Earnings call transcript: IQVIA Q3 2025 beats expectations, stock dips

IQVIA Holdings Inc. (market cap: $36.37 billion) reported its third-quarter earnings for 2025, surpassing analyst expectations with an adjusted diluted EPS of $3.00, slightly above the forecast of $2.97. Revenue for the quarter reached $4.1 billion, also exceeding expectations of $4.08 billion. Despite the positive earnings surprise, IQVIA’s stock saw a pre-market decline of 3.51%, reflecting a cautious market sentiment. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company currently appears slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value metrics, with 12 additional ProTips available for subscribers.

Key Takeaways

• IQVIA’s Q3 2025 revenue grew 5.2% year-over-year to $4.1 billion.
• Adjusted diluted EPS increased by 5.6% year-over-year.
• The company’s stock fell 3.51% in pre-market trading despite beating earnings expectations.
• IQVIA is advancing in AI development with plans for 500 specialized agents by 2027.

Company Performance

IQVIA’s performance in Q3 2025 showed robust growth, with revenue increasing by 5.2% compared to the same period last year, building on its impressive 5-year revenue CAGR of 7%. The company continues to strengthen its position in the contract research organization (CRO) sector, particularly in phase one trials and AI-enabled solutions. As a prominent player in the Life Sciences Tools & Services industry, IQVIA maintains strong profitability metrics, with a gross profit margin of 34.25% in the last twelve months. This growth comes amid a competitive market environment and increasing demand for biotech and pharmaceutical research services. For detailed industry analysis and comprehensive metrics, investors can access the full Pro Research Report on InvestingPro.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $4.1 billion, up 5.2% year-over-year
• Adjusted EBITDA: $949 million, a 1.1% increase
• Adjusted Diluted EPS: $3.00, up 5.6% year-over-year
• Free cash flow: $772 million, a record for the company
• Net debt: $13.143 billion with a net leverage ratio of 3.52x

Earnings vs. Forecast

IQVIA’s Q3 2025 earnings surpassed analyst expectations, with an EPS of $3.00 compared to the forecasted $2.97. The revenue of $4.1 billion also exceeded the anticipated $4.08 billion. The EPS surprise was a modest 1.01%, indicating a consistent performance relative to the company’s historical trends.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings beat, IQVIA’s stock price fell 3.51% in pre-market trading, with shares priced at $209.8. This decline follows a previous close of $217.43, with the stock showing a beta of 1.32, indicating higher volatility than the broader market. While trading near its 52-week high, IQVIA has demonstrated strong momentum with a 36.25% return over the past six months. The market’s reaction suggests investor caution, possibly due to broader market trends or sector-specific concerns. InvestingPro subscribers can access real-time valuation metrics and momentum indicators to better understand these price movements.

Outlook & Guidance

IQVIA has provided a Q4 2025 revenue guidance of $4.204 to $4.304 billion and expects an adjusted diluted EPS between $3.35 and $3.45. The company anticipates over 5% revenue growth for the full year 2025 and remains optimistic about maintaining or improving this growth rate in 2026. IQVIA’s strategic focus includes continued AI development and cost reduction initiatives.

Executive Commentary

CEO Ari Bousbib highlighted the company’s strong performance, stating, "We are delivering this year over 5% in top-line revenue growth, which, frankly, given what we’ve been through and the environment we’ve been in in the past year and a half, two years, I think is a very, very strong performance." He also emphasized the role of AI in future growth, saying, "Longer-term, AI certainly, and AI enablement will help mitigate those headwinds and help us long-term improve margins."

Risks and Challenges

• Macroeconomic pressures could impact future growth prospects.
• Competition in the CRO sector remains intense, potentially affecting market share.
• The success of AI initiatives is critical to sustaining margin improvements.
• Changes in biotech funding trends could influence demand for IQVIA’s services.
• Regulatory changes in key markets may pose challenges.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts focused on IQVIA’s "see more, win more" strategy and the reduction in market uncertainty. Discussions also covered improvements in the large pharma and biotech segments and the potential for AI to enhance margins. Executives addressed these queries by highlighting the company’s strategic initiatives and market positioning.

Full transcript - IQVIA Holdings Inc (IQV) Q3 2025:

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the IQVIA Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Kerri Joseph, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury. Mr. Joseph, please begin your conference.

