Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 Labcorp Holdings Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Christin O'Donnell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Labcorp's Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. As detailed in today's press release, there will be a replay of this conference call available. With me today are Adam Schechter, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Julia Wang, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

This morning, in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.labcorp.com, we posted both our press release and an Investor Relations presentation with additional information on our business operations, which include a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Please see the use of adjusted measures section in our press release and Investor Relations presentation for more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures. Additionally, we are making forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the estimated 2025 guidance and the related assumptions, the projected impact of various factors on the company's businesses, operating and financial results, cash flows and/or financial condition, including global economic and market conditions, future business strategies, expected savings, benefits and synergies from the LaunchPad initiative and from acquisitions and other strategic transactions and partnerships, the completed holding company reorganization and opportunities for future growth.

Each of the forward-looking statements is subject to change based upon various factors, many of which are beyond our control. More information is included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in the company's other filings with the SEC. We have no obligation to provide any updates to these forward-looking statements even if our expectations change. Now I'll turn the call over to Adam Schechter.

Thank you, Christin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2025 financial results and progress on our strategy. During the quarter, we delivered strong revenue growth and margin improvement, leading to double-digit EPS growth. Our financial results reflect continued momentum in our Diagnostic Laboratories and Central Laboratory businesses.

At an enterprise level, revenue increased to $3.6 billion, representing 9% growth compared to last year. Margin for the quarter improved 100 basis points, driven by Diagnostics. Adjusted EPS grew 19%, and we generated strong free cash flow of $281 million. Moving to our business segments.

Diagnostics revenue increased 8.5%, primarily due to strong organic growth of 6%. Margin improved 110 basis points, driven by strong organic demand in Invitae. Invitae was accretive in the quarter and will be slightly accretive for the full year. BLS revenue increased 8% or 5% constant currency.

Central Laboratories growth was strong at 10% or 7% constant currency, more than offsetting softness in early development. BLS margin improved 20 basis points and the quarterly book-to-bill was 0.9 with the trailing 12 months remaining strong at 1.09. In response to the lower-than-anticipated revenue in early development, we are beginning to divest or restructure through site consolidation, approximately $50 million of annual revenue. We will focus these actions on noncore areas, which will result in a more streamlined business and slight improvement to operating income. Julia will provide more details on our results and full year 2025 outlook in just a moment.

We continue to make progress on our strategy to be the partner of choice for health systems and regional/local laboratories to lead in high-growth therapeutic areas and to use science and technology to accelerate growth, to enhance the customer experience and to improve operational efficiency across our business. Starting with health systems and regional/local laboratories, we've added a significant number of strong strategic relationships over the past several years. Through these partnerships and acquisitions, we've expanded our patient and provider network, and we've strengthened our presence in key markets.

These partnerships have increased access to our broad test menu. They've improved patient care and have driven efficiencies for our customers. This quarter, we signed an agreement to acquire select clinical laboratory assets of Empire City Laboratories, which serves the New York Tri-State area. We signed an agreement to acquire select assets of Laboratory Alliance of Central New York, a pathology reference laboratory.

In parallel, we signed an agreement with Crouse Health to manage their inpatient labs. We expect these transactions to close in the first quarter of 2026. We continue to make progress on the acquisition of select assets of the outreach business from Community Health Systems across 13 states, which we expect to close by year-end. We completed our acquisition of select oncology and clinical testing assets from BioReference Health. This acquisition further solidifies Labcorp's position as an industry leader in oncology.

We continue to have a very robust pipeline of opportunities, and we look forward to updating you on our progress. Additionally, we are expanding our business in high-growth specialty areas, including oncology, women's health, neurology and autoimmune diseases. These are areas where science, clinical need, the use of genetic testing and innovation are accelerating. We are experiencing strong growth across these segments, which also increases demand in our core test menu as physicians rely on Labcorp for comprehensive diagnostic solutions.

In the quarter, we introduced several innovative testing capabilities. We expanded our leading oncology and genetic testing portfolio. OmniSeq INSIGHT, our comprehensive genomic profiling test for solid tumors in support of therapy selection now evaluates ovarian tumors for HRD. PGDx elio tissue complete used for therapy selection for pan solid tumors became the first and remains the only tissue-based tumor profiling test with CE marking under the European Union's In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation.

