Welcome to the presentation of Sartorius and Sartorius Stedim Biotech on the preliminary results 2025. Please note that the call is being recorded and streamed on the Sartorius website. Your participation in this implies you consent with this. A replay will be available shortly after the call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Petra Müller, Head of Investor Relations of Sartorius. Thank you, operator. Hello, and a warm welcome from my side. I'm joined today by our CEO, Michael Grosse, by Florian Funck, our CFO, by René Fáber, Head of our Bioprocessing Division and CEO of Sartorius Stedim Biotech, and by Alexandra Gatzemeyer, Head of our Lab Products and Services Division. As always, we will start with prepared remarks, followed by the Q&A session. As the call is scheduled to one hour, please limit your question to one, so that as many participants as possible can take part. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release and presentation. With that, I'm pleased to hand over to Michael Grosse, CEO of Sartorius. Michael, please go ahead. Thank you very much, Petra, and a warm welcome also from my side. Thank you all for joining us today for our preliminary full year 2025 results. Before we begin, I would like to sincerely thank all of our colleagues across Sartorius for their commitment and dedication over the past year. Their passion, professionalism, and strong focus on execution are clearly reflected in our results we are presenting today. I would also like to personally thank everyone who's made it such a smooth and rewarding experience for me to step into my role as a CEO. Particular thanks as well to my colleagues here, Alexandra, René, and Florian from the executive team. It's been really a great journey up to now. Fantastic work on the strategy and great things to come. And I don't wanna miss out as well on saying thank you to the team here from Investor Relations, Communications, and Finance, because I think the workload over the last couple of weeks and days has been tremendous in order to get us all prepared and get our reporting in place. Thank you all for that. Now, let me briefly summarize key messages that we would like to share with you today. First of all, 2025 was characterized by a return to normal demand behavior for consumables and continued cautious investment activities by our customers. Combined with an active operational management in a still challenging environment, we delivered improved operational and financial performance. Am I on the right? Sure. Okay. All right. Supported by the improvement, improving trends, demand trends, mainly on the consumable side and the operating leverage inherent in our model, Sartorius achieved considerable profitable growth. For the full year, we delivered results slightly ahead of our upgraded full year 2025 sales guidance. Profitability landed in the upper half of our initial guidance from April and exceeded our October EBITDA target with a margin of 29.7%. This performance reflects growing volumes, operating leverage, and strong execution. Now, growth was once again driven by our recurring business across both divisions. In Bioprocess Solutions, strong double-digit growth in recurring revenue, more than offset continued softness in equipment, which, however, stabilized over the year. In Lab Products and Services, performance improved gradually as expected. Growth in H2 was driven by recurring business, while instruments showed positive momentum, also supported by product launches in bioanalytics. Our operating performance allowed us to further reduce our leverage ratio, underscoring our commitment to financial discipline and a strong balance sheet. Overall, in 2025, we laid a solid foundation for the year 2026. For the group, we expected sales growth of around 5%-9%, with an underlying EBITDA margin slightly above 30%. Let me now turn to action we are taking to enable future growth. Let's talk about innovation and partnerships. We have made tangible progress in two key areas: innovation and the expansion of our resilient global R&D and production capacity. We launched several new solutions across both divisions. In bioprocessing, we made progress in more sustainable product design with the launch of Sartopore Evo, a PFAS-free filtration solution, which addresses growing regulatory and customer expectations around the elimination of persistent substances, while maintaining the high performance and reliability our customers require. We also launched the Sartocon cassette, further strengthening our offering for efficient and scalable downstream processing, particularly for viral vector purification. Now, on the equipment side, we introduced the Pionic Continuous Bioprocessing Platform, developed with Sanofi, which faces high customer interest. This platform supports the industry's transition from traditional batch production to continuous processes, enabling faster, more efficient, and more sustainable manufacturing workflows. Our teams advanced our bioanalytical portfolio, including the only live cell imaging system with confocal microscopy inside an incubator, a really important step forward for the work with complex 3D cell models. We further strengthened this area also through the acquisition of MatTek, expanding our portfolio of advanced 3D cell models that more closely mimic human tissue, deliver more predictive and reproducible results, and help reduce the need for animal testing. We entered into a partnership with Nanotein Technologies, enhancing our capabilities in cell expansion and activation to support next-generation biologics. In parallel, we continue to invest in a resilient global manufacturing footprint. We completed the expansion in Aubagne and progressed with the expansion in Germany, as well as with the construction of our greenfield site in Songdo, South Korea, ensuring scalability, supply reliability, and proximity to our customers. Taken together, these actions strengthen our ability to support customers as markets normalize and position for Sartorius for sustainable innovation that grows over the coming years. With this, let's take a closer look into our numbers. Florian? Yeah, thank you, Michael, and a warm welcome also from my side to everybody out there. I'm happy to take you through our numbers that reflect, in my perspective, a consistently strong performance in the year 2025. Let's start with top-line performance. Our sales revenue increased by 7.6% in constant currencies and 4.7% in reported currencies, reaching slightly more than EUR 3.5 billion. This positive development was driven by mid-teens growth in our recurring business in 2025, which represents by far the largest part of our business, as you know. Our non-recurring business remained soft on a full year basis, but clearly stabilized in H2 and was above H1 in absolute numbers as expected. The difference between constant currency and reported growth was primarily driven by U.S. dollar weakness, which represents a headwind of almost 300 basis points to reported sales growth in fiscal year 2025. Our full-year performance was also influenced by U.S. tariffs. The successful implementation of tariff surcharges contributed approximately 1 percentage point to sales revenue growth. Order intake developed strongly, growing faster than sales, and as a result, our 12-month rolling book-to-bill ratio remained consistently above 1 throughout the year 