Kerri Joseph, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury, IQVIA: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. With me today are Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ron Bruehlman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Eric Scherber, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Mike Fedock, Senior Vice President, Managing Planning and Analysis, and Gustavo Perrone, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Today, we will be referencing a presentation that will be visible during this call for those of you on our webcast. This presentation will also be available following this call in the Events and Presentations section of our IQVIA Investor Relations website at ir.iqvia.com. Before we begin, I would like to caution listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call will include forward-looking statements.

Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to the risk and uncertainties associated with the company’s business, which are discussed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. In addition, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call, which should be considered a supplement to and not a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures is included in the press release and conference call presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Ari Bousbib.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Thank you, Kerri, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. We delivered another strong quarter, with profit towards the high end of our guidance, reflecting solid operational performance. Free cash flow was particularly impressive this quarter. It was actually the highest quarterly free cash flow ever, even when you consider the large advances we got during the COVID era for vaccine trials. This strong free cash flow, of course, reflects good and disciplined working capital management by the team, but also an improved overall industry backdrop. On the clinical side, net bookings in the quarter totaled exactly $2.6 billion, which resulted in a net book-to-bill ratio of 115, also reflecting the improving trends in customer demand that we started seeing in the second quarter, as well as, of course, solid execution from our sales teams.

In fact, our third quarter net bookings were 5% higher sequentially, 13% higher than a year ago, and 21% higher than the trough that we experienced in Q1 this year. Key demand metrics were also strong in the quarter. The biotech funding momentum is building this year, with each quarter delivering steady sequential growth, reaching $18 billion in Q3, according to Bioworld. Our qualified pipeline was up 6% year over year, driven by large pharma and biotech segments. You will recall that in the second quarter, we had high single-digit sequential RFP flow growth and low teens growth year over year. This quarter, we saw again high single-digit RFP flow growth sequentially and 20% growth year over year, with growth across all segments. Importantly, client decision-making timelines have been improving sequentially.

Finally, our backlog reached a new record of $32.4 billion at the end of the quarter, showing growth of 4.1% compared to the prior year. On the commercial side, Technology and Analytics Solutions (TASS) continued to perform well in the third quarter and delivered strong results despite tougher year-over-year comparisons. In fact, if you look historically at sequential revenue growth, Q3 is generally flat to down versus Q2, and we were slightly up this quarter. This was driven by ongoing momentum from drug launches and the strength of our broader commercial portfolio. I do want to mention the good growth we had this quarter in Contract Sales and Medical Solutions (CSMS), about a third of which was from an acquisition.

We decided to increase our capabilities in this segment as we are seeing a developing trend of large pharma clients increasingly looking to outsource commercial operations for established brands in specific markets. These tend to be large, multi-year engagements, typically spanning across therapies and geographies, and IQVIA is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this trend by combining our information and analytics and domain knowledge with a local sales force footprint. Let me turn to the results of the quarter. Again, strong revenue and profit results. Revenue for the third quarter came in at the high end of our guidance range, representing year-over-year growth of 5.2% on a reported basis and just under 4% at constant currency. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was up 1.1%. Third quarter adjusted diluted EPS of $3 increased 5.6% year over year. Let me just now, as I usually do, share a few highlights of business activity.

Let me start with TASS. New drug launches continue to be a key area of strength for IQVIA. A few examples. A biotech client awarded us a multi-year integrated partnership to support faster product launches. This win includes a full suite of information assets and analytics capabilities. A top 10 pharma client awarded IQVIA a program to support the launch of a novel oncology therapy. Top 20 pharma clients awarded IQVIA a contract to support the launch of a dual indication metabolic therapy utilizing AI capabilities to integrate advanced patient insights into product utilization and patient response. A top 10 pharma client selected IQVIA to provide launch support for a new autoimmune disorder therapy. The engagement includes advanced AI-enabled patient-level solutions that enable performance tracking and analytics near real-time and integrate specialty pharmacy data and payer insights.

