Evotec SE (EVT) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Evotec Preliminary Second Quarter and First Half 2026 Results and Update Full year 2026 outlook. I'm Moira, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sarah Fakih, Head of Global Communications and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Moira. Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome to today's webcast and conference call. My name is Sarah Fakih, and I'm the Head of Global Communications and Investor Relations at Evotec. Please allow me to introduce today's speakers. Joining me on the call are Christian Wojczewski, Chief Executive Officer of Evotec; and Claire Hinshelwood, our Chief Financial Officer. Please note that this call is being webcast live and will be archived in the events calendar on our website. Before we begin, a few forward-looking statements. The discussion and responses to your questions on this call reflect management's views as of today, Tuesday, July 14, 2026. During this call, we will make statements and provide responses that state our intentions, beliefs, expectations or projections regarding the future. These statements constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. They are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Evotec disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. For further information regarding these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our public filings and disclosures. With this, let me hand over the call to Christian.

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining today's call. Following our announcement last night, we are providing today an update based on preliminary unaudited financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2026, as well as an updated outlook for the full year. As a reminder, publication of our full financial results is scheduled for August 13. During our full year 2025 results presentation in April, we guided for a challenging first half of 2026. This outlook primarily reflected our anticipated continuation of the softness in the discovery in -- early drug discovery market seen in 2025 as well as the effect of the nonrecurrence of the $25 million in dose licensing payment in the first quarter of the previous year. Our preliminary second quarter results extend the trends we saw in the first quarter. Group revenues in the first half of '26 are expected to amount to EUR 300.1 million, while adjusted group EBITDA is expected to land at minus EUR 42.7 million compared with the first half of 2025. Our expectation in April for a stronger second half of 2026 was based on 2 assumptions. A gradual recovery in market activity and increasing contributions from strategic partnership activities. Based on our current feasibility for the second half, we're now revising the assumptions on strategic partnerships and as a result, updating our full year guidance. The key drivers behind this revision are summarized on the right-hand side of the slide and can be grouped into 3 categories. The first category relates to phasing and milestone-related revenues from existing strategic partnerships across all segments. These account for approximately 40% of the revenue difference between our original and updated outlook. Importantly, these revenues are delayed, not lost, and are expected to be recognized in 2017 rather than '26. The second category relates to potential new strategic partnerships in our D&PD segment. We now expect lower-than-anticipated revenue contributions in the second half of '26 as a result of longer time lines for reaching and finalizing new agreements. This category accounts for approximately 45% of the revenue difference. Importantly, our underlying partnership pipeline remains healthy and active with multiple opportunities at various stages of engagement, including advanced discussions with potential big pharma partners. While we are highly confident about establishing new partnerships, any agreements reached this year are unlikely to contribute meaningfully to revenue in '26. In addition, the timing and structures of individual deals may influence the balance of upfront cash payments, revenue-generating activities and milestone contributions in '27 and beyond. The third category relates to sales to revenue conversion. Although commercial activity and customer engagement have clearly improved, conversion into revenue has occurred more slowly than anticipated. While a small portion of revenue conversion is expected to shift into '27, approximately 15% of the revenue difference is attributable to lower-than-expected revenue conversion in '26 relative to our previous guidance. This portion relates to an acceleration objective we had set for ourselves, but which has not materialized to the extent originally assumed. As a result of these factors, we are updating our full year '26 guidance and Claire will speak about this in more detail later. While this revision is clearly disappointing, it is important to emphasize that it is primarily driven by the timing of partnership, planning activities and ongoing partnership milestone revenues rather than any fundamental change in these opportunities. The number and value of partnerships we are pursuing has not changed substantially. However, the conversion of these opportunities will take longer than expected. At the same time, leading commercial indicators in the first half of '26 document encouraging increased activity across our base D&PD business, including strengthening customer engagement and growing net sales. We're confirming the positive momentum highlighted over recent quarters and expect those to pay off from late '26 onwards. In addition, any recovery in the discovery and early development market would provide a further tailwind to growth. I will return to these indicators later in the presentation and discuss them in more detail. But first, I would like to turn things over to Claire for a review of the preliminary and unaudited Q2 and first half '26 numbers.

Thank you, Christian, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone. On Slide 5, let me give you an overview of our preliminary and unaudited condensed income statement. Group revenues for the second quarter of 2026 are expected to decrease by approximately 16% to EUR 143.5 million. And for the first half of 2026 to decrease by 19% to EUR 300.1 million compared to the same period in 2025. In D&PD, revenues are expected to decline by approximately 15% to EUR 108.1 million in the second quarter and by 16% to EUR 227.9 million for the first 6 months compared to the prior period. Within JEB, revenues for the second quarter of 2026 are expected to decrease by 17% to EUR 35.4 million. And in the first half, we anticipate a decrease by 29% to EUR 72.3 million compared to the same period in 2025. Unfavorable foreign exchange movements are expected to represent an additional headwind to half 1 revenues of EUR 13 million, driven by the U.S. dollar and the British pound. Adjusted group EBITDA is expected to amount to minus EUR 20.8 million in the second quarter and to minus EUR 42.7 million in the first 6 months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. Turning to liquidity and the balance sheet on Slide 6. The total liquidity as of June 30, 2026, stood at EUR 465.6 million, representing a quarterly increase of EUR 20.8 million compared with EUR 444.8 million at the end of the first quarter '26. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily driven by the gross proceeds we received of approximately $100 million related to Gilead's acquisition of our EVO equity portfolio company Tubulis, as well as from our recent EUR 116 million convertible bond placement. First half liquidity further reflects the scheduled debt repayment of approximately EUR 65.8 million in line with our liability maturity profile. This planned repayment reduced liquidity during the period while contributing to a lower debt position. This liquidity position, combined with savings being realized from our successful implementation of the Horizon transformation positions Evotec to absorb impacts such as the volatility and our strategic partnerships outlook that Christian has described order. With that, I'll hand back to Christian, who will discuss the progress we're making in our commercial activities and an accelerating revenue conversion across the various components of our business.

Thank you, Claire. Before discussing the conversion dynamics we are currently seeing in the business, let us take a step back and look at the 3 principal creators of revenue streams within our D&PD segment and their respective conversion cycles shown on Slide 7. In our stand-alone business, engagements are typically focused on specific scientific services with straightforward commercial agreements and short delivery time lines. As a result, the sales cycle is fast and the period from order intake to revenue recognition generally short of around 3 to 6 months. And the second type of relationship, integrated programs, customers engage Evotec across multiple capabilities within a broader research program. These engagements involve more complex contracting, longer delivery periods and a wider scope of work. Consequently, revenue conversion typically occurs over a period of approximately 9 to 24 months. The third category is strategic partnerships, which represent the most comprehensive and complex form of engagement. These partnerships are individually structured, often involve extensive negotiation and governance frameworks and frequently include a combination of research services, milestone opportunities and long-term collaboration elements. As a result, the time from initial commercial engagement to meaningful revenue contribution can range from approximately 12 to 24 months. Although revenue conversion takes longer in the context of strategic partnerships, these relationships create the potential for substantial long-term value as they typically generate revenue streams over multiple years and can expand significantly over time as programs progress. Generally, as you move across these 3 creators of revenue streams, both the complexity and the time to revenue conversion increase. Looking at our sales to revenue conversion dynamics we're experiencing in '26. We entered the year expecting improvements in commercial activity to translate into stronger revenue growth as the year progressed. As discussed earlier, approximately 15% of the difference to our previous revenue guidance relates to a conversion ambition that is no longer expected to materialize within '26, also reflecting a more gradual pace of business expansion while the organization remains focused on executing the horizon transformation and building the foundation for sustainable long-term growth. At the same time, in the base business, including stand-alone and integrated programs, we have seen encouraging developments in key leading indicators from customer engagement and proposal activities all the way through net sales. During the first half of the year, inbound inquiries increased by approximately 30%. Number of proposals increased by more than 45%. In our stand-alone business, where both sales and revenue conversion cycles are relatively short, we are seeing these positive developments across virtually all leading indicators. Customer engagement has increased, proposal activity is growing. Orders and net sales are up substantially during the first half of the year. Revenue, however, has not yet started to reflect this momentum. Given the relatively short conversion cycle of approximately 3 to 6 months, we believe this is largely a question of timing, and expect these trends to translate into revenues over the coming quarters. In our integrated program business, we see a similar pattern at the front end of the commercial funnel. Customer engagement remains strong and proposal activity continues to grow. However, due to the greater complexity of these programs, orders and revenues naturally lack the trends we are seeing in customer demand. The same principle applies even more strongly in strategic partnerships. The highly customized nature of these arrangements mean that proposal activity orders and revenues naturally develop on a longer time line. Taken together, these indicators provide encouraging evidence that underlying customer demand and commercial activity are strengthening across all 3 revenue streams. The challenge we face in '26 is one of conversion timing. As commercial complexity increases the time required for this activity to translate into revenue increases as well. That said, in the first half of '26, we were already able to shorten the average sales cycle by more than 15% to start moving opportunities through the pipeline more efficiently and supporting faster customer decision-making. The commercial indicators give us confidence that the underlying trajectory of the D&PD business is moving in the right direction and that there is improved customer engagement and strengthening demand from our services. On Slide 8, let us take a look on the underlying base business of our discovery and preclinical development segment, including stand-alone services and integrated programs, excluding large strategic partnerships to provide a clearer view of the business. We saw strong improvement throughout the first half of the year. Net sales increased approximately 28% for the first half compared with the first half of '25. This figure reflects both positive and negative change orders, giving a realistic picture of customer demand and project activity. As these activities cycle on a shorter frequency compared with strategic partnerships, it is expected that we will begin to see the results of increased activity in these areas by late this year. Additionally, proposal value in the first half of '26 increased by more than 20%, indicating a growing number of attractive value opportunities going forward. Similarly, we are seeing steady positive development of our Just Evotec Biologics segment. As organizations ranging in size from small biotechs to global biopharma companies continue to show strong interest in our innovative continuous bioprocessing offerings. Just - Evotec Biologics continues to refine its business model to maximize the benefit that customers can accrue from a continuous manufacturing approach in terms of cost, flexibility, and speed of infrastructure development. At its base, the CDMO services business is at high capacity, extending its customer base as well as its range of offerings. With the official introduction of the J.TRAIN offering in June, customers have the potential to deploy a proprietary continuous manufacturing technology directly within their own facilities on a turnkey basis. J.TRAIN is designed to enable significantly faster and more cost-effective deployment than traditional manufacturing is strongly supporting Evotec's mission of accelerating the path to market for the industry's most innovative products. As a key example of this principle, our licensing agreement with Sandoz is progressing well in the wake of the transfer of our Toulouse manufacturing plant to Sandoz ownership last year. The relationship includes development revenues, success-based milestones and royalties for Evotec on biosimilar products in technical and early stage development. Shown on Slide 10 and underlying Evotec's progress toward sustainable growth and profitability is the horizon phase of our strategic transformation. Horizon was announced in March '26 and continues to progress as planned. As a result, we expect total run rate cost savings of about EUR 75 million by the end of '27, with 20% to 30% of that amount expected to be realized in '26. As announced in March, we expect the savings accrued by Horizon to start becoming apparent in the second half of this year. These cost savings, combined with the enhancements in commercial execution I discussed earlier, provide a strong foundation upon which we can enact some of the remaining elements of our strategy, including the establishment of high-value strategic partnerships. Let me now hand over back to Claire.

Thank you. On Slide 11, I would like to take you through the building blocks of our revised revenue outlook for the remainder of 2026. For the full year 2026, we now guide for group revenues of approximately EUR 570 million to EUR 610 million at incurred foreign exchange rates and EUR 595 million to EUR 635 million at constant exchange rates. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to fall within the range of approximately minus EUR 70 million to minus EUR 105 million at incurred foreign exchange rates and minus EUR 60 million to minus EUR 90 million at constant exchange rates. As Christian has said, while we see an improvement in our commercial indicators and expect to be able to close strategic partnerships before the end of the year, also contribute only marginally to revenue this year. Let me take you through the various movements that we see to help bridge the gap on revenue guidance. When we look at our base D&PD business, we see a decline versus original expectations. This is driven by the delayed effect of existing strategic deals as well as the conversion impacts that Christian earlier described, which are driven by the construct of our sales portfolio as well as the delay in the achievement of our aspirational target that we had set ourselves. Of this decline versus guidance, we would expect around 65% of this to move into 2027, with the only net reduction being the delay in achieving the aspirational conversion target. So overall, no lost business. If we move to the second bar, this is a significant bucket that we have previously discussed related to the expected new strategic partnerships. As we have previously outlined, the time to secure these deals is extremely long, given their nature, and can be influenced by a number of external factors beyond our control within the potential partners operating environment. We have seen in recent weeks time line stretch beyond what was previously anticipated meaning that any associated revenue recognition will be minimal this year. We are, however, confident in the quality of our pipeline and the current status of discussions. And as such, would see this bucket being delivered beyond 2026 with the final revenue impact being driven by the individual construct of each deal. Moving on to JEB. Here, we see the base jet business continuing in line with previous guidance, reiterating the confidence in our technology offering. JEB's strategic partnerships are slightly delayed versus original guidance, but here again, we would see that moving into 2027. As we are aware, it's not unusual for milestones to slightly shift which can then result in a knock-on impact over the year-end revenue cutoff point. In terms of the EBITDA impact, we see a high proportion of the revenue reduction flowing through to EBITDA due to our high fixed cost base, but where we have had the opportunity to impact our costs with an impact already in 2026, this has been reflected in the outlook. Let me now hand back over to Christian.