This enhances our global tissue profiling capabilities in support of clinical trials. Geneoscopy received FDA approval for a simplified at-home collection method for ColoSense for colorectal cancer screening. As a commercial partner, we will be expanding access to this test to patients and providers. We also expanded access to our Invitae genetic tests through Epic Aura, enabling streamlined ordering and results delivery for Epic customers.

In neurology, where we have one of the most comprehensive test menus in the industry, we expanded our leadership position. We introduced the first blood-based test cleared by the FDA to aid in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in specialty care settings. In early 2026, we're planning to offer the only FDA-cleared blood test to rule out Alzheimer's related amyloid pathology in the primary care setting. Separately, we continue to experience strong momentum in our consumer business.

In the quarter, we launched several consumer-initiated tests through Labcorp OnDemand, including tests for lead exposure, ApoB for heart health and a panel for healthy aging. Labcorp partnered with Praia Health, a consumer experience platform for health systems to help close care gaps and to deliver better experiences for patients. Moving now to review our use of science and technology to accelerate growth, to enhance the customer experience and to improve operational efficiency. This quarter, we launched Labcorp Test Finder, a generative AI tool developed with Amazon Web Services to improve test selection for providers and health systems.

It allows clinicians to easily search for lab tests using plain language, streamlining decision-making and improving care. In our core laboratory operations, we're investing in digital and AI capabilities to improve in areas such as pathology, cytology and microbiology. Through a collaboration with Roche, we are digitalizing pathology workflows using slide scanners to enhance diagnostic speed and scalability. We've also deployed a new FDA-cleared AI platform for digital cytology that enables remote viewing and rapid analysis of cell-based samples, improving turnaround times.

Finally, we're using AI and automation to accelerate microbiology workflows to reduce turnaround times. These are just a few examples where we are using technology, robotics and AI. We look forward to discussing others in the future. In summary, we delivered a strong quarter and made meaningful progress on our strategy.

We have momentum as we finish 2025 and move into 2026. Our focus remains on driving value for both our customers and shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Julia to discuss our financial results and 2025 outlook in greater detail.

Thank you, Adam. Now let me start with a review of our Q3 financials, and my remarks today will focus on our adjusted financial results. Please see our earnings press release and supplemental financial presentation for detail on our GAAP results. Revenue for the quarter was $3.6 billion, an increase of 8.6% compared to last year, driven by organic growth of 6.2%, the impact from acquisitions of 1.7% and the foreign currency translation of 0.7%.

Adjusted operating income in the quarter was $513 million or 14.4% of revenue compared to $441 million or 13.4% of revenue last year. The increase in adjusted operating income and operating margin was primarily driven by organic demand, including the strong performance of Invitae. Our LaunchPad initiative continued to be on track in the quarter, which offset typical increases in personnel costs. The adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 23.3% compared to 22.8% last year.

We continue to expect our adjusted tax rate for full year 2025 to be approximately 23%. Adjusted EPS was $4.18 in the quarter, up 19% from last year. Free cash flow for the quarter was $281 million compared to $162 million last year. The $119 million increase in free cash flow was primarily driven by higher cash earnings.

For the full year, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately 3.5% of revenue. During the quarter, the company invested $268 million in acquisitions and partnerships, paid out $60 million in dividends and repurchased $25 million of stock. At quarter end, we had $598 million in cash, while total debt was $5.6 billion. Our debt leverage as of quarter end was 2.4x gross debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA and slightly under the low end of our targeted leverage range of 2.5x to 3x.

Now I will review our segment performance, beginning with Diagnostics Laboratories. Revenue for the quarter was $2.8 billion, an increase of 8.5% compared to last year, with organic growth of 6.3% and acquisitions of 2.2%. Total volume increased 4.7% compared to last year, with organic volume contributing 3.5% as we continued to execute our strategy and drive strong demand. Acquisitions contributed 1.2%.

Price/mix increased 3.7% versus last year. Organic price/mix was 2.8% as we benefited from mix, primarily due to the annualization of Invitae as well as an increase in test per accession. Acquisitions contributed 1%. Diagnostics adjusted operating income for the quarter was $450 million or 16.3% of revenue compared to $387 million or 15.2% of revenue last year.

Adjusted operating margin was up 110 basis points. Adjusted operating income and operating margin increased, primarily driven by organic demand, including the strong performance of Invitae, coupled with slight favorability from weather year-over-year. Now I will review the segment performance of Biopharma Laboratory Services or BLS. Revenue for the quarter was $799 million, an increase of 8.3% compared to last year due to an increase in organic revenue of 5.3% and foreign currency translation of 3%.