A good example of the commercial outsourcing trend I mentioned earlier was a very large award from a top five pharma client to manage end-to-end commercialization and promotion of an established brand portfolio in a very large overseas market. We’re progressing as planned to deploy highly specialized industry AI agents. So far, we have approximately 90 agents in development covering 25 use cases across commercial, real-world, and R&DS. We’re in fact now seeing growing demand to help our clients accelerate AI adoption. We are increasingly helping our clients build data infrastructures that are robust and AI-ready by leveraging IQVIA’s healthcare-grade AI ecosystem, combining advanced information management, integrated platforms, security, safety, and privacy, along with domain expertise. Let me share a few examples of key wins in the quarter.

A top 20 pharma client selected IQVIA to deliver a next-generation information management solution that streamlines hundreds of sales data feeds into an AI-enabled, centralized, simplified global warehouse. Another top 10 pharma client awarded IQVIA a contract to deploy a next-generation AI-enabled SaaS platform to optimize global compliance reporting. A biotech client chose IQVIA to deploy a new global master data management program to enhance AI-enabled omnichannel marketing and analytics operations. Our real-world business continues to perform well. Here are some examples. Top 10 pharma clients selected IQVIA to lead a post-market commitment study evaluating treatment outcomes in African-American patients with lung cancer. A biotech client selected IQVIA to lead a prospective real-world study supporting a regulatory commitment to a rare oncology disease. A biotech client selected IQVIA to deliver a retrospective real-world study supporting post-marketing commitments for their newly approved drugs to fulfill regulatory requirements.

Turning to R&D Solutions, the positive momentum that we saw in Q2 continued to build through Q3. A few stand-up wins with our biotech customers first. In oncology, a first-time sponsor selected IQVIA to lead a phase one trial for a novel leukemia treatment. Another biotech client selected IQVIA to lead a complex phase one and phase two trial in hematologic oncology, targeting multiple cohorts across two indications. It was also selected as the exclusive CRO partner for a biotech’s entire cardiovascular program. This recognizes our leadership in cell and gene therapy and cardiovascular research, as well as our ability to execute globally. Large pharma was also strong in the quarter. For example, we were selected to lead a phase two study in stroke therapy, demonstrating our deep neuroscience expertise and global trial capabilities.

Another top 10 large pharma client selected IQVIA to manage a global phase three MASH program, leveraging AI-enabled pathology tools and a robust site network to accelerate execution. We were also selected to lead a phase three ovarian cancer study, highlighting our deep therapeutic expertise and the strength of the integrated delivery model we’ve built in partnership with these clients. Now, before I turn it to Ron for details on our financial performance in the quarter, I want to say a word about the CFO transition we’ve announced some time ago. As you know, Mike Fedock will step into the CFO role on February 28, 2026, succeeding Ron Bruehlman, who will retire after a remarkable tenure. That’s the good news. Ron will stay on as a Senior Advisor to continue to help us on specific projects and to help ensure a smooth transition.

Ron has been a highly valued leader of this company for many years. In fact, Ron and I have been working together for over a quarter century. Ron has been instrumental in shaping IQVIA’s financial strategy, driving its transformation into a leading global organization. He was here from managing the IMS Health IPO in 2014 through the Quintiles merger in 2016. He returned in 2020 to help us navigate the pandemic. His steady leadership and strategic long-term vision have been essential in building a high-performance global finance organization and in helping IQVIA remain resilient during unprecedented times over the past few years. Mike brings deep industry experience, and he has held key financial leadership roles across IQVIA, including as CFO of our R&D Solutions business and prior to that, as CFO of our IQVIA laboratory business.

He’s worked closely with me and the senior team for years now, and he’s very well positioned to lead our finance function into IQVIA’s next phase of growth. Let me now turn to Ron for more details on our financial performance.

Ron Bruehlman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, IQVIA: Thanks, Ari, and good morning to everyone. Let’s start by reviewing revenue. Our third quarter revenue of $4.1 billion grew 5.2% on a reported basis and 3.9% at constant currency. Now, excluding COVID-related work from this year and last, revenue grew 4.5% at constant currency. This included about a point and a half of contribution from acquisitions. Technology and Analytics Solutions revenue for the third quarter was $1.631 billion, up 5% reported and 3.3% at constant currency. R&D Solutions third quarter revenue was $2.26 billion, growing 4.5% reported and 3.4% at constant currency. Excluding the step-down in COVID-related revenues, R&D Solutions revenue grew 4.5% at constant currency. Lastly, our Contract Sales and Medical Solutions business, or CSMS, had revenue of $209 million, up 16.1% reported and 13.9% at constant currency. Year-to-date revenue for the company was $11.946 billion, up 4.4% reported and 3.7% at constant currency.

