Earnings call transcript: Bico Group Q3 2025 sees stock surge with revenue growth

BICO Group AB reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings with notable revenue growth, leading to a significant stock price increase. The company’s net sales reached SEK 387 million, surpassing forecasts and contributing to a 14.67% rise in its stock price. The earnings call highlighted strong organic sales growth and strategic product launches, reinforcing positive market sentiment.

Key Takeaways

• BICO Group reported SEK 387 million in net sales, exceeding expectations.
• The company’s stock surged by 14.67% following the earnings announcement.
• New product launches and strategic divestments were key highlights.
• BICO’s cash position strengthened, with a positive net cash status post-debt buybacks.

Company Performance

BICO Group demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with net sales of SEK 387 million, reflecting a 12% organic growth. The company has focused on innovation, launching new products such as the iDot LT and TurnStation, which have contributed to its competitive edge in the lab automation sector. Divestments and cost control measures have further streamlined operations, enhancing efficiency and profitability.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: SEK 387 million, marking a 12% organic growth.
• Adjusted EBITDA: SEK 17 million with a 5% margin, up by 3 percentage points YoY.
• Cash Position: SEK 1,241 million, indicating a strong financial base.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, BICO Group’s stock price increased by 14.67%, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and financial health. The stock’s movement places it closer to its 52-week high of SEK 46.98, a positive indicator of market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

BICO Group anticipates a 10% long-term CAGR for its DiscoverEcho and Biosero segments. The company is focused on scaling its current cost base while continuing to invest in lab automation. Future guidance includes targeting working capital between 15-20% of sales and maintaining strong cash reserves to support strategic initiatives.

Executive Commentary

CEO Maria Forss emphasized the company’s commitment to innovation and automation, stating, "We enable and automate the life science lab of the future." She further highlighted the necessity of automation as a competitive advantage, noting, "Automation has become not just a competitive advantage, but a necessity."

Risks and Challenges

• Economic Uncertainty: Global economic conditions may impact investment and spending in the biotech sector.
• Competition: Increasing competition in lab automation could pressure margins.
• Regulatory Changes: Potential shifts in regulatory landscapes could affect product development timelines.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the $15.2 million pharma order in Q3 and the reasons behind the impairment for Biosero. The company provided insights into its revenue recognition profile and highlighted ongoing strategic collaborations, reinforcing its market position.

BICO Group’s Q3 2025 performance underscores its strategic focus on innovation and operational efficiency, driving positive market reactions and setting a strong foundation for future growth.

Full transcript - BICO Group AB (BICO) Q3 2025:

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: Welcome to BICO Q3 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Maria Forss and CFO Jacob Thordenberg. Please go ahead.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Hello and welcome to BICO Group’s Q3 2025 earnings call. I’m Maria Forss, President and CEO, and I will, together with BICO’s CFO Jacob Thordenberg, present this interim report. Here’s today’s agenda. I will open today’s session by presenting how BICO serves the world’s leading pharma and biotech companies with solutions that transform how labs operate and innovate. Following that, Jacob will provide a summary of the quarter’s key developments and present the group’s financial performance. We’ll proceed and comment on our two business areas: life science solutions and lab automation. Additionally, we will highlight our R&D pipeline with ongoing product development efforts. This session will conclude with final remarks before opening up for Q&A. At BICO, we serve the world’s leading pharma biotech companies.

Our portfolio ranges from BICO’s market-leading Green Button Go software, enabling full lab orchestration, to off-the-shelf automation products and bioprinting from our life science solutions business. Our solutions enable smarter, faster, and more efficient labs, and here lies an underlying strong demand. Pharma and biotech companies face the same fundamental challenge: long and costly development cycles for new therapies. The development of a new therapy often takes more than 10 years and costs between $2 billion-$4 billion, where 90% of the pipeline ultimately fails. To overcome this, these companies are investing heavily in automation to increase efficiency, speed, and quality, bringing innovations to the market faster and at a lower cost. The next wave of automation goes beyond instrument orchestration to connect entire workflows and data streams, where AI and machine learning continuously optimize experimentation and decision-making.

