Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Certara Third Quarter 2023 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 first speaker today, David Deuchler..

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for participating in today's conference call. On the call from Certara, we have William Feehery, Chief Executive Officer; and John Gallagher, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today's retire released financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2023.

A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that include forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements.

Please refer to Slide 2 in the company materials for additional information, which you can find on the company's Investor Relations website. Management may mention some non-GAAP financial measures in their remarks or responses to questions.

Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available in the recent earnings press release on the company's website. Please refer to the reconciliation tables in the company materials for additional information.

This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today November 8, 2023. Certara disclaims any obligation, except as required by law, to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise.

And with that, I will turn the call over to William..

Thank you, David. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Certara's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. John and I will start with prepared remarks, and then we will take your questions. In the third quarter, Certara saw sequential improvement and stabilization in overall business trends with bookings growth in both software and services.

Total company revenue in the third quarter was $85.6 million of 1% compared with the same period a year ago. Software revenue in the quarter was $31.3 million and grew 10% versus last year and services revenue was $54.2 million and declined 4% versus last year.

Over the past several months, we have seen a stabilization in activity across the portfolio, though there are some areas of the business that continue to experience more near-term uncertainty than we are than we are accustomed to.

We continue to see strong indications of interest for our biosimulation software and services across all tiers of customers. We are executing well on the operational and commercial plan outlined during the second quarter earnings call.

Our commercial alignment is beginning to take form with some early enterprise leads already converting to bookings and revenue across the platform. As we make improvements to operating efficiency of the services organization, we continue to identify best practices, which can be implemented more broadly.

We are encouraged by initial progress towards our revised goals for the year, and we remain focused on consistent execution heading into the fourth quarter and into 2024. Our third quarter software bookings were $27.2 million, which represented 7% growth versus the third quarter of 2022.

Reported software bookings growth was impacted by the timing of certain renewals with some having booked in the second quarter and some to be booked in the fourth quarter. Software bookings growth was also impacted in our Tier 1 customer segment as a result of industry and macroeconomic headwinds.

Despite this, the average software deal size across all customer tiers continue to rise, continuing to grow at double digits. We are encouraged by a return to growth for our bookings among smaller biopharma companies.

And we continue to see broad recognition of the value delivered with biosimulation, which instills us with a lot of confidence in future software performance. Throughout 2023, our software team has continued to make progress on key business and product development initiatives.

Since its acquisition in 2021, Pinnacle 21 has become an integral part of Certara's software strategy, and we have developed software features that expand upon Pinnacle 21's initial capabilities.

Throughout 2023, we have introduced Pinnacle 21's data exchange offering, which helps customers organize and standardize their data from multiple sources using the CDISC standard. We've also introduced automation for the data management and preparation process involved in SDTM formatting, a key component of data submission.

Looking ahead, we believe there will be additional opportunities to expand our Pinnacle 21 offering to complement existing applications. We also continue to make progress in advancing biosimulation with the newest addition to Certara's biosimulation software family.

We launched Simcyp biopharmaceutics, A version of Simcyp targeted specifically at scientists working on formulation development. This product continues our strategy of expanding biostimulation by releasing tailored tools aimed at specific scientific problems.

Additionally, we continue to invest in developing artificial intelligence capability within our existing software platform. Earlier this year, we acquired Vyasa to kick start our AI-enhanced product development efforts. And in early October, we announced the availability of Certara AI.

Certara AI is a platform designed to deploy client-specific GPs and to answer in-depth questions throughout the drug development process.

Certara AI is unique because it is built using it by assets deep learning algorithm and this data used includes a library of over 60 million life science research documents and the client's proprietary databases, yielding a powerful and proprietary model.

One recent advance is our integration of AI in our regulatory writing software, which is called co-author. Co-Author uses artificial intelligence to aid in drafting regulatory submissions. The product can auto populate content, summarize studies, craft messaging and aid the author to deliver the submission.