Excluding all COVID-related work, our year-to-date growth was approximately 4.5% at constant currency. Technology and Analytics Solutions revenue was $4.805 billion year-to-date, up 6.7% reported and 5.8% at constant currency. R&D Solutions year-to-date revenue of $6.563 billion was up 2.5% at actual FX rates and 1.9% at constant currency. Excluding COVID-related work from both periods, revenue grew approximately 3.5% at constant currency. CSMS year-to-date revenue of $578 million was up 6.8% reported and 5.9% at constant currency. Let’s move down to P&L now. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $949 million, representing growth of 1.1%, while year-to-date adjusted EBITDA was $2.742 billion, up an even 2% year over year. Our third quarter GAAP net income was $331 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.93. Year-to-date GAAP net income was $846 million or $4.86 of diluted earnings per share.

Adjusted net income was $515 million for the third quarter, and adjusted diluted EPS was an even $3. Year-to-date adjusted net income was $1.48 billion or $8.50 per share. As Ari noted, we had strong net new bookings this quarter, confirming the improved demand environment we started to see in the second quarter. The R&D Solutions backlog as of September 30 was $32.4 billion, up 4.1% year over year. Next 12-month revenue from backlog was $8.1 billion, up 4.0% year over year. Reviewing the balance sheet, as of September 30, cash and cash equivalents totaled $1.814 billion and gross debt was $14.957 billion. That resulted in net debt of $13.143 billion. Our net leverage ratio ended the quarter at 3.52 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA.

Third quarter cash flow from operations was $908 million and capital expenditures were $136 million, which resulted in record free cash flow for the quarter of $772 million. Now I’ll turn it over to Mike Fedock, who will share details on our guidance. Mike.

Mike Fedock, Senior Vice President, Managing Planning and Analysis (Incoming CFO), IQVIA: Thanks, Ron, and good morning, everyone. Let’s start with our full-year guidance. We are confirming our full-year 2025 guidance and are narrowing the ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted diluted earnings per share and are maintaining the midpoint of our prior guide. We expect revenue to be between $16.15 billion and $16.25 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 4.8% to 5.5% or 5.2% at the midpoint. This revenue guidance includes approximately $100 million of COVID-related revenue step-down entirely in R&DS, approximately 100 basis points of tailwind from foreign exchange, and approximately 150 basis points of contribution from acquisitions. These assumptions are unchanged from the prior guide. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $3.775 billion and $3.8 billion, growing 2.5% to 3.1% year over year or 2.8% at the midpoint.

We expect adjusted diluted EPS to be between $11.85 and $11.95, up 6.5% to 7.4% versus prior year, or about 7% at the midpoint. Now, turning to the fourth quarter, we’re expecting revenue to be between $4.204 billion and $4.304 billion, which represents year-over-year growth of 6.2% to 8.7%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $1.033 billion and $1.058 billion, representing growth of 3.7% to 6.2% versus prior year. Adjusted diluted EPS is expected to be between $3.35 and $3.45, which represents year-over-year growth of 7.4% to 10.6%. This guidance assumes that foreign currency rates as of October 27th continue for the balance of the year. To summarize, in the third quarter, we delivered strong top and bottom line results, as well as record high free cash flow. R&DS net bookings were $2.6 billion, growing 13% year over year and resulting in a net book-to-bill ratio of 1.15 times.

The forward-looking demand metrics in the clinical business continue to trend in the right direction, with 20% RFP flow growth year over year and sequential improvements in client decision-making timelines. TASS performed well and delivered solid results, driven by ongoing momentum from drug launches and the strength of our broader commercial portfolio. We reaffirmed our full-year 2025 guidance. With that, let me hand it back to the operator for Q&A.

Operator: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We request that you please limit yourself to just one question so that others in the queue may participate as well. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of David Windley from Jefferies Group LLC. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Ari, I wanted to ask you about what I think you call your see more, win more strategy and how that has played out through the middle of the year or through this year in terms of contributing to the RFP flows improvement that you’re highlighting, as well as your win rate and how we should think about, you know, an amount, if any, you know, price competitiveness you’re applying in that strategy and how that plays out through the P&L as that business converts to revenue. Thank you.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Okay. Usually we keep the best for the last, but you start with the big strategic question. Let’s start with that. Okay. Look, the strength in bookings momentum and RFP flow, I think we have to say, and we can see it in the industry in general, I think reflects a reduction in the level of uncertainty in the market environment and the macro political environment. I think there have been a few developments that have sort of helped tilt decision-making at large pharma on certain programs favorably. The climate overall has improved. That’s undeniable in our sector. That certainly is a big driver of our growth.