BICO is at the core of this development, providing the data backbone that unifies AI-powered services with lab automation. Our products and services enable our customers to connect data across diverse informatics systems and apply AI tools to plan, run, and optimize experiments in real time. Already today, we are powering AI drug discovery workflows that follow the design, make, test, analyze paradigm using our Green Button Go platform. Further, we integrate AI-driven image analysis as high-throughput analytical tools into cell line development workflows, enhancing speed and precision in bioprocess optimization. Today, researchers spend too much time on manual tasks and fragmented data, resulting in wasted samples and stalled projects. Combined with macroeconomic pressure, talent shortages, and tighter budgets, automation has become not just a competitive advantage, but a necessity for the future of discovery.

BICO is at the core of this transformation, connecting workflows and data streams and enabling AI-powered experimentation. This is what our mission and vision is all about. Our vision is to enable and automate the life science lab of the future. Our mission is to be the first-choice lab automation partner and provider of selective workflows to pharma and biotech. This brings us to a video I’m about to share, which shows an example of an integrated lab automation solution we have designed and delivered to one of our customers. In my view, this truly reflects our mission. With this introduction, my aim has been to emphasize BICO’s mission, our strategic direction, and the value we deliver to our customers. We lead the way in solving the challenges in life science with speed, accuracy, and efficiency.

Speed by reducing the time to find optimal candidates for treatment therapies and supporting our customers in driving forward a personalized approach to treatment. Accuracy by enabling the development of physiologically relevant models and enhancing the reproducibility through automated processes that reduce variability in experimental outcomes. By efficiency, we develop solutions to maximize productivity of automated lab equipment and scientists. All in all, our customers can run their processes faster, improve their quality of data, and ultimately make better decisions. I will now hand over to Jacob to present the results for the third quarter.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Thank you, Maria. I will summarize the third quarter of 2025 for the group and then provide more financial details for the quarter. When looking at the performance for the third quarter, Life Science Solutions delivered 4% organic sales growth in line with market performance. The growth was mainly driven by a positive uptick in diagnostics as well as increased demand for lab automation components. Cyanian continued to perform well, delivering double-digit growth after major commercial and operational improvements in a diagnostic market, which is coming back to more normal investment levels. Lab Automation delivered 35% organic sales growth, rebounding after an abnormal Q2. Good progress has been made in the execution of the action plan, significantly enhancing processes, leadership, and operational capabilities. In addition, Biosero received orders from a global pharma company worth $15.2 million as a part of a global master framework agreement.

This showcases the strong underlying demand for lab automation and Biosero’s market-leading software suite, Green Button Go. We have also resolved impairments in DiscoverEcho and Biosero, totaling SEK 1 billion and SEK 36 million. These impairments will not affect cash flow, but impacted EBIT for the quarter. With that said, I would like to highlight that we anticipate long-term growth of around 10% CAGR, which is in line with our financial targets for both DiscoverEcho and Biosero. I will elaborate more about this shortly. The closing of the transaction of the divestments of MatTek and Visikol was finalized in early July. These divestments generated SEK 740 million, which significantly strengthened our cash position. Next slide, please. Q3 was a quarter of solid progress. Net sales reached SEK 387 million despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges and funding headwinds in key markets, with an organic sales growth at 12%.

We also experienced that academic and biotech funding remains constrained, especially in North America, which has led to cautious customer spending and extended sales cycles. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 17 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 5%, which is an improvement in the adjusted EBITDA margin of 3 percentage points year over year. The improved margin is a result of continued cost control activities, mainly due to synergies derived from centralization of functions, as well as initiative for operational efficiencies. Maria will now comment on the progress of the execution of the comprehensive action plan to scale up Biosero.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Since September, we have a new Managing Director in Biosero with long and extensive experience in the global life science industry. He has the right toolbox to drive sustainable growth and create long-term value for customers and shareholders. We have made solid progress in executing the action plan, significantly strengthening not only leadership but also processes and operational capabilities. We have also continued substantial investments in operational resources to better serve our customers and accelerate closing of delayed projects. Furthermore, we’re implementing more standardization to scale the business and introducing new commercial concepts with shorter lead times to balance the project portfolio. Also worth mentioning again is that Biosero secured several orders from a global pharma company valued at $15.2 million in the quarter. This project will develop integrated lab automation solutions, which will support this big pharma customer’s drug development process.

