why we're kind of holding to those targets. Mac, it's all contemplated in the phase shift of the LRP. That's right. I appreciate you taking my questions. Thank you. Sure. You bet. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question. I guess my first one is a big picture. When you look at rest of life science tools space, we've generally seen stable A and G end markets, stable capital environments. So when you talk about end markets, when you talk about capital constraints, bookings in North America for gene synthesis rates.

51:12 There seems to be a disconnect between what we're hearing from peers versus trends that Azenta is seeing. How much of this is Azenta company specific versus market issues in your mind? And when you think about back half, what is the guide assuming? Are you assuming current market environment that Azenta is facing sustains in the back half or are you assuming further deterioration in your end markets? Sure. It's a fair question, Vijay, and thank you for that. So let's unpack it first from an end market perspective. If you look at our North America GENEWIZ business, really the headwinds we've seen is we had a commercial reboot that's on us in terms of the human capital side.

52:00 And so that's first thing there. Second thing is, did make some commercial investments and we've got some execution shortfalls in that. Again, that's on us. Around the end market and what we're seeing in our pharma, biotech and academic customers, a lot of the performance issues we're seeing is really based on what's called this PC and S business. Think about that as a specialty CRO. And so it's large project related revenue. It's very similar to our POC business in stores and our capital equipment business in cryo. So we've got there is a funnel, a weaker funnel than we had because of some of the human capital turnover that I've talked about.

52:51 The biggest driver in North America is of course related to Azenta specific. And that is our Sanger business. I mean, that is declining 17%. It's been a big issue for us internally. Are going to be solving for that. And so on balance, I would say of the number of items I've talked about, I would say on balance about 60% to 70% are present to specific BJ. And we're going to be solving for those. We've got plans in place. One of the things we've got with Trey coming in, we're very excited about his grip on the business just four weeks into the business here today. So that's the way I would think about GENEWIZ specifically in North America.

53:39 If we unpack stores in cryo business, these are big ticket items. I mean, there's this right now, we're seeing pharma and biotech kind of investing in small pockets here and there. But remember, these are big ticket CapEx. And so is right now, mean, when we review the funnel, we're looking at that and we've got a good grip on that funnel. We've got a good grip in terms of the competitive dynamics. We're not seeing a share loss here. This is just a push out. It's our interpretation of that is is is pharma going to continue to invest? Where are they going bioprocessing? They're clearly doing that. With this reassuring thing, are they going to move more dollars over there? Or are they going to put that into R and D and in some of these large stores?

54:31 It's a bit of a mixed bag right now. And I think that is really around end markets. I don't view our performance in stores as an Azenta specific issue at this point in time. If we're just calling it down the middle as we see it Vijay. Cryo, we had some new salespeople, we had some commercial reboot North America. I think we were clear when Joe came in, he's got to rebuild our North America sales organization. He's done that. So on balance, Vijay, I would call it on cryo a bit of a sixtyforty. 60 being an end market meaning a lot of the funnel and we go project by project on these large catch these large CapEx deals. A lot of that's been pushed out. 40% I would say is this commercial reboot when Joe was coming in and rebuilding our North America business.

55:23 So on balance, that's how I would look at unpacking the big issues in the business. And specifically, what is the Azenta related and what is end market related? Do you want to talk about forecast Lawrence? Look, hi Vijay. When we contemplated the overall guide, the low end of revenue range, we believe the plan is largely to risk. Importantly, we've really taken a conservative posture to the outlook and paired it with cost actions and operational discipline that John talked about. And that's why we believe that the revised guidance is appropriately balanced with realism and execution focus. Understood. Maybe, John, on some of those comments you made you know, human capital, Salesforce issues.

56:14 What what is the plan for fixing these issues? Right? Do you have the personnel in place, or do we need to hire people? And how do you track productivity? That like a six month from now where we should see a turn in some of these businesses? Yeah. So on the human capital side, we have a North America leader in GENEWIZ with Trey coming on board. He's going to be bringing a leader from North America and multi omics. And we're excited to bring about new talent into the business. With Trey being here, and he's very clearly his grip and on the gene synthesis business.

57:04 He spent many, many years there. And so we're excited about bringing in the right talent to go drive performance there. That was a gap for us for basically Q1 and Q2. Okay, that's on us. We've got really good sales reps in place right now. We've got really good regional managers in place right now. And so we're driving performance there. We track productivity clearly. Ramp time is six to nine months in that business right now. I think there's some room for improvement around specifically around NGS. I think we're more confident in that area. We're building more capabilities in our gene synthesis business. And we've got to go solve for cautious issues in Sanger.

57:49 And we've got the right people now with tray in place to go go do that. I hope that helps, Vijay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. The next question comes from Paul Knight with KeyBanc. Please go ahead. Hi, John. You were talking about the reorg of the automated stores group into three groups. And did I read it correctly that the automated stores technology is kind of a new footprint, a more reliable footprint? It seems it will always had some issues before you even.

58:36 So is that what I understood there is, is this a new kind of way of producing and selling and servicing the store's product? Yes, so let me pull us back in and discuss how we're thinking about stores in general. Let me just touch on the quality side of it first. And how that's informing us in terms of what you're talking about in terms of restructuring, how we restructured that business in general. So when we came into the business, we had 18 stores quality issues, 18 of those stores did not work in the field. We're down to three right now.