The specifics of our see more, win more strategy, which we started earlier this year, which has, as you know, now has a lot of imitators, has borne fruits as well in the sense that we’ve been looking at markets that we previously hadn’t been touching and had left some more marginal players essentially in a quasi-monopoly situation in those segments. We’ve decided to go after that. The pricing conversation is a little bit overdone, in my opinion. In a climate where market dynamics were unfavorable, with a lot of uncertainty and fewer deals to be had, there was more competition on pricing. All we did in the first part of the year was to align to those pricing discounts that were being offered as opposed to walk away in order to continue to build our book of business. We don’t see that trend continuing.

It hasn’t been an issue at all. Certainly, this past quarter, the opposite. We’ve walked away from deals. We think that the sector in general is a lot healthier in terms of market dynamics. The level of uncertainty has gone down and pricing has returned to normal levels. You had a question and follow-up on P&L implications. Look, we have a $32+ billion backlog, and only a tiny portion of that was subject to a few discounts that we did earlier in the year. The revenues associated with those things are going to bleed over our P&L over the next five years. We do not expect that to have any impact whatsoever on our P&L going forward.

Great. Thanks, Ari. I’ll stick to the one question. Thank you.

Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Justin Bowers from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Ari, it sounds like the business environment is improving. Funding’s up, consumer confidence improving, and both of the segments, TASS and R&DS, are strengthening, at least on a two-year stack basis. Is this momentum that we should expect to continue over the next few quarters and into 2026? Maybe if you just give us a glimpse at how you’re thinking about those two.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Yeah. Look, you know, I can’t tell how to twist the ball here, and I’m not going to give you 2026. This was a clever way of asking me about 2026 guidance. We’re not going to do that here. As you know, we usually provide guidance for the year concurrent with the release of our fourth quarter and full-year earnings early in the year. End of January or early February, we’ll provide that. We are in the midst of our planning process, and it’s still early. We’re still in October. What I can tell you is we are going to deliver this year over 5% in top-line revenue growth, which, frankly, given what we’ve been through and the environment we’ve been in in the past year and a half, two years, I think is a very, very strong performance.

You can see that compared to our larger, certainly the larger CRO peers, we are doing very, very well. I cannot tell you yet what 2026 will be in the next few quarters, but I mean, I would be surprised if revenue growth in 2026 is not at least the same or better than the growth that we are seeing this year. I see that with a certain amount of confidence.

Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Anderson from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks so much for the question and congrats, Ron, on your retirement. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit, Ari, about some of the differences between what you’re seeing on the pharma side versus the biotech side. I think you covered the biotech side nicely in the see more, win more answer, but just sort of wanted to peel back the onion a little bit on the pharma side as well.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: You mean the large pharma side?

Yes, please.

Look, you know, large pharma went through a lot of transformation internally in terms of their investment programs. Going back to the IRA, there was this whole phase of reprioritization of programs and reviews of their pipelines, which led to an elevated level of cancellations due to this reprioritization activity. That lasted for a year, year and a half, beginning mid of 2023 and certainly continuing through 2024. We see that activity as having essentially been completed. We haven’t seen any further cancellations as a result of that type of activity. We think that the pipelines are now fully sanitized. Of course, there continue to be cancellations, but they are all more business as usual due to futility or other reasons and nothing unusual. Large pharma, actually, the RFP flow for large pharma is very strong. I mentioned that our RFP flow growth year over year is 20%.

That applies to large pharma and to EBP equally. There is a strong, strong momentum. That is helped by the more calming environment and perhaps more certainty around what’s coming. It is also helped by the fact that these reprioritizations have been largely completed. The programs that are now on the table are programs that our clients want to engage in and want to go forward with. Our cancellations, I always say, in recent years were about half a billion dollars a quarter, plus or minus a couple of hundred million dollars. They could range between $300 million and $700 million in a given quarter. A couple of billion dollars plus, year in, year out. In 2024, we had more than 50% higher cancellation than that, over $3 billion in 2024, because of these reprioritizations from large pharma. That essentially is behind us.