We continue to perform well in Central Labs. In constant currency, Central Labs revenue was up 7% in the quarter. Early Development revenue was up 1.1%, lower-than-expected due to delayed study starts. In response to the lower-than-anticipated revenue in Early Development, we are beginning to divest or restructure through site consolidation, impacting approximately $50 million in annual revenue in noncore areas.

We expect these actions to result in a more streamlined business with a slight improvement in operating income. BLS adjusted operating income for the quarter was $132 million or 16.5% of revenue compared to $121 million or 16.4% of revenue last year. Adjusted operating income grew 9% year-over-year, driven by organic demand. We ended the quarter with a backlog of $8.6 billion, and we expect approximately $2.7 billion of this backlog to convert into revenue over the next 12 months.

Our segment quarterly book-to-bill was 0.89. Our trailing 12-month book-to-bill remains strong at 1.09. Now I will discuss our updated 2025 full year guidance, which assumes foreign exchange rates effective as of September 30, 2025, for the remainder of the year. The enterprise guidance also includes the impact from currently anticipated capital allocation, utilizing free cash flow for acquisitions, share repurchases and dividends. Beginning with the segments, Diagnostics continues to execute well in the marketplace. We have maintained the midpoint versus prior guidance and narrowed the growth range to 7.2% to 7.8%, which assumes approximately 4.5% organic revenue growth.

In BLS, we expect to grow 5.7% to 7.1% versus prior year. We have lowered the midpoint by 40 basis points versus prior guidance due to the unfavorable impact of currency. In constant currency, we have maintained the midpoint versus prior guidance as strength in Central Labs is offsetting softness in Early Development. We continue to expect Central Labs to grow in the mid-single digits for the full year.

We now expect Early Development to grow low single digits for the full year, with Q4 presenting the most challenging year-over-year comparison. We updated the 2025 enterprise revenue growth guidance range to 7.4% to 8%. We lowered the midpoint by 40 basis points due to timing of acquisition revenue, which are held at the enterprise and the unfavorable impact from currency. We continue to expect full year enterprise margins to increase with margins improving in both Diagnostics and BLS in 2025 versus 2024. Our guidance range for adjusted EPS is $16.15 to $16.50 with an implied growth rate at the midpoint of 12%.

As compared to prior guidance, we have narrowed the range and raised the midpoint by approximately $0.05. Our free cash flow guidance range is $1.165 billion to $1.285 billion. We narrowed the range and raised the midpoint by $25 million versus prior guidance, given our strong cash flow generation year-to-date. In closing, our quarterly performance reflects the strong execution of our strategy and the continued efforts of our teams across the organization. As we look ahead, we are confident in our ability to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value for our shareholders.

We look forward to updating you in the coming quarters. Operator, we will now take questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Lisa Gill of JPMorgan.

I just want to better understand when we think about the revenue and the updated guidance around revenue. So Julia, I heard you talk about currency and acquisitions. I'm curious, one, are you seeing an increase in utilization from, for example, the exchange population as people anticipate that they potentially could lose their benefit or it could cost more going into 2026? And then is there a way for you to break down that 40 basis point between currency and acquisitions?

And again, is the acquisition just a timing aspect and so we'll see that come through in '26?

Lisa, I'll start. First, I'd say that $13 million of it was from the foreign exchange, the rest was from the acquisitions, and it's fully timing related. Some of the acquisitions this year closed a little bit later than what we anticipated. So that impacted us just a little bit and then a few fell into next year.

But overall, the pipeline remains strong. The acquisitions remain strong. So it's purely timing related. With regard to your question on utilization, I'll first start off by saying we had a very strong quarter when you look at the Diagnostic business.

And when you look at the organic volume, it was up 3.5%. And when I think about the volume, we're certainly seeing some uptick, I think, from demographics in the marketplace, from market share that we're gaining. I don't necessarily believe it's due to people concerned about losing to ACA because doctors can only take so many appointments and I don't -- and they're usually very booked. So it would be hard to get a large number of people into those offices that quickly.

So I think we're seeing it more from organic volume increases.

And our next question comes from Michael Cherny of Leerink Partners.

