Michael Ryskin: Hi, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the solid year. I want to ask a little bit about underlying market conditions. As you have seen, the rest of the year we’re quarter end. You talked a little bit about the demand patterns you’re seeing from pharma and biotech and also from academia and government with your comments on flat U.S. NIH [ph] budget. Just any update on how the first three months, four months of the year have played out? And if there is any change relative to your expectation as you go through the rest of the year is still very uncertain time?
Thierry Bernard: So Michael, I must confess that your voice was seriously muffled. I understand that you are asking about the market conditions. So if I got right, but do not hesitate to come back, market condition especially academia research. I think Roland alluded to that first point that I would say, at least in the third quarter, we get clarity or we got clarity on the level of public funding, for example, the budget for the NIH, but also in other countries. We know that it’s going to be flat. This is exactly what we factored in our budget 2024. We highlighted in our call this morning that we continue to see a certain cautiousness in our customers for capital spending for capital expense, which is not a surprise because as you know, Michael, there are so many, so many countries going to election this year that elections are always creating a bit of attentism [ph].
We see this or we plan this to improve as those elections are coming behind us, and we are progressing towards the end of the year. That’s what I would clearly highlight. We expect the market to slowly ramp up sequentially. We said in the press release this morning, yesterday and this morning that we do not expect the Chinese market to bounce back anytime soon, at least not before 2025. So at the moment, the market environment fits what we did factor for 2024.
Michael Ryskin: Okay, that’s helpful. And I took my headphones off, so hopefully this is easier to hear. I mean, if you still can’t handle me, quick follow up. I wanted to just specifically touch on the instruments portfolio. I know that’s a very small part of the overall business. That can be some challenge. If you could throw out any color within that. You’ve got a couple different product lines that fall under instruments both by complexity of the instrument and by ASP just end changing that environment as we start the year? Thanks.
Thierry Bernard: Absolutely. I don’t know John, if you can help me, but from where I am, here in Boston, the voice is too muffled. I didn’t get half of the question, at least. There’s a lot of background noise.
Roland Sackers: I probably — First of all it was not easy to understand, I agree. No, it’s about instrument portfolio and growth rate. And I do think while we see as many other companies that overall, the instrumentation business is given the overall market environment clearly not the easiest one in these days. At the same time, that particular instruments like our QIAcuity and QIAstat with price points rather around $30,000, $40,000 actually are still in a quite normal environment. Once an instrument costs more than $100,000, it gets more difficult. So I would say, overall, while it’s a quite difficult environment for the more expensive instruments given our exposure in particular to the QIAcuity’s, QIAstat’s, and QIAcube’s of this world, we feel quite comfortable going to 2024.
Michael Ryskin: Thank you Roland.
Operator: We go next to the line of Hugo Solvet with BNP Paribas.
Hugo Solvet: Hi, hello thanks for taking my questions. Hi guys. I have two, first on QIAstat. Thierry, thank you for the comments around the fact that your teams are working closely with the FDA, just — can you maybe help us understand your level of confidence in getting an approval by the end of June to roll out the test the gastro test by — in H2? And on QIAstat can you maybe give a bit more color on the placement trend? And second, on regulation, can you share your thoughts on the FDA process to down classify high-risk IVG test. Thank you.
Thierry Bernard: Thank you Hugo. So first of all on the level of confidence for the GI approval. Hugo, what I can say is that we have submitted all our data to the FDA and since our later submission, we didn’t get any more questions and data was solid and good. They were solid in terms of analytical performance, and they were solid compared to competition. So now obviously, I cannot speak on behalf of the agency. We are in constant touch. We will continue to do so because it’s important for QIAGEN to get this test approved. This is the only thing I can say. I cannot talk on behalf of the agency. Based on our data, I’m confident. On QIAstat, on your questions for the trends of placement, as we said in the press release, it’s a healthy trend.
We are over the 100 units for the quarter. But what is all the more satisfying for us is, one, to see the growth at more than 20% in many of our panels and not driven by COVID. So I’m referring to GI in Europe, for example, to meningitis. And two, the fact that despite having only one panel available in the U.S. that we are still able to place instruments. That’s very encouraging. Third, on the FDA, I wouldn’t say downgrading, but making it easier on some test or moving them from PMA to 510(k). I think it’s acknowledgment from the agency that they need to keep moving in bringing added value test. I remind everybody that a 510(k) submission is not trivial either. You still need to submit a significant level of clinical data. You still need to go through a review.
And so I don’t say it’s downgraded. It’s just the FDA willing to move ahead on basically approving added value test. But both submissions take time and take clinical data.
Hugo Solvet: Thank you very much.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Please go ahead.
Patrick Donnelly: Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. Thierry, maybe a follow-up on the China piece. I think you guys have a few different verticals there, both life science diagnostics and then the QIAGEN brand, the private label brand. Can you just talk a little bit about going through each of those, what you’re seeing? Are there different trends in China and just expectations as we work our way through the year there? Does it sound like you’re overly optimistic on improvement, but I just want to talk through the outlook of the year there.