Year to date, our cancellations follow a regular pattern. I think it’s actually somewhere between, on average, about $550 million a quarter. I saw the numbers yesterday. Nothing much to talk about. This quarter, we were a little bit towards the higher end of that range, not because of reprioritizations. It’s simply normal course of business. Our growth, bookings were very strong, very, very strong this year. You can see that also in our $2.6 billion of net bookings, which were up 13% year over year, absequentially missing the digits. The trough we experienced Q1 probably was the trough. We don’t see that in the details. Large pharma dynamics returning to normal business conditions, trending towards normal business conditions. Biotech funding improving, which, as you know, is the driver of EBP growth. That, again, is reflected in our bookings and in our RFP flow as well.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ryskin from Leerink Partners. Your line is open.

Good morning, and thanks for taking the question. Maybe if I can ask a little bit about TASS. You know, nice growth against, obviously, a tough comp. As you think about the pathway forward, what do you see as the contributions you’re getting from some of your inorganic advancements? Where do you see the best opportunities to continue to expand that business above and beyond your own R&D? Talk AI, talk anything along that vein. That’d be great. Thanks.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Thank you, Michael. You spoke about inorganic. I think, you know, we said the 1.5 points of the contributions of our research to the company as a whole. As you know, as always has been the case, the bulk of that is in TASS. Although I think in this past quarter, we did a large acquisition that was in R&DS and SFO. I think that what we spent $485 million that we spent in total. Most of that is one acquisition called Next Oncology, which is an SMO special in oncology, very attractive business. We acquired this end of Q3, so not much contribution in Q3. The inorganic contribution to R&DS will be a few million dollars, I guess, in the double digits, like $50 million or thereabouts of revenue to R&DS in Q4. With respect to TASS, we didn’t do much in Q3.

I guess the acquisition is contribution for the year. We did a CSMS deal as well, right, which is small, obviously, but since CSMS is a small segment, it was a large piece of it. Not much in TASS in Q3. In general, we try to buy technology companies, companies that can add capabilities to our suite of products, analytics companies. There’s a lot of innovation, as you know, in the AI space.

Medical Affairs, Clinical Affairs.

Medical affairs, real-world. Real-world is very strong. Real-world evidence was really very, very strong in the quarter. We expect that to continue into the future. For the year, again, a point and a half, I would say 50% to 60% of that would be TASS and the rest for the year, right, for 2025. The rest R&DS and then a little bit CSMS.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum and Boen Stifel. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you. Ari, before I ask you a question, I just want to also commend Ron. Ron, I’ve seen you retire before, and I’m not fully convinced you’re gone right now.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: No, I’m not. The wrong word to apply, Ron, not retiring.

Yeah, you’ve dragged him out of retirement in the past, Ari, so I don’t know. Ari, I want to ask you to talk a little bit about the subcomponents that in TASS and how they’re growing in terms of real-world evidence and consulting and analytics, and just, you know, some of the trends that you’re seeing there. I know consulting often kind of leads the trend in terms of if you see that picking up, that means that, you know, the environment is getting better. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about each of the components and what you’re seeing and maybe what that says about the market.

Yeah. Look, the growth rate in Q3, it’s hard to derive big trends because, as you know, Q3, in general, is the weakest quarter in the year. Specifically this year, we had a tough compare with last year. What was the growth of TASS Q3 last year? It was like 8.6%, I want to say. I don’t remember the number.

Kerri Joseph, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury, IQVIA: 8.6%.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: 8.6% growth last year. We knew we had a tough compare this quarter. As I mentioned in my introductory remarks, sequentially, we’re slightly up. Usually, because Q3 is the toughest quarter, given nothing happens for six weeks in Europe. It used to be three weeks, then it’s four, and now it’s six, and it’s going to eight. Anyway, nobody is working. I think that the performance this quarter was very strong. It was led largely by the real-world evidence, which was very, very strong. Everything else was obviously data is usually low single digits, and everything else was between low to kind of mid-single digits growth. Again, against very tough compares, same for consulting.

Are you seeing a pickup in that consulting?