I will now hand over to Jacob again for comments on the divestments and impairments.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Thank you. In Q3, we completed the divestments of MatTek and Visikol, generating SEK 740 million, as previously mentioned. This significantly strengthened our cash position. These divestments follow our updated strategy with a focus on lab automation and selective workflows. Sartorius acquired both companies at a 2024 sales multiple of 3.7x and an adjusted EBITDA multiple of 15.3x. The companies have been treated as discontinued operations from Q2 2025. If we move on to the next slide. In the quarter, we also resolved SEK 1 billion and SEK 36 million in impairments for DiscoverEcho and Biosero, which are non-cash flow affecting one-off items, but affecting EBIT in Q3. In May 2024, we implemented an updated model for impairment with a shortened forecast period before terminal calculations from 10 to 5 years, following recommendation from the Swedish Financial Reporting Supervision.

The impairments stem from a short forecast period and lower year-to-date trading in 2025, leading to changed forecast assumptions compared with previous periods. With that said, we see a strong underlying demand for Biosero’s integrated lab automation solutions centered around the company’s market-leading software suite, Green Button Go. In Echo, we see a market recovery in the U.S. academic segment over time. We anticipate long-term growth of around 10% CAGR in both companies, which is also in line with our financial targets. I will now move on to the next section, group financial performance. In Q3, sales amounted to SEK 387 million and grew 5% in total and 12% in organic sales growth. The difference of 7 percentage points is mainly explained by a weaker US dollar against the Swedish krona. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 17 million, corresponding to a margin of 5%.

The improved margin is a result of continued cost control activities, mainly from centralization of functions as well as initiatives for operational efficiencies. If we move on to Q3 cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to negative SEK 32 million, impacted by working capital changes of negative SEK 30 million. Total cash flow during the quarter amounted to SEK 570 million. As mentioned before, MatTek and Visikol were divested as of July 1, 2025, and generated net profits of SEK 740 million. We also made a third bond buyback in our convertible debt in August 2025, which amounted to SEK 98 million. In connection to this, I will also comment on BICO’s outstanding convertible debt and our cash position. In total, we have made three buybacks in our convertible bond between November 2024 and August 2025, totaling a nominal amount of SEK 492 million.

The rationale for the bond buybacks has been to optimize BICO’s capital structure and further reduce long-term debt. Post buybacks, the convertible debt now amounts to nominal SEK 1 billion and SEK 8 million. As per Q3, BICO’s cash position was SEK 1 billion and SEK 241 million, leaving BICO with a positive net cash position. As mentioned on the previous slides, the effects of changes in working capital amounted to negative SEK 30 million for the quarter. Out of this, operating receivables increased by SEK 96 million, inventories increased by SEK 1 million, and operating liabilities increased by SEK 65 million. In percentage of last 12-month sales, net working capital in the quarter corresponded to 13%. Confirming that the operational excellence actions implemented in 2023 and onwards have been successful.

For Q1 up until Q3 in 2025, the further decrease in net working capital to low double digits is primarily an effect of less net working capital in Biosero due to decreases in receivables. I will now hand over to Maria to present the results in our two business areas.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Thank you, Jacob. Let’s now turn to our target business, largest business area, life science solutions, which accounted for two-thirds of our revenue this quarter. Life science solutions delivered SEK 263 million in sales with a 4% organic sales growth and an adjusted EBITDA of SEK 19 million, corresponding to a 7% adjusted EBITDA margin. The growth was mainly driven by a positive uptick in diagnostics as well as increased demand for lab automation components. Cyanian continued to perform well, delivering double-digit growth after major commercial and operations improvements in our diagnostic market, which is coming back to more normal investment levels. If we move on to our business area lab automation. In quarter three, lab automation delivered 35% organic sales growth year over year, rebounding after the abnormal quarter two. The business area sales for the quarter amounted to SEK 124 million.