Use of Certara AI and co-author has the potential to drive substantial documentation and writing efficiencies over time. Co-Author, Certara AI and B360 are all examples of products that are either be enhanced or developed using VIASA technology relatively quickly.

While it is still the early days in AI, we are very excited about the potential that artificial intelligence and machine learning can bring to Certara products and, in turn, our customers. Shifting now to our technology-driven services segment. Third quarter bookings totaled $57.6 million representing 6% growth compared with the third quarter of 2022.

During the third quarter, we observed initial signs of a more stable spending environment among our biopharma customers compared with our second quarter performance. We delivered strong bookings with Tier 3 customers.

In addition, services bookings among our tiers 1 customers improved sequentially and grew in the low double digits compared with the prior year period. Following the consolidation of our services business, we are confident the changes being made will improve coordination in operations and commercial efforts.

Certara's regulatory bookings improved sequentially, tracking slightly ahead of our revised internal expectations and grew compared with the same period last year.

We remain committed to driving improved performance in our regulatory business over the coming months, and we believe the ongoing integration with the biosimulation services business will help improve the pace of performance.

Biosimulation services also performed in line with our expectations, and we saw a pickup in customer activity throughout the quarter. Broader industry demand for our services is steadily improving. And our customers continue to see substantial value in our broad offering of biosimulation services.

By bringing Certara's expert consultants on board, our clients gain significant value and efficiency for their projects. As we drive the adoption of biosimulation software, we expect to see increased demand for our services, and we are pleased with the current momentum and trajectory of our business.

To close, we are confident in our ability to execute on our plan to drive long-term growth in biosimulation. Certara's platform provides a differentiated offering that continues to be prioritized by customers due to the value we can provide in lowering costs and accelerating time lines to drug project completion.

As we look ahead to the fourth quarter and beyond, our focus remains on driving consistent execution to best position ourselves for future growth. I now turn the call over to John to review our financial results..

Sales and marketing expenses were $7.2 million compared to $6.4 million for the third quarter of 2022. This increase is primarily due to employee costs related to expanding the sales and marketing team; R&D expenses were $9 million compared to the $6.3 million for the third quarter of 2022.

R&D expenses were up primarily due to employee cost for software development related to new product offerings, including the AI products William mentioned earlier; G&A expenses were $27.8 million compared to $17.3 million for the third quarter of 2022.

The increase was primarily due to contingent consideration expense on acquisitions; intangible asset amortization was up to $11.2 million compared to $10.6 million for the third quarter of 2022; Depreciation and amortization expense was $0.4 million, which is flat to the prior year. Continuing down the P&L.

Interest expense was $5.9 million compared to interest expense of $5.2 million for the third quarter of 2022 due to higher interest expense relating to our floating rate term loan. As a reminder, we have about 78% of our debt fixed at 6.38% and roughly 22% floating at LIBOR plus 350.

Miscellaneous income was $5.1 million compared to $2.9 million for the third quarter of 2022. We have a $4.6 million income tax reversal due to an impairment loss compared to a $4.6 million expense for the third quarter of 2022. Net loss for the third quarter of 2023 was $49 million compared to net income of $3.9 million in the third quarter of 2022.

Reported adjusted EBITDA was $28.8 million compared to $32.7 million for the third quarter of 2022, a 12% decrease. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 34% in the third quarter of 2023. Reported adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2023 was $17.1 million compared to $16.6 million for the third quarter of 2022.

Diluted earnings per share for the third quarter was negative $0.31 compared to $0.02 in the third quarter of 2022. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of 2023 was $0.11 compared to $0.10 in the third quarter last year. Now, moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $272.3 million of cash and cash equivalents.

As of September 30, 2023, and we had $292.2 million of outstanding borrowings on our term loan and full availability under our revolving credit facility. As we approached the end of the year, we are reiterating our 2023 guidance as follows. We expect total revenue between $345 million and $360 million representing year-over-year growth of 3% to 7%.

We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $120 million to $128 million. We expect adjusted EPS in the range of $0.44 to $0.48 per share. Fully diluted shares in the range of $159 million to $162 million, and a tax rate in the range of 25% to 30%. We expect 2023 bookings to be down low single digits as compared to 2022.

I will now turn the call back over to William Feehery for closing remarks..

Thank you, John. To summarize our message today, we have seen a stabilization in customer spending, which is reflected in our third quarter results. Our core growth drivers remain intact, and we are creating new products and services that will further advance the business.

The value proposition of biosimulation and Certara's end-to-end products and services remains as compelling as ever. We are confident that Certara is well positioned for growth and profitability over time as a global leader in biosimulation. We will now open the line for questions.

Operator, can you open the line?.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Garro with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open..

First one for me, just wanted to hit on the software side of the business. And maybe you could talk a little bit more about the software renewal rate in the quarter? And I think in the deck, I see a comment on the Tier 1 customers and some issues related to timing.

So just curious about that renewal rate and how we should also think about that in the context of the SaaS versus license mix on the software side. ..

Yes. Great. Jeff, this is John. Happy to take that. The -- yes, on the aggregate renewal rate, it's at 86% this quarter. It's impacted by some timing, but a pull ahead into Q2 and then some push into Q4. So I guess what we'd say about that, too, is as you look at our history, we typically do have -- so we've seen this kind of volatility before.

We typically do have a quarter that has the aggregate renewal rate in the 80s. And so Q3 for this year is shaping up to be that. As we look forward to Q4, we expect the aggregate renewal rate to return into the 90%.

Understood. And then one more for me, hit the services side of things and I want to talk about bookings and great to hear the comments on the end market stabilizing and improving through the end of the quarter and I think positive booking results for the quarter.

But I want to ask about that in context of Q4, which is typically a very seasonally strong services bookings quarter for you guys.

So I wanted to give you the opportunity to set the right expectations as we think about how services bookings land for Q4 quarter-over-quarter versus Q3, but also year-over-year versus the strong Q4 you had last year?.

Great. Thanks, Jeff. This is Will. As you point out, we did have a nice recovery in our bookings and services in Q3. I think A lot of that is due to our new reorganization, having a combined sales force and some very good execution by that team, which I think is hopefully a sign of more of that to come. .

I think we feel pretty good about -- I mean based on customer conversations we've had, we feel pretty good right now about the deals in the pipeline for Q4 in services. So we expect to continue along the guidance pathway that we gave you guys before..

Great. Thanks, again. I'll hop back in the queue..

Our next question comes from the line of David Windley with Jefferies. Your line is open..

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I think I heard you say, John, that you're still in the guidance commentary, you're still expecting low single-digit decline in year-over-year bookings. I wanted to confirm that.

And then in the in the context of that last quarter, I think you had talked about regulatory services bookings typically having some chunkier amounts that often fall in the fourth quarter, and I think you were not assuming that, that would happen time around.

So kind of looking for confirmation around the total, but then also some color around the regulatory services traction. ..

Yes. Sure, David. Yes. So yes, we are confirming that the expectation on the full year is that booking contract in the low single digits. So that's consistent with what we said on the August call. Specifically related to regulatory, we were pleased with the return to growth. And we see that as strong execution.

So thanks to the team for our job well done there.

We had said on the August call, the pipeline for business that we have visibility to the pipeline that it was really a matter of focus and execution and that we were there to compete, and we did that, sharpened our pencil a bit on price, but still within the historic norms and nothing unusual from price.

So we're pleased with the momentum that we generated there. Both not only in regulatory, but also in Biosimservices coming off of a weak Q2, a good stabilization and return to growth in Q3, we were pleased with that..

Okay. I want to transition then on to kind of staffing question or labor question. I'm wondering how the utilization levels of your services project -- billable project teams or project individuals looks at the moment with bookings having lagged a little bit.

I wondered if the team was fully utilized at normal utilization levels, and then from a hiring standpoint, what is the -- what is your hiring outlook or what's your pace of hiring and what kind of labor market and labor inflation environment are you seeing currently? ..

