Bio-Techne Corp at UBS Global Healthcare Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : So we're coming off of earnings season here. I thought we'd kick things off with the highlights from your Q1 earnings call.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Sounds like only highlights to me, did you mention there were some low lights you want as a flag as well? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : And I want to touch on the -- or spend a lot of time on the growth drivers. But before we do, let's talk about the quarter for a moment. You did mention that it's lower proportionally of your total revenue mix still a large proportion of your total revenue. What gets that to turn more meaningfully positive?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : And I get questions from time to time on the core general-purpose reagent part of your business in terms of the competitive environment, whether that has changed at all given that there have been some large transactions of competitors. Have you noticed any change in the competitive environment from your perspective?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. Well, I check in my list, I didn't have AI on it, but you brought it up. How does that -- help me better understand how that influences the competitive environment because yours is a business, at least in the core reagents market, it's never really been reliant on hard intellectual property. It's mostly been soft IP experience, those kinds of things. So how does the calculus change when you start pumping out patent-protected antibodies and proteins.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. So would you put that on par to your GMP opportunity? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : There's a couple of comments you made in the discussion that I want to circle back to. One was around automating your core reagents business. And I think that was part of the strategy for the ProteinSimple acquisition to begin with. So with that as a segue, can you bring us current on ProteinSimple, how you frame the market opportunity, how you frame your current penetration and some of the efforts you're doing to gain more wallet through ProteinSimple?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. Trying to think about some of the platforms, specifically Simple Western, for example. When I think about the Western Blot being the target for that, there are some applications of Western Blot which akin to the hammer at the construction site. They are not super fancy, everyone uses it. And I often wonder how much of the market is that, is that really convertible? What are your views on that?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. And another segue, you talked about the journey from RUO reagents to GMP reagents and with that, I wanted to talk a bit about cell therapy and then better understand the unit model there and the opportunity for Bio-Techne. I know you target that market in a few different ways, as you just mentioned, Jim, Simple Western targets that market, your GMP protein target, you have an investment in a company that you plan to acquire. But if I can try to distill it simply how do I understand the dollar opportunity or wallet opportunity that would flow to you from $0.5 million cell therapy? What goes to Bio-Techne in that circumstance? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Just to clarify, so I understand the G-Rex, I understand your protein and cytokine opportunity. Do you sell media into that workflow as well? I thought there was some media asset that you were divesting.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : So unrelated.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. But you do manufacture media that would be used in the G-Rex?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. Right. That is different from (inaudible) James Hippel - Bio-Techne Corp - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President - Finance There's also small molecules also which is a piece of that extra -- that is a GMP small molecules that are also part of the formula that make up that extra third that Kim was talking about.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Got it. And -- that's helpful. And $15,000 to me sounds like a large amount per therapy, not a small amount.(multiple speakers) Let's talk a bit about spatial biology. You have a couple of different business units that you've gained through acquisition. I guess for starters, and we'll dive into the growth drivers. But how are you currently organizing the spatial biology business internally?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. And how do you frame that opportunity when you think about the research market as opposed to the diagnostic opportunity?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : But do you need some type of FDA-approved diagnostic application to really accelerate that market?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. And how much does the multi-omic capability of the Lunaphore instrument, the COMET impact the opportunity there as well. I think that was a recent launch on the COMET.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. Well, I want to make sure we touch on your thoughts on liquid biopsy before I run out the clock. Can you offer an update on your strategy and how you're framing the forward opportunity for your liquid biopsy offering?

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Okay. I wanted to shift a bit to margins. Jim, there's a number of puts and takes that impact the margin line in 2025, which I heard on the call, and I understand those. But beyond 2025, what is the margin algorithm that Bio-Techne look like? And what are -- what drives margin expansion at the company? James Hippel - Bio-Techne Corp - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President - Finance Well, by far, the biggest driver of margin expansion is growth of our highly profitable product lines. Our core reagents have 90%-plus contribution margin, but even our instrumentation has margins that are well in the 70%. So when you saw during -- we were double-digit growth, even pre-COVID right on the COVID timeframe. We had some pretty -- and we were investing quite heavily in growth. And even with those heavy investments, we were still able to produce very nice margin expansion year over year. So that's really -- that is by far the biggest lever we have is getting back to growth. But in the meantime, of course, we're positioning the company to make sure that we take most advantage of that leverage once the markets do come back. Like many in our industry, we've been rightsizing certain areas of our company for the current environment from a head count perspective. You've also been rationalizing locations, inventory locations, Centers of Excellence like Kim talked about to position us for better for growth in the future. And then also, we probably touched on this, but really doing a hard look at our certain nascent product lines we have that don't contribute much to the top line growth nor the bottom-line margin but probably take more than they should away from our attention as a management team and our employees. And so we're working through that as well. So a combination of those three things are staying a real nice foundation for even greater leverage once the market returns and the growth returns.

Question: Daniel Leonard - UBS Equities - Analyst : Well, we'll leave it there. Kim, Jim, thank you both for your time. James Hippel - Bio-Techne Corp - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President - Finance Thank you, Dan.