2025. Although, as expected and also communicated in our last quarterly call, it declined slightly sequentially in Q4 due to a very strong prior year comparison. In absolute terms, order intake in Q4 was roughly on par with the exceptionally strong Q4 2024. You remember that above EUR 1 billion figure that we posted there, and that was the quarter with the highest absolute order intake in 2025. And therefore, we entered 2026 on the back of a strong order book. Looking at our divisions in more detail. Bioprocess Solutions delivered another strong quarter, bringing full-year sales revenue growth to 9.5% in constant currency. Growth was driven by mid-teens growth in consumables throughout the year, while equipment remained soft, as Michael already mentioned, but was clearly stabilizing with H2 2025 sales being double-digit percentage above H1 2025 sales. Lab Products and Services delivered a resilient performance in a challenging market environment. Sales were essentially flat at 0.2% in constant currencies +, supported by solid momentum in consumables and services. The acquisition of MatTek contributed slightly more than 1 percentage point to growth. Instrument sales were impacted by constrained CapEx spending in life science research end markets. However, we are seeing encouraging signs of stabilization, supported by positive momentum in bioanalytics in the second half, driven in part also by the launch of several updated instruments in that market space. Let me also quickly elaborate on our regional performance. EMEA sales performance remained robust, with growth of almost 6% in 2025. As a reminder, the recovery in EMEA started earlier than in other regions and therefore faces higher base effects compared to the Americas or APAC. The Americas outperformed, growing by 8.9%, like APAC, which also grew by 8.9%. In APAC, China continued to stabilize with early signs of improvement. Excluding China, the APAC region delivered low double-digit growth in the year 2025. Let's now turn to our profitability. In addition to robust growth momentum, we achieved a strong improvement in profitability over the past twelve months. Underlying EBITDA increased over proportionately by 11.2% to EUR 1.052 billion, I'm sorry, with the margin expanding by 170 basis points to 29.7%. This margin improvement was driven by positive volume and product mix effects, as well as economies of scale, further underpinned by cost discipline, more than offsetting FX and tariff-related headwinds of around 1 percentage point.... Looking at the divisional profit distribution, profitability in our BPS division developed strongly. Underlying EBITDA increased by 15.2% to EUR 907 million, and the margin improved by 240 basis points to 31.7%, based on the effects just mentioned also for the group. In LPS, margin declined year-on-year to 21.5%, roughly 50/50, reflecting an unfavorable product mix on the one hand side, as well as FX and tariff-related impacts on the other hand side. Now let's take a look at the performance below underlying EBITDA, where both net profit and cash flow developed well. The strong increase in underlying EBITDA of 11% translated into overproportional growth in underlying net profit of 18% and reported net profit of 84%. As a result, underlying EPS also grew at a very strong 18%. Turning to cash-related items, operating cash flow amounted to EUR 837 million, below the exceptionally strong prior year level of EUR 976 million, which was positively impacted by significant one-off inventory reduction measures in the year 2024. While business volume improved strongly in 2025, working capital remained largely unchanged. Going forward, we remain committed to keeping net working capital growth below our sales growth. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 390 million, reflecting the development of our operating cash flow. In addition, free cash flow is also reflecting the slightly increased CapEx spending from EUR 410 million to EUR 441 million. Accordingly, the CapEx ratio was 12.5%, which is exactly in line with our guidance throughout the year. To conclude our section on 2025 financials, let us now look at the development of the balance sheet-related key figures. We see a strong equity ratio of 39.8%. The increase versus year-end 2024 is mainly due to some repayments on financial instruments using our strong cash position and therefore tightening the balance sheet total. Net debt remained largely unchanged, while gross debt has been reduced by EUR 277 million, despite payouts for the acquisition of MatTek in summer 2025 of EUR 70 million. The leverage ratio, defined as net debt to underlying EBITDA, improved as expected from 3.96 times to 3.55 times in 2025, despite the acquisition of MatTek, which added approximately 0.1 times to the ratio. So we are well underway on our planned deleveraging path. As you can see in the title, we stay committed to our investment-grade rating. With that, I would like to hand back over to Michael. Thank you, Florian. So overall, we are very pleased with the strong performance Sartorius delivered in 2025, supported by improving demand trends, mainly on the consumable side. In addition, the results demonstrate the resilience of our business model and confirm the attractive long-term opportunities in the biopharma and life science markets. We will remain focused on disciplined execution, targeted investments in innovation and capacity, and operational excellence. Looking at 2026, it is clear that our industry is back on track, but has not yet fully reached its long-term growth level, especially in terms of demand for equipment and instruments. Since the year is still young, we have deliberately set a broad guidance range to account for continued high macroeconomics and industry-specific volatility. The lower end of the range reflects a cautious scenario in which market conditions weaken. However, we currently expect market dynamics to continue normalizing and positive trends to continue. For 2026, we expect to continue our profitable growth trajectory with a continued positive development in the Bioprocess Solutions division and a recovery in the Lab Products and Services division. For the group, we expect sales growth in constant currencies of around 5%-9%, including a positive effect from the MatTek acquisition and US tariff-related surcharges totaling approximately 1 percentage point. For the underlying EBITDA margin, we expect an increase to slightly above 30%, in which a tactical margin dilution of around 50 basis points from tariff surcharges is already reflected. In Bioprocess Solutions, we anticipate sales growth of around 6%-10%, mainly driven by the recurring business, while we expect equipment business to remain at least stable. The underlying EBITDA margin should be slightly above 32%. In Lab Products & Services, sales growth is expected at around 2%-6%, including a growth contribution of 1.5 percentage points for MatTek. This reflects a continued growth recurring business and an at least stable instrument business. We expect underlying EBITDA margin to be slightly below 21%, mainly influenced by deliberate investments in Advanced Cell Models, with additional headwinds from unfavorable mix, Forex, and the dilutive effects of the existing tariffs. CapEx ratio should be around the prior year level, as we will continue to invest selectively and with discipline in expanding our global research and