The adjusted EBITDA was SEK 10 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8%, turning the negative trend from the recent quarters. The profitability is still impacted, though, by continued substantial investments in operational resources for the benefit of our customers to accelerate closing of projects. As mentioned earlier in this presentation, good progress has been made during the quarter in the execution of the comprehensive action plan to scale Biosero. We have significantly enhanced processes, leadership, and operational capabilities. I will now introduce a new section where I will share our data on our ongoing product innovation efforts. One focus area for growth is continuous product innovation. BICO has a solid R&D pipeline and roadmap in place. This is based on the portfolio strategy, which is part of BICO 2.0. Our current product portfolio covers the full spectrum of lab automation solutions and selective workflows.

It’s important to emphasize that we have lab automation products and solutions in both of our business areas. This is illustrated on this slide, where you can see instruments from various BICO business units positioned along different stages of the lab automation continuum. Products in the business area life science solutions are also Green Button Go ready. In BICO, we invest substantially in product development. We’re continuing to bring new products and innovations to the market. Recent product launches include iDot LT and TurnStation. The iDot LT is a new addition to the iDot series and offers a compact solution optimized for automated low-volume liquid dispensing. This product is Green Button Go ready. TurnStation by QInstruments is a lab automation device for liquid handlers. It optimizes the workflows for microplate handling, and it’s purpose-built for seamless lab automation.

This is an example of how we are driving growth through synergies in the BICO group. Let’s now move on to an example of a successful product launch from an ongoing external collaboration. This is a result of the scientific collaboration between Sartorius and BICO. Sartorius Octet and Biosero’s Green Button Go is an integrated solution delivering faster results to the market, enabling labs to operate more efficiently and effectively. These were just a few examples of recent launches and collaborations. Let’s now move on to look at the R&D pipeline and roadmap. We have a comprehensive product development pipeline within our prioritized focus areas, as you can see on this slide. The majority of the R&D investments are made in software development, while there are several upgrades of the instrument portfolio meeting customer needs.

Multiple product launches are planned for 2026, and these include both software, instruments, and consumable products. As mentioned before, we are also introducing new commercial concepts in lab automation, with shorter lead times to balance the product portfolio. These concepts are developed both through internal collaboration between the two business areas, as well as together with external collaborators. Before the Q&A, I will give some concluding remarks. One year ago, we launched BICO 2.0, which is our updated strategy to enable and automate the life science lab of the future. Since then, we have streamlined our portfolio. We have strengthened our commercial engine. We have invested in our people and culture and delivered operational excellence. It’s been a year of change, and we have worked hard. The impact that we together have achieved is clear: significantly strengthened cash position, leaner operations, and more customer-centric solutions. This is just the beginning.

We’re excited to drive lab automation forward and equip pharma companies with tools to shorten drug development timelines. By enabling increased success rate and reducing time to market, we empower scientists to accelerate innovation and deliver breakthroughs that shape healthier societies. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank our customers for your continued trust in BICO, as well as our employees around the world for your work and dedication, which enable our customers to deliver what matters the most: the discoveries that advance human health. This was our final slide before the Q&A. I will hand over to the Ernest Cowell host for further instructions.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Ulrik Trattner from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and good morning. A few questions on my end. If we can start off with lab automation and you talk about healthy demand in lab automation, if you can clarify what that entails.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: As we can see in the quarter, we are landing substantial orders of more than $15.2 million. We continue to see demand also from other big pharma customers. That is what is the basis for our claim of healthy demand.

Just to sort of clarify. Are you seeing increased tender activity? Are you seeing a growing order intake? Is there customer assessment of your software? Just to get some sense on how this could be quantified.

As you know, Ulrich, we are never guiding or talking about our order stock or order intake due to competitive reasons. We have several ongoing discussions with customers and healthy business.

I know that you do not quantify sort of order intake, but in terms of any type of granularity, has this improved over the last six months versus? In terms of customer interest or how should we view this?

I think that the customer interest has been retained. As we have talked about in previous calls and we will talk about today too, the first half of 2025 has been a challenging first half for us as well as many other peers. That has also been reflected in not the demand, but the time it takes to close orders. Some of those orders are now being executed.