You will recall that I know why you’re asking consulting because it’s kind of the most discreet and it’s positive, you know, in terms of leading indicator. When things were trending negative territory, consulting went down very rapidly. In 2024, end of 2023, first part of 2024 timeframe, consulting was down, actually negative. One of the boards, I think it was almost negative double digits. It’s positive this quarter. Everything outside real-world evidence in aggregate was, you know, in single digits or thereabouts.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric Coldwell from Robert W. Baird & Co. Your line is open.

I’ll stick on the TASS question here just to make sure we’re all level set for the fourth quarter. Back in February, you guided to $6.3 to $6.5 billion. That was quite a while ago. A lot of things changed. If I use that original range and I take out what you’ve done year to date, that would put the implied fourth quarter revenue guidance about $100 to $300 million below the street on TASS. That’s a big range and obviously a lower number than where consensus lies today. I’m just hoping you can give us a little specificity on what you’re thinking for TASS in the fourth quarter so we aren’t ahead of our skates here.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Yeah, I’m not sure you’re talking about our targets, and then you talked about the street.

You guided from February to $6.3 to $6.5 billion. The year-to-date number through three quarters is a little over $4.8 billion. That leaves less than $1.5 to less than $1.7 billion to get to the full year, if I’ve done the math.

Yeah. I am going to talk to the finance team here and ask them. I do not have the numbers in front of me. What you are suggesting, that TASS would be lower than our guidance, I do not see that.

You’re not really suggesting anything. I’m hoping you’ll tell us.

You can take that on your follow-up.

Yeah. I’m hoping you’ll tell us that things have changed since the February numbers, but it is possible that maybe the street’s just a little high on this segment. It looks like you’ll cover it with R&DS and CSMS, but I just want to make sure we’re.

Again, Eric, I think I’m with that. We are delivering on guidance. Is that, am I wrong?

Yeah. Eric, we’ll help you with some of the Q4 details. On a full-year basis, there’s been no change all year with TASS that the full-year CFX growth rates were between 5% and 6%. There’s no change there. We can help you with that.

We always said 5% to 6% growth year over year, correct?

Yeah. CFX.

CFX.

Correct.

That is exactly what we are.

I think you said 5% to 7% constant currency. I think I believe it was 5% to 7% on February 6th was the range. We narrowed our guide in the last call there. We’re still sticking with the 5% to 6%. There’s no change from the prior guide and no change where TASS is going to land in the full year.

Okay. I don’t see any change. There’s no change, Eric.

We’ll help you with that with the Q4, but there’s been no change. Perfect. Thanks. Just want to make sure we’re not ahead of our skates. I appreciate that very much.

Anything else you had other than this clarification?

Guy had 42 questions, but you told us to stick to one. Let me.

No, I know, but I am going to give you a special discount because that wasn’t really your question.

I mean, you know.

That was like a commentary. I know you were trying to get some color.

I appreciate it. I’ll sneak two in. I’ll take advantage and, you know, give an inch. I’ll take a mile. Two things just quickly. One, do get some ongoing questions on those couple of mega trials that you mentioned earlier this year. I’m just curious if you can tell us what the status is. I think one was definitely ramping back up here in the back half, and I believe the other was still pushed out till next year if happening at all. Maybe just an update on the mega trials. Secondarily, Ari, in your prepared commentary, you highlighted some interesting wins. You mentioned phase one a couple of times. My historic interpretation of past conversations was that you weren’t really a big phase one shop. Maybe you partnered with some others.

I’m curious on what your involvement is these days in actually managing or even having phase one CPU units. Maybe give us a little more color on what you’re doing there. Thanks so much.

Yeah. It’s a very good observation, Eric. We are seeing a lot of demand for phase one work. We are the network partners. You know, we don’t have any significant presence in that segment, but we are expanding. This is why I chose to highlight a couple of examples. It’s also, by the way, part of our see more, win more strategy. It happens to be that there is more demand. Things are getting, quote-unquote, "restarted again," and the pipelines are strong. We are seeing more demand, and we are ourselves being more present in the segment.

Ron Bruehlman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, IQVIA: Yeah. Phase one in oncology is a little bit different because you’re not dealing with healthy volunteers. You’re right, it tends to feed your later business than other phase one trials. There is some distinction there. That’s what Next Oncology was, phase one oncology.