manufacturing footprint. Net debt to underlying EBITDA should decrease to slightly above 3x at year-end. As usual, we will provide some additional information for modeling purpose. As you can see, with the Euro-US rate of 1.2, there it would be a headwind of around 2 percentage points on the reported versus constant, constant currency growth in full year 2026. In Q1, the headwinds would be around 4 percentage points at a Euro-US rate of 1.2. Taken together, we are confident that Sartorius is well positioned to benefit from continued recovery. With that, I would now like to hand over to René, who will walk us through the financials of Sartorius Stedim Biotech in more detail. René, over to you. Thank you very much, Michael. Also, from my side, welcome, and thank you for joining us on the call today. In 2025, Sartorius Stedim Biotech achieved considerable profitable growth driven by improving demand, particularly for consumables and operating leverage. This allowed us not only to achieve our updated October 2025 guidance, but also to exceed our top line expectations. Overall, we are very pleased with the results and would like to sincerely thank all our colleagues across Sartorius Stedim Biotech for their commitment, dedication, and really hard work in making 2025 a success. Looking at the numbers, sales for the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group increased by 9.6% in constant currencies, reaching nearly EUR 3 billion. Growth in reported currencies was 6.7%, primarily due to the weaker US dollar, which represented a headwind of almost 300 basis points. The successful implementation of tariff surcharges contributed approximately 1% to sales revenue. Our high margin recurring consumables business remained very strong, delivering mid-teens growth, more than offsetting the soft but increasingly stabilizing equipment business. Order intake grew faster than sales, keeping our 12-month rolling book-to-bill ratio consistently above one. While the ratio declined slightly sequentially in Q4, as, Florian explained, due to a very strong prior year comparison, Q4 order intake was roughly on par with the exception of Q4 2024, making it the highest absolute order intake quarter in 2025. We therefore enter 2026 with a strong order book. Underlying EBITDA increased by 17% to EUR 914 million, driven by volume, product mix, and economies of scale. Consequently, the underlying EBITDA margin improved significantly to 13.8%, an increase of 2.8 percentage points compared to the previous year. Looking at the top line performance from a regional perspective, EMEA maintained a solid momentum, delivering 7.3% growth. This robust performance came despite a higher comparison base, resulting from an earlier recovery cycle. The Americas grew by almost 12%, followed by Asia Pacific, growing almost 11%. In APAC, China stabilized and was only slightly dilutive to the overall growth. Excluding China, the growth, the region delivered, was in the low double digits, range for 2025. I'm also quite pleased with the more recent development in China. Beyond stabilization, as the year progressed, we are now seeing really early signs of recovery. Looking at the net profit and cash flow, underlying EBITDA growth of the strong 17% translated into an overproportional increase in underlying net profit of 26.7% to EUR 428 million, and reporting net profit of nearly 52% to EUR 266 million. Underlying EPS rose by 26% to $4.4. Operating cash flow remained solid at EUR 692 million, although below the high level recorded in the prior year, which was positively influenced by the pooling of inventory that Florian already touched upon. Free cash flow stood at EUR 295 million, and the CapEx as percentage of sales came in at 13.3%. A quick look at our balance sheet metrics. Our equity ratio improved to 51.7% at the end of 2025, with the increase being driven by some repayment of financial liabilities and therefore tightening the balance sheet total. Net debt decreased by EUR 80 million versus year-end 2024, and we crossed debt reduction. Deleveraging is progressing as planned, with the net debt to underlying EBITDA ratio improving to 2.38 by the end of 2025. So we are well, well on track on our deleveraging path. Now, before we move to, into the Q&A, let me also quickly elaborate on our full year guidance for the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group. As mentioned earlier, we are very pleased with the strong performance of Sartorius Stedim Biotech has delivered across all key financial dimensions. The 2025 results demonstrate the resilience of our business model and confirm the attractive long-term opportunity in biopharma market. We will remain focused on discipline, execution, targeted investment in innovation and capacity, and operational excellence. Looking at 2026, same is true for Sartorius Stedim Biotech as for Sartorius, Sartorius AG when it comes to the overall environment and industry trends. Therefore, we also have deliberately set a broad guidance range, with the lower end of the range reflecting a cautious scenario in which market conditions weaken. However, we currently expect market dynamics to continue normalizing and positive trends to continue. We expect to stay on our profitable growth path and for 2026, sales revenue growth in the range of around 6%-10% in constant currencies, including a 1 percentage point contribution from the US tariff purchases. Growth will be mainly driven by the recurring business, but against high costs, while the equipment business should remain at least stable. The underlying EBITDA margin should increase to slightly above 31%, in which a technical margin dilution of around 50 basis points from tariff purchases is reflected. Our CapEx ratio is expected to stay around previous year level, at around 13%, reflecting our ongoing investment into research and resilient production footprint. Our commitment to deleveraging remains unchanged. We anticipate the leverage ratio, the net debt to underlying EBITDA, to decrease to slightly above 2 at year-end. Our modeling assumptions, Michael already explained expected headwinds from FX on Sartorius AG level. Same is true for Sartorius Stedim Biotech. With this, I will hand over to the operator to begin our Q&A session. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Subbu Nambi from Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. Good morning, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. What does your guidance assume in terms of US onshoring build-outs in 2026? What could drive upside to these expectations? Yeah, so I'll take that, Subbu. Thanks for the question. Right now, as we've been seeing that, yeah, there's lots of plans, some of them really committed, some of them still a bit on the horizon. As we see as well, the lead times, you know, for order, particularly on the equipment on a larger system side for greenfield or for larger expansions, we think that an impact from large or from relevant reshoring activities will most likely not contribute with revenue in 2026. So we've not baked anything of that in our current expectation and assumptions. This would rather be for the year 2027 and beyond, where this may have a larger impact. However, we are very closely connected, of course, with all our customers, you know, supporting them on their plans, discussing opportunities as we, as we move forward. Excluded are from this, of