Yes. So utilization, as we look at the services business is consistent with our expectations. So we've got utilization -- is, of course, it varies by project and by customer. But overall, utilization is performing in line with our expectations during the quarter, and we don't see any reason why that would stop in Q4.

From a hiring perspective, recognizing the environment that we're in, we have slowed hiring a bit but not related to the pockets that are generating the revenue for us. So as it relates to billable headcount, we have continued to hire and we continue to do so. we've slowed it in other pockets of the business really in the non-billable space..

Got it. And then maybe I'll just ask that question in a slightly different way. So gross profit margin was pressured just a little bit. It was a little lower than we were looking for, but then it was also lower year-over-year. I guess what I'm digging for is the drivers of that.

Was it a utilization issue? Was it a labor rate issue? Was it a mix of business issue? I'm just trying to understand that a little bit better..

Right. Yes. Yes. It is the fact that, I mean, look, the revenue that we had in the quarter was lower, as you said, it was 1% growth. We continue to invest in the business. That's why I mentioned, we slowed certain pockets of hiring, but we are continuing to hire, and we don't believe that a restructure of our cost base is the right thing to do.

That's a short-term focused, and we believe that in the opportunity over the long term and the growth prospects that you heard Will mentioned in the prepared remarks, remain fully intact. And so as a result of those investments, then you do see the margin.

The margin was 34% in the quarter, which, to your point, was off a little from the typical 35-plus..

So David, to that -- to what John said, I'll add. It also -- the utilization changed a bit during the quarter, particularly in regulatory. So coming out of the core bookings in Q2, we were a little light going into the quarter. And then as our bookings recover, we picked up.

And so there was some costs that hit a little bit in the beginning of the quarter associated with that, too..

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. That's all for me..

Our next question comes from Mike Ryskin with Bank of America. Your line is now open..

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I want to touch on some of the comments in your prepared remarks and some of the stuff you have there on the slides about early signs of market stabilization. Stabilizing activity, some improving trends, et cetera.

I mean if we just look at the book-to-bill and the bookings, yes, there was some sequential improvement, but it's coming off a pretty low base.

And I guess what I'm getting at is does one quarter make a trend? Or is it a little too early to call that? Especially as you said that some of these businesses can be a little bit lumpy, timing can be a little bit off.

So just what gives you confidence that this isn't just some of the usual noise in the business quarter-to-quarter, and it is a more real turnaround..

Yes, Mike, thanks for the question. It's Will. I think that to be fair, there is a fair amount of turmoil going on in the end markets here.

There's certainly decreased level of funding activity in the smaller biotech space and some indications of some restructuring going on in some of our larger pharma companies and that probably does affect us by some amount that it's hard to quite quantify. So we're working through that part of the market.

On the other side, we have a very good position in biosimulation, which through that turmoil continues to grow. I believe that we, as a company, are executing better. As you know, we did some reorganization around our services business and around a unification of our sales force. So it can cover multiple products and services to the same clients.

I don't think that transition is fully reached its peak utilization or peak efficiencies that we can obtain, but we're getting some good traction out of that. And so I think the execution has been better there. As we look forward, we looked really hard at our pipeline and our customer conversations.

So we're feeling like the trend line is -- put it this way, the way you put it, it's not an isolated point this quarter..

And then if I could squeeze in a follow-up. I guess to kind of follow up on Dave's question just now on 3Q spending and things like that. Just to put it another way, EBITDA percent came in a little bit lower. EBITDA margin came in a little bit lower than we had worked for.

And I know that, again 3Q can often be a well point for the year and sometimes you have some quarter-to-quarter fluctuations. But just making sure is there anything beyond that to call out, just kind of working through the adjustments, especially with some of those onetime adjustments. It's a little bit trickier to pass it.

I just want to make sure there's nothing unique about EBITDA in the third quarter that's worth calling out?.

