Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and welcome to West's First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to John Sweeney, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to West's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call, which has been webcast live. With me today on the call are West's President, CEO and Chairman; Eric Green, and West's Senior Vice President and CFO Bob McMahon. Earlier today, we issued our first quarter financial results. A copy of the press release, along with today's slide presentation containing supplemental information for your reference has been posted in the Investors section of the company's website at investor.westpharma.com.

Later today, a replay of the webcast will also be available in the Investors section of our website. Before we begin, we'd like to remind you that statements made by management during this call and the accompanying presentation contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities law. Please refer to the accompanying safe harbor statements in today's press release and in addition to other disclosures made by the company such as our 10-K and 10-Q regarding the risks to which the company is subject. During the call, management will also report on certain non-GAAP financial measures including organic net sales, adjusted operating profit, adjusted operating profit margin, free cash flow and adjusted diluted earnings per share.

The accompanying disclosure statement as well as reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable financial results prepared in conformity with U.S. GAAP are provided in this morning's press release, and in today's presentation materials. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Eric Green. Eric?

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I am pleased to report the year is off to a strong start with outstanding performance in the first quarter revenues and adjusted EPS, with both metrics coming in well above our expectations. It is clear our growth strategy is delivering.

First quarter revenues of $845 million were up 21% on a reported basis and 15% on an organic basis. Adjusted operating margins in the quarter were 21.4%, expanding 350 basis points as compared to prior year, and adjusted EPS came in at $2.13, up 47% compared to prior year. As announced in the press release today, due to our strong first quarter performance and the expected ongoing momentum in our business, we are increasing our revenue and adjusted EPS guidance for full year 2026. We now anticipate full year organic revenue growth back to our long-term construct of 7% to 9%, up from our previous guide of 5% to 7%, and adjusted EPS increased to the range of $8.40 to $8.75. Bob will go into more detail shortly.

Now let's take a closer review of each of the businesses. Starting with HVP components in our proprietary Products segment, which represents 48% of our company's total net sales and continues to be the key growth driver for West. HVP components grew 23% on an organic basis in the first quarter. This growth was led by strong performance in both GLP-1 and non-GP-1 revenues.

HVP components GLP-1 revenues grew significantly and contributed 10% of total company sales consistent with the previous quarter. While it is still early days in the adoption of orals, the trend is playing out as we expected and have previously communicated. That is orals are expanding the market. Our view remains unchanged for long-term growth in both injectable and oral GLP-1 markets as overall adoption of these products continues to increase.

We continue to believe there are a number of factors that leave us optimistic about the prospects for our GLP-1 elastomers in the future. These include the expansion of insurance coverage, FDA regulatory decisions on compounded GLP-1s, reduced drug prices and the introduction of GLP-1s for new indications, as well as next-generation products. In addition, the launch of generics in several countries outside the U.S. should drive additional demand in the coming years. Non-GLP 1 HVP components revenues increased in the high teens in the quarter.

This growth was driven by durable growth drivers, including biologics, HVP upgrades, including Annex 1, and underlying core customer demand growth. The better-than-expected HVP components performance in the quarter can be attributed to market growth and tremendous execution of our operating unit strategy, and scaling up production, particularly in Europe. Recently, I met with our team [indiscernible], Germany to see firsthand the operational improvements that we are leveraging across our HVP components manufacturing sites. There are 3 key aspects to this operational excellence initiative.

First, we accelerated the process of onboarding new employees in the second half of 2025, which benefited production this quarter, and further increased output by temporarily redeploying our team members from other European sites. Second, we continue to optimize our global network. This includes working with our customers to qualify second sites, enabling us to increase production output. And third, a significant benefit of this initiative is the transfer of knowledge and implementation of best practices, which will result in ongoing enhancements throughout our global manufacturing network.

Turning to our largest market, biologics. This business continues to be a strong growth driver for our HVP components business and delivered 26% organic growth. We continue to have strong win rates for biologics entering the market with solid growth at NovaPure, which is increasingly being selected for its attributes and quality by customers who are bringing new biologics to market. We're also benefiting from many biosimilar launches.

Growth in this market is being increased by easing regulations and reduced testing requirements. When a biosimilar is introduced, [ it is usually ] results in expansion of therapy use. This generally allows us to maintain or even increase overall volume demand after biosimilars are commercialized. And we see a continued ramp in HVP conversion in Annex 1. We are experiencing strong conversion of standard products into HVP components, and this mix shift is improving revenue and margin performance.

