ICON at Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference: Navigating Market Challenges

On Wednesday, 12 March 2025, ICON PLC (NASDAQ: ICLR) participated in Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025, where CEO Steve Cutler and Head of IR Kate Haven discussed the company’s strategic response to current market challenges. While facing short-term hurdles such as budget cuts and biotech sector volatility, ICON remains optimistic about long-term growth in R&D outsourcing. The company is focusing on strategic partnerships and technological advancements to enhance efficiency.

Key Takeaways

• ICON is navigating a transition year with mixed impacts from its top clients.
• Delayed vaccine trials are expected to affect first-half margins.
• The company is leveraging AI and technology to improve clinical trial efficiency.
• Strategic partnerships are a key focus, with new alliances announced recently.
• The biotech funding environment remains cautious, impacting project prioritization.

Financial Results

• ICON anticipates a revenue loss of $200 billion for pharma clients over the next five years due to loss of exclusivity.
• The company aims for a growth target of $100 billion in addition to replacing the revenue loss, striving for a 5% CAGR.
• Vaccine trials contribute mid-single digits to the backlog, while COVID-related work contributes low single digits to current revenue.
• First-half margins are expected to be negatively impacted by delayed vaccine trials.

Operational Updates

• ICON is experiencing stabilization from one major client, while another continues to decline.
• The company has announced new strategic partners each of the last two quarters.
• Resource reallocation is underway to mitigate the impact of trial delays.
• ICON utilizes a global network of 15,000 sites to support its operations.

Future Outlook

• High-end guidance depends on vaccine trial progress and increased biotech demand.
• ICON offers hybrid solutions, believing the FSP model will remain a trend in large pharma.
• R&D priorities include patient recruitment, automation, and the use of AI and robotics.
• CFO Nigel Clark is focused on cash management, improved forecasting, and strategic M&A opportunities.

Q&A Highlights

• ICON assists customers in rationalizing pipelines using datasets.
• Recent strategic partnerships are driven by the need for revenue growth and technological advancement.
• The FSP model is not trending towards smaller companies, but it reduces revenue volatility compared to full-service contracts.
• AI is enhancing the contracting process, allowing for faster execution.

In conclusion, ICON continues to adapt to market dynamics, emphasizing strategic partnerships and technological innovation. For further details, refer to the full transcript.

Full transcript - Leerink’s Global Healthcare Conference 2025:

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this session of the Leerink Global Healthcare Conference. I’m Mike Cherney, the healthcare tech distribution analyst. It’s my pleasure to have, for the, I think, the first time in a Leerink event, the ICON team. We have Steve Cutler, CEO, Kate Haven, who heads up IR among many other functions.

We’re just going to jump into some questions and go from there. And so, Steve, I want to level set now because the market obviously has had some turmoil, you know, somewhat out of your control in terms of changing dynamics of your core pharma customers. You know, as you think about where the company sits right now, maybe just level set and remind us of the importance of the value proposition of ICON, why you continue to be a value added partner. And even in the face of some of your pharma sponsors going through these portfolio rationalizations pipelines, some of the positive dynamics that you’re continuing to see, whether that’s factored into the four key bookings results, which were certainly solid on a gross basis or how you think about the pipeline, as it currently sets?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Sure. Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everybody. I think our long term thesis is very constructive. I looked at I was actually just spent a couple of days with a number of our large pharma and biotech customers at a meeting in Florida. And, you know, we were talking about, you know, the longer term opportunities in in R and D and what they need to do.

I mean, certainly, our customers have some challenges in terms of loss of exclusivity and need to bring new medicines to market quickly. Something like 200,000,000,000 in revenue is going to be wiped off their top lines over the next five years or so. And they need to grow at 100 they need to replace that and then grow at another $100,000,000,000 in order to grow at 5% on a CAGR basis. So they’ve got some big challenges in front now. They’re confronting them in in different ways.