Yeah, perfect. That’s super helpful. Thanks.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Yeah, the two trials.

Ron Bruehlman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, IQVIA: Yeah, the two trials, no change there. We don’t have anything factored into our fourth quarter guidance for revenue burn from either of them. I suppose that’s a slight change from what we said for.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Right. It’s basically all pushed out of the year, and it’s not contemplated in the guidance, right? Not. Yeah. Bear in mind that, you know, we mentioned these, what is it, like a year ago at this time because it caused us at the time to change our guidance for R&DS. These were fast burning and had already gotten started, and they were interrupted. That caused us to change our guide for R&DS in the fourth quarter for the fourth quarter of last year, and we had to mention it. We only mention specific trials to the extent we can, and we try to be very careful because we are mindful of confidentiality for our clients and so on. We cannot say very much, but we do mention it when there is a significant event attached to one trial.

In this case, it was two, and that caused us to change anything in our numbers. Bear in mind, you know, at any point in time, we’re working on a couple of thousand trials, and we keep building backlog, as you saw. Thankfully, we have had very positive momentum in our bookings, and it’s continuing. We feel good about that, and it continued to stagger on our book of business. Which, again, enabled us to continue to deliver and do even better on R&DS, even without those trials resuming this year. Thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

I’ll give you one more question.

Yes.

One more.

Next question, operator. This will be our last question.

Operator: Your last question comes from the line of Jailendra Singh from Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask more about AI and maybe try to make it a two-parter. First part being if you have any insights on how AI is changing your customers’ business models and specifically their appetite for outsourcing. The second part would be how is IQVIA using AI internally to deliver results for clients that may be a little bit more efficiently and whether you have any visibility into potential gross margin improvements from those internal use cases. Thank you.

Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IQVIA: Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. You know, we’ve spoken about this in the past. So far, we have about 90 AI agents in development that cover 25 use cases, and we continue to progress that. By early 2027, we plan to develop 500 highly specialized agents. What these do is they essentially eliminate a lot of physical labor from the tasks that we perform for our clients. Internally, I think the second part of your question first, certainly, that will help improve our margins longer term. It takes time to deploy, obviously, and it takes time to translate that into margin improvements. We’ve had great examples on the commercial side. We use, for example, AI tools to compare patient cohorts to each other and highlight differences with natural language output, which leads to improvements in cycle times from several weeks to a couple of weeks.

We really have a lot of examples, and it takes a long time to recite those. We see significant value in continuing to do more with less through deploying agents within our internal processes. For our clients, I give a number of examples in my introductory remarks. Our clients are very interested, of course, in using AI. Early on, before we get involved in discovery, there’s a lot of focus from our clients in the discovery space to try to use AI to sort out molecules and try to identify, you know, the most like, quote-unquote, "the most likely to succeed" trials to tackle a specific disease. We participate a little bit with some models and some tools that we have. Later on, the issue on the clinical side is that it’s highly regulated, and you get to go through standard processes that are defined by regulations.

You have to use the intermediary spaces between those regulatory interactions to utilize and deploy AI. At the sites, it’s very helpful. Our clients are using, of course, AI in all the technology tools, some of which are our tools that they use commercially. They use AI, I gave a few examples, to manage their promotion campaigns, marketing campaigns. They use AI to get patient insights in the real world. Real-world evidence is a big area for us. One of the reasons we experience such great growth is we’ve got very advanced capabilities given our vast information assets in real-world patient data. You know, using AI tools and trying to evaluate how a drug behaves in the real world using AI becomes a great, great opportunity. These are the areas.

Now, with respect to the margin, as you know, we’ve had a lot of margin headwinds, certainly this year, because of more fast tools, largely because of the FX tailwind, all of which comes without profits, and a little bit of the mix. For example, in Q3, CSMS was stronger, and CSMS is lower margin. When you have margin headwinds like that, certainly, we’re counting on our usual cost reduction programs, offshoring, and so on. Longer-term, AI certainly, and AI enablement will help mitigate those headwinds and help us long-term improve margins. Thank you. I think the team will be available for our questions, as always. Thank you.

Kerri Joseph, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury, IQVIA: Thank you for taking the time today.

Operator: Thank you for taking the time to join us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on the 2025 fourth quarter earnings call. The team will be available the rest of the day to take any follow-up questions you might have. Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.