We continue to have strong growth in Annex 1 related projects, which increased sequentially and is up 66% as compared to this time last year. Annex 1 is anticipated to be a multiyear tailwind to our business with an expected revenue growth contribution of 200 basis points in 2026 from Annex 1 and HVP conversion. Moving on to our HVP delivery devices, which comprises 15% of company revenues. We delivered strong organic growth in the quarter, up 28% compared to prior year.

This was driven by increase of SmartDose 3.5 revenues, which were requested in advance of the transaction, which we continue to expect to close midyear. The non SmartDose parts of the business represent more than half of the revenues and were up double digits in the quarter, led by SelfDose and Crystal Zenith. Standard Products, which represents 19% of our business, were up 0.5% on an organic basis during the first quarter. Standard products are an important funnel as they convert to HVP components over time, which provides value to our customers and generates incremental revenue for us.

Turning now to West Vantage, the new brand name for our Contract Manufacturing segment, which represents 18% of our business. Revenues increased 6% organically in the first quarter. I was in Ireland a couple of weeks ago to participate in the official opening of our new Dublin West Vantage site, which is now fully operational and producing commercial product. This milestone marks a significant step forward in strengthening our global capabilities.

This site incorporates our drug handling business, which is more profitable and less capital-intensive than our legacy contract manufacturing. While we are in the early stages in building our drug handling business, 2 days [indiscernible] business is meeting our expectations. The site also supports growing customer demand for high-volume injectable therapies, including treatments for diabetes and obesity. These aspects reinforce West's role as a critical partner in helping to secure patient accents to these essential medicines.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bob to discuss the financials and guidance in more detail. Bob?

Thanks, Eric, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I'll provide some additional details on Q1 revenue and take you through the income statement and some other key financial metrics. I'll then cover our updated full year and second quarter guidance. As Eric mentioned, we had a great start to the year as revenues of $845 million increased 21% on a reported basis and grew 15.3% organically, exceeding our expectations.

And the performance was broad-based as all segments were better than expected and price contributed 3.5 percentage points of growth in the quarter. Our HVP components business was a standout, delivering $409 million in revenue and growing 22.6% organically. This was driven by robust growth in GLP-1s, HVP upgrades, including Annex 1 and overall continued improving performance in biologic revenues. As Eric mentioned, our team is executing at a high level and ramping capacity faster than planned while demand continues to be strong.

Our GLP-1 HVP components business had another very good quarter of growth, and we expect continued growth throughout the rest of the year for all the reasons that we've previously talked about. And the HVP components business outside of GLP-1s accelerated nicely, growing in the high teens in the quarter and contributed over 2/3 of the HVP outperformance in the quarter. In HVP delivery devices, revenues were $124 million in the quarter and up 27.5% year-on-year organically. This was driven by growth in SmartDose 3.5 as revenues increased in anticipation of the expected midyear closing of the transaction, as well as good performance in [indiscernible] and SelfDose.

In Standard Products, revenues of $161 million were up 0.5% on an organic basis, partially driven by [ NX-1 ] related inversion to HVP components. And our West Vantage segment delivered $151 million in revenue, growing 6.2% on an organic basis. Segment performance in the quarter was driven by an increase in sales of self-injected devices for obesity and diabetes. Now let's take a closer look at the rest of the P&L.

Total company gross margin was 35.1% in the quarter, up 190 basis points year-over-year. The year-on-year increase is primarily driven by the positive mix shift of HVP components and price contribution. We did not see commodity costs have a material impact on our Q1 results. I also wanted to highlight that our West Vantage gross margin, while down slightly year-over-year as we ramp our Dublin facility, recovered sequentially as expected.

Adjusted operating margins of 21.4% were 350 basis points up compared to the prior year, driven by the gross margin expansion and leveraging our SG&A and R&D across a higher revenue base. And below the line, net interest income was in line with our expectations, while our tax rate was a better-than-expected 18.3% for the quarter, and we had 72.4 million diluted shares outstanding. Now adding it all up, Q1 adjusted earnings per share were $2.13, up 47% versus last year, and up 45% above the midpoint of the guidance we gave on the last earnings call. Now before moving into our updated 2026 guidance, I did want to highlight a few other additional financial metrics.