At the moment, there’s some, you know, there’s some budget cuts, there’s some looking at models, etcetera, etcetera. But when I look at that challenge that they have, I I see huge opportunity for our business and our industry over the next five years, opportunity for our business and our industry over the next five years or so. Now that’s that’s the long term. And so I’m very optimistic about about where our company goes and where our industry goes over that period of time. They are going to have to outsource.

They are going to have to employ organizations like Icon in order to bring innovative new medicines to market. And that will be in a functional basis. It’ll be in a full service basis. There’ll be different ways of doing it, you know. And so we remain very optimistic.

In the short term, we are working through something of a transition year as we’ve talked about. There are some of them moving their budgets down. We’ve been impacted fairly significantly from our top two customers. That’s working through our system. The biotech environment remains somewhat volatile.

There are 800 public biotechs, 200, I think it’s about a quarter of them, are worth less than cash value at the moment. So they’re working through some challenges. No question about that. But I do believe we’re part of the solution that we can offer them. We have a good relationship.

We’re seeing some positivity in the opportunities from a biotech point of view. And so even in the short term, we’re starting to see some green shoots, although that volatility continues and those delays in decision making continue at the moment.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And obviously, one customer is one customer. You’ve been very transparent and appreciably so of some of the dynamics going through some of your larger companies. That being said, you’re also partially part of the solution for how they rationalize pipelines, figuring out using datasets, what can keep going on, will be well positioned going forward. As you think about the real time discussions you’re having, especially well timed coming off of your customer meeting, it’s really hard predict, but how where do you think we are in terms of them feeling comfortable, be it your two largest, which you noted, some of your other key partners about coming out the back end of a, call it, new normal of demand, new normal of clinical trial work that they plan to do?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Yeah. It’s it’s hard to put a timeline on it, Mike. You know, we we certainly with our top two, you know, I think we’ve been public in terms of saying our number one, we believe we’re getting to the Nadir and we’re starting to see some stability there and possibly even some mild uptick modest, but we’re at the bottom there. With our other customer, it’s still declining from a revenue point of view and from a sales point of view. So we’d like to think that this year, we’ll see the bottom of that, but we’re not quite sure at that at this point.

They remain relatively in flux in terms of their model, in terms of their new management that’s come in there. So there are some uncertainties around that particular customer. So from that point of view, one, I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on. The other, not so much and we’re still seeing that play out. On the other hand, we’ve got a number of large customers coming into our top five and growing quite rapidly, albeit some of them in a more oncology rare disease sort of space.

So that burn isn’t quite at the rate we’d like. But there’s no question we’re building a nice franchise and a nice backlog with some of those other customers. And there are others in our strategic pipeline that are moving in a full service direction as well, which is very encouraging for us as well and starting to make awards, albeit a little ahead of what we’d expect from new strategic partners. So as always, a there’s a portfolio impact here where we do have a couple of customers who are going the wrong way, but others who are moving in and doing nicely.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And I know a lot of the focus has been on the cancellation rates, some of that portfolio rationalization, but I believe you’ve had a new strategic partner announcement each of the last two quarters, if I recall correctly. What’s driving some of those expansions? Most pharma companies obviously are not new to you given the breadth of your services. But what’s been behind some of the rationale of those new strategic partnership wins? And what are they looking for ICON to do that they weren’t accomplishing on their own, weren’t accomplishing with other partners before?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Yeah. I think with the with the two we brought on recently, certainly one of them has been traditionally an insourcing customer. They’ve done a lot of work in house. They’ve done a lot of work themselves and done it successfully, but they’ve realized with their revenue growth and their pipeline that they’re going to have to do something different going forward. So, you know, we’ve been selected along with one or two others to help them with doing that.

And, you know, the growth, the opportunity that the customer is almost limitless. It’s very substantial. The other one has had a number of partners for a number of years. We weren’t one of those up until now, but we’ve now replaced one of their strategic partners. So they’ve seen, I think an opportunity with Icon to bring in a company that’s, you know, at the forefront in terms of technology, in terms of what they need when we’ve been essentially allocated one of their fastest growing therapeutic areas.

So that’s also very encouraging and we’re delighted to be able to help them to play an important role. They’ve realized and they’ve moved very much to a full service approach. They’ve realized that you know, they need to do things a little differently and they’ve changed it up a bit. They’ve always had a both a component of functional and full service, but they’ve with us moving on the full service side of things. So, you know, we brought something to the table that perhaps the incumbent didn’t have.

Some one or two of our competitors have had a few struggles. I mean, that’s not new. And so we’ve been able to move in and present them with a case and with a value proposition that they find compelling, which is encouraging.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And thinking about the guidance for the year, back in January, you gave a fairly wide range. And I mean, we’ve started to talk about this, acknowledge the market dynamics behind it. As you think about using the guidance to frame, some of the positions of the business, if we get to December and you’re at the high end versus at the low end, what’s changed about current market demand that gets you to those ends in terms of what’s embedded in the ranges?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Well, in terms of the high end, what, you know, what’s changed is, obviously, the two try the two large vaccine trials that we’ve been public about have have gone forward, albeit on a on a delayed basis, but that’s that’s important. We’ve also made some progress in terms of the biotech demand that we’re starting to see from an RFP basis. We’ve been able to, you know, win that work and start to to do that work. And then we’ve been able to also continue to prosecute and accelerate the projects we have in our backlog. So the high end is probably an optimistic scenario, obviously.

Obviously, but it does depend certainly upon those two large vaccine studies. On the low end, those vaccine studies move out or get canceled and that remains a possibility. I have to be honest with that. We’ve been transparent about where we are with those. We do expect the one we just we’ve already delayed the first one.

And then the second one that we announced in our eight ks the other day is on a ninety day delay. I don’t have any more information about that. But if they did disappear, we’d certainly be at the at the low end of guidance on those ones.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And just using that as a as a framework, because obviously the two vaccine trials have been very much in focus. But can you just remind us of how big your overall vaccine portfolio is relative to rest of the business? Important context, obviously, given the hyperfocus on the near term bigger trials, but versus the broader services you provide.

Kate Haven, Head of IR, ICON: Yep. So it’s, it’s mid single digits in terms of the percentage of backlog, which those vaccine trials in terms of the COVID work would be inclusive of that. So we’ve talked about the the COVID work being in the low single digits in terms of percentage of revenue this year. So that mid single digits would encompass COVID and then other work we’re doing. Right?

Flu, RSV, other, you know, vaccine work, within that.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And with regards to the most recent ninety day delay, obviously, out of your control. But given the short timeframe of the delay and obviously the hopefulness that after ninety days the work restarts, but how do you deal with the resources allocated towards that trial? You talked on the earnings call about the expectations of basically just kicking off then. And then obviously after the earnings call, the pause came. So clearly, you were prepared to do the work with such a short time frame.

And obviously, we’re in a unique situation as well with the administration changing. How are you reacting to the resource allocation?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Yeah, it’s difficult. But, you know, when people say to me, oh, that’s must be awful for your business, how do you handle it? I say, that’s why we exist. That’s why our industry is here because we have to be able to respond to these sorts of ups and downs. And so while I’d love to think that our work comes in smoothly and consistently and that doesn’t go up and down, that would be great.

But that’s not our raison d’etre is because drug development program stop, start and continue in Texas. So with that in mind, we certainly had a significant amount of resource brought into the organization to do those to do that trial, particularly the trial that was at the time of our call moving forward, you know, fairly aggressively. And it’s and as you know, those vaccine trials require quite a bit of resource over a short period of time. They burn quickly. They burn fast.

They they burn with, you know, strong revenues, etcetera, etcetera. So that will have something of an impact on our first half revenues sorry, well, revenues as well as margins. We’ve got some costs in there that it’s difficult to sort of redeploy immediately. We can do to some extent redeploy them to other programs, avoid hiring, you know, we can do all that to the extent that we can, but it will have some impact on our first half margins. There’s no question about that.

But overall, you know, we’d like to think that as that ninety day, you know, that means the study comes back towards the end of Q2. Assuming that happens, those resources can be pretty actively redeployed at that point and we can we’re off to the races. But there will be some impact on our certainly our first half margins.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: Steve, going back to your biotech comments before, you talked about some elements of green shoots. I mean, downstairs here, it’s been a litany of companies going on. So we can see the biotech activity at work. If you look back over the course of the last year, it seemed like ’24 started with better biotech funding, maybe slowed a little bit over the second half of the year from a market basis. Are you seeing any differences in the cohorts of biotech companies and the speed of which they’re making decisions on making awards based on funding levels versus what you would have seen historically?

Is there anything that they’re pointing out on uncertainty, on delaying cash burn? Anything else you can point to versus the catcher’s Mitt you have to continue to obviously pick up awards?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Yeah. I don’t think it’s changed dramatically since our last call, Mike. We still see caution in that sector of the business. As you say, the overall funding was up last year overall, but it was volatile. And it was in my mind anyway sort of narrowly certainly to some companies.

I think there are a lot of companies out there. And some of them are getting that funding, but there are a lot who aren’t. And I don’t think the funding is perhaps as broadly distributed perhaps as I’d like it to be. And that’s having some challenge. And even when it is, companies are being cautious about how they’re deploying their capital and how they’re what studies they’re prioritizing.

That that’s that’s not just the biotechs. That’s in the large farmer as well. And that prioritization of programs and making sure that they they’re moving their most valuable assets along as fast as possible is, is something that that’s I mean, as I said, I was at the meeting the last couple of days and that was a lot of what they talked about, you know, what where they’re gonna take risks and where they’re not gonna take risks. So it’s that that caution, that that delayed decision making. Well, it’s it’s interesting in the perhaps in the past, it’s been about, you know, fast speed, speed, speed.

Let’s get let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. The moment it’s more about, okay, which assets, which studies, how we’re going to do it, what do we need to do it, and there is a delayed aspect to it. So that is playing into our burn, that is playing into to to our awards and playing into, you know, to how we’re planning our business as well.

And I think that’ll probably continue for most of this year.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: Thinking back to some of the comments from the recent earnings call and I want to dive in a bit on the RFP outlook. I sense the level of optimism as you looked at the potential for awards coming through. Is there anything you can couch any further on how you’re seeing the RFP flow develop? Any changes on the competitive dynamics in terms of who you’re seeing at the best in finals at the end? And I guess, maybe at least in this environment, what are you leading with when you go into pitch for those best in finals on the RFP side?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: In terms of RFPs, again, the picture hasn’t changed dramatically from where we were, you know, a few weeks back. We’re certainly seeing, you know, a modest uptick on the RFP opportunities within the biotech space. Now whether that’s necessarily translates immediately to new awards and into revenue is is a little less certain in my mind because of that of what I talked about with those delayed decision making. They’re going out. They want a budget.

They want to be able to raise money. Some of them will request that come to us are really to, you know, how much do I need to raise to do this trial or to prosecute this program. I think there’s a bit of an uptick there. So, but they’re also, you know, as those opportunities are coming through and we’re selling, you know, let’s say a modest uptick in the RPs. On the large pharma side, it’s probably a bit more flat, a bit more sort of stable and overall, you know, modest increase.

I think the biotech probably outweighs a little bit on the large pharma. So there are opportunities out there. It’s just that the question is how quickly they get decisions get made. And for us, in terms of our pitch to, you know, particularly to to pharma or biotech, you know, we are a clinically focused CRO. That’s all we do.