Thanks, Claire. Let me turn now from our strategy to the team that will deliver it and how strongly it has evolved over the past few months to bolster our commercial conversion, strengthen execution discipline and continue to drive operational excellence across the company. Over the past several months, we have significantly enhanced our management, governance and leadership team. to support the next phase of Evotec's transformation. We've been introduced to all of these newcomers as they have joined. On Slide 12, we would like to briefly highlight the key appointments and the talented people we have selected to fill them. In April, we were joined by Ashiq Khan as EVP Global Head, Chief Commercial Officer. Since joining Ashiq has made a strong contribution to building the accelerated business activity and enhancing our commercial engagement with customers I described earlier. He's working closely with our new Chief Operating Officer, Ingrid Miller, who joined in May this year and who brings more than 20 years of life science leadership experience across operations, strategy, supply, procurement and R&D integration. During the second quarter, we also welcomed our CFO, Claire Hinshelwood. Claire brings a strong track record of reshaping corporate financial operations and making progress against the backdrop of challenging market conditions. Turning to the Supervisory Board. We have a new Chairman, Dieter Weinand, who officially assumed his position in conjunction with our Annual General Meeting on June 11, this year, along with the new Supervisory Board member of Wolfgang Hoffman. Together, they bring a wealth of international leadership experience spanning the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health care sectors. A deep expertise in commercial execution, innovation, capital markets and transformation will provide valuable guidance and fresh perspectives as we continue to execute Horizon and to sharpen our focus on execution, strategic partnerships and profitability. Before we move on to Q&A, I would like to summarize where Evotec is today and chart our course towards a sustainable growth and profitability we intend to realize over the next years. As we have said before, we expected a challenging first half of '26 and the second quarter and first half preliminary results we have just presented aligned with our expectation. Looking to the second half of the year, our expectations for revenue from strategic partnerships, in particular, the part of our business that is most complex and time-consuming to develop have shifted recently and have led us to revise our full year '26 outlook. While the new outlook is not as robust as we had hoped, as I mentioned earlier, we do see positive leading indicators in the longer term, in spite of a difficult market, especially in the part of our base CRO business outside strategic partnerships. With net sales up 28% year-over-year, in the first half, we expect to see revenue from this increased activity beginning in the final quarter of the year. Combined with cost savings from the Horizon transformation that will begin to become apparent later this year and will grow by the end of '27 to EUR 75 million in annual run rate savings, we expect that the combination of high-value scientific offerings, improved commercial execution and disciplined financial management will keep us on track to meet our longer-term goals. To that end, in the last several months, we have created a number of new roles and filled them with experienced and accomplished individuals who will continue to drive Evotec forward. Evotec today is in the later stages of a strategic transformation that has taken multiple years to implement. There's still a lot more to do, but I strongly believe we now have the correct mix of focused scientific excellence, streamlined operations and strong commercial infrastructure to attract, secure and execute on a robust and diverse stream of business across our D&PD and Just - Evotec Biologics segment. Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Brendan Smith from TD Cowen.

Maybe just 2 quick ones for me. I guess, first, from where things stand today, I guess, do you have a goal for kind of the ratio or balance between JB revenues and D&PD just over the next couple of years? Just trying to understand how we should think about kind of the growth of both segments relative to each other over the medium term? And then separately, I appreciate all the color on kind of the recent updates on the partnership pipeline, and I know you mentioned no new partnerships are now expected to contribute in the second half, but you said timing and deal structure should be more of a driver next year. So I guess can you just speak a bit more to kind of the health of the partner portfolio maybe what gives you confidence that '27 will be better. And I guess if there's anything just about the nature of the current funnel, where the type of assets or partners that you expect could actually inflect next year specifically or for it's just kind of a timing consideration?