Do you expect the sort of timeline from sort of interest to close a deal have sort of shortened or is it still the same?

When you have master service agreements with large pharma customers or customers overall, of course, those will facilitate the time it takes to get orders in place.

Okay. And again, on lab automation, and you’ve done some structural changes in the management of these contracts, does this apply for the newly assigned contract, the one you signed in September, or is this under the sort of same type of agreement that you had prior to doing the restructuring?

We have changed the way we are operating overall, both in terms of how we run projects, how we are scoping the projects, the way we are structuring the contracts to make sure that is clear moving forward. I would say it’s a new way of working that has been implemented since earlier this year, which is now starting to show effect.

Great. On the phasing of this $15 million US contract, should we sort of assume and apply the same type of phasing that we have seen historically, which has been a lot of revenue and profit being front-end loaded and then that being tapered off gradually throughout 2026 since it is set to be delivered throughout 2026 as well?

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Yeah, maybe I can answer that question, Ulrich. The short answer is yes. That is due to the revenue recognition profile that we have in Biosero, which is based on percentage of completion. Our percentage of completion model is based on anticipated costs. In these projects, a large chunk of the anticipated costs is indeed related to hardware. Roughly speaking, the other part of the anticipated cost is labor hours. Given that we typically buy a lot of instruments when we start a project, you usually see a spike in revenues due to the purchase of hardware and that being a quite significant share of the anticipated costs. You have less acceleration in revenue recognition related to the labor hours. Yes, it has a similar profile as you have seen from previous large orders.

I guess you assume, given sort of your outlook, that you will be signing new orders to bridge sort of that gap into 2026?

I’m not sure I follow that question, Ulrik.

Given the tapering off of revenues into 2026, in order for you to grow from these levels in absolute terms, you would need to add additional contracts?

Yeah, correct, yes.

Great. Just on the discontinuation effects, both in the quarter as well as for Q4, if it’s possible to quantify. What are the sort of actual numbers here that we should be modeling for Q4?

The numbers are. We do not have any effect from MatTek and Visikol in the quarter, given that they were sort of completely out of our books as of July 1.

Yeah, but if it’s possible to quantify, I know that you’ve restated it, but based on sort of general modeling purposes.

There’s nothing in our books in Q3. There is nothing to quantify because the assets are not in our economic ownership anymore in the quarter.

Sure. From a comparable perspective, in Q3 last year, they were in your books and in reported numbers.

Yeah, but that has been the.

There is a deviation.

That has been the report. There is no effect in the report because it has been excluded in the comparison quarter.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. If we were to quantify it for Q4, then I guess you reported some sales in Q4 for some of these subsidiaries that will not be present in Q4.

Okay. You want the comparison figure for Q4 last year. I can perhaps write it out separately. I do not have those numbers in my head right now.

Okay, great. Just last two questions on my end. I know that sales expenses is down sequentially while your top line is up. Is there something to read into that? Are you doing something different in terms of your selling expenses? Secondly, where is kind of sort of a steady state working capital level to top line in percentage terms?

Yeah. Do you want to answer the first question, Maria, in terms of?

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: I think overall, as we have talked about earlier, we have made sure that we can get the commercial synergies as well as operational synergies in the group. With our sales skills group as well as other commercial skills group, we are then reaping those synergies. Part of the cost management that Jacob talked about earlier in the call is about those synergies, but also centralizing some functions as well as operational efficiency. That is where the improvement in the margin comes from.

Okay.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: I can answer the second question in terms of working capital in relation to sales. As we mentioned in the call, we’re very happy to see that we have had great progress in our working capital. Now it’s down to 13% in relation to LTM sales. We do believe that a stable level should be between 15%-20% of sales.

Okay. That was all questions on my end, and I’ll get back into the queue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ulrich.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Thank you, Ulrich.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: The next question comes from Ludwig Lundgren from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Continuing a bit on lab automation, sales was positively affected by this order you received in September. I just wonder if you could elaborate a bit more on the effect we saw here in Q3 and whether the positive contribution will increase sequentially as we move into Q4.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: That’s a good question, Ludwig. I expect to see a similar type of impact in Q4. I won’t disclose how much the impact will be, but we saw a positive impact from the purchase of hardware in Q3, and we will see a similar impact also in Q4.

Perfect.

Positive impact.

Oh yeah, great. And then also on lab automation. I think median reported EBITDA margin in the last three years is close to the current level, actually, at 8%. I just wonder if you can give some flavor on this current margin level, if it’s reasonable to expect a significant increase in margins for lab automation as we move into 2026, because you highlight some elevated costs here in Q3 as well.

Yeah, I won’t go into sort of specifically commenting on what kind of margin we can expect. We do have higher ambitions for the cost base in Biosero, and we expect to be able to scale that cost base in a more efficient way going into 2026. By that, of course, also expand our EBITDA margins that we do believe could be higher than the margins that we see today.

Okay. And so it’s largely a consulting business. Is it possible to quantify the utilization that you currently have and how much more projects could you add on this current cost base without, yeah.

Yeah, we won’t go into utilization rate because that would be quite commercially sensitive. We do believe that we can gain more efficiencies on the cost that we have in Biosero and by that also be able to take on more projects. We won’t comment specifically on what kind of utilization rate we have as of today. We do believe that we can scale the cost base in a more efficient way in Biosero.

Perfect. Great. Finally, on the framework agreement, I just wonder if you can share a bit more on the potential for further similar orders from this customer. Does this relate to only one location and then they could possibly expand it to other locations as well? How should we view this in the longer term?

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: The framework agreement that was signed earlier in the quarter is a global master framework agreement. The orders that we won now in quarter three are for one project in one site, but the framework agreement applies to all the different sites for this big pharma customer.

Okay. Is it fair to assume then if this is a successful project, they could expand this to other sites as well, I guess?

Yes, that’s correct.

Perfect. That’s all for me.

Having that framework agreement in place facilitates the whole procurement process, which is usually quite long and tedious in big companies. It is a very good thing to have that in place.

Okay. Yeah, just a follow-up on that then. What would you say is the visibility for an order from this customer? Will you have some, how much visibility will you have into an order coming in, so to say?

With these types of large customers, it’s really a strategic collaboration. Some of these strategic collaborations, they have usually plans for a couple of years ahead. Then it’s a dialogue between us and the customers so we can ensure that we have the capacity and resources to meet their demands when the different orders will come in. It’s a good collaboration.

Okay, perfect. That was all for me. I jump back into the queue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ludwig.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: The next question comes from Susanna Quackborner from SHB. Please go ahead.

Susanna Quackborner, Analyst, Handelsbanken: Hello, Susanna Quackborner, Handelsbanken. Just to follow on on the Biosero. Regarding the write-down, perhaps you could give us a better or a more detailed explanation of how you’re thinking about this, given that you see continued high demand. You have now reduced the forecast for 2025 and to some extent beyond. Maybe explain what the thinking is here and how we should think about it.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Thank you, Susanna. I think the way you should see it is that when we started 2025, we had much higher ambitions for Biosero and expected more out of Biosero. Now, when we are about to conclude the year, we can see that we will not meet the expectations that we set for Biosero when we started 2025. By that, we also see that the implicit growth then between what we expected in 2025 and what we then expect for 2026 was too ambitious given where current trading is at Biosero. When looking at year-to-date trading in Biosero and what we expected for 2026 going into 2025, we realized that the growth targets for 2026 were too high and have adjusted those targets. With that said, still high ambition. Given the outcome in 2025 and the year-to-date trading in 2025, we realized that we had to revisit 2026.

By that, we also had knock-on effects for the following years following 2026.

Susanna Quackborner, Analyst, Handelsbanken: Right. Also a question on consumables and services. You’ve seen a pickup. Should I see this as a one-off, or are you actually making some kind of transition to selling more consumables, for example? What’s happening here?

