We do believe the long term opportunity for sustained growth in this biopharma market segment is solid, and certainly we also continue to invest to enhance our leadership in digital PCR and other leading platform positions in the academic markets that we serve. Overall, between life science and diagnostics, we do believe we’re well positioned to drive long term growth as we move through this dynamic period. All right, that concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now open the line to take your questions. Operator?
Operator: Thank you, gentlemen. [Operator instructions]. We go first this afternoon to Patrick Donnelly of Citi.
Patrick Donnelly: Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe start on the life science business. I came in a little bit, a little bit light of what we were looking for. Can you talk about. It seems like process Chrome is an area you’re calling out with a little bit of softness. Can you talk about what you saw in the quarter and then obviously maintaining the full year guide? Can you talk about the expectations for the life science business as we work our way through the year here? Growth expectations for the year at that segment?
Andy Last: Hi, Patrick. It’s Andy. So let me take that question. So, first on process chromatography in the quarter, you know, I mean big a tough compare to 2023 for sure. I think the core life science business kind of really met expectations. So we did call out that, I think for us, process chromatography is softer than we anticipated, and that kind of drove the delta for us as we look forward to the rest of the year. At this point in time, we’re considering that process Chrome is going to be softer than originally anticipated. I just want to reiterate, because it’s a valid question, we’re not seeing that we’re losing customers. We’re maintaining share. In fact, we still believe we are winning share, as we called out on the script on life science.
It’s just a higher level of uncertainty, I think, is where we sit right now. And most of the, if not virtually all of the delta in life sciences instrument, the consumables and reagents, are actually performing pretty consistently, sequentially and year-over-year. So it’s kind of. It’s the spend on capital spend on equipment, which is the major delta for us right now.
Patrick Donnelly: Okay. So I guess when you think about maintaining a guide for the year overall, you know, process chrome softened a bit. Are there offsets that came in better than you expected that are now you’re thinking a little bit higher growth for the year? I’m just trying to figure out the balance here and the visibility into.
Andy Last: Yes, so I think the core life sciences, you know, with the caveats that I just mentioned, I think is in-line. There’s some strength in clinical diagnostics that looks good to us right now, which kind of keeps us within our guide range overall.
Patrick Donnelly: Okay. And then maybe just on ddPCR, how did that perform in the quarter? How are you seeing the competitive landscape there? How did things trend and expectations for the year on that front as well would be helpful.
Andy Last: Yes. So interestingly, relative to core life science, which was down mid teens, the digital PCR franchise was down single digit percentage, and it was all concentrated in instruments. The consumable reagent pull through was pretty good. And as we look forward, we view the franchise recovering in line with market recovery as we go, as we go through the remaining quarters in the year competitively, we’re not seeing any change to our win loss ratio. And of course, our major competition is calling out some improvement in their year over year performance. It’s not lost on us, but we just want to reiterate that they’re in a segment which we’ve not yet entered, which we’ll be entering later this year.
Operator: We go next now to Dan Leonard of UBS.
Selena Lu : Great. This is Lu on for Dan. Thank you for taking my questions. I think the first question wanted to touch a little bit on the life sciences as well. Can you share a little bit more color in the order trends and maybe also the funnel activities I think you mentioned about funding improvement. Have you seen any increasing activities from your customers?
Andy Last: Yes. So thank you for the question, It’s Andy, again. So I think where we sit right now, really encouraged by the influx of capital into biotech biopharmaceutical, that really is a pre-requisite to second half growth. It’s not showed up in Ayurveda books as yet. And the funnel is, we’re starting to have more positive sentiment and conversations within that segment, but it’s not showed up yet as hard and fast orders.
Selena Lu : Got it. Appreciated. So I guess I probably wanted to touch on a little bit on the guidance as well. So it does look that the second half, the ramp is a lot steeper, both in the revenue and margin. And then also, you just mentioned you haven’t seen anything in the orders yet, so can you just maybe share a little bit in terms of the visibility and your confidence in maintaining the guidelines and then also maybe how we should think about q two as well? Do you see improving signals in April so could help you to see the sequential improvement? Yes, I think I’d kind of answer that question as a carry on from my previous answer as it relates to biotech biopharma?
Andy Last: You know, I do think that we need to, we need to see the kind of encouraging signs turn into waters for the second half, which obviously will generate the ramp process. Chromatography we view as being, you know, really a more challenging year overall due to destocking. But we see some, you know, good growth in our clinical diagnostics business. And, you know, we envisage that continuing throughout the year. So I think really just a reconfirmation of the comments that we made in the script and my earlier answer.