In the quarter, we delivered operating cash flow of $90 million. While down year-on-year due to the increase in AR related to our strong sales performance and the 2025 bonus payout, it was ahead of our expectations. Capital expenditures were $43 million, down from $71 million in the prior year as we continue to drive a focus on increased capital spending efficiency. And we remain on track with our expectations of $250 million to $275 million for the year, even as we increase our revenue guidance, which I'll talk about shortly.

In addition, during the quarter, the Board of Directors authorized a new $1 billion share repurchase program given our strong financial position. In Q1, we repurchased 1.2 million shares for $298 million, paid out $16 million in dividends as an additional means of returning capital to shareholders. Our cash flow and strong balance sheet position well as we look to deploy capital for growth and deliver value to shareholders. And we ended the first quarter with $521 million in cash on our balance sheet.

In summary, we had a very good first quarter that exceeded our expectations, and the momentum we saw coming into the year is continuing. And now let me turn to our updated guidance. And before getting into the numbers, I want to highlight a few important factors driving our outlook. The macro environment continues to be dynamic, and so we will remain prudent with our forecasting, given we have 3 quarters to go in the year.

Most importantly, we've increased our growth expectations for the injectable market driven by the underlying trends Eric talked about earlier. HVP components, both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1s are the primary driver for our increased outlook. Our assumptions around the GLP-1 market continue to hold and the non-GLP-1 market continues to improve. We've also incorporated rising oil and commodity prices into our updated thinking and are working to offset these costs through various means as we have with tariffs and other inflationary costs.

We expect to have a net impact of single-digit millions after the mitigation efforts. Importantly, our operations and supply chain have not been affected. We continue to expect to close the SmartDose transaction midyear. As a reminder, we generated $55 million in SmartDose sales in the second half of 2025 and have adjusted our full year 2026 expected organic growth rate to account for these revenues.

For the year, we now anticipate revenue to be in the range of $3.295 billion to $3.35 billion, up $78 million at the midpoint. This reflects an increased organic revenue growth range of 7% to 9% for the year. Reported growth is 7.2% to 9.0%, with our assumptions around FX and the SmartDose divestiture unchanged and roughly offsetting. The increase reflects strong Q1 performance and an improving demand environment for the remainder of the year.

In the Proprietary segment, we expect HVP components to continue to be the primary driver of revenue growth. We now anticipate this business to grow low to mid-teens organically for the year, accounting for about 7 points of the total company growth at the midpoint of guidance. This is up from our previous expectation of roughly 5 points of total company with at the midpoint. Importantly, both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1s are contributing.

Non-GLP-1 HVP components are expected to grow low double digits and make up just over 5 points of total company growth, while GLP-1 HVP components is expected to be in the mid- to high teens. We also expect better performance in our HVP delivery devices, while our expectations for standard products in West Vantage are consistent with our previous guidance. The positive revenue mix is helping us to further expand our margins even as we see increased costs, and we have incorporated some below-the-line contributions in the updated guidance. To help with your models, we are now projecting $7 million in net interest income, a 19% tax rate for the full year and roughly 71.5 million diluted shares outstanding for the full year.

This results in an adjusted earnings per share to be between $8.40 to $8.75 for the year, up 15% to 20% year-on-year. Now for the second quarter, we expect revenue to be in the range of $830 million to $850 million. This is a reported increase of 8.3% to 10.9%, and an organic increase of 7.0% to 9.6%. And we expect second quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share in the range of $2.05 to $2.12, up 11.4% to 15.2% year-on-year.

In summary, we're very pleased with how our business is performing, driven by our key growth drivers and are optimistic about the future. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Eric for some closing comments. Eric?

Thank you, Bob. To summarize, the broad-based nature of the results we reported today continues to reaffirm that our growth strategy is working as expected. We have a strong, resilient business which delivers unique value to our customers. We remain focused on our critical growth drivers of biologics, GLP-1s, Annex 1 and other HVP conversion and leveraging our global infrastructure.

The long term, many durable macro trends underpin West's growth trajectory as the global market leader in the injectable medicine space. Finally, I want to thank our team members for their commitment and reluctance focus to serving our customers, which allowed us to achieve these strong results. Operator, we're ready to take questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Patrick Donnelly with Citi.

Maybe one on the non-GLP, nice results there in particular. Can you talk about the acceleration you saw there? It sounds like, Bob, I think you were talking about low double digits for the rest of the year on [indiscernible] Can you just talk about what you're seeing? Is it [indiscernible]?

Is it biosimilars, biologics? Would love if you just break that down a bit more because the growth there was pretty notable.