course, very short, near-term activities on brownfields and expansions of existing capacity. Perfect. A quick follow-up: How did equipment orders for BPS and NPS respectively trend for the quarter for Q4? Are you starting to see any early signs of recovery? You spoke about comparison in orders, but I was just trying to figure out what about equipment orders separately for NPS and BPS. Thank you so much. So, thank you for the question. Although we are, we are not giving, further information on that very detailed level, but what I can tell you is, on the one hand side, we have been talking about, H2 sales being much stronger than H1 sales. And, the same holds true when we look at order intake, where the order intake, in H2 was also, well within double digits, above H1, which of course then speaks to the quality of the order book and therefore our, our, cautiously optimistic outlook then also into, into 2026. Perfect. Thank you so much, guys. Next question comes from Richard Vosser from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. One question, please. So, you've talked about market conditions not fully back to normal for equipment, so just a little bit of elaboration on changes of customer sentiment here. You've talked a little bit just now about equipment orders suggesting improvement. So just thinking about, first, that your confidence in the stabilization of equipment revenues, what's underpinning that in 2026? But also, when do you think equipment could move more back to normal levels? We've seen that happen for consumables in 2025. What's your thinking there? Thank you very much. ... Yeah, thank you for the question. I take it. Let me first get back to 2025. You will remember when we talked about stabilization of equipment, like in Q3, we said for H2 2025, we expect to be in revenues flow with equipment at least on the levels of H1, maybe slightly above. And you could hear from Florian that H2 came out as a stronger, so confirmed the stabilization compared to - stronger compared to the H1. So I think that's a clear, yeah, kind of confirmation of our view and expectations and the visibility and the discussions with our customers that the equipment is stabilizing. And now looking, of course, into 2026, we continue to see the positive discussions and have positive discussions with customers. There are tangible projects, sizable projects on the horizon. The order book is healthy, as we mentioned in the few minutes ago. So, as Florian put it, cautiously optimistic looking into 2026. We believe that the portfolio we have is well-positioned to help customers quickly adjust their capacity. Single-use technologies are designed to provide that flexibility. So, yeah, we're very encouraged about the current sentiment, as well as our position and discussions we had with our clients. Yeah, I would like to expand even that, from René's perspective. I think the similar situation is true as well for LPS division on the basis of equally, I would say, strong development interest levels in leads and opportunities, particularly on the bioanalytical instrument side, as well as trends that we've seen in the second half of the year, particularly in Q4, coming and resulting into a good level of contribution in both sales and order intake. And again, so same sentiment for us, but again, I think it will take, for sure, the full quarter Q1 for us to have simply better visibility, better understanding the continuation of the order intake, trade, in order to have a better view on whether this requires then a further refinement of our perspective for the full year at that point in time. Super helpful. Thank you very much. The next question- Thank you, Richard. Pardon. The next question comes from Doug Schenkel from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Hi, everybody. It's Doug Schenkel from Wolfe. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm going to try to do three really quickly. One, I just want to confirm, based on your responses to the earlier questions, that your 2026 guidance does not currently assume an improvement in bioprocessing equipment demand. So that's the first one. The second, can you please bridge to your margin guidance for the year? Specifically, what would be helpful is, what's the impact of foreign exchange, tariffs, mix, and operating efficiencies as you incorporate those into your guidance? And then third, many companies in your peer group have taken a more conservative approach to guidance than, you know, had been the norm, given market challenges over the past several years and given ongoing policy uncertainty. With that in mind, and also recognizing that this is issuance as CEO, how would you describe your initial guidance philosophy? Thank you. So maybe I start to give a little bit more perspective on the margin guidance here. So what we know as of now, of course, is roughly the impact of the tariffs on the year 2026, which is to be around 50 basis points. What we do not know is the full FX impact. The weaker the US dollar, the higher this impact might be. Although we think we are in a good position to a certain extent, also, to compensate certain headwinds on the FX side in the margin. The, let's say, gross improvement in margin that we are seeing, if we are taking out tariff and FX impact, is definitely a three-digit basis points number, so above 100 basis points. Should be driven to a majority from ongoing operational leverage that we're seeing. Yeah. Maybe to add to Florian's point there, just because, you know, you may have really in mind as well our fantastic margin contribution that we delivered in 2025. And of course, there are other effects that I think are relevant in my mind to keep in mind there. Of course, on the operating leverage, since we are now already through our last year on a different level, the effect of this is of course diminishing to a point. Keep as well in mind that when it gets to our activities that we launched in the year even before on our cost reduction programs, that the main effect there as well was visible, particularly in 2024 and 2025. Still continues in 2026, but less so. ... So with this, and as well, the bit the question mark, how much the equipment will be there in the year 2026. You know, if there is a higher degree of recovery, of course, the margin mix, the mix effect that we have seen in 2025 was probably as well a bit more favorable compared to 2024 than it may be in 2026 compared to 2025. Then you talked as well a bit about the guidance philosophy. Yeah, I think we try to express that in our wording already. On the one hand side, it's early in the year. We felt like, okay, we're feeling confident enough in order to quantify our guidance. But given the fact that it's early in the year, given the still level of uncertainty that we have there in terms of, macroeconomic and, and geopolitical aspects, as you mentioned, I think we want to as well, therefore, be prepared for this and the lack of full visibility, you know, for the full year, on the basis of order intake and the book-to-bill and the market trends. And we felt the philosophy is indeed that, we have decided for a wide range with the 4 percentage points we have there. We don't feel that we are neither overaggressive nor over conservative with what we put out there. However, we feel that, we will not celebrate if we achieve only a 6% growth, for 2026. That's equally clear. At the same