59:21 Two customers, three stores. And nothing's changed in terms of the quality issues that we've got to remediate. And more importantly, the timeframe to go do that. We're going to be lapping that this next quarter here. In terms of trend and how we're more attacking the general dynamics around quality and the bespoke nature of our current portfolio there. So when we came into the business, there over 100 and some quality tickets. I'm very pleased with the fact that the team and these are minor issues, but the team's down to around a handful meaning 20 some. And so part of the bespoke nature of this is you've got some service gaps that were occurring in the business. I'm very pleased with the team in terms of how we've addressed these. More importantly, our customers are thrilled about that. It's been a good investment for the company.

1:00:19 So what are we going to do about it going forward here? Customers clearly want these products. We don't see share loss with any of these quality issues at all bluntly. And secondly, it's what do we want to go do going forward? When you're in a mid to high single digit business, there was a gap, there's a gap in our portfolio. What's the gap? Small modulated stores, one. Two, these larger stores that are highly configurable, meaning you've got standard modules that are off the shelf right now. That goes to the point around restructuring our R and D group, which was to your question, Paul. And that is that R and D group now is waking up every day. One part of that group wakes up on new product innovation.

1:01:04 The second part of that group wakes up every day and they work on the POC part of that business. And then the third one is sustaining engineering and they're working around existing quality issues in the field. What we call PPV, price performance variance, which is around procurement and then value add value engineering. That's what they're waking up every day and doing. Now, let's talk about the timing of this. The timing of implementing all of this was q1. We put our general managers into the business in q1 in automated stores and cryo. That's Jeff. We put Michael in C and I in that business to drive performance there. And then Alex in the bio repository business.

1:01:52 All of those general managers came in, in that November December timeframe. So they're getting more clarity around the business clearly. And then our financial leads are coming in there too. Well, so we think we're going to have more of a grip on the business just from a execution of the roadmap. But more importantly, how we're driving forecasting in the business. I know we've got a little work to do internally forecasting and more importantly, externally forecasting here. So all of that to say structurally, Paul, I think we're in a much better place and how we're driving that going forward in automated stores. Thanks for the question. Sure. And then last on multi omics is Sanger obviously, you want to change the the rubber roofs.

1:02:46 But is Sanger moving into other next gen techniques that are longer relinked? Does it imply less saying you're in the future, more next gen in the future? Sure. What is going on in the Sanger business is that you've got technology disintermediation. Is Okay. Center ever going to go away? No, but there's a shift, a clear shift to the ONT Oxford Nanopore technology, which we also offer. We've got thousands of drop boxes globally. We've got a big commercial footprint here. Bluntly, we were on our heels in terms of bringing the new technology into GENEWIZ.

1:03:33 We're now in front feet and doing that. I think with Trey coming on board, we're going to get more aggressive in this technology conversion. That lends us to the fact that we've got it in right sizes Sanger business, but also meeting our customer needs with the right balance of Sanger. If you look at a multi omics business competitively differentiated, having gene synthesis on the writing side of genes, and then next gene sequencing, including Sanger and Oxford Nanoport is strategic. And so we need the right balance of having NGS, Sanger and ONT in the business to drive a synthesis strategy here. Trey is the one that is really well positioned to do that. And all of that right now, Paul, we're on our front feet to go do.

1:04:22 Okay. Thanks. Sure. Thank you. The next question comes from Brendan Smith with TD Cohen. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Appreciate all the color here on North America versus other regions. And maybe just following up kind of on that last question. I guess even really from a priority basis, you mentioned some of the gene with dynamics in North America, but know we've even seen, for example, some AI driven demand for some of these tools from biotech and pharma starting to crop up here. So I guess I'm really just wondering, you know, how you kind of see then just competitive opportunity in sequencing versus synthesis? And maybe if one ultimately makes more sense to kind of really lean into first? Just kind of order of operations, you know, from here over the next few months. Thanks.

1:05:13 Sure. I mean, if you look at if you look at what we talked about in IR day in terms of you've got gene synthesis north of a billion dollar end market growing double digit, very high margins. We have that in our hands today. And we're executing well specifically in that in Europe, and in China. Where we think that there is room to improve in our strategy is up indexing us from a technology perspective, specifically in North America. And kind of what we outlined in our strategy is this decentralized up indexing from a technology perspective. We think there's a lot of room there. The evidence of that, Brendan is clearly in bringing Trey in.

1:06:03 In order to execute our strategy, you got to have the right person to do it. He's a clear expert here. And so for our strategy, we need to have both in terms of reading and writing of genes. Going to your question around AI, this is an area that I think you're going to hear more from us in. As the strategy starts to evolve around gene synthesis, up indexing us from a technology and in double digit growth perspective, and getting us more in our front foot there. We're pretty excited about that. We do have bioinformatics internally. We do we are investing in that specifically. I mean, that's in our hands today. I think you're going to see some more partnerships and some more things around our inorganic activities around that specifically.

1:06:53 But I hope that helps, Brendan. Yep, got it. Makes sense. Thanks guys. Sure. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I will now turn the call over to John Murata for closing remarks. Please go ahead. Very good. Thank you, operator. To close, I want to recap on a few things. First, I want to emphasize our confidence in the strategic priorities as outlined in our Investor Day, scaling our biorepositories, advancing our gene synthesis technology and our new product innovation and automated solutions. We're really focused on getting the portfolio centered around those three areas and increasing our reoccurring revenue focus.

1:07:40 As I've stated, we're not satisfied with our results and we have some work to do to transform Multiomics and stabilize our performance. I'm confident on our team's ability to do so and the new leadership we've brought in to help us do that. I want to thank our employees and our shareholders for their support and our commitment to Azenta. Thank you very much. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation.