Bio-Techne Corporation Q3 FY2026 earnings call

• Biotechni team executed with discipline in a dynamic market; sustained strength from large pharmaceutical customers and stable to improving trends in U.S. academic end market, though emerging biotech spending was soft. • Spatial biology portfolio had mid-teens growth and Comet platform ended the quarter with another record backlog. • GMP protein portfolio grew nearly 50% year-over-year excluding two fast-track cell therapy customers. • China end market had positive organic growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. • Strategic brand alignment to 3 brands: R&D Systems, Biotechni Spatial Biology, Biotechni Diagnostics. • AI influencing internal operations (designing novel proteins) and customer drug discovery (accelerating early stages of drug discovery). • Content-rich biological datasets a tailwind for spatial biology and proteomic analysis platforms, with AI driving demand for reagent and assay portfolios.

Protein sciences: Organic revenue declined 4% in the quarter. After adjusting for order timing from cell therapy and OEM commercial supply customers, underlying growth was 2%. Q3 reported sales were $226.2 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. Diagnostics and spatial biology: This segment delivered 3% organic revenue growth in the quarter. Q3 sales were $85.6 million, down 4% year-over-year. Spatial biology grew mid-teens, including over 65% growth in the Comet platform, while diagnostics declined low single digits.

• Expect organic growth in the fourth quarter to be approximately flat. • Excluding the impact of cell therapy headwinds, anticipate low single-digit underlying growth across the remainder of the portfolio. • Base case for fiscal 2027 is mid-single-digit growth with improving funding visibility for customers, academic conditions normalizing, and company-specific timing headwinds rolling off. • Aim to close the last quarter of fiscal 2026 with approximately 100 basis points of margin expansion over the prior year.

• Emerging biotech spending softness has impacted results. • Lag between biotech funding and customer spending, with typically a 2-3 quarter lag, which has caused issues. • Early-stage biotech funding down, affecting core reagent sales which have a direct read-on there. • Company-specific order timing impacts from two large cell therapy customers with FDA fast-track designation and a large OEM commercial supply order timing.

Q: Matt Leroux on emerging biotech trend; A: Matt asked about the step down in emerging biotech from mid-single digits in Q2 to high single digits in Q3, and funding improvement. Answer discussed funding recuperation but early-stage biotech funding down causing the step down.

Q: Puneet Suda on fiscal 2027 growth; A: Puneet asked about mid-single-digit growth in fiscal 2027. Answer stated mid-single-digit growth expected with indicators like proteomic analysis and spatial biology growth in U.S. academic as leading indicators for market recovery.

Q: Patrick Donnelly on China and biotech; A: Patrick asked about China performance and biotech outlook. Answer mentioned China had positive growth 4th consecutive quarter and biotech market expected to improve in the back half of calendar year.

Q: Justin Bowers on Q4 end market view; A: Justin asked about Q4 end market view. Answer stated base case same performance as Q2 for end markets, with proteomic analysis and spatial biology showing pickup in biotech customer interest.

Q: Kyle Boucher on Q4 guide; A: Kyle asked about Q4 guide. Answer mentioned flat organic in Q4, comfortable with pharma, academic, and China but biotech still a detractor.

Q: Mac Etoc on GMT proteins growth source; A: Mac asked about source of GMT proteins growth. Answer stated growth from new program wins and expansion of existing customers, with customer count up 3%