Thank you, Brendan. On the first question, we don't have a fixed ratio for JEB and D&PD for the long run. I think it's fair to say that we see growth opportunities in both segments. Also fair to say that over the last 2, 3 years, the growth was clearly more on the JEB side. We expect this to -- actually going forward in the long run or a bit faster than the D&PD segment, but there is no fixed ratio. On the health of the partner pipeline, yes, I can give you a bit of a flavor of that because we obviously have been in discussions with quite a healthy number of partners since quite a while. So the way that you should look about the strategic partner pipeline is that in terms of numbers, we're somewhere between 10 to 20 opportunities here, single opportunities where we have individual either pharma or biotech companies, usually big pharma. On specific topics. So this could be, for example, in the field of obesity. It can be in women's health. It can be quite a few actually in kidney and renal diseases. So it's across the larger therapeutic areas and they all are based on our technology platform. So for example, our capabilities in molecule use, our capabilities in cell therapy, IPSC, OMX and so forth. When you think about where they are in the life cycle, I would say, roughly maybe 15% are in a very late stage where we would still expect them to close towards the end of the year. And that's important, right, while they may close, they will not have a material impact on revenues. Hence, we talk here today. Then there's a large chunk, roughly 60%, probably 60% and that is in the early to late-stage term sheet discussions. So this is also pretty real conversations, and then we've got the remainder, 25% or so in early discussions or in due diligence phase. This is how you should think about the funnel.

Then the next question comes from Christian Ehmann from Berenberg.

I would like to linger a little bit more on the existing partnerships. Obviously, I'm trying to ask about the current state of the partnership with BMS. It was very successful in the past. And maybe you can give us more detail on how this might look -- is going to look in the future. In addition, if I look at the numbers correctly, it looks like a little bit that JEB is actually slowing down in growth. Maybe you can tell me if this is a correct assumption. If so, why do you think this might be the case? And attached to that the question is J.TRAIN then a direct answer to this development? .

Thanks, Christian. Claire will comment on the JEB question in a second. Let me, first of all, we confirm our BMS collaboration is a very healthy. It has been since 2016. I did mention in the last call that we see '26 for BMS for the collaboration as a transition year, we've been harvesting a healthy pipeline in the last years all the way to 2024. We have, as I mentioned the last time, we've decided to refill the pipeline in '26 also based on investments into our technology platforms in the OMC space. So here, in particular, the proteomics and the transcriptomics screening platform. So these investments have been made and they will lead to a improvement in our revitalization of the pipeline going forward. That's why we also said last time that we expect the BMS collaboration to get back to growth as of next year. And I can confirm this is still the case. And I also want to remind you that, we've successfully together announced that there is one candidate actually moving into the -- or moved into the clinic in oncology. So all of that is pretty healthy and not of a concern.

Yes. So maybe if I pick up on the JEB comment. So we still see on the full year -- if we were to look at -- if we look at the JEB business and we exclude the Sandoz contribution to that, and we exclude the DOW contribution in terms of the underlying growth of that base business. We continue to see growth year-on-year. So no concerns there in terms of the growth. If we look to the future, then J.TRAIN, that creates an additional opportunity for us. So I would not say it's to replace anything else. It's on top of, and in addition to utilizing the capacity that we have. In-house, this creates further revenue and profitability stream for us going forward.

If I may ask a follow-up to the BMS topic. Can we expect a model similar scope to what we have seen in the past? I believe at one point, it was around 10 to 15x of revenues?

Can you further elaborate when you say 10 to 15x of revenues?

I mean at one point, the -- you released to us that the largest key account was around 12%. I assume it was BMS and if that it's true, is this a scope you can -- or you expect to be generated by this partnership in the future?

I see. Okay. So I think it's certainly going to be in that range, possibly a bit a notch up compared to that number.

And the next question comes from Charles Weston from RBC.

If I can kick off with 2. The D&PD orders for the base business, you said was up 28% and various other metrics are up to. Presumably, this is off quite a low base in the prior period. So could you give us a sense of where those orders are versus normal in inverted commerce?