Well, yes, let me start this one and then John may want to chime in. But I would just say that we're very committed and excited about some of the investments we're making in new technologies, and we haven't cut those investments. I referenced artificial intelligence, and we're also launching a lot of new products in QSP and in biosimulation.

So despite the turmoil in the market, we believe in the long-term health of this and we'll continue to invest through it. So I think there's a little bit of reflection in our EBITDA margin for that. And John, you might want to chime in too..

Yes. Yes, Mike, a couple of things to note. Like as you called out, there's some one-timers in here. So -- but if you strip out those and you adjust stock comp, keep in mind, stock comp return to the Q1 level in Q3.

So -- but if you strip all those way on an adjusted basis, what you find is that Q3 expenses, whether it be sales and marketing, R&D or G&A on a percent of sales basis, are consistent with what you saw in Q1 and Q2. So the quick answer is there's nothing really to call out there when you strip away the adjustments..

Thanks so much. Appreciate it. .

Our next question comes from Max Smock of William Blair. Your line is now open..

Hey, guy. Thanks for taking our question. I wanted to start off just by drilling down on bookings a bit more. I know total bookings in the quarter were in line with your prior commentary about being flat quarter-over-quarter, but software was a little weaker than we expected and services better.

So I know you reaffirmed your guidance for bookings being down low single digits in '23. But just wondering if the math at all has changed in terms of bookings for each segment this year.

Or maybe put another way, how are you thinking about bookings growth for software and services in Q4? And assuming things stay stable from here, what does that mean for bookings next year? ..

Right. Yes. So listen, the software bookings in the quarter, as I mentioned earlier, the dynamics related to software had some Q2 pull-ahead effect and some push into Q4. But overall, when you look on a year-to-date basis, we've got double-digit software bookings growth. The trailing 12-month bookings for software are 13%.

So those are all indicators of strength for the software business. As it relates to next year, Obviously, we're not going to give guidance on this call. We will on the next one. But the thought there is we've got to focus on execution. You saw that in Q3. We believe the opportunity in biosimulation is firmly intact, and you can see that in our results.

And then from an organizational standpoint, we've made some changes that will drive some acceleration. And then we've got a backlog that we're working through as well. So all of those together, we think spells growth into '24..

Okay. That's good to hear. Thanks for the color. I guess, sticking with '24 and you mentioned the backlog. Last quarter, you talked about actively assessing your existing backlog of projects, particularly in services. Just wondering if you could share some of the takeaways from this assessment.

And just any context you can provide around how much you have in your services backlog currently? And how much of that backlog do you feel confident to convert the services revenue here over by the end of 2024..

Yes. Yes. Max, the good news on that front is that -- as we look forward, our ability to convert that is going to be more meatful than what you saw in the quarter.

Because when you look at the we grew services bookings on the quarter, which was great, but the services revenue was a decline year-on-year, and that's predominantly due to what we saw happening in Q2 bookings.

So we have confidence as we move forward that we'll be able to be converting the bookings that we've been posting and the dynamic that we saw in Q2 and then the reversal of which we saw in Q3 is going to aid us as we move into next year..

And just to be clear in terms of your analysis of that backlog, right, have you had -- I guess, in terms of like the cancellation rate, have you seen an uptick in that relative to maybe what you expected in services -- or should we think about everything or at least the vast majority of stuff that you booked going back over the last couple of years is still being part of that backlog and still more just a matter of if not -- sorry, more a matter of when if that actually ends up converting to revenue at some point?.

Right. Yes. We have not had a material cancellations. So we still maintain from our perspective that it's a slowness and the delay, particularly when you look at the Tier 1 customers. And so we saw some of that come back. Certainly, we saw average deal cut.

So for example, when we looked at the performance in services bookings in the quarter, we see average deal sizes for Tier 1s and Tier 3s were both growing double digits. So that's a positive sign as we look forward.

We're not really getting cancellations, but we do continue to see some delays and some slowness in the conversion, and that's reflected in what you see in the Q3 numbers..

Perfect. Thank you..

Our next question comes from Joe Vruwink of Baird. You may now proceed..

