Brooks Automation, inc (BRKS) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brooks Automation, inc (AZTA -1.33%)
Q4 2021 Earnings Call
Nov 10, 2021, 4:30 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Brooks Automation Q4 2021 Financial Results. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only. Afterwards we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, November 10th, 2021.

I will now turn the conference over to Sara Silverman, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Sara Silverman -- Director of Investor Relations

Thank you operator and good afternoon to everyone on the line today. We would like to welcome you to our earnings conference call for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. Our fourth quarter earnings press release was issued after the close of the market today and is available on our Investor Relations website located at brooks.investorroom.com in addition to the supplementary PowerPoint slides that will be used during the prepared remarks today. Please note that due to the divestiture announced on September 20th, 2021, the results of the semiconductor automation business are treated as discontinued operations. I would like to remind everyone that during the course of the call, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward-looking statements. I'd refer you to the section of our earnings release titled Safe Harbor Statement the Safe Harbor slide on the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website and our various filings with the SEC, including our annual reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

We make no obligation to update these statements should future financial data or events occur that differ from the forward-looking statements presented today. We may refer to a number of non-GAAP financial measures, which are used in addition to and in conjunction with, results presented in accordance with GAAP. We believe the non-GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance, but when considered with GAAP financial results and the reconciliation of GAAP measures they provide an even more complete understanding of the Brooks business. Non-GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the GAAP measures themselves. On the call with me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Schwartz; and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Lindon Robertson. We will open the call with remarks from Steve on highlights of the fourth quarter. Then Lindon will provide a more detailed look into our financial results and our outlook for the first fiscal quarter of 2022. We will then take your questions at the end of the prepared remarks.

With that I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Steve Schwartz.

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Sara. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today. We had another productive quarter setting ourselves up for what will be the next exciting phase of growth and continued market leadership, but with a considerably different configuration compared with the Brooks Automation you've come to know over the past decade. In the quarter, we announced the sale of our semiconductor automation business to Thomas H. Lee Partners and the launch of Azenta Life Sciences, our newly branded life sciences business. Both of these initiatives are key to delivering more shareholder value. The result of these actions will significantly change the makeup of the company. While we will continue to actively manage both businesses until the sale is complete, financial reporting changes are immediate and the semiconductor automation business is now classified as discontinued operations. Beginning with today's Q4 results, we will provide limited commentary about the semiconductor automation business, but enough to highlight another quarter of strong performance and to reinforce that the outlook remains solid. But most of what Lindon and I will convey relates to Azenta Life Sciences.

So, before we move to the Life Sciences view only, I do want to reflect on the performance of the company in aggregate as we closed out fiscal year 2021 at the end of September. Total revenue for the quarter for the full company was $342 million, up 39% year-over-year and revenue for the full year was $1.2 billion, an increase of 33% from fiscal 2020. In the mix, the Q4 semiconductor automation revenue was $205 million, up 49% year-over-year. Suffice it to say the semiconductor automation business remains robust and the outlook for 2022 is for another very strong year. We'll not be giving the granular performance data for the semiconductor automation business. However, I'll mention that we will still continue to operate the business until the transaction closes. As such we continue to invest to support growth and to be certain that when the transfer takes place, the semiconductor automation business did not skip a beat. Lindon will provide a bit more color as to the implications of this arrangement on our near-term financials as we continue to operate both businesses pre close. From this point in my remarks, I'll be speaking only about the Life Sciences business which on the 28th of September we launched as Azenta Life Sciences the name and brand of our new company.

And last week on the 1st of November, we began conducting business with our customers as Azenta. We're excited to launch with the new identity that unites us around our unique portfolio of offerings. Our rollout has been met with enthusiasm from our employees and customers alike. And we're eager to wear our new brand, deliver on our promise and engage each other with a singular purpose, to enable breakthrough therapies to be brought to market faster. We do believe that what we do truly makes a difference in the world. We'll have much more to say about Azenta Life Sciences at our Virtual Investor and Analyst Day next week on November 16th. And we hope that you'll be able to attend. So now I'm pleased to report on an outstanding year for Azenta Life Sciences one marked by significant achievements and punctuated by the fact that it's about to stand on its own, as a unique pure-play life sciences company. Revenue for the quarter was $137 million up 27% from Q4 last year. And we finished the full fiscal year with revenue totaling $514 million up 32% from 2020. Our strong growth momentum continued across services and products with both segments delivering record revenues. Customer capture remained robust, as once again we added more than 300 new customer accounts in the quarter. At Azenta our focus now is to unify and expand the value proposition that we bring to our customers throughout the critical sample workflow.

All discovery and therapeutic development is based on biological samples, whether from humans, animals, plants, or synthesized in laboratories. Each of these samples requires care throughout its life cycle, from proper sourcing, formatting and temperature-controlled transportation, storage and retrieval, genomic analysis and annotation and ultimately, proper archiving for subsequent future use. As this sample management chain of custody has become more critical, it has simultaneously become more complex both because of the sheer number of samples that customers must manage, but also the exacting management of the conditions under which the samples must be cared for. Add to that the myriad potential analytical capabilities that are possible, plus the voluminous complex data and annotation requirements that must securely be attached to each sample. And you have a compounding challenge for any step in the workflow to potentially compromise the integrity of results and/or the security of particular irreplaceable collections of sample. Enter Azenta. It is exactly to meet this challenge that we exist, to assist our customers with the precise management of their precious samples and additional value-added scientific data extraction from these assets that allow them to drive maximum value from these samples.

With each passing day and with each incremental product and service offering that our customers ask us to deliver, we are proving the value of our unique portfolio that truly enables them to bring breakthrough treatments to market, faster. In a year and quarter full of highlights, I'd give color to a few of the trends that are shaping our business. Our services business reported revenue of $84 million for the quarter with 20% growth year-over-year. Revenue for the full year was $314 million with 21% growth and strong contributions from each of the major sub-segments Next Generation Sequencing, Sanger Sequencing and synthesis. Notably, we saw the largest expansion from our NGS business, driven by demand for our new RNA sequencing service innovation and enabled by capacity additions we've made to stay in front of these opportunities. The Sample Repository Solutions business also maintained strong growth with steady sample inflow from our two most recent large Pharma customer wins, plus an expansion of our on-site sample management services business. In the quarter we also celebrated the opening of our Cleveland Clinic biorepository which is an important proof point for our flexible sample management model. Additionally, the opportunity pipeline continues to grow and we're confident in another good growth year for the SRS business in fiscal year 2022.

The products business reported revenue of $53 million for the quarter with 38% growth year-over-year. Revenue for the full year was $200 million with 54% growth. This was a record quarter for the products business led by another sequential increase in consumables, where demand remains robust, partially because of COVID testing, but sustaining because of share gains we made over the past 18 months. We are particularly pleased by the growth momentum from our cryogenics products. We had a record quarter for the BioStore Cryo systems with continued strong shipments in the cell and gene therapy applications, where we once again added several new customers, in addition to shipments for the management of cell lines and various stages of vaccine development. Furthermore, we are significantly expanding our customer base as a result of a wave of momentum moving to automated cryogenic sample storage system. Across all of the Azenta offerings we have steady growth from existing customers, while we continue to see acceleration from the rapid adoption of our enabling cell and gene therapy products and services which are beginning to drive persistent revenue expansion quarter-over-quarter.

In Q4 cell and gene therapy applications still represented less than 10% of our revenue, but the contribution was up 33% year-over-year. We anticipate continued growth from cell and gene therapy as our offering solves some of the most immediate challenges facing scientists today. Furthermore, we believe that it's the way that we combine our cell and gene therapy capabilities into solutions that makes our capabilities even more valuable to customers. As we've said many times, we are still in the earliest days of this opportunity that is being fueled by a period of biological science discovery that's at a pace unprecedented in human history. We are uniquely and deliberately positioned to be a critical enabler across all segments of these endeavors. We're about to be in a very different position from when our semiconductor automation business was delivering a significant portion of our profitability. As a stand-alone life sciences company, we plan to maintain a strong growth trajectory, so that we can once again accelerate profit by leveraging our infrastructure. We're confident that the course we've charted will allow us to satisfy this objective.

Secondly, upon the closing of the sale of the semiconductor automation business, we'll have more than $2.5 billion of cash on our balance sheet with which we will further build out our capability along the sample value chain. As always, our first priority for investment is for organic growth by expansion of existing capabilities and internal investments in innovation. However, the substantial cash position will give us opportunities to bring more transformative capabilities into our portfolio faster. We have an active pipeline of potential opportunities and we're a company with a proven ability to bring acquisitions successfully into our fold. We have more exciting growth days ahead. We're proud of our entire global team. The Brooks semiconductor automation business is destined for more success under THL, who will provide them the support deserving of an innovative pure-play automation company. Similarly, as Azenta Life Sciences we're positioned with a powerful value-adding portfolio of products and services that enable the life sciences industry. We have a hugely talented global team dedicated to delivering on our promise to enable our customer success and our balance sheet will be a unique and strategic advantage as we work to capture this opportunity. As always, we thank you for your interest and support as we work to deliver value to our customers and shareholders.

I'll now turn the call over to Lindon.

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Steve. I now refer you back to the slide deck available on our website. Turning to slide three. As Steve referenced, I will be brief with remarks regarding the semi business, but I do want to highlight a few points with semi included. For clarity of how we performed against expectations? We achieved the high end of our prior guidance range for Q4 under the aggregate view with semi. In that context, non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.78 up 67% year-over-year. Both life sciences and semi showed continued top line growth and strong profitability. Semi had another high-growth quarter with $205 million of revenue up 49% year-over-year. And life sciences generated revenue of $137 million reaching the high end of our guidance expectations with growth of 27% year-over-year. Due to the pending sale, our reporting of results will treat the semiconductor business as discontinued operations and our continued operations will consist exclusively of our life sciences business. Total GAAP earnings per share was $0.29 and I will break this down on our next page. In the appendix of this presentation, we have provided more details in the aggregate view of non-GAAP results for direct comparison to historical results. However, the remainder of my remarks will focus on the continuing operations which consists of the Life Science Services and Life Science Products segment and represents the ongoing business.

As mentioned Life Sciences finished the year strong with Q4 revenue of $137 million, up 27% year-over-year and up 24% on an organic basis. Both products and services business delivered over 20% growth for the quarter and the full year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.5% and is net of 250 basis points headwind of overlapping G&A structure that is expected to roll off when the sale closes. I will provide more details on this later in my remarks, but perhaps most importantly we remain on track to achieve 22% adjusted EBITDA margin as we exit fiscal year 2022. Of course it was our September 20th announcement of reaching an agreement to sell our semiconductor automation business, which has driven these changes to our reporting. The agreement was to sell the business for $3 billion in cash. We expect net proceeds of $2.4 billion from the transaction and expect to have approximately $2.6 billion in net cash available to deploy for strategic investment in the Life Sciences business. Moving to slide four. First, let's take a closer look on a GAAP basis, which you will see on the left side of the page. Revenue was up 6% sequentially and up 27% year-over-year. Looking at the bottom line, total GAAP earnings per share including the discontinued operations was a profit of $0.29, which includes $0.59 classified as discontinued operations. The GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations was a loss of $0.30 for the quarter. The gross margin was stable, while lower operating margin reflects expenses related to separating and standing up the two businesses.

Operating expenses in the quarter include approximately $8 million of corporate expenses related to separating the semi business and $13 million of non-cash expense related to the retirement of trade names as we established the new Azenta brand. Additionally, there is an incremental burden of cost in our overlapping corporate structure, which is actively supporting both businesses until final separation is achieved. Below the operating income line, we had $16 million of non-operating expense related to the release of a tax indemnification asset. This $16 million charge nets out to zero at the net income line as we simultaneously eliminated a related $16 million potential tax liability. Now let's dive deeper into the non-GAAP P&L on the right side of the page. We delivered another strong quarter in Life Sciences to round out what has been a truly transformational year for the business. Organic growth was 24% in the quarter. The COVID related revenue was relatively stable sequentially and predominantly in the consumables business, which had about $11 million. Life Sciences gross margin saw a slight decline of 30 basis points quarter-over-quarter and 80 basis points year-over-year, reflecting performance improvements in products offset by modest margin pressure in services, on which I will provide additional color later in my segment remarks.

Operating income was down 40 basis points sequentially and up 120 basis points year-over-year, showing the temporary pressure of increased G&A structure in the quarter but also demonstrating the strong operating leverage in the business as our revenue continues to grow faster than our operating expense. Let me provide more color around the changes to the reporting of our continuing operations, how we foresee transitioning to the transaction closure and on through to the end of fiscal 2022. As you may recall from prior quarters, I have explained that the separation of the two companies would put approximately five points of pressure on the stand-alone Life Sciences adjusted EBITDA margin. At the last call, our Q3 adjusted EBITDA margin was approximately 23%, so on a stand-alone basis you might expect 18%. However, as long as we are supporting the discontinued operations, we continue to carry some overlapping G&A in our corporate functions that drive an additional 250 basis points of expense. This extra cost will be about 300 basis points in Q1 as we will have nearly a full quarter of overlapping structure. When we close the deal and finalize the separation, which is expected in the first half of calendar year 2022, we expect to shed this extra expense and see immediate improvement.

Meanwhile, as we continue to grow across the quarters of 2022, the leverage of our business model will continue to produce enhanced margins and we expect to exit the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22%. With that in mind, this quarter we reported 15.5% adjusted EBITDA margin for Life Sciences, 100 basis point improvement quarter-over-quarter on a continuing operations basis. Turning now to slide five, for results of our continuing operations on a full year basis. Again, you will see incredibly strong revenue growth of 32%. Organic growth for the year came in at similar 33%, driven by growth in both segments. Gross margins expanded 360 basis points, driven by margin improvement in both Life Science Products and Life Science Services. Non-GAAP operating margins, as viewed on the continuing operations basis for both periods, increased from breakeven in fiscal 2020 to 9.1% in fiscal 2021. The full year tax rate was 20.3%, culminating in full year non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.48 compared to $0.02 for fiscal 2020. Full year adjusted EBITDA margin on a continuing operations basis was 16.7%, up an impressive 950 basis points year-over-year.

Now please turn to page six for a review of our Life Science Products segment results. The products business in total was $53 million, up 9% quarter-over-quarter and up 38% year-over-year. The year-over-year increase was driven by 79% growth in storage systems and 30% growth in consumables and instruments. The Life Sciences Products Q4 gross margin was 47.9%, a 390 basis point improvement year-over-year, driven by strong margins in our automated storage business. Q4 operating margin of 12.4% expanded 910 basis points over last year, driven by the gross margin improvement and operating leverage in the business. Adjusted EBITDA shows the same margin expansion and came in at 17%. Next, please turn to page seven for a review of our Life Science Services segment results. Services business generated revenue of $84 million, an increase of 20% year-over-year and 4% on a sequential basis. As a reminder, this business is comprised of our genomic services business and our Sample Repository Solutions offerings. The genomic services business grew 22% year-over-year, driven by double-digit growth across all service lines. Sample Repository Solutions also delivered strong growth, driven by storage, up 16% year-over-year and up 25% excluding the impact of RUCDR. Sequentially, SRS revenue for the fourth quarter was up a strong 12%.

If we adjust total service revenue for the impact of RUCDR, services growth was 22%. The services business delivered 50.8% gross margin, tapering slightly this quarter following higher-than-average utilization earlier in the year. This level of gross margin remains within our target range for now and reflects recent investments in the labor force both in hiring for capacity and compensation levels for retention. This brought the adjusted EBITDA margin to 14.2%. We foresee the services business gross margin fluctuating around this level for the near future and providing a return to EBITDA margin expansion with revenue growth. Let's turn to slide eight for a summary of cash flow for the quarter. Our operating cash flow is reported on a consolidated basis, including results from discontinued operations. We generated operating cash flow of $150 million over the past year, which included cash outflows of $22 million related to the separation costs. The working capital line reflects prudent investments to support the growth of both businesses throughout the year. Capital expenditures for this quarter totaled $18 million, including $2 million for semi. For the full year, total capital expenditures of $53 million includes $44 million related to Life Sciences.

Let's turn to slide nine where we provide the first view of the balance sheet with semi assets moved to the net assets held for sale line. We closed with $244 million of cash, restricted cash and marketable securities, along with approximately $50 million of debt providing $194 million of net cash. Reviewing the balance sheet for the life science business, the largest asset on the books is goodwill and intangibles reflecting the numerous acquisitions we have done over the past decade. As highlighted in the cash flow, you can see in life sciences there is an increase in working capital and accounts receivables and inventory partially offset in payables. The PP&E line of $131 million is made up of equipment such as freezers, genomic analysis tools and injection molding. We have 14 labs and eight sample repository solution locations around the world, but we also have building and leasehold improvements. And beyond this the line, is comprised of software and other assets. Let's turn to slide 10 now for guidance on the first fiscal quarter of 2022. Revenue from continuing operations is expected to be in the range of $130 million to $140 million with a midpoint supporting growth of approximately 15% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $14 million to $22 million and non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to be $0.04 to $0.12 per share.

As I said earlier we continue to expect the stand-alone business to return to around 22% adjusted EBITDA margin by the fourth fiscal quarter of 2022. For the full-year we expect capital expenditures in support of life sciences to be approximately $60 million to $70 million including approximately $25 million for the China genomics building site. We estimate that the non-GAAP tax rate will be in the range of 17% to 21%. Turning now to slide 11. We will wrap up our prepared remarks. We are truly a one-of-a-kind life sciences company. We continue to deliver strong profitable growth. And as I mentioned, you will see this profit capability even more clearly once we complete the sale of the semi business. We have a strong balance sheet for strategic investment, which we expect to grow even stronger with completion of the sale of the semi business expected in the first half of calendar 2022. We have around a $200 million net cash position today with an anticipated balance of approximately $2.6 billion upon completion of this sale. We are excited about the launch of the Azenta Life Science business. We will be hosting a virtual Investor Day, next Tuesday November 16, starting at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. We welcome investors and analysts to attend virtually as we have a broader group of our management team join in presenting our business capabilities and outlook. And of course, we will provide a new three-year target model describing our objectives for fiscal year 2024. A link to the registration page is available on the Events section of our Investor Relations website. Please reach out to Sara Silverman, our Head of Investor Relations, if you have any questions. And we look forward to speaking with you all next week. This concludes our prepared remarks.

I'll now turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] First question is from David Saxon with Needham. And your line is open.

David Saxon -- Needham -- Analyst

Great. Good afternoon and thanks so much for taking the questions. I guess my two questions first is, on SRS and second is on GENEWIZ. For SRS I think you said ex the alliance it grew around 25%. You noted some steady sample inflows and capacity expansion starting in the Cleveland Clinic etc. So just wondering if you could frame, how we should be thinking about SRS in the fiscal first quarter but also just fiscal 2022.

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Hi, David. Thanks a lot for this. The growth has been really nice on the SRS business. We've seen two types of activity through 2021. One as we've highlighted in the past we've picked up two global customers that are looking for us and we're already engaged to start supporting their global sample collection. So that -- we're really an extension of their infrastructure and activity. And then secondly, as you've seen in 2021 we've also engaged in additional vaccine management as well. So as we go into Q1, our Services business does look to be quite stable and expanding. And on the SRS, it's no exception. In fact our services business, when we look into Q1 that is the stronger expansion step as we go into the December quarter. So, I think the strength here continues. The momentum does and we're quite excited about it.

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey David, this is Steve. I'll give a little bit more certainty and uncertainty around the SRS business. So we talked about two large pharma companies that recently gave us basically all of their samples. And with one, we have almost all the North American samples relocated and we're starting this current month in Europe to do the similar kind of move to our European biorepository. So it's a phased stage here. On the one that we most recently won, we're consolidating the sample collections from multiple sites. So we have a team -- actually more than 20 people dispatched out at the sites cataloging, characterizing the sample collections. But all the while -- while we do that and then ultimately we move the samples to our biorepositories, we have clinical trial activity going on with them simultaneously. So we're quite active. There are multiple phases to each of these projects. The thing that we always were concerned about in the past, was we sign a contract and get a commitment, and then it was sometimes tough to mobilize the customers. What we found for these two particular customers is that they're mobilized and active. And as fast as we can move and they can move we're making great progress. So, it's pretty dependable in terms of how we see our outlook in the business both for the first and second quarter. And of course we're going after the next large companies to put things behind us in our pipeline.

David Saxon -- Needham -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks for that. And my second is just on GENEWIZ. Can you just talk about the opportunity you have with cross-selling from the SRS platform into GENEWIZ? Is that meaningful today? Or is it still fairly early stage? Thanks so much for taking the questions.

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So David, a couple of things. It's meaningful from the standpoint of there's a lot of activity and we're beginning to generate business. And as Azenta, it's a focus for the company. So we'll talk in some more specifics next week at the Analyst Day as we've prepared to get ourselves around answering that question. We see lower business levels right now but a lot of business activity. By the time we exit 2022, it will be measurable and meaningful. But already the engagements are strong. It's a matter of getting the entire commercial organization mobilized behind it and getting customers used to it. But a large number of our customers' purchase multiple capabilities from us, but you'll hear next week how we've unified the commercial organization to formalize that. So it's not a collection of transactions. It's a single transaction with multiple capabilities embedded. So we'll give a little bit of color to that next week and we will start to report on the synergies that come between the SRS and the genomic services business.

David Saxon -- Needham -- Analyst

Great. Thanks and congrats on the quarter.

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, David.

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Mike GOK with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Mike GOK -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for the time. Lindon just on the guide, I'm guessing you'll provide FY 2022 here at the Analyst Day coming up. But I guess turning to 1Q midpoint implies about 14% compared to the 33% you just came off. Can you kind of just talk to the puts and takes there? And then are you fully discounting those COVID-related revenues here? I think it was what about $10 million in 1Q last year.

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So not totally discounting it. What you're seeing Mike is almost a flat quarter, quarter-to-quarter sequentially and a wraparound on the rebound in Q4 last year when we had -- I'm sorry Q1 in the December quarter when you'll recall we had this rebound from catch-up on the genomics business, which really accelerated quite a lot at that point. Now I'm not -- we're not taking that for granted nor are we complacent with that. But the dynamics, I'll add a little color. We just spoke to the services business having a little strength into the December quarter. Our products business is expecting just a little bit softer. We had what I believe was a record growth quarter on our store systems in total. We had some remarkable placements of our cryo products and our large system stores being placed and work completed on large projects. And while it will continue to do well in the next quarter, it will be a touch softer. And our consumables we expect to be just a little bit softer too as people absorb what they've taken and wait for the new calendar year budgets to take more. So that's our expectation, a little softer on the products, a little stronger on services so still expansion quarter-to-quarter as I just highlighted on both the SRS and even on the GENEWIZ business. But on the compare it's bringing us back down into I'd say this atmosphere of around -- you can think of this as more in the high-teens, but I see your calculation on the 14%, 15% as that midpoint growth rate.

Mike GOK -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. And then Steve, I think, the number that stood out the most was the 79% reported growth in stores. Can you kind of unpack that a little bit? And is it specifically the cryo for cell and gene therapy? Are you starting to see customers -- obviously I think you're seeing customers buy multiple units, but are you also seeing customers in terms of validation of it in the manufacturing line and being able to put it in the CGMP setting are you seeing that starting to be more accepted and accelerated there?

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes we are indeed starting to see it. On the we had a record quarter by far in the cryo space. It was the biggest quarter by far in shipments and in revenue. Just locally here in Massachusetts we shipped seven units for cell and gene therapy to a local company. We're starting to see those episodically, but they're beginning to fill in. So I think without question we're getting traction in that space and it's exciting time for us. So we're beginning to see people really understanding the need for automation here especially handling those critical samples at cryogenic temperatures and the momentum is building. And I can't tell you that it's going to sustain at quarters like that, but we'll see those coming more frequently. And we do have pretty high expectations for the business here beginning in fiscal 2022.

Mike GOK -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. Thanks for the time.

Operator

We have nothing from the phone. I'd like to turn it back to Lindon Robertson for closing remarks.

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

All right. Thank you very much. And for those who have tuned in with us obviously this was a transformational year for us and certainly a quarter of significant change in the dynamics of our business. It sets the stage for Azenta Life Sciences launch and we look forward to telling you much more about that on Tuesday at our Investor Day. And with that we really appreciate you following us your interest and tuning in with us. But we look forward to some more time with you next week. Thank you very much.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 39 minutes

Call participants:

Sara Silverman -- Director of Investor Relations

Stephen S. Schwartz -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Lindon G. Robertson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

David Saxon -- Needham -- Analyst

Mike GOK -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

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