time, the level where we will land on the mid or even beyond the midpoint is so much dependent now on what will happen. So I think we will be in a better position after the Q1 to give more clarity as the year progresses. And that is why I think the philosophy remains, I would say, remains balanced. Remains balanced. Thank you very much. The next question- Thank you, Doug. The next question comes from Harry Sephton from UBS. Please go ahead. Brilliant. Thank you very much for taking my question. I do want to consumables. So we're seeing a more comfortable high single digit to low double-digit growth across the biotech in the industry on the consumables side. Based on your guidance, it would seem that you're expecting to be more in line with market growth. So what do you see in terms of potential upside or downside risk to market share in the near term on the consumables side? Thank you. Yeah, I take it. So, question on consumables. As you will know, the consumables is very much the majority represents the majority of our revenues for the process division. You will know that most of that, recurring revenues, consumables revenues, are linked to commercial manufacturing and consumption of our customers, of the products in making commercial drugs. Adding late-stage clinical material production, it comes to around 80% of the consumables revenue are linked to that late-stage plus commercial manufacturing. So and that's, that more or less kind of also gives you an idea about what dictates the growth of consumables. Looking forward, it's very much about the volumes, manufacturing volumes of our customers. We can do little about that, of course, but then, once new drugs are being approved or enter these late-stage clinical phases, yeah, that drives additional, you know, volumes for these consumables. So looking forward, I think we have been working consistently over the years with the teams in all regions to make sure we are early with customers and place these consumables spec in, validate when the decisions are made and validations are done, and also working hard with the customers to convert wherever possible in an ongoing and, yeah, existing processes towards our products. The highlight of that was, of course, during the pandemic, where, mainly due to our ability to supply and the customers, we gained market shares, and kept or were able also to protect, roughly a third of this gain, moving forward. So we are, I think, on a very healthy and successful track record to drive that all above market, above drug volume growth of our consumable revenues. Of course, as we mentioned, in presenting our 2025 results, we have seen a strong, mid-teens% growth of our consumables in 2026. So comms are higher now, looking in 2026. But we are very confident that this fundamentals and the volumes driving the growth of consumables are there, are intact, and are positive about the outlook in 2026 and beyond. Hi, Gary. The next question comes from James Quigley, from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Great. Thank you for taking my question. I've got one on China, please. So you said in the slides and in the comments that China is starting to show some encouraging signs of growth. I think some of your peers at a recent conference, they were still sounded a bit muted on China growth. So what are you seeing here in the region, and that's driving those encouraging comments from you across the BPS and the LPS divisions? Thank you. Yeah. So I mean, can get started a little bit. You know, I mean, high-level perspective, again, I think China has really, you know, a few years back that I think we've seen a really difficult market environment, with as well, very strong level of guided preference, you know, with regard to to local players and local for local production. We see now that a little bit, the this notion of rebaselining the market has come to an end. We see now that we are able to right now keep market shares in China and take and benefit from probably the still modest level of the growth that the China market demonstrates. Same time, there's, of course, a lot of innovation activities that we are part of and want to equally, I think, and been asked by customers to be part of their rollout of out licensing and bringing some of their pipeline development into other regions and markets. Our expectation for the market, however, overall, is still a rather flattish or rather very modest level of degree of growth expectation, given as well the prior year performance that we've seen. So we don't see and we don't expect naturally a big turnaround of that momentum, and it's still probably there to come later. At the same time, there's a big overhang and a high capacity build-up on the equipment side. So particularly on the equipment side, we feel as well that China will, in the year 2026, be a rather muted market. But on consumables, we think we'll be part of the game, and yeah, as we said, we have modest expectations here on the market. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much, James. The next question comes from Charles Pitman from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Thanks very much for taking my questions. A quick question, please, on just the, guidance again. Just trying to relate the kind of two separate statements of, the low end of your guidance range, reflecting kind of deteriorating market outlooks, but also your commentary and around the strong order book and equipment being at least stable. Can you confirm, therefore, that the low end of your guidance range reflects equipment being stable, supported by your existing backlog and other market deteriorations impacting consumables? And then just, a quick clarification on margins. I'm just wondering why, you're only providing a kind of bottom end of that range. Is it the implication that at the top end of the range, you have rising equipment, which will offset the margin, such that you're only competent to provide that bottom end of the range? I'm just trying to. Just thinking about how you're approaching this guide. Thank you. First part, yeah, I mean, Just on the question, I just, Charles, you broke up a little here technically. That's why we are a little puzzled. Could you- The first part of the question. Sorry. My, my question relates to trying to triangulate the two guidance commentary. One being that your sales could be at the low end of the range upon worsening market conditions, but that you separately expect equipment to be at least stable. I'm just wanting to confirm that your order book means that you have this confidence in your equipment being at least stable, and that in the scenario where you hit the low end of the range, that's driven by consumable deterioration more so than any downside to your equipment outlook. Okay. So I mean, yeah. I mean, again, I think the on the lower end of our guidance, as we try to express, we see some level of, I would say, market situation overall. So we would see that there is no impact, no positive contribution there, from the equipment, and possibly as well, a slight deterioration, even on the consumable side, we see the total mix. It depends on how you see the two elements, you know, of this coming together. But as we say, I mean, if we see the momentum that we've seen right now, based on, as you said, the order intake generating equipment and a stable situation, plus the continuation of the current