Congrats on a nice quarter. Maybe if I can dig in a little bit on organic price per mix in particular. It's been strong. You had a tough comp this quarter, and yet it still grew nicely.

As you think about the behavioral changes that you're making as an organization, how much of it do you feel is proactive versus reactive in terms of what you can push versus what the market is bringing to you as we think about how that builds beyond this year?

Yes. Sure, Michael. I'll give you some context, and I'll ask Julia to jump in and give you some specifics on the price/mix. So when I look at the Diagnostic revenue, it grew 8.5% versus last year.

Organically, it was about 6%. When I look at the organic volume, that grew 3.5% and price/mix grew about 2.8%. Some of that was from mix, but also from Invitae. But I'll ask Julia to give you some more specifics about the price/mix.

Yes. Michael, if you were to break down the impact between unit price and mix, we continue to see unit price being relatively flat. Therefore, the price/mix impact has really been benefiting from mix. And as Adam just shared, in the third quarter, our organic price/mix was up 2.8%.

That was driven primarily by increase in tests per session as well as Invitae. Now the impact in Invitae was more pronounced in Q3 due to the timing of the annualization being in the middle of Q3. And going into Q4, we expect Invitae to drive continued price/mix favorability and the impact will somewhat moderate when compared to Q3. And if we step back and look at price/mix in general, over time, we have seen a slight yet consistent growth in test per accession post-COVID era. Longer term, we continue to believe that the mix growth will be supported by the increase in our partnerships with the large hospitals and the health systems as well as the aging population, the health and wellness trend, the breadth of our test menu as well as our focus on specialty testing.

And for the full year, you might have seen that in terms of our updated guidance, we maintained the midpoint of Diagnostic revenue guidance of 7.5% and updated the organic revenue growth expectation to 4.5%, whereby the price/mix is going to be a big contributor to that expectation.

And our next question comes from Jack Meehan of Nephron Research.

I was hoping to get a little bit more color on the announcement around the site consolidation in the Early Development business. Can you just talk about what the factors were you're seeing in the market that led you to make this decision? And it sounds like we got the revenue impact. Is it possible to think about -- it sounds like this might be a low margin, just what the earnings impact might be from the decision?

Yes, absolutely. And Jack, I'll start off with giving some additional color, then I'll answer the question specifically. But if you look at the Biopharma Laboratory Services businesses, it performed well. And you saw an 8% increase in revenue or 5% in constant currency, but it was really driven by strength in Central Laboratories, it was up 10%, 7% if you look at constant currency, and it more than offset the weakness that we saw in Early Development.

Based upon what we're seeing in Early Development, we've decided to look at some noncore areas. We're going to divest certain things there, but we're also going to have some site consolidation. And that will be leading to approximately $50 million of annualized revenue. But without that revenue, we expect to see a slight increase in operating income.

So it actually was negatively impacting our accretion. So that will be a positive for us. What drove us that decision was we look at 3 things with the Early Development business. We look at RFPs coming into us, then we look at what's our win rate and then we look at do the trials start on time.

If you look at the RFPs and numbers, we're getting about the same number of RFPs that we've gotten in the past. If you look at our win rate, it's about the same. Our market share is stable as it's been in the past. The issue that we're seeing is with timing of study starts.

They're just not starting in a timely fashion that we would have expected based upon historical time lines. We expected that to start to come back to more normalcy. Unfortunately, it has not. Based upon that, we've decided to streamline the business and to take the actions we talked about today.

And our next question comes from Patrick Donnelly of Citi.

Maybe just given that PAMA is a little more topical here heading into year-end. Can you just talk about the expectations there? I know you've talked about the $100 million top line impact. I think during conference season, you were talking about some levels of mitigation efforts, maybe something like $25 million.

Can you talk about, I guess, the probability, what you're hearing on PAMA, results, et cetera? And then again, what you're doing on the offset? Are you already kind of getting things in line? Would love just your thoughts on the expectations and then the potential mitigation efforts you guys could do into next year?

Yes, absolutely, Patrick. So we've consistently said that we believe the CMS's execution of PAMA was not accurate, and it shouldn't be implemented in its current form. We've worked really closely with our trade organization, ACLA, to advocate for the RESULTS Act, which would put a freeze on the cuts for a period of time. When you look at that, it has strong bipartisan support.

I mean, Democrats, Republicans sponsored the bill. We think that we have very strong support. The question is, with everything that's happening right now and the shutdown and everything else, will we see additional legislation approved by the end of this year. We're going to continue to advocate for it.