Great. Hi, everyone. I think in years past, you've mentioned October is normally a big month for Simcyp renewals and just engaging with the consortium members. I guess that's still through a few questions. One, what did you see for software bookings. You're talking about 4Q, but I'm wondering maybe how much of that is already in hand.

And then I have a follow-up question..

Yes. So the momentum that we had coming out of Q3 is what we're seeing in October is consistent. That's what gives us the confidence to keep the guidance on bookings and revenue and down the P&L impact where we're at. So as we look at October, that's part of what prompted us to stay where we are with the guidance ranges..

Great. And then just thinking of kind of the caliber of consortium members. Obviously, these are the type of organizations that are typically well into their budget planning for the next calendar year. And I'm just wondering if anything is coming up from kind of what you know around that whole planning process.

that makes you feel better or worse entering 2024. Obviously, things can always change.

But in terms of any green shoots or early impressions, maybe what your takeaways might be?.

Yes. Thanks a lot for the question. This is Will. So as you know, we don't break out Simcyp's numbers, but I would say that the demand for Simcyp continues to be quite healthy.

We have launched 2 new versions of since discovery and then more recently, a version called Simcyp Biopharmaceuticals, which are enabling our customers to expand the number of users who can potentially make good use of Simcyp.

And so that's, I think, giving us some positive feeling about where that can go as we go in the fourth quarter and then into next year. These things do take some time to launch and to get out there. The -- but I think that underlying your question, the Simcyp consortium kind of consists of mostly -- it's not entirely the biggest company.

They are the most active customers and what we're seeing is a continuation of their activity in biosimulation and we expect further growth from them in this..

Okay. Very good. Thank you..

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line Vikram Purohit from Morgan Stanley. You may now proceed..

Sorry, did you hear my question? So at this point with one quarter left, what are the scenarios that you think could lead to the lower or upper bound of your year-end guidance?.

Hi, Vikram, yes, it's John. The way to think about that is a number of things would need to be accelerated to be at the lowest end. So to be at the very low end of our guidance range, we would need to see a reversal of the momentum that we saw in the services business as well as deceleration in the software business. And to be clear, we don't see that.

So that's -- so obviously, there's a couple of months left here. And that's the reason to leave the room in place. But that's what would need to happen to get you to the lower end and we're not seeing that at the moment. To be at the high end, it's really the opposite of that.

We need to see acceleration in each of those fronts versus the momentum that we've already had coming out of Q3. So that's what would push us to the higher end. But to be clear, we reiterated the guidance. It's obviously the midpoint there is $352.5 million, and we wanted to reiterate that guidance on this call..

Right. And to John's point, one other thing I can add is that as we've pushed into some of our newer products, particularly in AI, we're finding a lot of customer interest, but to be to be honest about it, we don't have past data about how long those deals take to close.

And so there's some uncertainty as we get into them about just how long does it take to close a deal for something that we -- is pretty new technology that the customers haven't bought before, and we haven't sold before. So it's -- it's a very exciting field.

I think it's good in the future, but we've left ourselves some room there and recognition that those are just sort of based on their newness, harder to predict..

I see. Thank you..

I'm showing no further questions at this time. So, I'd like to now turn it back to William Feehery for closing remarks..

All right. So thank you, everybody, for joining us tonight. Just to kind of summarize how we see the quarter. We're pleased that we saw a stabilization in bookings as we went into this quarter, coming out of where we were in the second quarter.

Obviously, we're experiencing some turmoil in the pharmaceutical market, and I'm quite proud of how the company is executing and adjusting through that. That said, we believe that, that's relatively short term. We have a very firm belief in biosimulation and where that's going in the long run and the opportunity to continue to expand it.

And we're really, really excited about what we're doing as we add in things like artificial intelligence and where that's taking us in the future. So we're continuing to invest in those. We're expecting those to lead to growth in the future, and we're looking forward to speaking with all of you next quarter. Thank you very much, and good evening..

Thank you all for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect..