Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO 0.33%)
Q3 2023 Earnings Call
Oct 25, 2023, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Thermo Fisher Scientific 2023 third quarter conference call. My name is Ellen, and I'll be the operator for today's call. During the presentation, all lines will be on mute. However, there will be an opportunity for a question-and-answer session at the end.

[Operator instructions] I would now like to introduce our moderator for the call, Mr. Rafael Tejada, vice president of investor relations. Mr. Tejada, you may begin the call.

Rafael Tejada -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Good morning and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today is Marc Casper, our chairman, president, and chief executive officer; and Stephen Williamson, senior vice president and chief financial officer. Please note, this call is being webcast live and will be archived on the investor section of our website, thermofisher.com, under the heading News, Events & Presentations until November 10, 2023. A copy of the press release of our third quarter 2023 earnings is available in the investor section of our website under the heading Financials.

So, before we begin, let me briefly cover our safe harbor statement. Various remarks that we may make about the company's future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are on file with the SEC and available in the investor section of our website under the heading Financials, SEC Filings. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our estimates change.

Therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today. Also, during this call, we will be referring to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available in the press release over third quarter 2023 earnings and also in the investor section of our website under the heading Financials. So, with that, I'll now turn the call over to Marc.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ralph. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for our third quarter call. Let me recap our financial performance for the quarter, and then I'll provide additional context on what we're seeing play out in the macroeconomy and the implications for our guidance. In the third quarter, our revenue was $10.57 billion, our adjusted operating income grew 8% to $2.56 billion, and we expanded our adjusted operating margin 200 basis points to 24.2%, and we delivered excellent growth in adjusted EPS, achieving a 12% increase to $5 and 69% -- $5.69 per share.

We delivered a very strong third quarter. In the quarter, the market environment continued to get more challenging, so I thought that it would be best to update you on what we're seeing and the implications on our guidance for the full year. As a reminder, coming out of the second quarter, we assumed core market growth to be in the 0% to 2% range for the year, driven by two factors, cautious customer spending and low economic activity in China. As we indicated in September, those same two factors increased in impact, and we now expect core market growth to be slightly negative for the year.

Our team did a good job capitalizing on the available opportunities in the quarter, and we continue to expect to grow faster than the market for the full year and to once again deliver share gain in 2023. Factoring in the current macroeconomic conditions that I discussed, as well as the related increase in FX headwinds, we're revising our revenue and adjusted EPS guidance for 2023. We now expect revenue to be $42.7 billion and adjusted EPS to be $21.50 per share. Stephen will outline the underlying assumptions later in the call, along with some thoughts to help frame 2024.

So, as I look ahead, the combination of our proven growth strategy and PPI business system will enable us to successfully navigate dynamic times, positioning us to deliver differentiated short-term performance and simultaneously strengthening our long-term competitive position and outlook. The long-term prospects for our industry remain as bright as ever. Science continues to advance at a rapid pace, and our tools are used by scientists for the most important work that they do, providing the foundation for the scientific breakthroughs they enable. And our capabilities enable the pharma and biotech industry, which is addressing so many unmet healthcare needs.

Let me now turn to our Q3 revenue performance in the context of our end markets, starting with pharma and biotech. Growth declined 1% for the quarter. The COVID-19 vaccine and therapy revenue runoff performed as expected during the quarter, resulting in a headwind in this customer segment. In Q3, performance in this end market was led by our pharma services business.

In academic and government, we grew in the high single digits in the quarter. We delivered very strong growth in our electron microscopy and chromatography and mass spectrometry businesses. In industrial and applied, growth was flat for the third quarter. Performance in this end market was led by our electron microscopy business.

And finally, diagnostics and healthcare in Q3, revenue was approximately 20% lower than the prior-year quarter. In this end market, the team delivered good core business growth, highlighted by our immunodiagnostics, microbiology, and transplant diagnostics businesses. We made strong progress on our growth strategy in Q3. As a reminder, our strategy consists of three pillars: high-impact innovation, our trusted partner status with customers, and our unparalleled commercial engine.

Starting with innovation. It was another great quarter for the company. We launched a number of high-impact new products across our businesses that are further strengthening our industry leadership and providing our customers with new technologies to enable breakthroughs in their work. Let me start with a brief update on the groundbreaking Thermo Scientific Astral, which we launched at the American Society of Mass Spectrometry in June.

Demand has been very strong, and it's great to see these instruments being so quickly adopted by our customers for their protein discovery research. In the quarter, we launched the EXENT Solution in Europe after receiving IVDR certification. It's the latest innovation from our protein diagnostics business, which, as you know, became part of Thermo Fisher with the acquisition of The Binding Site at the beginning of the year. EXENT complements our leading portfolio of assays that help to diagnose and monitor blood protein abnormalities related to multiple myeloma and other disorders.

In our bioproduction business, we introduced the Gibco CTS Detachable Dynabeads, our next-generation Dynabeads platform to accelerate manufacturing of life-changing cell therapies. And in our electron microscopy business, we launched the Thermo Scientific Hydra Bio Plasma-Focused Ion Beam, providing high-resolution imaging, along with a simplified workflow for cell biologists. And earlier this week, Time magazine selected Thermo Fisher's preeclampsia test as one of Time's 2023 Best Innovation -- Best Inventions. As you may recall, this is the first and only immunoassay to aid in the risk assessment and clinical management of preeclampsia, and it received FDA breakthrough designation and clearance earlier in the year.

Now, turning to the trusted partner status we've earned with our customers. This unique relationship gives us early insights into our customers' unmet needs and enables us to bring our industry-leading products, services, and expertise together in ways that no one else can. We continue to strengthen our capabilities to be an even stronger partner for our customers. As you know, we've had strong demand for our biologics drug substance manufacturing capabilities.

And during the quarter, we completed an expansion of our site in St. Louis, Missouri. This facility supports therapies for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, autoimmune conditions, and rare genetic disorders. It features our new Thermo Scientific high-performer DynaDrive 5,000 liters single-use bioreactor, which is a significant advancement in single-use technology.

The DynaDrive offers better performance and is scalable to much larger volumes than previous generation bioreactors. We also further strengthened our clinical research offering by opening a facility in Ohio to produce sample collection kits for clinical trials. This enables us to deliver customized kits to our clients and provide greater supply chain stability to support their trials. As always, our PPI business system and our mission-driven culture enabled our success during the quarter.

PPI engages and empowers all of our colleagues to find a better way every day, and it enables us to improve quality, productivity, and customer allegiance while also helping us to navigate a dynamic environment. I'm proud of our team's efforts, which resulted in strong operating margin expansion in the quarter. We continue to successfully execute our disciplined capital deployment strategy, which is a combination of strategic M&A and returning capital to shareholders. It's been a very active year.

As I mentioned earlier, we closed The Binding Site in January, and the business is performing exceedingly well. During the quarter, we completed our acquisition of CorEvitas, a leading provider of regulatory-grade real-world evidence for approved medical treatments and therapies. As a reminder, real-world evidence is the collection and use of data from patient health outcomes gathered through routine clinical care. This is a high-growth market segment as pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers, as well as regulatory bodies, are increasingly looking to monitor and evaluate the safety of approved medicines and examine their effectiveness and value in the post-approval setting.

The business is now part of our clinical research business, and it's off to a great start. Shortly after the close of the quarter, we announced the agreement to acquire Olink, a company that is accelerating proteomics. Olink's products enable leading academic researchers and the biopharmaceutical companies to gain an understanding of disease at the protein level rapidly and efficiently. Its proprietary technology, Proximity Extension Assay, provides high throughput protein analysis.

The acquisition of Olink underscores the profound impact that proteomics is having as our customers continue to advance life science research and precision medicine. This technology is highly complementary to our leading mass spectrometry and life sciences platforms, and we're uniquely positioned to rapidly bring this technology to customers. We expect to deliver $125 million in adjusted operating income synergies in year 5, driven by revenue synergies and cost efficiencies. We expect this business to be a mid-teens revenue growth business for us well into the future.

The transaction is targeted to be closed by mid-2024, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. So, 2023 has been an active year of M&A that further strengthen Thermo Fisher Scientific for the future. During the quarter, we continued to advance our environmental, social, and governance priorities. This included launching a collaboration with the National Minority Quality Forum, a not-for-profit research and education organization, to help bring clinical research to historically underserved patient populations through their Alliance for Representative Clinical Trials.

The collaboration supports pharma and biotech customers in meeting regulatory expectations to enroll and retain patients in clinical trials who more fully reflect real-world populations experiencing the disease or health condition being studied. It also helps to enable our customers to meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements around diversity action plans. In terms of our environmental sustainability efforts, we've officially surpassed our original goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.

As we previously announced, we've increased our target to a 50% reduction by 2030, and we're well on our way to achieving that goal. I'm very proud of the way we're making a difference, not only by enabling our customer success, but also by creating a greater work environment for our colleagues and making a positive impact for society. So, to summarize our key takeaways from the third quarter, we delivered strong operating performance in Q3, driven by our team's execution and the power of our PPI business system. Given the more challenging macroeconomic environment, we're taking the right actions and appropriately managing the company.

And we're incredibly focused on delivering differentiated short-term performance while simultaneously strengthening our long-term competitive position and outlook. The attractive long-term outlook for the life sciences industry remains unchanged, and we're uniquely positioned to help our customers navigate the current environment, capture incremental opportunities, and exit this period an even stronger industry leader with a very bright future. With that, I'll now hand the call over to our CFO, Stephen Williamson. Stephen.

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Marc, and good morning, everyone. As you saw in our press release and as Marc just outlined, while the macroeconomic environment became more challenging in the third quarter, we continue to deliver differentiated performance. In Q3, we delivered $10.6 billion of revenue, which included 1% core organic revenue growth; our PPI business system enabled us to generate 200 basis points of adjusted operating margin expansion; and we delivered $5.69 of adjusted EPS, a 12% increase over Q3 last year. We're continuing to successfully navigate the current environment.

Let me now provide you with some additional details on our performance, beginning with our earnings results. And as I mentioned, we delivered $5.69 of adjusted EPS in Q3. GAAP EPS in the quarter was $4.42. On the top line, reported revenue was 1% lower year over year.

The components of our Q3 reported revenue included 3% lower organic revenue, a 1% contribution from acquisitions, and a tailwind of 1% from foreign exchange. Turning to our organic revenue performance by geography. The organic growth rates by region are skewed by the pandemic-related revenue in the current and prior year. In Q3, North America declined mid-single digits, Europe grew in the low single digits, Asia-Pacific declined in the low single digits, with China declining in the high single digits.

With respect to our operational performance, adjusted operating income in the quarter increased 8% and adjusted operating margin was 24.2%, 200 basis points higher than Q3 last year. In the quarter, we delivered exceptionally strong productivity and achieved good price realization. This is partially offset by lower pandemic-related revenue, continued strategic investments, and FX. The strength of our productivity reflects the impact of our PPI business system.

It's enabling us to manage our cost base appropriately given the macro conditions. Total company adjusted gross margin in the quarter came in at 42%, 30 basis points higher than Q3 last year. Moving on to the details of the P&L. Adjusted SG&A in the quarter was 14.8% of revenue, an improvement of 140 basis points over Q3 last year.

Total R&D expense was $320 million in Q3, reflecting our ongoing investments in high-impact innovation. R&D as a percent of our manufacturing revenue was 6.7% in the quarter. Looking at results below the line for the quarter. Our net interest expense was $113 million, which is similar to Q3 last year.

Our adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 10%, which is 180 basis points lower than Q3 last year, reflecting results of our tax planning activities. Average diluted shares were 388 million in Q3, approximately 7 million lower year over year, driven by share repurchases, net of option dilution. Turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. Year-to-date cash flow from operations was $4.7 billion.

Year-to-date free cash flow was $3.7 billion after investing $1 billion of net capital expenditures. During the quarter, we returned $136 million of capital to shareholders through dividends, and we deployed just over $900 million of capital for the acquisition of CorEvitas. We ended the quarter with $6.2 billion in cash and $35.3 billion in total debt. Our leverage ratio at the end of the quarter was 3.2 times gross debt to adjusted EBITDA and 2.7 times on a net debt basis.

Concluding my comments on our total company performance, adjusted ROIC was 12%, reflecting the strong returns on investment that we're generating across the company. So, now, I'll provide some color on the performance of our four business segments. Let me start with a couple of framing comments. The scale and margin profile of our pandemic-related revenue varies by segments, and that revenue is higher in the prior year, so that does skew some of the reported segment growth rates and margins.

And we continue to execute strong pricing realization across all segments to address inflation. Moving on to the segment details, starting with life sciences solutions. Q3 reported revenue in this segment declined 18%, and organic revenue was 19% lower than the prior-year quarter. This is driven predominantly by the runoff of our pandemic-related revenue in the segment versus the year-ago quarter.

Q3 adjusted operating income for life science solutions decreased 16% and adjusted operating margin was 35.9%, up 80 basis points versus the prior-year quarter. During the quarter, we delivered exceptionally strong productivity and had favorable FX, which was partially offset by unfavorable volume mix. In the analytical instruments segment, reported revenue increased 8% in Q3 and organic growth was also 8%. The strong growth in this segment this quarter was led by electron microscopy business.

In the segment, Q3 adjusted operating income increased 21% and adjusted operating margin was 26.7%, up 290 basis points year over year. In the quarter, we delivered very strong productivity and had strong volume pull through, which is partially offset by FX and strategic investments. Turning to specialty diagnostics. In Q3, reported revenue increased 2% and organic revenue was 6% lower than the prior-year quarter.

In Q3, we continued to see strong underlying growth in the core, led by our immunodiagnostics, microbiology, and transplant diagnostics businesses. This is offset by lower pandemic-related revenue versus the year-ago quarter. Q3 adjusted operating income for specialty diagnostics increased 29% in the quarter and adjusted operating margin was 26.1%, which is a 550 basis points higher than Q3 2022. During the quarter, we delivered favorable volume mix and very strong productivity.

That was partially offset by the impact of lower COVID-19 testing volume and strategic investments. Finally, in the laboratory products and biopharma services segment, Q3 reported revenue increased 3% and organic growth was 1%. During Q3, organic revenue growth in this segment was led by the pharma services business. In this segment, Q3 adjusted operating income increased 29% and adjusted operating margin was 16.4%, which is 340 basis points higher than Q3 2022.

During the quarter, we delivered exceptionally strong productivity and favorable mix, which is partially offset by FX. Let me now turn to guidance. As Marc outlined, we're revising our full year 2023 guidance to reflect the more challenging macroeconomic environment. A revised estimate for 2023 is revenue of $42.7 billion with core organic revenue growth of just under 1% and $21.50 of adjusted EPS.

Let me now provide you with some details behind the change in guidance versus the estimate we provided on our last earnings call. Starting with revenue, our revised guidance is $850 million lower than the prior outlook. Two hundred million dollars of this is driven by an increased headwind from FX. We've increased our guide by $45 million to reflect the acquisition of CorEvitas, and the rest of the change is due to our lower core revenue assumption.

We now see core organic growth for the year of just under 1%, which is a little less than 2% lower than the prior guide. This is driven by the same factors that we've seen throughout the year: the weak economic conditions in China and cautious spending, in general, across our customer base. And as we indicated during Q3, these factors increased in impact during the quarter. And our assumption is that the conditions we saw at the end of Q3 will continue throughout the remainder of the year.

And as a result, we now expect core market growth for our industry to be slightly negative for the year. However, we continue to effectively navigate the macro dynamics and expect to continue to deliver differentiated core organic revenue growth for the year despite the more challenging conditions. Moving on to profitability. The revised guidance assumes a pull through on the lower revenue of just over 40%, and we now expect our adjusted operating margin to be 22.9% for the year.

We continue to use the PPI business system to manage our costs appropriately given the market conditions. From an adjusted EPS standpoint, the revised guidance is $0.17 lower due to FX and $0.69 related to the change in core revenue. So, we now expect to deliver $21.50 of adjusted EPS in 2023, a strong result given the challenging macro environment. Let me now provide you with some additional details of the updated 2023 guidance.

We continue to assume that we'll deliver $300 million of testing revenue in 2023. We expect the total vaccines- and therapies-related revenue will be $1.6 billion less than the prior year, an impact of over 4% on our core organic revenue growth. This assumes we'll recognize $1.3 billion of vaccine therapies revenue in 2023, $600 million of which is in our clinical research business. Moving on to FX.

Given recent rate changes, we're now assuming that FX will be a year-over-year headwind to revenue of approximately $100 million. And in terms of adjusted EPS, we now expect FX to be a year-over-year headwind of $0.28, which is $0.17 more of a headwind than our previous guidance. The Binding Site and CorEvitas acquisitions are performing well, and we now assume that they'll contribute approximately $300 million to our reported revenue growth for the year. Below the line, we now expect just under $500 million of net interest expense in 2023, a slight increase reflecting the acquisition of CorEvitas.

We continue to assume that the adjusted tax rate for the 2023 will be 10%, and we're now expecting net capital expenditures will be between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion. And we now expect that free cash flow will be between $6.7 billion and $6.9 billion for the year. In terms of capital deployment, our guidance includes $3 billion of share buybacks, which were already completed in January; $3.7 billion in acquisitions completed this year; and $3.1 billion committed to the acquisition of Olink, which we expect to close in 2024. We continue to assume that full year average diluted share count will be approximately 388 million shares and that we'll return approximately $540 million of capital to shareholders this year through dividends, a 17% increase over 2022.

So, before I conclude my prepared remarks, I thought it would be helpful to share some more detailed thoughts around how to frame 2024. At this point in time, a good starting assumption is that our core organic revenue growth in 2024 is similar to 2023, approximately 1% growth. With our proven growth strategy, we expect to continue to take share, and that would mean market growth in 2024 will be similar to 2023, with the market declining 1 to 2 points. In terms of phasing of our core organic revenue growth, it's best to assume a more challenging first half and then moderate growth in the second half.

The pandemic-related revenues, both testing and total vaccines and therapies, are likely to be around $300 million in 2024. This is a headwind of approximately $1.3 billion or 3% of revenue. M&A is expected to increase revenue $175 million year over year. That's a combination of six months of Olink and the inorganic portion of CorEvitas' revenue in 2024.

And based on current rates, we'd expect FX to be a headwind to revenue in 2024 of approximately $375 million, just under 1%. So, wrapping all this together, 2024 revenue dollars would be very similar to 2023. In terms of adjusted operating income dollars, with this top-line setup, we would expect to deliver similar adjusted operating income dollars to 2023. We'll continue to use the PPI business system to manage costs very carefully, but also continue to make the right long-term investments to enable us to continue to strengthen our industry leadership.

Strong underlying productivity and cost controls are expected to offset the runoff in the remaining pandemic revenue, inflation, and the normalization of incentive compensation across the company and appropriate investment in our colleagues. Below the line, the net -- the interest income benefit from our cash generation and an assumption of $3 billion of buybacks in 2024 would more than offset the impact of a slight increase in our tax rate to 10.5%. All of this would enable us to deliver around $21.75 of adjusted EPS for the year. So, the high-level summary is that with these assumptions, we'd expect 2024 core organic revenue growth to be similar to 2023 and that our proven growth strategy and PPI business system would enable us to continue to manage the macro conditions and the runoff in pandemic revenue very effectively so we can deliver revenue and profitability similar to 2023 and a slight increase in adjusted EPS.

Now, should the market conditions be better than I just outlined, our growth strategy and proven execution capabilities will enable us to deliver the upside benefit. I look forward to providing you our formal guidance for 2024 on our next earnings call, along with our usual supporting details for the year ahead. At that point, we'll have the insight from a full year of 2023. We'll have a better view on the macro conditions entering 2024.

So, in conclusion, we continue to navigate the environment really well, delivering differentiated financials and further strengthening our industry leadership. We remain really well positioned to capitalize on additional opportunities as market growth normalizes over time. And as we think about our cost base, we're really well positioned to drive strongly accretive growth going forward. Now, let me turn the call back over to Ralph.

Rafael Tejada -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Operator, we're ready for the Q&A portion of the call.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. We will now enter our Q&A session. [Operator instructions] Our first question today comes from Jack Meehan from Nephron Research. Jack, your line is now open.

Please proceed.

Jack Meehan -- Nephron Research -- Analyst

Good morning and thank you for all the color. Marc, a bigger-picture question. You know, upon greater reflection, how much of your decision to raise the long-term target to 7% to 9% do you think may have been based on the environment we were in? And was curious, do you think it's prudent for investors to think of something lower than that in the medium term?

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Jack, thanks for the question. When I think about the long-term guidance or the long-term targets, right, what's underlying it is 4% to 6% growth, right? I don't think there's any controversy -- or market growth, 4% to 6% market. I don't think there's any controversy that we're going to grow meaningfully faster because if you look at the last 10 or 15 years, we've delivered superior organic growth, and it keeps getting better and better relative to the market, right? So, the spread of 2 or 3 points better than that, that's not in question, right? So, at 4% to 6%, you get to the 7% to 9%.

When I think about my 20-plus years in this industry, thinking about what the historical growth is, what the drivers are for the growth, I feel 4% to 6% long-term market growth is actually the appropriate number, that the things that the industry are going through now do not change my view that the long-term health of this industry is exceptionally bright and that you'll see that return. And I can't call when exactly that returns, but what I can say is that the unmet healthcare needs and all of the drivers that we talked about in our Analyst Day remain, you know, extraordinarily bright for the future. So, thank you, Jack.

Jack Meehan -- Nephron Research -- Analyst

Thanks. And then maybe as a follow-up, the deterioration kind of in the market we've seen since second quarter earnings or even early September, what are you hearing from customers like as you try and diagnose what's happening here and just what are your thoughts on kind of the recent increase in the 10 year? You know, how does that impact kind of the pace of the recovery as you see it?

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, I've been out with customers, as you know. I do that a lot. I've been out on a -- definitely out there with our customer tour, both in Europe and the U.S.

And earlier in the quarter, I was in China. So, when I think about what our customers are saying, they're actually very bullish on the mid to long term, right? So, there's incredible opportunities for us. You know, what I would say is short term, you know, if you're visiting a smaller biotech customer, you know, what you're seeing is, you know, concerns about when the funding environment is going to improve. So, there's a level of caution.

And I think that's generally across the customer basis. Customers are being, you know, cautious after, you know, a very robust pandemic period, right? But long term and the excitement and customers are looking forward to the future with us, it's extremely positive. Anything on the long-term interest rate, do you think?

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

No. I don't think about the long-term interest rate. I think from a funding standpoint, I think there's a spread between interest rates and then what kind of return will people are going to get on an investment. And as the valuation expectations moderate for our customers, that I think their funding will start flowing better going forward.

The timing of that will still be played out, but the return profile and a successful investment in biotech is still incredibly compelling. So, long term, that will moderate appropriately.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Jack.

Jack Meehan -- Nephron Research -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Jack. Our next question comes from Dan Brennan from TD Cowen. Dan, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Dan Brennan -- TD Cowen -- Analyst

Thank you. Thanks for the questions, guys. Maybe, Marc and Steve -- Stephen, excuse me, it's somewhat hard to reconcile just the magnitude of this end-market weakness, just given the view toward the structural attractiveness of the -- kind of the customer drivers. So, maybe could you just give us a lens on this outlook for '24, maybe, first, from like a geographic perspective, China? How much of is that a driver toward like other regions? And then B, it'd be great to just learn about like within biopharma, your largest customer base, maybe some of the underlying factors that kind of pointed as very weak growth: bioprocess, pharma R&D.

Marc, you just mentioned pre-commercial biotech. Just give us a little more color on what's driving the real kind of contracted growth outlook.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, Dan, thanks for the question. I think the way that Stephen and I thought about giving an early view to 2024, you know, is not based on us having finished our operating plan process, which we do in December. And then when we actually lay out guidance, we do it based on how did the year finish, you know, all of the details, by business, by geography, and then we figure out the details.

We took the benefit of each of us having 20-plus years of experience in the industry, looking at the market conditions that we see today and basically went through the assumptions of how could 2024 play out based on what we know today, right? So, this is not a bottoms-up view by country, by geography, and by business unit, but rather, you know, based on experience and based on what we're seeing. So, when I think about for us next year, right, we try to give you incredible clarity about what's COVID in our numbers, right? So, we're expecting a runoff of $1.3 billion of COVID-related revenue in 2024. That would leave $300 million of revenue in 2024, of which we have a pretty good line of sight to what those activity is, right? So, that's the first assumption. And then the second assumption is, you know, effectively what's going on in the base business, meaning excluding the COVID-related business.

And that should be a little bit over 3% growth, right? So, if you think of those two factors, that's how you get to a core number of one. Remember that testing is part of the decline. So, that's the set of assumption. So, then there's another lens to think about it, which is comparisons, right, or the -- we're going to lap the customer caution, different businesses at different points in time.

But, you know, the first half, we'll have more difficult comparisons, haven't fully seen the effect of caution. The second half, you actually get to more -- back to kind of moderate growth in that period of time, just based on that factor. And then we looked at some of our businesses like our instrument business, which had the benefit this year of the disruptions from supply chain in 2021 and 2022, and we were able to, you know, catch up on orders that needed to be shipped. And that gave us a little bit of a benefit of growth this year, of which that obviously doesn't repeat next year.

We factored all that in, and we said, you know, the core is pretty similar to what it is next year. We look forward to actually doing the detailed guidance, you know, at the end of January or early February, when we have our earnings call, and we'll have all of our puts and takes and be a lot smarter. But we wanted our analyst community to be aligned with what we're seeing today because there's quite a big disconnect in the numbers that are out there for 2024 relative to the numbers that we articulated today.

Dan Brennan -- TD Cowen -- Analyst

Great. Thanks, Marc. Maybe just a follow-up to some biopharma since it's -- I'm sorry about that. Maybe just a follow-up on biopharma since it is your biggest customer base and such a key driver.

Could you just give us a little bit of a window, just maybe what you're seeing in Q3, kind of how are you thinking about Q4 as maybe a jumping off point for '24, you know, large pharma, R&D spending, bioprocess, PPD? Can you give us some flavor on your key customer segments and kind of what the trends look like right now? And, you know, that'll give us some vantage point for how we think about '24 there as well. Thank you.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Dan, I think your fellow analysts are throwing tomatoes at your building today, asking 19 questions in that one. But I'll start at a high level and leave some of this for others. Let me break the pharma -- biopharma into what revenue was in Q3 and then a little bit of some of the underlying dynamics. Actually, the revenue in the quarter was incredibly similar to the prior quarter, right, in terms of how we actually performed.

We declined 1%. And looking at that, you know, the long-term outlook here is strong. We talked about that in an earlier question. Effectively, customer caution increased a bit.

You see that more pronounced in biotech and pharma, but you see it across the customer set. That's more of a forward-looking look. I think the thing that probably is, you know, most relevant and why we think about our fourth quarter the way we do, one of the things that we assumed in our previous guidance was that in our bioprocessing business, that orders would stabilize -- start to normalize in the third quarter. We did not see that, right? So, if you say what's the single biggest driver of the same factors in Q4 versus what we talked about, really is bioproduction.

We didn't see that normalization of orders. In general, that business operates on a roughly a 13-week lead time. So, if you don't see the orders in Q3, you're not going to see the revenue, you know, step up in Q4. So, hopefully, that's helpful in terms of framing.

I'm sure I'll get some of the other ones in future questions.

Operator

Thank you, Dan. Our next question comes from Derik de Bruin from Bank of America. Derik, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Derik de Bruin -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hi. Thank you and good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Hey, Marc, you just typically haven't called out the COVID impact to the PPD, you know, the biopharma services business in the past.

Can you just sort of like clarify what that was in '22 and '23, overall, so we can do the number? And also staying on that segment, you know, Pfizer and Moderna are big customers of yours. They both sort of announced some R&D cuts. How should we sort of think about how that flow through the business? And I guess, is there any sort of like -- from the vaccine revenues that are in that business, were any sort of like take or pays that have sort of been in there? So, I know that's a lot on that but just start there.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, Derik, great question. So, let's talk about clinical research one level above, and then I'll give you some of the answers to the question you have, right? So, we are almost at the two-year anniversary of the acquisition of PPD, which closed in early December of 2021. Business is doing great, right? And it's been a terrific acquisition.

It is a terrific acquisition with a bright future. If you think about what the moment in time was in December of 2021, PPD had done a great job of growing its core sort of normal business and played a leading role in supporting the clinical trials for vaccines and therapies. Just phenomenally relevant set of capabilities, which is part of the reason we knew how great the business was and how respected it was in the industry. Since our ownership, we've modeled in that this would be a declining portion of the business.

It's actually been a headwind through all of our ownership on core organic growth. So, you know, if I think about -- so -- our core organic would've actually been higher, you know, than if we didn't include it. But our view was this business' end-market growth was really good and we're just going to grow through it, and it was factored into our guidance. Obviously, as customer caution has increased in pharmaceutical and biotech, the rates of growth in our non-COVID business slows, and we wanted to ensure that our investors understood that that was actually quite healthy, but we're going through the runoff on vaccines and therapies.

To give you the magnitude of the number, what is embedded in our 2023 is a $600 million decline in revenue for vaccines and therapies. And it also happens to be $600 million of activity in the year. So, that's this year. And as opposed to sort of take or pay or those things, clinical trials are different, like you have patients enrolled, you go through it.

So, that revenue will run off in an orderly fashion over the next couple of years. In the outlook that we gave of $300 million of total revenue for all pandemic-related, some of that -- most of it is actually that work in clinical research. There's a little bit of take or pay in pharma services and nominal amount of testing. So, hopefully, that gives you a good sense of the dynamic there.

Derik de Bruin -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Right. So, if you just think about underlying growth of the core PPD business, just sort of like what's your embedded number for this year and sort of like the working assumption for next year, just as I said, there's just a lot of variables. I think just some clarity would help.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, obviously, we'll get into some of that. We don't even do it by business unit in our guidance. So -- but I can give you sort of direction how to think about it.

Well, we said at the time of the acquisition and what we've said consistently is the long-term growth expectation for this business is high single digits plus the benefit of synergies. And that hasn't changed in terms of the long term. Our assumption has been that it would step down from the 20% and then sort of double-digit growth to that, and it actually will step down below that and bounce back up just on the math of the COVID activity runoff over the next year or so. So, hopefully, that helps in terms of how to think about modeling it.

Derik de Bruin -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Yup.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Derik.

Derik de Bruin -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Then it's one more if I can -- thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rachel Vatnsdal from J.P. Morgan. Rachel, your line is now open.

Please go ahead.

Rachel Vatnsdal -- JPMorgan Chase and Company -- Analyst

Great. Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. So, appreciate all the color that you've given us today on 2024, but for two areas that I wanted to follow up on. First, how do you see China playing out next year? At this point, is growth in the region going to be reasonable in 2024? Are we going to be looking at declines? And then you've noted that 2024 is also going to be more of a back-half-weighted story, really given those market dynamics.

So, could you walk us through the magnitude of the step-up that you're expecting between the first half and second half and how much of that is really going to be driven by easier comps in the back half versus an expected rebound in the market?

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

So, Rachel, thanks. Let me start with China, and I think it's really relevant for the community to understand our view on what's going on in China, right? So, first of all, it was great to return to China, which I did in August. And I actually came away, you know, with -- in a way, more encouraged on the long term. So, let me give you a little bit more detail on it.

You know, I went to China with two different hats. One as the chair of the U.S.-China Business Council, where I had the opportunity to interact with, you know, senior members of the Chinese government, including the premier. And then I also did my normal thing of being CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific and had the opportunity to see our colleagues, you know, visit sites, and see a lot of customers during that process. So, this is what I came away with from my visit.

Economy is definitely challenged, you know, and the conditions are worsening. We saw that worsening during the quarter. The government is actively working to boost business confidence and create a stronger environment for foreign investment. So, when I think about the kind of the macro picture, short term, definitely challenged from a macro economy.

I was pleasantly surprised that, you know, a real focus on a better environment for foreign companies, which bodes well for the future. When I think about, you know, the outlook here, we definitely saw the impact of the declining economy in the results, and we would expect that that will continue. And we can't predict exactly when the market will do, but we know that the comparisons get easier in the second half for China as we lap some of the comparables -- or the more challenging comparables. When I think about phasing for the year and all of that stuff, we'll look forward to doing that in the beginning of 2024. 

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. But, Rachel, I kind of set up and I put it in prepared remarks is kind of a mirror image of this year as a starting point, with kind of more challenging in the first half and then modest growth in the second half.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rachel.

Rachel Vatnsdal -- JPMorgan Chase and Company -- Analyst

Great. And then if I could squeeze in one more, just on instrumentation. That was a bright spot this quarter at 8% growth. You've noted that you're over-indexed in instrumentation in China, and you've also highlighted some of the incremental weakness there.

So, can you just walk us through what exactly you're seeing in that portfolio? What was instrument growth in China versus rest of world and then how should we think about that setup for instrumentation next year given you're going to face some of these difficult comps in the first three quarters?

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

So, I'll probably keep it at a pretty high level. Awesome quarter in analytical instruments, 8% growth. Team is doing a good job. Our electron microscopy business, really performing extremely well.

And great to see the uptake on Astral, which is our breakthrough mass spectrometer, which we launched in June. So, those are the highlights. Our guidance for this year and our framing for next year reflects the customer caution and the nonrepeat of some of the working through the disruptions of the pandemic on supply chain. So, that's embedded in the outlook for the year.

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

And then, Rachel, just on the -- kind of the additional kind of weakness we saw in China in Q3, some of that came through in revenue in Q3, but it's going to be more in terms of revenue in Q4 because of the lag in terms of bookings profile for our instrumentation business. So, that's part of that dynamic as to why Q4 is more impacted by the changed profile that we saw in China.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rachel.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Our next question comes from Puneet Souda from Leerink Partners. Puneet, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Puneet Souda -- Leerink Partners -- Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, Marc, for taking the questions. I'll wrap two of my questions into one. First, largely on M&A, given the environment right now, the type of deals that you're doing, the type of valuations you're doing at, could you maybe just give us a sense of what you're seeing out there? Obviously, Olink, prior to that, Binding Site and CorEvitas, is that the type of sort of mid-sized deals that we should continue to expect here and the opportunity base that you are seeing in M&A? And within the proteomics franchise, now with a successful Orbitrap franchise of last 15-plus years, combining that with the -- with Olink, Marc, maybe at a high level, could you provide us your, for lack of a better word, vision on proteomics despite being a sort of a tough market this year and next year?

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, many thanks for the question. And so, when I think about the M&A for this year or M&A even in general, right, the criteria that we use, right, is M&A that's going to be highly valued by our customers, strengthen our strategic position, generate strong returns for our shareholders, right? And you look at what the different opportunities are and you think about in different periods of time where it's going to skew in your favor. And this year, with a more volatile macro, we've been able to add three phenomenal businesses, right, in terms of strengthening the company with incredible growth prospects, really good return profiles, right? So, that doesn't mean that next year will look exactly like this or years where you can buy companies that are really more of a balance of cost and revenue growth and those different things and different aspects of it.

But this year, to be able to get The Binding Site, CorEvitas, and Olink, it's fantastic. And when I think about Olink, which this is our first opportunity, given that we had announced it during a blackout period, it's just a terrific fit, right? And you think about it's a leader in a business that has gone through that phase of being well adopted, right? So, the technology risk isn't here anymore. But it hasn't globally commercialized. It hasn't reached nearly its full potential and incredibly complementary to our leading position in mass spectrometry and proteomics.

And, Puneet, thanks for reminding others about our 15-year-plus track record of Orbitrap. Astral being the next big many-year run, and the combination of AR plus Olink and the fact that we have a leading position in the life sciences instrumentation, which are very relevant in terms of qPCR for these products as well, really exciting. You know, they are a leader in their field, and we're excited to help bring that to the customer base in an accelerated fashion. And when we look to the future, you know, we expect this to be a long term, you know, mid-teens-plus growth business and be able to generate really significant, you know, adjusted operating income synergies, driven by that accelerated revenue growth.

And on top of that, there's $125 million of earnings that come from the year 5 synergies, and that's going to generate double-digit returns for the shareholders. So, super exciting time, and we'll continue to be outstanding stewards of our shareholders' capital.

Puneet Souda -- Leerink Partners -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Eve Burstein from Bernstein. Eve, your line is now open. Please proceed.

Eve Burstein -- AllianceBernstein -- Analyst

Hi there. Good morning and thanks a lot for the question. I'd love to ask about your lab products and biopharma services business unit. So, the operating margin there was a bright spot at 16%.

It was higher than any point in the past. And when you talked about the puts and takes there, you called out productivity and mix as some of the positive drivers. So, just two questions there. One, on mix, if that was a positive driver, does that actually mean that sales of some of your really low-margin consumables were down? Other peer companies have talked about challenges there and brought down guidance in general lab products.

So, can you talk a little bit about those dynamics? And then secondly, on productivity gains, what is driving that and are those going to be sustainable and recurring over time?

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, Eve, thanks for the question. So, when I think about the margin dynamic in that segment, yeah, mix is -- it -- when you think about where the more challenging environment is in terms of customer caution and China, that impacts the lab products business, and then the wider customer caution also impacts our channel business. So, relative to the other business in that segment, that's where the mix profile comes from.

In terms of productivity is about we've been rightsizing the cost base within our lab products business and given the volume change. So, that's where the majority of that is. And then just, you know, good spending wisely across the whole business. But those are probably the two main factors to call out.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Eve.

Eve Burstein -- AllianceBernstein -- Analyst

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you.

Rafael Tejada -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator

Perfect. We'll take our last question today from Dan Leonard from UBS. Dan, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Dan Leonard -- UBS -- Analyst

Great. Thank you for the time and really appreciate you sharing all those framing thoughts for 2024. I have a couple of additional follow-ups on that, but I'll keep it to one. I know it's not a bottoms-up view, but I'm curious how you're thinking about the inventory effect, either for your business or the market in 2024.

In those areas where there's been inventory burndown in 2023, whether it be in bioproduction or the channels business or wherever you're seeing it, what do you think is a reasonable assumption for 2024? Is it reasonable to assume the burndown concludes and demand can match customer usage? Just any high-level thoughts. Thank you.

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

So, it's a good question, Dan. When I think about, you know, the -- you know, it's primarily a bioproduction story, and I don't think anyone is smart enough to know exactly which quarter. But during 2024, do I think that we will get back to orders matching revenue at some point during the year? Yeah. So, I think that will be smarter, you know, with the benefit of another three months of time to see what our view is on 2024.

But I don't think we'll be talking throughout the year about, you know, inventory reduction in the customer because there's activity that's going on currently that's consuming the inventory that's out there. Great, so let me bring to just a quick wrap-up for the call. Thank you for joining us today. We're very well positioned to continue to deliver differentiated performance.

And as always, thank you for your support of Thermo Fisher Scientific. We look forward to updating you in the new year.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Rafael Tejada -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Marc Casper -- Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Stephen Williamson -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Jack Meehan -- Nephron Research -- Analyst

Dan Brennan -- TD Cowen -- Analyst

Derik de Bruin -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Rachel Vatnsdal -- JPMorgan Chase and Company -- Analyst

Puneet Souda -- Leerink Partners -- Analyst

Eve Burstein -- AllianceBernstein -- Analyst

Dan Leonard -- UBS -- Analyst

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