We have strong support for it, but it's very hard to handicap whether or not that will happen by year-end. We also are continuing to work to see if it should be and can be delayed again as it has been for the last number of years. And that's really going to come down to, I believe, the [ OBO ] score, which we've not seen a final score. If the [ OBO ] score is positive or maybe kind of neutral to slightly negative, I think there's a good chance that it could be delayed again.

If it's not, and it goes in a different direction, then I think it will be more difficult with everything else that's going to have to happen by the end of the year. So it's really difficult to predict whether we'll be able to get the results, legislation implemented and/or get another delay. So therefore, we think the prudent strategy is for us to plan that there will be a $100 million impact on both the top line and bottom line for full year 2026. And with that, we are already planning and we have work underway to offset, like you said, approximately $25 million of that impact. And that's in addition to the commitment that we have for LaunchPad, which roughly offsets the cost of inflation.

So we're going to do that in addition to. And a lot of that's going to come from the things that we've started to discuss for AI implementation and things that we're doing to increase our efficiency and use AI more effectively. So those things are underway, and we'll provide guidance for 2026 in February, and we'll give you more specifics.

And our next question comes from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley.

Could you speak a little bit to your efforts around the consumer-driven testing, the contribution you're seeing now from that? I know one of your peers was talking about that, the margin profile growth rate of that business? And is it starting to what move the needle in terms of volume or overall revenue growth?

Yes. So if you look at our consumer business, we continue to have a strong focus on consumerism. We're trying to meet the patients where they are through a whole bunch of different channels. And importantly, I mean, we interact or engage with over 75 million patients through all the different avenues that people come to get Labcorp results or information from Labcorp.

So as the consumers are taking a much greater control of their health care, we want to be a resource for them and offer solutions that put them in the driver seat, frankly. Today, a lot of them engage with us through our on-demand e-commerce platform. We also have the Ovia app where many people interact with us as well. And what we're seeing is a very significant increase in terms of growth rate.

There's no doubt about it. It hasn't reached critical mass at the moment for us to pull out the numbers and provide separate numbers, but we're continuing to add new tests. Just this quarter, we added tests for lead exposure, ApoB for heart health and even a panel for healthy aging. And we're going to continue to add new things there.

In addition to that, if you look at Ovia Health, it's a leading app that supports women's health and it guides through all different stages, including pregnancy, postpartum, menopause and a lot more. So these are really important capture points for us. I do believe we're going to continue to see growth in these areas. And as it reaches critical mass, we'll figure out when to start to report it separately.

And our next question comes from Andrew Brackmann of William Blair.

Maybe I guess, on the Diagnostics segment margin expansion, I think it was 110 basis points in the quarter. Can you maybe pick that apart a bit more for us? And I guess, how should we be thinking about the go forward there and considerations around things like price, Invitae and just underlying improvements there?

Yes. Andrew, let me provide some color on margin. As you can see, we delivered meaningful margin expansion at the enterprise level in the third quarter, up 100 basis points versus prior year, supported by both segments. As we shared before, the year-over-year margin comparison in the second half of this year gets tougher for BLS and gets easier for Diagnostics, given the margin evolution throughout 2024. As such, in the third quarter of this year, BLS margin was up 20 basis points, driven by organic demand.

Diagnostics had a strong margin improvement of 110 basis points versus prior year, which was primarily driven by organic demand, including strong performance of Invitae. You might recall that Invitae annualized in August of this year and is now fully integrated into our broader business infrastructure. As you look at the Diagnostics margin in Q3, in addition to Invitae, there were some other puts and takes. For example, the savings from our LaunchPad initiative, coupled with a slight favorability from weather helped us offset typical annual wage increases and mix impact from in-hospital lab management agreements.

As we think about Q4 margin for Diagnostics, we expect Invitae to continue to be a tailwind. Sequentially speaking, we expect margins to moderate in Q4 versus Q3, reflecting typical seasonality. Overall, I would say that we expect the full year margin expansion by both segments to support enterprise margin expansion in 2025, which contributes to our expectation of growing adjusted EPS by 12% for the full year at the midpoint of our guidance.

Our next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore ISI.

This is Joanna for Elizabeth. So I have a question about '25 guidance. We only have 1 quarter left, yet the EPS guidance do have a very wide range of $0.35. Like what are the major moving pieces that could swing you towards the high end or the low end of that guidance range?