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: There are several initiatives to increase recurring revenue. That is one of our five focus areas commercially. As you can also see from other peers in the industry, consumables is going very well. We have also focused on increasing our service sales. As you noted, Susanna, there has been an increase in this particular quarter. I think we should look at the trend, looking at several quarters, because there can also be an effect of the product mix. Much focus on consumables and service overall.

Susanna Quackborner, Analyst, Handelsbanken: Good. Thank you. I’ll get back to the queue.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound-key-5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Philip Einerson from Redeye. Please go ahead.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Hello, everybody. I’d be curious to understand a little bit more on the sort of operational efficiency and margin improvements which we saw in Q3. Could you help us with sort of reasonable expectations on the OPEX base for the coming quarters? That’s the first.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Okay. In terms of the OPEX base, I would say that it’s quite stable at the moment. We do talk about in the report that we have elevated costs in Biosero as we’re investing into our customers. If anything, we want to continue to scale on the current OPEX base rather than increasing costs in the coming quarters. As we have also been quite clear, we do keep a strict cost control, and we want to continue that and get operational leverage on our current cost base.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Okay. A short follow-up on that would be then on what sort of line item in the income statement would you see you can make the sort of primary savings with the current outlook?

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: No, I wouldn’t say that we see any primary savings. The opposite. I do believe that we should be able to grow while keeping all lines in OPEX flat.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Okay. Okay. I have got one more which is sort of a broader type of question. I mean, we saw that Sartorius lowered the equity exposure in the second half of 2025. I just thought maybe you could provide some additional color on this. It might be hard for you, but anyway. Maybe if you could also provide some commentary on the current status of the collaboration with Sartorius after the divestments. Thank you.

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Yeah, I can answer the first question, and then Maria can answer the second question. The first question is quite simple. We cannot comment on sort of the activities of Sartorius. That is not our job to do that. It is the job of Sartorius.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: When it comes to our collaborations, we have a handful of different scientific collaborations ongoing that will eventually come into the market. These are all going great and are evaluated on a continuous basis to make sure that assumptions and business cases are holding. All fine when it comes to the collaborations. You saw an example of a result of a collaboration with Sartorius in our presentation with Octet and powered by Green Button Go, which was launched earlier this year, has been a good commercial success so far.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Right, right. What I was out for was more like, have there been any sort of changes in the sort of collaboration dynamics following the recent half-year of happenings? I would like to know them.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: No, no.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Okay, good.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Things are going according to plan.

Philip Einerson, Analyst, Redeye: Okay, good. That’s all for me.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: The next question comes from Ludwig Lundgren from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi again. Just a follow-up on the cost base that you mentioned there. R&D on a gross level has really decreased a lot in the last 12 months, at I think around SEK 50 million now in Q3. Is it fair to extrapolate this level of R&D ahead, or will this increase in Q4 as you typically have somewhat of a sales increase there as well? For us to model this, how would you do it?

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: I think it’s important to understand here that we do substantial investment in R&D. What you find in the report is capitalized R&D, what is put on the balance sheet. We have taken on a much, much more conservative way of capitalizing R&D. The different projects will have to pass toll gate three in our gate stage project model before we capitalize any R&D to make sure that we have more security and success of the project. The capitalized R&D and the level of that is not an indication of the amount of R&D that we’re doing, but rather what we put on the balance sheet or not.

Okay. I was actually referring to the gross total level, including both the amount in the P&L and in the balance or in the cash flow. And that one as well has decreased a lot. Just this, say, SEK 50 million, is that a sustainable level in the P&L then?

Jacob Thordenberg, CFO, BICO Group: Yes, it is a sustainable level. I do not see that we will change this. However, as Maria mentioned, we have a much more stringent model now in terms of capitalizing R&D. That is contingent that the different R&D projects within the group pass certain toll gates. The level of R&D, I do not expect that to, in terms of both P&L and what is capitalized, I do not expect that to change dramatically in the coming quarters, no.

Perfect. Very clear.

Okay, good.

Ernest Cowell Host, Conference Host: There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Maria Forss, President and CEO, BICO Group: Thank you for all the questions received. Thank you for your continued interest in supporting BICO Group together with Jacob. I wish you all a great Tuesday. Thank you and goodbye.

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