Yes, Patrick, thank you for the question. I think as we look at the HVP non-GLP-1 area of our business [indiscernible] the components, we're really pleased in how the market is starting to -- market demands continue to increase, particularly in biologics and biosimilars. We mentioned that we grew 26%. We believe -- for the balance of the year, we'll have very strong double digits in that area.

And this is mostly on already commercialized drugs in the marketplace. While we do continue to have a very high win rate on new launches and new molecules being approved, most of the growth is coming from the commercialized drugs. Annex 1, as you asked about that particular area that continues to meet our expectations. We have -- we've seen a sequential improvement over the prior quarter, and it's up 66% over the first quarter of last year of a number of projects that we have taken on.

And this is actually -- as you think about volume doesn't change, but the ASC and the margins do improve, it will continue to focus on that area. That is actually expanding as we think about -- it's not just [ E-regulations ]. We're starting to hear more about the expectations outside of Europe, particularly in the United States and also in Asia. I think the last area I want to just comment on, and that's why we have confidence in our guidance is really unleashing some of our operational excellence in our HVP manufacturing sites.

The work that we're doing in Europe is fungible, transferable to other sites, which will give us the ability to leverage the existing capacity, higher throughput, higher output, [indiscernible] need a rise in demand of our customers. Bob, would you like to add?

Yes, I would just say, Patrick, and thank you for the question. As you see, this is a continuation of what we saw in the second half of the year of this real continued momentum in the HVP non-GLP-1 components business. And to Eric's point, what we've seen is a real combination of not only demand, the benefit of the positive mix associated with upgrading to [indiscernible], and we expect both of those things to continue as well as the continued market development of the biologics business. And so feel very, very good about where that direction is going.

If you recall, in Q4, we talked about demand outstripping supply. We're continuing to ramp and feel good about the team's ability to continue to meet that demand for the rest of the year.

Okay. That's helpful. And then, Bob, maybe on the margin side, obviously, when AUPs are growing 23%, it helps on the mix side. Can you just talk about how we should think about the margins for the rest of the year between the mix shift piece?

You mentioned the manufacturing excellence there. I know the footprint is an area for help. It doesn't sound like the commodity side is going to be much of a negative offset. So maybe just talk about the moving pieces there.

And then obviously, the mix shift is helping quite a bit here.

Yes. What I would say is mix shift certainly does help, but we're also being benefited from the great operational execution by the team, which helps absorb the plant costs and so forth. And so if we think about where we were in Q1 at 21.4% margin, that was a significant improvement over last year. Q2 will probably be roughly in that line and then second half will [indiscernible] despite increased cost, our expectation is that we... [Technical Difficulty]

Ladies and gentlemen, please standby. Your conference call will resume momentarily. Again please standby. Your conference call will resume momentarily.

Patrick this is Bob. Sorry, we got disconnected. Let me finish my thought. As I was saying...

I think [indiscernible] when you drop there.

Yes, yes, exactly. That wasn't a dramatic pause. So I apologize to the folks on the call. What we're expecting actually in the second half of the year is an extension, or an expansion of our margins despite the incremental costs associated with higher fuel and logistics costs.

And so if we look at the full -- some of that's a benefit of continued margin mix and strong performance on the revenue side. If we look at our full year from last guide to this guide, probably another 50 basis points improvement year-on-year. So a very nice expansion.

Our next question comes from Michael Ryskin with Bank of America.

Great I'm just -- and obviously, congrats on the quarter on the guide, I'm just curious, did you notice anything unusual in terms of ordering patterns, or acceptance from customers? We are just wondering maybe as a result of the Middle East crisis and the spike in oil, if any of your customers did any prebuying or stocking ahead of time. Just [indiscernible] of price increase or maybe supply [indiscernible] in the second half. Just wondering if you saw any weird dynamics in March once the conflict broke out?

Yes, Mike, this is Bob. Thanks for that question. I'm glad you brought that up because we've actually done a lot of analysis on our results, and we did not see any pull-forward associated with the conflict in the Middle East. As we mentioned in the call, we did have greater-than-expected revenue associated with SmartDose 3.5, but that's a result of in anticipation of the transaction.

But there was no pull forward associated with the conflict.

All right. That's very straightforward. And I guess kind of just staying on the same topic. You mentioned some of the offsets and some of the mitigation you're putting in as a result of that.

I was wondering if you could talk through that, like whether it's price increases? I know you guys have a hedge on oil. You called that out in the Q. Could you talk about that?

Could you talk about -- I think that's only a couple of months' worth, but anticipation of price increases in the second half, maybe some supplies [indiscernible] moving around sort of like how you're adjusting to that and how that's going to play out? And related to that you can...

Yes. Thanks, Mike. Yes, what I would say, we have multiple tools at our disposal. Certainly, we do hedge a portion of our costs associated with that, but that certainly is not going to be the only way that we have the ability to mitigate.

And similar to what we have done with tariffs and so forth, we'll look at multiple tools. Probably it's premature to kind of explain all the details there, but we feel good about our ability to recover a portion of those costs.

Our next question comes from Paul Knight with KeyBanc.

Eric, a lot of this quarter sounds like capacity coming on line for West. So my question is around are there any bottlenecks that you see right now? And second, how easy is it for customers to move from one site, or use another site's capacity does it take a month, a year to get that qualification done?

Yes. Paul, it's a multistep process. So first of all, on the capacity expansion, the teams have done a great job on additional capacity utilization of the existing facilities. And this initiative we launched in the second half of last year, but we're seeing -- we saw the benefits in Q1 and we'll continue to see that throughout the year.

So higher throughput on existing capacity. We will always continue to layer in new capital equipment to be able to continue to expand basically around HVP finishing processing, which really is being fueled by the Annex 1 transition. You're absolutely correct. The second lever that we're working with certain customers is qualifying multi-sites.

That process does take time. So it could be anywhere between 6 to 12 months for a transfer to occur effectively and another site to be validated. But that's on ongoing, and we'll continue to leverage that across our network, so we can level load more effectively. And I would say that that's additional benefit we will see throughout 2026, going into 2027.

Paul, this is Bob. Just the other thing that Eric mentioned that I want to reiterate is around taking the learnings and the application of what we're doing in Europe and applying it to other plants, particularly our HVP plant, to be able to get ahead of some of that continued demand. And so not only are we doing the things, Eric was just talking about, which will help us not only in the mid and -- in the far term. In the near term, we're being able to leverage the existing assets that we have.

So really nice work by the team.

Our next question comes from Matt Larew William Blair. [Operator Instructions] Okay. We'll go to our next question, which comes from Kallum Titchmarsh with Morgan Stanley.

Maybe just following up a bit more on Annex 1, just checking in on the flow of new customer conversations and conversions there. Any refreshed view on the duration of this tailwind? Whether customers are maybe facing issues not upgrading their components? And just how to think about what can be relatively captured from the TAM you framed up before?

Yes, Kallum, it's -- this area of opportunity for us is actually very attractive, and we're gaining momentum. What we're seeing right now is the number of projects our customers we're engaged with, has increased and continues to increase. We're able to convert from a project status to commercialize product going into the market. I'm very pleased on the progress that we're making on [indiscernible] fronts.

The conversations are actually more -- I would say, it's increasing because the regulations and our customers are looking beyond just Europe. And so therefore, there's more of a pull effect and having us participate on upgrading certain products in market today and commercialize drugs really run our HVP finishing processes. Which, again, going back to what Bob mentioned earlier about unlocking or unleashing the opportunities to expand our capacity capabilities in our HVP plants. That's going to enable us to continue to grow nicely.

The growth that we believe that we will continue to deliver on 200 basis points per annum for multiple years. So we're early innings, I would say, we've identified at least 6 billion units that are targeted to be converted, and we're early in that stage. So we do think this is a very long-term growth opportunity.

Kallum, just to add to what Eric is saying and to emphasize a couple of points. The regulatory environment does continue to increase across the globe, particularly focused on contamination. And I think we are uniquely positioned to be able to take advantage of this given our market position on existing products. So we're very optimistic about this.

Appreciate it. And then I realize it's kind of less than 10% of the group. I would love to hear a bit more about the underlying demand environment in APAC. Pretty strong 29% growth in Q1. So just wondering if that's being underpinned by anything notably different than your U.S. and European growth drivers? And how we should think about investment into that region in the future?

Yes. No, we continue to look at Asia Pacific as an attractive market for us. Geographically, we support that region in twofold. One, local for local consumption, but also export that is going to the global markets.

So we rely heavily in other locations, [indiscernible] feed finished products into that region. I would say that we are seeing an increase, particularly in the biologics of the biosimilar space, which we have a very -- we continue to have a very attractive participation rate. And that's actually very attractive for us as you think about leveraging our higher end over HVP portfolio. So more to come, but we're pleased with the team's execution in region to support customers.