Yes. Thank you for the question. And as I look at the guidance, we've narrowed the ranges in our overall revenue guidance and our Diagnostic guidance. We purposely kept the range in BLS a little bit larger.

We didn't adjust it this quarter. And the primary reason is as we're looking to do some of the divestitures and/or the site consolidation, the timing of what could impact us this quarter is a little bit uncertain. We're moving as fast as we can, but there are certain things that we can only move so fast on. And that's why we've kept that range a bit wider than we typically would.

And our next question comes from Kevin Caliendo of UBS.

I'm still a little confused about why the margins weren't maybe a little bit better in 3Q. I'm wondering if there was anything discretionary, but any discretionary spend on top of that, just given this. But my real question is more around '26. If we think about the impact if PAMA comes back, let's say, you said the net impact would be $70 million, $75 million. Given all the other puts and takes that you have with Invitae and some of the other deals that you have, can you still meet your LRP if PAMA comes back?

And I know there a chance that you could be updating your LRP at some point next year. But I'm just thinking out loud here, just given sort of where the headwinds and tailwinds are.

Yes. So Kevin, first of all, thank you for the question. And there's nothing unusual for the margins. The 110 basis point improvement in Diagnostics, we think, is strong, driven partially by Invitae, but there's also offsets when you think about some of the hospital deals that we do, they typically start off being dilutive to margins and over time, get to the average margin.

So there's always some puts and takes to the margins as we think about that. We also are on track for our Labcorp -- our LaunchPad initiative, which is taking out a significant amount of cost covering almost all of the inflation that we have from employees. So if you then think about Biopharma Laboratory Services, we also saw an increase in the margin of about 20 basis points. When you put those 2 together, we thought we had a strong margin improvement of 100 basis points for the quarter.

As we think about next quarter, we expect to see continued strength, particularly in Diagnostics. It's important to note that this quarter, we overlapped 2 or 3 months from the Invitae acquisition. Next quarter, it will be 3 out of 3 months. And in addition to that, we'll continue to make progress in the other areas.

BLS will be more difficult because, as you may recall, it was an easier compare in the first half of the year, it's a much more difficult compare in fourth quarter for BLS. But net-net, margins for both businesses, we expect to improve this year versus last year. It's frankly too early to give specifics about 2026. We're going to provide that guidance in February. But I would say we're working really hard to do everything we can to not only get the LaunchPad, but also additional savings from some of the AI initiatives that we have underway, which would offset as much as we can from the impact of PAMA, which is such both on the top line importantly as well as the bottom line.

So it's an impact to both top line and bottom line there.

And our next question comes from Luke Sergott of Barclays.

This is Anna Krasinski on for Luke. It sounds like the hospital M&A pipeline has reaccelerated given all the macro and policy uncertainty. And just curious if you can talk about whether your deal criteria has changed at all given this larger opportunity set? And would you be willing to take on a lower-margin asset that offers meaningful potential share gains in a particular geography where you're less penetrated?

Yes. No, thank you for the question. And the hospital pipeline does remain strong, and I expect it to continue to be strong. When I think about the hospital business, I think about 3 different parts of it.

One is running the laboratories in the hospital. Those are typically the lowest margin business, but it has a very high return on cost of capital. So we will do that business even though it's a bit lower in margin because it does have a great return on cost of capital. The second thing we look at is the reference work.

So if it's business that they can't do in a hospital lab, well they send it to us as reference. And that's good margin business, about the same as our average margin. And then the third part is acquiring the outreach business, which also is about the same as our average margin. Most hospitals, when we do all 3 of those things, it ends up being about the same as our average margin.

If we were to only do the hospital running of the labs, it would be lower, but that's not typical. Typical, we would do running the labs along with either the reference and/or the outreach business. So net-net, it should be neutral to margins over time.

And our next question comes from Michael Ryskin of Bank of America.

This is Aaron on for Mike. It looks like esoteric testing is growing almost double routine. I guess how are you guys prioritizing R&D investments into those more esoteric tests? And then kind of following that line of questioning for Geneoscopy's ColoSense, how are you thinking about your commercialization strategy? And any reimbursement updates that you guys can provide us?

Yes. So I'll start with the esoteric business. And we certainly are seeing growth in esoteric business, and it's -- continued asymptotic increases over time. But when you think about 700 million tests that we do in a year, it's hard to move the needle.