I think that’s something that resonates well, particularly with the biotechs. They’re they’re looking for, for for for substantial companies who are financially stable and viable that don’t have a huge debt level, but are able to focus very much in the clinical space. We have our executives very focused on our customers. All of our executives have have a link with a customer, are allocated as a sponsor to a customer, whether they’re in the operational side of things or they’re in the global business services. So customers like that.

We have good technology. We have a site network. I think that plays well with them as well. We’re able to engage investigators in their discussions on their programs and even bring them along to bid presentations sometimes. We have some of our alliance site investigators, our Telecare site investigators come along and talk about, you know, how they would what are the things they would see.

We’ve even had patients come along. So we’re we’re really trying to connect the the company with the opportunity and with what they need to do. And that resonates very well, particularly with the smaller customers.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: I would love to see how a patient presents in a, a best and final would be interesting.

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Be careful what you wish for sometimes, Mike, but but it does generally resonate well.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: So so you’ve touched a bit as we’ve gone on the idea of the functional service work versus full service. As you sit here today, whether it’s couching against the recent awards, couching it against the RFP flow, what’s leading to when you see a shift either from FSP to full service, from a full service back to SFP? What are some of the characteristics of the types of companies that are going one direction or the other? And how is I I mean, ICON obviously has flexibility to do both. So how do you go and and react when either customer wants to go one avenue versus the other?

Or what’s what’s what active role do you take in pushing them in one direction if you do?

Kate Haven, Head of IR, ICON: I mean, I guess at the outset, I’d say it’s it’s very customer specific. Right? Not surprisingly. I mean, this, we still see FSP as being very much a large pharma model. Right?

I think there has been some noise in the channel around whether or not that’s moving into the into the mid tier or even down into biotechs, and we’re not really seeing that trend in in a big way. So still very much, you know, large pharma that is, you know, considering, you know, the the functional versus sort of full service. And, ultimately, what we see is that they are looking at their, you know, sort of that interplay between what they have, right, from an internal infrastructure standpoint already, what they feel like their expertise is, right, around what they own, what they need to own, what they need to have control over, and then looking to augment that, right, with either a functional solution or increasingly on the full service side. Right? And as they, make acquisitions, you know, through into the biotech space or go into new therapeutic areas where maybe they don’t have that particular expertise or existing infrastructure, there is an opportunity to do that more on a full service basis.

Right? So in any given customer, there is often this blended approach, right, where they’re looking over time to increasingly have elements of full service and functional. And for us, that’s actually the perfect scenario. Right? Because of our offering.

Right? We have the largest functional and, you know, we obviously go toe to toe with our largest competitor in terms of full service. So we can sit across the table from them and say, let’s customize a solution that works best for you, right, in terms of thinking through, right, if it’s functional, if it’s full service, frankly, we don’t care either way. Right? I mean, obviously, there is a bit of a margin differential at the end of the day, but we wanna meet them where they are.

Right? And and that is going to evolve over time. Right? As as they grow, as they have different needs, as they go into different therapeutic areas, that is going to be a constant that is going to change. And and we have seen this sort of pendulum, right, where where customers have gone more toward functional, more toward full service.

For us, actually, the mix has stayed pretty consistent between functional and full service because we’ve had we have this diversity of our book, right, where it’s a mix, where where some have gone more toward full service, some have been more functional, and that tends to sort of evolve, you know, as as the portfolio changes.

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: It was interesting. I had breakfast with a with a midsize customer, yesterday yesterday morning who said to me, you know, we’ve done we do this FSP stuff, but I don’t think we’re getting best value at it. We have a lot of resource, a lot of cost associated with it. It’s less flexible, and and they want to move towards a more full service business. N equals one doesn’t doesn’t you know, doesn’t sort of change the thesis.

There’s certainly a switch, but it’s not exclusively. There’s no tidal wave towards FSP. The customers recognize that functional is is a is a model, but it gives them the onus is on them. Have a lot they have a significant amount of internal cost to be able to manage that that function. And they probably don’t get the innovation or the creativity that perhaps we can bring as part of a a full service provider.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And just to follow-up on that, I mean, Steve, you used the term creative, Kate used the term customized. So there’s no I mean, you said there’s not a one. There’s no one size fits all when it comes to functional service offerings. But are you seeing any common themes in terms of certain functions that your biopharma partners, customers are looking to keep more in house? Is there anything about data aggregation, data retention, any anything that’s that that that aligns across numerous companies that you’re seeing?

Or is it more a literally one customer equals one customer?

Kate Haven, Head of IR, ICON: I’d say if there’s a trend, it’s probably towards some of that, like, what they would view as a higher value activity, right, or something that’s perhaps more regulatory driven or in biostatistics or, you know, something where they say that might be core to what they feel like they need to have oversight of and and control of, you know, from from their perspective versus outsourcing it. So I it is going to be different by customer, but but I guess I I don’t know, Steve, if you have a different view of this, but but that’s probably more of the common theme in terms of more of that high value activity, less so on monitoring or or pieces like that.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And and just to wrap up on this case, I know you mentioned the difference in margin rates, but, obviously, there’s a very important margin dollar that comes with FSP work. It’s profitable. It’s good work. How do you think about contracting and almost reverse engineering to ensuring that you’re capturing the margin dollars that you want with these the functional contracts?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Yeah. We look at both, Mike, pretty carefully. And as you say, the margin differences aren’t as large as people think, particularly contribution margin level. There’s very little, you know, internal SG and A sort of associated with our FSP business and hence that business doesn’t carry that cost. The benefits around FSP really relate to consistency of burn, probably faster burn, less much less volatility from a revenue point of view.

So, you know, from that point of view, there are lots of good things about FSP, that that that over and above the full service stuff, which is, you know, more volatile. Margins are better. No question about that. But it starts and stops, you know, whereas the FSB just sort of keeps on keeping on. So, you know, we look at both areas of the business and we made it, you know, we’ve made, as Kate said, we made a commitment to be in both and to offer our customers, you know, the good hybrid solutions as as we can and, and and, you know, commit to that.

Some some of our competitors are in one or in the other and sort of half in one and half. We we believe that that FSP is an important part of our armamentarium to offer to customers in if if that’s the way they want to, you know, prosecute their business.

Kate Haven, Head of IR, ICON: I mean, what we are looking at is how we add in additional services around a core functional offering, right, where it’s not just headcount. It’s not just I need a thousand heads in data management or name your function. Right? I mean, it’s looking at the elements of of of service that we can give them on top of that, right, where it can be technology oriented, where they like our systems or or the analytics that we can drive in in terms of the the offering that we have. And and that, obviously, over time, can drive a better margin profile for us, right, and and value for for our customers.

So so that’s really how we think about, you know, that margin opportunity in that business as well.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: And along those lines, I mean, you’re an R and D partner, but you mentioned analytics development, you know, technology platform. What is your what are your R and D priorities look like as you continue to build out more functionality for trial work?

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Oh, in terms of priorities, really, it’s about getting patients on the clinical trials as fast as possible. So we now have full service space. You know, our site network is very important. How we facilitate recruitment into that site network. I mean, not just into our site network, of course, but into all into all of sort of ad hoc sites that that we utilize.

That’s a that’s a fundamental part of our R and D strategy and our and our and our thinking. You know, we’ve talked a lot about our automation, AI, robotics, and how we’re trying to deploy that around, you know, simple stuff like data management and document flow and site selection. We have some good tools in in those in those areas now that we believe is starting to bring strong value in terms of performance and efficiency. So those are the sorts of areas we think about in terms of of our sort of R and D. It’s really, you know, as I think about it, it’s about how do we how do we make our offering more efficient?

I I keep coming back to the meeting. We’ve I’ve been out for the last couple of days and, you know, the customers recognize that this the price of clinical trials is going up and substantially. And I I did I did jump up at one point in the meeting and say to them, it is and it it is because a lot of the companies are doing things that they really shouldn’t be doing and and we can help them with that. And so and partly, as I say, the R and D focus that we have is how we can get better at getting essentially, getting patients into trials as fast as possible. We’re getting those trials started up as fast as possible.

And so, for example, in terms of contracting startup, you know, in our in our situation is is a challenge. It takes up to a year from your sort of first site activated to your last site. If we can make that three months, then we make a material difference. And one of the ways of doing that is contracting, because contracting is on the critical path. And so our AIs now allow us to identify what contracts have been agreed with, you know, with the sites in the past for for for different sponsors.

And so let’s go to that site as we go to it in the future with the same sort of, you know, terminology, the same unless the customer says that’s just completely unacceptable, and sometimes they do. But if they don’t, then we can move that contract process along. And accessing these contracts and accessing the clauses within these contracts that have been contentious. And it’s a simple thing in the scheme of things, but you can imagine the variety and the volume of contracts we have. We work with 15,000 sites around the world.

So that’s where technology and our R and D and our AI can really help us to to practically move forward.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: So we’re gonna run out of time probably by the time I get through this question, but we’ll try I’m gonna try to wrap two things at once. I mean, company obviously had a big changeover with Nigel Clark incoming as CFO, following long standing, previous CFO from Brandon Brennan. As as you sit here and you probably put some words in Nigel’s mouth, but we’ll go with it. But

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: what are

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: some of the priorities he’s pursuing to continue to expand the value of ICON? And especially now as you sit here in a year that you’ve noted as a transition year with a fairly clean balance sheet with obviously a recent ratings upgrade to change your cost of capital access. How do you think about the priorities around capital deployment currently in an environment where as you push forward while your customers still remain in periods of transition, you best position Icahn for the post transition year and and getting back to the long term guidance you had put out last May.

Steve Cutler, CEO, ICON: Sure. Well, as you say, Nigel’s been in for six, eight months now. It’s, it is still relatively new. He’s been drinking from the fire hose as you can as you can appreciate. He’s doing a great job.

He’s got on top of a number of the, you know, the opportunities within our business very quickly. He’s very focused on on cash. We call him Johnny Cash now because he’s, he’s out there making sure that we’re, you know, we’re we’re invoicing on time. We’re getting to our milestones. We’re collecting that cash.

And even even within the very short time period he’s been here, he’s had some impact on this. So we’re, you know, I couldn’t be happier with with with what Nigel’s been focusing on. He’s also looking at how we’re forecasting, our business and and making sure that we’re doing a better job in that space. We want to be able to do a better job there, and he’s been focusing on that. And also looking at what our M and A opportunities are as well.

At the moment, we’re very focused on share buyback, and and we’re active in the market. We’re very active in the market in in Q4. We’ll be active in in Q1 on that front. So that’s our that’s our immediate focus given where our our share price is at the moment. But we also and and, you know, good luck to us.

We have a balance sheet that allows us to support both M and A and from an acquisition point of view and the share buyback side of things. So we can take the opportunity such as it is that our of where our share price is at the moment and and actively deploy capital. But we are and we do have a couple of active opportunities in the pipe, again, that facilitate our business. You know, we’re not jumping outside of our clinical business, but it facilitates what we do at the moment. It makes us better at what we do at the moment.

Back to my conversations with customers over the last couple of days, we want to do it better. We want to be more efficient at what we do. And so around, you know, around patient recruitment, around our site network, around our labs, around real world, those are the sorts of areas that we want to be able to deploy capital on an M and A basis.

Mike Cherney, Healthcare Tech Distribution Analyst, Leerink: Steve, the real time feedback has been very helpful. But, as I predict, we’re out of time. Steve, Kate, thank you so much for being here. Thank you all for attending.

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