But we are seeing an increase of CDMOs, small biotech firms looking to build a branch out into the Western markets.

Our next question comes from Justin Bowers with Deutsche Bank.

Eric, can you provide us with an update on the demand profile for some of the manufacturing space that you now have available in Dublin and in the West Coast? And then two, just also an update on the GLP-1 market. What are you seeing in terms of other indications outside of diabetes and obesity? Is there -- are there programs growing in that part of the market as well?

Yes. Justin, you're right. At least for the first question you asked about the CGM business in Dublin that will be finishing up at the end of second quarter of this year. We're pleased with the progress we're making with new customers and contracts, to be able to backfill once the equipment processing lines are extracted from that facility.

We are going to be installing new equipment from our customers to support them on their own new commercial launches, particularly around drug handling in the non-GLP 1 area. That's an area being attracted by our customers with the less Vantage strategy and the value proposition we're bringing. So I'm very pleased on the progress, more to come, but we do need to close out and finish on the current customer by the end of the second quarter, and then we'll do the transition in the second half with new customers. With regards to the GLP-1s, other indications other than [indiscernible] and diabetes, those are full projects in the pipeline that we're supporting.

Actually, if you think about not just other indications, but other types of molecules that are being targeted for that market. We are obviously a very strong player -- and in the pipeline, it's very attractive. As you know, they're looking in combination molecules, or looking at other types of biologics. So we're very well positioned, and we do think that will be an extension of growth in that particular area for a number of years to come.

Got it. I appreciate that. And then just a quick follow-up. On the drug delivery device strength that you saw and the transition there. Was that mostly volume driven? Or was there any incentive payments there? What were, sort of, the contributors to the strength there?

Justin, this is Bob. Yes, the good news is it was all volume. There weren't any incentive payments associated with that [indiscernible] if you look at it, was roughly split evenly between SmartDose and the non SmartDose business. And so we feel really good about kind of the performance going forward.

Our next question comes from Matt Larew with William Blair. [Operator Instructions]

Yes. Let's move on to the next caller, please. Thank you, operator.

Our next question comes from Daniel Markowitz with Evercore ISI.

The first thing I wanted to ask on the [indiscernible] called out NovaPure as a positive for the first time in a while. And backing up, I think mix shift is such an awesome part of the story and NovaPure sort of stands out as being at the high end of the high-value components segment. So really nice to see that. I just wanted to ask what sort of drove the strength there specifically?

Yes, Daniel, that's driven by market demand of commercialized molecules in market already. While we are continuing to see a number of new approvals in the pipeline we're feeding it with NovaPure. But that particular growth that you're seeing, and we expect biologics continue to grow quite nicely throughout 2026 is being fueled by NovaPure.

Yes. It was one of the several highlights in the quarter, Daniel, and I feel good about the ongoing momentum there going forward. And so we had very nice growth in NovaPure year-on-year.

Great. And then just a follow-up. As I look at the full year guide after a really strong quarter and a nice 2Q guide, the full year now looks more first half weighted versus what's typical. Is there anything to call out that's causing a decel in the back half? Or is this more conservatism?

Yes. I'm glad you brought that up, Daniel. A couple of things. One is we are at the beginning of the year.

So we are prudent. We're kind of taking it 1 quarter at a time. But we do have the roll-off of the CGM contract in the back half of the year. That is, as a reminder, is about a $40 million headwind in the second half of the year.

That's no change from the original guidance that we had provided. And that also comes into play. But what I would say is we're prudent with our guidance and feel good about the ongoing momentum of the business.

Our next question comes from David Windley with Jefferies.

I wanted to ask Eric about, or maybe Bob too, about incremental margin as good as margin expansion is year-over-year, I guess I would come at it from the standpoint of it still seems like there's quite a bit of opportunity there. Looking back in the model, revenue look to be at a record level, you're rebalancing capacity to open some new capacity, the NovaPure call out by Daniel. There's a number of factors that being positive margin was better year-over-year but down sequentially. I'm wondering if there were issues like labor ramp-up that you mentioned burden from commodity costs or perhaps the way of the SmartDose volume that came through in the quarter that might have shaded what would have otherwise been even better margin.

Can you flesh that out for us?

Yes, David, that's a good question. Let me start, and then I'm going to turn it over to Bob. But I think you've hit on the key points. We believe the HVP components business will continue to drive margin expansion.