And typically, esoteric tests are lower in volume overall, but they're very important because when you run the esoteric test, you typically do all the routine tests that come along with it. We have been launching many esoteric tests. But importantly, we're focused on oncology, women's health, neurology and the autoimmune areas. And in those areas, we see growth rates that should be 2 to 3x faster than the overall diagnostic market.

So it's certainly an area that we want to be competing in. When we think about how to compete, some of those tests we develop ourselves, some of those tests we license or acquire. And we're really focused on what's the best way to get the best test to market as quickly as we can. And to us, it's more about having all the tests that a physician would need for a patient as opposed to developing any one test internally.

So we're really agnostic to developing it ourselves or to acquiring or licensing it.

And our next question comes from Yujin Park of Baird.

On BLS, can you provide more color on bookings between Central Lab and Early Development? I recognize Central Lab bookings can be more chunky quarter-by-quarter and Early demand -- Development demand environment, as you said, didn't change much, but I wanted to hear your thoughts between the 2.

Yes. So I'll start off with overall on the book-to-bill, then I'll talk specifically. If you look at the book-to-bill, it was about 0.9 for the quarter, a little bit lower than we typically like. We like to be about 1.0 to 1.05. But if you look at the trailing 12 months, it was a 1.09. And I've always said that you have to be careful looking at any one quarter because there are ups and downs to any one quarter.

But over time, the trailing 12 months, that's a better predictor. I would expect the book-to-bill in fourth quarter to be better than it was in the third quarter, if you look at it sequentially, albeit it will be a tough year-over-year compare because last year fourth quarter was very strong as well. If I look at the book-to-bill, I feel confident that we're in a very good place. Book-to-bill is a good measurement for the Central Laboratory business, and it remains very strong.

I've always said book-to-bill is a little bit more difficult for Early Development business with the primary reason being that many studies in Early Development start and end in the same year. And therefore, there's not a lot of 2- or 3-year trials that kind of build your book-to-bill over time. So you would expect the Early Development book-to-bill to be lower than the Central Laboratory, which it is. But I would say the Central Laboratory is very strong.

For the Early Development, I look at the RFPs, the win rate are strong. It's the study starts that are really the issue in Early Development.

And our next question comes from David Westenberg of Piper Sandler.

This is Skye on for Dave. Could you provide some more color on the expected revenue and EPS accretion from the completed and progressing acquisitions for 2025 and if you can, 2026, kind of what are the key integration milestones we should be looking out for and potential synergies expected from these transactions?

Yes. So I think it's -- if you look at what we've provided, we say typically, we expect the acquisitions to provide 1.5% to 2.5% growth in a given year. And that's what we are projecting in our longer-term guidance, which we continue to expect that type of growth. The pipeline remains strong.

It remains good. We don't give specific operating income or margin for the individual deals. What I would say is, as I look at hospital deals, in general, when you do all 3 pieces of the business, meaning the reference laboratory work, the in-house laboratory work for the hospital itself as well as the acquisition of the reference -- of the outpatient labs, you tend to have a margin that's about the same as our average margin.

And our next question comes from Tycho Peterson of Jefferies.

I want to probe on the Central Lab strengths a bit more. I understand your book-to-bill comments earlier, but can you maybe just talk about the acceleration you saw here in 3Q, a nice step-up from 2Q. Maybe just talk about the durability of what you're seeing now on the Central Lab side.

Yes. So if you look at our Central Lab business, it remains strong. It had 10% growth on the top line, but it was 7% if you looked at the constant currency growth rate, which is very healthy growth. We expect that it will be in the mid-single-digit growth for the full year.

That's typically where you'd expect the Central Laboratory business to grow. We're seeing strong book-to-bill. Last quarter, we announced that we had several large studies that were going to go over multiple years. The more large studies over multiple years you have, the better you are.

But overall, I would say that, that business, we expect to continue to grow and to do well as we look for that to offset some of the softness that we're seeing for the Early Development for the rest of the year.

I show no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Adam Schechter for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And I want to just take a moment to recognize our 70,000-person team members around the world. Our employees really are the driving force behind our mission to improve health and improve lives. Hopefully, you see we have momentum based upon our third quarter results going into fourth quarter, and we look forward to sharing our 2026 guidance in February of next year.

Thank you all.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.