GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GEHC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Peter Arduini: Yes. No, look, good question. PDx is definitely a growth driver. And again, I just want to reframe as we talked about all of our businesses, all of them have growth opportunities and all of them have margin expansion. But PDx has more of a growth priority upfront. And I think it’s both sides of the PDx Health, both our contrast business as well as our MI business, we’re expecting to see accelerated growth. As an example, in contrast with the growth of the imaging procedures that we’re talking about, anything that needs a contrasted-based capability like a vascular study with our leadership position in contrast ionized imaging, we’re going to continue to see that increase. So I think that’s one. On the molecular imaging side, again, with the rise of new agents that are out there, whether they be in prostate or different neuroscience-based agents, we would be expecting to see that pick up.

I would say the contrast agent is probably more of a temporal or closer 2023 impact. And the MI is probably has more of an impact later in 2023 into 2024, just to kind of give you a profile of how we think about the growth there.

Yuan Zhi: Got it. Thank you for the helpful color there. The follow-up question is our understanding is that the product such as Optison for ultrasound and with Vizamyl for Alzheimer’s disease PET scan maintaining a healthy gross margin. Can you maybe help us understand what prevents competitors to lower price and gain a larger market share, while at the same time, what stops other companies entering the space and making generic compounds of this product? Thank you.

Peter Arduini: Yes. No, it’s a good question. I would say, first of all, they do have healthy margins. One of the interesting things about our pharmaceutical diagnostic business, both in contrast and MI that you had referenced, is the proprietary nature of how we make it, I would say, the capital hurdles of the infrastructure and then the sophistication of the infrastructure. And just to give an example, if there is a typical molecule in the pharmaceutical world that comes in a 10 ml vial and a generic comes out, people can have five ready, they can be shelf stable, they can be shipped around the world, stored for two years. Many of our agents are made that have half-lives, they’re radioactive, right, that only can live for maybe a couple of days.

And so you literally have to have production capabilities cyclotron setup, a distribution network on how to deliver radioactive capabilities to pharmacies, we have that infrastructure and that know-how. And so even though some of these will have patents on them, the actual barriers to entry are more around the infrastructure and capability than they are based on particular IP and the normal pharmaceutical space.

Operator: That concludes the question-and-answer session. Please proceed with any closing remarks.

Peter Arduini: Thank you. So, look, in closing, let me just reiterate how excited I’m about our path forward as we invest in our business. The emphasis on innovative products in high-growth areas, many we talked about today, we delivered strong organic revenue growth and sequential margin improvement in the fourth quarter and we expect to capitalize on robust demand in 2023, as we execute on our revenue drivers across each of our segments. And we’re also optimizing the business through lean. We’ve given quite a few examples today, and this gives us confidence in our ability to reach our margin targets and drive meaningful shareholder value over the long-term. Our full team is united and excited about our purpose-driven approach for the benefit of customers and most importantly patients that we serve. So thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming conferences that will attend. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

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