As we think about the biologics business continue to grow, you're absolutely correct by pointing out NovaPure and its strength of that particular business, which drives very attractive margin expansion. We also have the continuation of the Annex 1, and that's a multiyear journey. And as you know, we're basically moving an existing product in the market from a standard core level to a HVP, which brings very attractive margin expansion. And then I don't want to underestimate the impact of the leveraging our HVP sites more effectively with operational excellence.

We've learned a lot in the first quarter. There's more to be done and also spread to our other sites, which we've actually seen as we went to those sites a few weeks ago. And we're very optimistic that we will be able to get more out of the existing capital that's in place today to produce HVP. So I do agree that there is opportunity for further margin expansion based on the HVP components Bob, do you want to add?

Yes. And David, just a couple of other pieces of data. You're right. If we think about Q1, we were ramping throughout the course of the year.

So that March had a much better performance than January, and that will continue to expand as we go through the rest of the year as those individuals were ramping up from a capacity standpoint. We did have a very good incremental, but I think it can be better. SmartDose did have some impact on that. And obviously, if -- to the earlier question around quarterly cadence.

That's one of the reasons the second half of the year, we, in fact, on an operating margin basis to be pretty heavily above where we are in the first half of the year. And so a number of, I would say, positive opportunities for us to continue to expand margin not only this year but going into next year as well.

Great. And if I could just quickly follow up, Eric, I'd like to believe, based on my own age that you're still a pretty young chicken. You've made the decision to retire. Could you talk to us about that, please?

Thanks for that. I'm pleased that you recognize that I'm still young. I feel it. No, I -- look, I think this is an outstanding organization.

A lot of legacy, but a great future ahead of us, and I'm very proud of how the team is operating. I'm extremely proud of the executive team that we put in place, one of [indiscernible] next to me right now. And I do think this team is performing at a very high level, and will continue to do so. The business is operating very well.

The strategy is very clear. the global leadership team is aligned and executing. And I think as I think about the successor coming in, when appointed, we'll be in a very good position to continue to take this business forward. So I'm excited about where we are at West, but I'm more excited about the future. And I couldn't be more proud about the team across the globe on how they are executing today, but more important in the future of this business.

Our next question comes from Larry Solow with CJS Securities.

Congrats on the quarter as well. And just a follow-up on Dave's question there. Eric, we're going to miss you. It sounds like nothing imminent, but just curious how the search is going? Any kind of high-level time lines you can share with us or any thoughts there?

Yes, Larry, thank you. So we are active in the market as we speak, and we anticipate that my successor will be appointed in the second half of this year. So [indiscernible] be informed as we make progress. But again, as I mentioned earlier, to David's question, this is an [ unbelievable ] company. And I think it's going to be -- once we have somebody appointed, we'll be in a very good position.

Yes, absolutely. You've done a great job enhancing the company's outlook. Just a couple of follow-up questions. You mentioned NovaPure.

Most of the growth there has been driven by [ current products ] in the market. Just curious on the Annex 1 what folks are kind of shifting towards? Is it more towards the lower end of the curve there, like the [indiscernible] and then maybe [indiscernible] could go up a little more on the [indiscernible] side? Or do you see some of those -- of the $6 billion potential components, some of them eventually even inverting to some of the higher level -- high value services there?

Larry, it's going to be a mixed answer for you. It really depends on the customer and the molecule itself. We have -- you're right, I would say, if you look at a weighted average more around the [ Westar ] and then leveraging [ Envision ], pharmaceutical washing, sterilization. We do have a few cases where they're going all the up to the high end of the spectrum of HVP.

But it is more about the midpoint of that portfolio. And as a reminder, we're starting up -- many of them are starting off at the standard legacy products. So again, either case is very positive. We do also have some shift from the lower end of HVP going to the higher end.

So it's a combination of both. So I gave you, kind of, a widespread of answer there, but it's -- that's why it's exciting. It's -- it's leveraging our global HVP finishing processes.

Got you. And then just quickly, I may just one last one. Just on the West Vantage. I guess you're calling that now.

So I guess the cadence, should we expect for the rest of the year, do we expect a little bit of a dip? You had obviously a really nice strong quarter towards the [ middle back ] half of the year as the rest of the continuous [indiscernible] next piece comes out. And then sort of a rebuild in '27. And along those lines, does the more -- how should we view the margin profile of this segment as we go out the next couple of years?

Yes, Larry, I'll take that question. And you're right. There is a kind of front half weighting associated with that just given what we were talking about before with the CGM contract exiting. So we -- our forecast for the year remains unchanged at roughly flat.

It will be up in the first half and then maybe slightly down. Q3, I would expect to be the trough because if you remember, the drug handling is kind [indiscernible] up throughout the course of the -- throughout the year, as Eric mentioned, is on track. That's $20 million of incremental revenue. Most of that will be in the back half of the year.

And as we've talked about the benefit of that drug handling is that's a higher-margin business than what it's replacing. And so from a margin profile, I would expect margin profile to be roughly consistent across the year.

Got it. Okay. And then eventually, does the drug handling have higher margin as you build that out?

Yes. The drug handle margin -- and it's important, two other things. The drug handling business, while it has $20 million this year, that is certainly not at ramp at peak. It's probably 3x that much, which we'll continue to see ramp throughout 2027. And from a margin perspective, it's well at least twice as much on a gross margin basis as our current business.

Our next question comes from Brendan Smith with TD Cowen.

In terms of the 200 basis point contribution related to [indiscernible] is most of that baking in Europe-based upgrades? Are you seeing any customers upgrade, you mentioned the U.S. and Asia as next logical geographies? But are you seeing customers upgrade in parallel? And could that present any upside to that current expectation? [Technical Difficulty]

Please stand by.

[indiscernible] can you hear us?

Yes.

Yes, in terms of the 200 basis point growth contribution related to [ NX1 ], you mentioned the U.S. and Asia as next, sort of, subsequent geography seeing upgrades. Is the current expectation baking in pretty much just Europe? Or are you seeing any customers upgrade in parallel across geographies? And could that represent some upside opportunity there?

Yes. There's two factors that have happened, Brendan. I mean, good question. And one is, our customers that are looking to upgrade for the European market are also looking at their portfolio and making more global decisions and being consistent.

So we are -- we are seeing that as one factor. Another factor we are seeing, we're being brought into conversations with our customers even in the United States with the FDA making observations around sterility and the strategy around of their manufacturing processes. And therefore, there's opportunity to upgrade even in the U.S. market. So we're seeing a factor of both.

And we'll see how this plays out in the near term, and that might be a potential opportunity.

Brendan, I think the other thing to think about is a potential accelerant here is, as we think about all the work that's happening from the [indiscernible] standpoint. That's actually -- a lot of that is actually coming from Europe into the U.S. and what our pharma customers are wanting to do is standardize on a consistent product and process. And so that hasn't been fully baked in because a lot of that work is still ongoing. But that has the potential to kind of accelerate and expand our Annex 1 opportunities well beyond Europe.

That's great. And in terms of the operational excellence plan. Can you speak to maybe like a cadence of executing that across sites or some time lines? And are those improvements baked into the [ raised ] guidance?

Yes, the cadence is -- we're live right now. We're actually transferring some of the [ learnings and knowledge ] into other sites and particularly in [ Kinston ] and Jersey Shore, outside of our [indiscernible] and Waterford plant. So that is in process, and that will continue to occur throughout the year. As Bob alluded that, we were -- we saw a nice margin expansion within the quarter because of these efforts.

So we are still in the buildup mode. We should see the expectations of additional benefits throughout the next several quarters.

Yes, and we have baked some of that operational improvement in the forecast.

Our next question comes from Tom DeBourcy with Nephron Research.

I was just wondering on the HVP delivery devices and I guess you host the divestiture of SmartDose [indiscernible]. Just how you think about that business? I know you have the secrete platform and how you think about, I guess, adding to that portfolio and whether that's still, obviously, I guess, a core part of your offering to customers?

Yes. No, absolutely. So within that portfolio, we have administrative systems, which is a very attractive market that continues to expand and grow, particularly in the hospital market. We have the Crystal Zenith, which is container alternative to glass that is really targeted to the highest end of biologics in cell and gene therapy.

And then also you have the other alternative delivery devices like SelfDose that the demand and volumes are continuing to increase. And we have other versions and volume doses that we're able to offer our market. So we believe delivery devices is natural in this area as primary container as a natural extension from our elastomer business. We'll continue to invest around new product development and manufacturing capacity expansion because it's a very attractive growth profile and a margin opportunity.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to John Sweeney for closing remarks.

Thank you very much for joining us today on our First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call, and we look forward to updating you as we move through the year. Thanks very much, and have a good day.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.