trajectory of the consumables, that would be slightly above the bottom part of the guidance. So we would assume some level of deterioration, you know, of that condition. Then, I think the other question- Was on the margin. Was on the margin. Yeah. While we have not given a range for the margin, you know, we have said that we want to reach slightly above, so this is in a way open to one side. Now, let's assume we would be on the lower end of our guidance range, the 5% for the group. We would definitely aim to see margin improvement against prior year, but we might not fully reach that. So the margin corridor that we are indicating to was slightly above the 30%, was more towards the midpoint of the guidance. If we then come to the upper part of the guidance corridor on top line, of course, there's way more potential on the back of more operational leverage. Thank you very much. Thank you, Charles. The next question comes from Charlie Hayward, from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Charlie Hayward, Bank of America. Thanks for taking the questions live, too. So first one, in 2026, is it fair to expect typical seasonality on the bioprocessing side? So I think you've previously commented to Q4, Q1, Q2, Q3. Or given equipment phasing and what looks like a strong Q4 for those orders and, you know, 6- to 12-month order book might have that distort to possibly fueling a stronger second half. And then the second question is just a bit more on midterm. Now that you've spent a bit of time in the business, you'd previously sort of commented to Merck's 9%-10% market outlook, not far from your thinking. I guess, how are you, how are you currently seeing the bioprocess midterm market growth in the end markets there? Thank you. Thanks for the question. So, I think we can maybe kick off a little bit on the basis that I think, as you know, we don't really break down and guide on the basis of, you know, quarterly perspective. So I think in this case, we would like to leave a little bit, you know, the breadth of the way of how we look at the year to come in more the total perspective. So we will not provide any specifics, you know, as we see the quarters moving forward. Again, I think it is probably more in the nature of the business. You know, if you think about... And it's probably a similar pattern that we've seen during the last year. Given the lead times of equipment orders, particularly, we now can, you know, see that, okay, we generated the order intake in the second half of the year, Q4. So, things, you know, with the lead time, 6-12 months on the bioprocess side, of course, then you would expect sales realization and all these orders to rather hit the second half of the year than the first half of the year. So that's natural by the lead time of those orders. Beyond then, in terms of the market, yeah, I think we beholden to that. I mean, we basically took a look at the market. We'll get back as well, a bit more interesting insight, on the market, analysis that we've done, for the capital market, that we will provide and, and bring up, in, in March. However, as we said, we think that the assumption there for the market to be around a 9% growth, I think is something that's very much in line with our, with our, views and, and, and with our analysis. Again, depending a little bit, you know, so on the specific market segment and the, and then the, the exposure to the market segment. But that corridor is as well in line with our analysis that we've done, and that is well what we believe with that in our minds, we will measure us against, you know, from a mid- to mid- and long-term perspective. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, Charlie. The next question comes from James Vane-Tempest from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on LPS, actually. You mentioned in the presentation that the rolling book-to-bill is now more than one, but now you specifically state in both divisions. So I was just kind of curious whether the LPS book-to-bill turned in Q4 to be above one. And if so, where you're seeing accelerating orders from either certain customer or product groups. And then related to LPS, I mean, the guidance that you've given will mark the fourth year of margin decline in a row. I know we're going to, you know, hear more in March, but conceptually, how realistic is it from here to get back to levels seen a few years ago, and what would it take to get there? Thank you. Okay. First, part of the question was about the book-to-bill? Yeah. Sorry, you want to take that? Yes and no. If you don't want to take it. Exactly. Uh- You want to take it, but I answered it. James, as you know, we would not like to go specifically into that, but let me put it that way. We were quite pleased with what we have seen done in Q4. Let us leave it on that level. The other one was related to profitability? No. Growth. LPS margins, yes. In terms of the fourth year of decline, and just thinking about what it would take back to get back to where it was. Yeah, I think this is a question that we should discuss more in detail around the Capital Markets Day, if you don't mind. Okay, no, that's fine. One quick follow-up, if I can, and that is just about the business split within BPS. You know, historically, you've kind of related to consumables, equipment, normalized being 75-25, approximately. And I know at nine months, I think you sort of said it was around 85-15. So just as an approximation, I was just kind of curious where that sort of number set sat at full year. Thank you. Okay. Just maybe a short point of clarification. So I think, let's say the numbers you're referring to on the 75-25 would be on a, on the group level. We look at BPS, I think, you know, we see the rough proportion over the last half year, we more talk about 80-20, you know, in that ratio. And again, I think, yeah, that is, that is where we see, you know, the current state. We don't necessarily believe as well, given the discussion at earlier, that that would be as well, roughly the level that we will see as, as we continue into the year 2026 now. That's great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. The next question comes from Charles Weston, from RBC Europe. Please go ahead. Hello, thanks for taking the question. You've talked about Europe being ahead, or EMEA being ahead in terms of the recovery curve. Does that also mean it's ahead in terms of the equipment order recovery curve? So have you got sort of proof of those orders turning into, or that interest turning into orders and revenue in Europe? And just a clarification question, you said you have good discussions with your customers to understand their CapEx plans. Can you give us any insight into whether the big investments that they're making is more about them shifting CapEx from other parts of the world into the US, or whether they are genuinely adding additional capacity into the US over and above what they would be normally planning? No, thanks for the question. On EMEA, I think the situation is not that we see any difference here. Yes, the recovery overall, you know, happened earlier there, but we cannot now say that we have data that suggests on the equipment recovery that EMEA is ahead of the other regions. So that's not really the case. Yeah, and the discussions we have with customers on the equipment, they are mostly not today related to the onshoring or reshoring in terms of, you know, tangible projects, investments, either replacing old instruments or adding capacities. The discussions around onshoring is more about understanding really what is relevant of the, you know, what is being published the from the headlines from our customers. What are-- what is of relevance for us, of course, you will see a lot of R&D investment being included in this in these headlines. You will see also investment in classical pharma facilities, final fill drug product facilities, so all less relevant for us. So trying to understand what's really in for Sartorius, and then also trying to understand then really what the timing will be and when the discussions about, you know, the equipment providers will start. So this is more about where the onshoring discussions are today. So the very, very tangible projects are still less related to that topic. Thank you. Next question comes from Odysseus Manesiotis from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, to better understand the growth deceleration in Q4, I have EMEA around 4% CR for study. Could you give us a feeling of how that's different between equipment consumables or just whether that's the growth we should be expecting for the region as the new normal? And secondly, in order to have a better feeling of the conservative business embedded in your guide, is it fair to say that your book-to-bill for the entirety of the year was pretty much close to your pre-pandemic average of around 1.05? And last quick one, biotech funding has been quite strong. What's the usual lag that you see between a biotech funding recovery and a pickup in your order intake? Thank you. So let me maybe start with the growth regarding BPS recurring versus non-recurring in H2. Because I think really looking only at one quarter doesn't make sense in looking at a semester is already really short-term. But just to give you a feeling, the growth that we've seen in the non-recurring business was very similar to the growth that we've seen also in the consumables business in H2. So this is also a reason, besides the effects that we've seen in the order intake, why we are why we are taking that confident stance towards 2026. When it comes to book-to-bill, we are not communicating on the level of book-to-bill. Sorry. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question only. The next question comes from Thibault Boutherin from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you for taking my question. It's just to come back... Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah. Thanks, Thibault. Yeah. Just, just to come back on the, on the topic of onshoring and the large CapEx plans that have been announced, there's a question that comes back often from investors, which is: Is there a risk that because we see CapEx being skewed toward the US in the next few years, to see a, an imbalance between you and your competitors? So I think the idea from some investors is maybe US peers would be better positioned to benefit from CapEx being skewed to the US. So just wanted to know if you could comment on your competitiveness in the US, the market share relative to other regions, and, and give an answer of how a shift of investments to the US in terms of of equipment and, and CapEx for biopharma would, would impact you. Yeah. So, I take that question. Look, the... In our industry, and I think it's been always the case, still is the case, the main decision criteria is the technology and the performance. Their customers don't make really compromises when it comes to how they equip their facilities, if it's for preclinical small scale manufacturing or even commercial. So I think, there, we and this is where we really see ourselves being ahead with a lot of focus on innovation. So I think, for us, the positioning to benefit and participate in the potential onshoring wave is very strong. We have a facility to assemble equipment in the U.S., in the Boston area, in Marlborough, as well, to be close to customers in case of, you know, the factory acceptance test and so on, for more complex equipment. So I think, yeah, we are ready to take all the opportunities. The feedback from customers is strong, so positive about the outlook. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Thibault. Next question comes from Oliver Metzger, from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. It's one, a more structural question on equipment. So we know from the past, normally, equipment and consumables should grow at similar rates over the cycle. So we now see consumable demand healthy for a while, while equipment is at least lagging behind. Can you comment about the reasons for this reluctance? Is it more like still an overhang from, let's say, the time during the pandemic or post-pandemic, or could it be that there is a more structural change as higher quality consumables might have increased the efficiency or the titer of a production process, and therefore, some structure lower or slower demand for equipment might be the case for quite longer period of time before we see more expansion or so, or new manufacturing facilities? So that's to summarize it, upgrades and lower expansion. Yeah. Thank you for the question. I tried to kind of give you a more color to think about what... why this reluctance to invest. You addressed or you ask how much of that is coming. You know, it's kind of a post-pandemic, let's call microeconomic cash-driven impact or development. I think that's very much more on that side, plus the overcapacities which have been built during the pandemic in some areas versus, how you call it, a kind of a structural change in a way that by technologies improving it would require a less of this equipment. Actually, here, over years and decades, we have seen exactly the opposite. The better the technology gets, the more of it will be used, especially in single-use manufacturing. The cake of, you know, what you can address with single-use increases or grows, the better the technology, the higher the titers, the better the yields are. So I think that that's very much a positive and ongoing trend with this improvement. So again, back to your question, I think it's very much on the cash post-pandemic macroeconomic impact, rather than any different structural technology related. Okay. Thank you very much. Development. Yeah. Thank you, Oliver. The next question comes from Falko Friedrichs, from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Thank you. My question is on the LPS margin. When do you expect these investments in Advanced Cell Models to begin contributing positively to the margin of the segment again? And then just a very quick housekeeping one: Is a 27% tax rate a fair assumption again for the Sartorius Group in 2026? Thank you. Yeah. Let me start with the housekeeping question. We currently think that the 27% is still okay for the year, 2026. And on the margin, you know, as I said, it's connected a lot, of course, to our engagement in Advanced Cell Models, which is an emerging business, but should not be impacting on a sales side very soon. But rather, we are building up with a more long-term perspective, more to elaborate on at our capital market stage. Okay. Thank you. Next question comes from Harry Gillis, from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you very much for taking the questions. I have one clarification regarding an earlier question on guidance, and sorry, I didn't quite catch this. Does the 6% guidance at the low end of your BPS, for BPS growth, does that assume a further decline in equipment sales, sorry, or does your expectation for at least stable equipment hold here, and it's deterioration in growth and consumables? And secondly, could I just ask you, you expect your CapEx ratio to remain stable at around 12.5% for 2026. How should we think about that over the midterm as some of your larger projects start to roll off? Thank you. Should I start with the last question on the CapEx rate? So of course, you are asking more the midterm perspective, but I think we have always quite consistently communicated that we should see from the year 2027 onwards, an overall reduction on our CapEx ratio. 2026 is therefore the last year where especially also driven by our expansion projects in Korea, we are seeing elevated levels of our CapEx ratio to then come down afterwards. More on the capital market space. Then again, on the guidance, just repeat, we said at least, slide, so we are not considering any decrease in equipment revenues for 2026 in our guidance. Very clear. Thank you. Next question comes from Shubhangi Gupta from HSBC. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my question. So just a clarification for your guidance. For the upper end of your sales growth, does it assume recovery in equipment sales? And if yes, what is the timeline, and how should we think about the phasing of growth in 2026, given H2 health tough comps, especially from strong growth in consumables? Yeah. Again, so now the question is about the upper range of the guidance. Here, as we said, of course, in that case, we would expect the contribution of both consumables continued healthy growth as you know, knowing and considering the higher comps of coming from 2025, as well as at least a moderate growth in equipment revenues. So that's kind of our current thinking. And again, very positive what we have seen so far, the order book, the trends we see, so quite confident we are heading there. But as Michael said, in the introduction, still early in the year and more to come, with our Q1 results. Yeah. Give us a bit more time on that, please. You know, so on that, however, I think just to add on, I mean, as we said at the, the other stage, given a bit as well, if we think that one of the contributing or deciding factors, you know, towards the upper end, it will indeed be a, a more strong, recovery and, and growth contribution as well from the equipment instrument side. Again, on the lead times, that are there, of course, assumption is, is probably fair to say that this is something that happens, rather later, in the year than earlier. So it's something that we would expect, to rather beyond Q1 to happen, if it happens in the degree that we, that we may hope for, but we don't know. Just a quick follow-up. Can you comment on the utilization? No, I'm sorry, Shubhangi, but we have still three more people in the queue. I'm sorry. Sorry. We have to head on because we are over time already. Sorry about that. Happy, happy to take your question afterwards. The next question comes from Anna Snovkovsky from KeyBank. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my question. This is Anna on for Paul Knight. I just was wondering, you mentioned on your last call you were having some early conversations with small CDMO customers. How has this progressed, in the quarter? And are those early conversations around equipment broad-based or concentrated in any customer group or certain types of equipment, like those that help your customers reduce costs? Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for the question. So, yes, absolutely, that was a kind of an ongoing development we've seen in 2025. Towards the second half, we've seen the smaller CDMOs also becoming more and more active. We've seen them, their pipelines filling, their projects coming, and discussions started. And it. You know, it's both really about, it's equipment and consumables, so preparing for delivering on the projects. It's all about, you know, getting ready to make the batches, preparing to get an order and consumables to be, to have them on, to build inventories, as well as where needed, add equipment and to prepare the capacity as well. So that's been the development we've seen with them, and it didn't change so far, so also kind of contributes to our positive outlook. Thank you, Anna. The next question comes from Naresh Chouhan from Intron Health. Please go ahead. Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. Just on, BPS, when you talk about double-digit consumable growth, can I confirm that this is more like low teens if we exclude China? Just to give us a sense of where underlying demand is in Western market and the kind of state of the Western market recovery. Thank you. Yeah. So, consumables, kind of, yeah, low teens is a fair assumption in a positive outlook, right? And yeah, that's how we are looking forward, not only 2026, but ahead as well. Yeah, so, you are right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Naresh. The last question comes from Delphine Le Louët from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, thank you very much. I'm sorry, because I really don't understand the guidance regarding LPS when it comes to the margin. I know when you're trying to push back about the CDMO, and probably you're right, but that make me think, is there anything, and especially when we look at the Q4, where we had the margin gain versus the Q3. Is there anything more structural that you are planning and this is a new way where probably we should think about the division in the future? Meaning a complete reorg internally of the LPS division that could justify not having any execution gain coming over the sales growth, even at a midpoint of 4%, which is quite nice for that division, by the way. Any more clarity on that? How should we think about that margin in the context of, of a back to growth and a scenario which is not that bad at the end? So, Delphine, maybe I start and then the Michael, especially to add on that. But first of all, we definitely think that the LPS business is a 20%+ margin business going forward. On the other hand side, on the current position that we are at, at a margin of 21.5%, knowing that the tariff impact overall in the group is roughly 50 basis points in 2026, knowing that there are unknowns on the FX side, and knowing that we are ramping up our investments through the PNL into ACM, we thought it is appropriate to guide them for the year 2026 with a slightly below 21. Yeah, and over and above what Florian said, of course, we want to give you an incentive to join the Capital Markets Day here. Very clearly, any strategic type of consideration about how we see the business, the divisions as we move forward, you're welcome in March to our Capital Markets Day. Thank you. You're welcome, Delphine. There are no more questions from the phone. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Petra Müller, Head of Investor Relations. Yeah, thank you very much, Valentina. This concludes today's call. Please reach out to the Investor Relations team in case of any open questions. We thank you for joining us and wish you a blessed rest of the day. Take care and see you next time. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye bye, all. Many thanks. Bye.