Thank you, Sarah. Highly appreciate everyone joining us for our Q1 2026 earnings call.

My name is Florian Schroeher, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Merck. I am delighted to be joined by Kai Beckmann, our Group CEO, and Helene von Roeder, Group CFO.

Kai and Helene will walk us through the key slides and financial highlights of the past quarter. Kai will also take the opportunity to provide an update on the company's strategic direction.

For the Q&A part of the call, we will be further joined by Jean-Charles Wirth, CEO of Life Science; Danny Bar-Zohar, CEO of Healthcare; and Benjamin Hein, CEO of Electronics. With that long intro, I will turn it over to Kai to get us started.

Thanks, Florian, for the introduction, and welcome everybody to our Q1 earnings call. Let us move to slide 5.

If I was to characterize this quarter, I would call it a solid start to 2026 despite global challenges. Organically, group sales increased by +2.9% and EBITDA pre went up by +5.3%.

Life Science and Electronics showed robust organic sales growth at +8% and +4% respectively, overcompensating a moderate decline in Healthcare. Now let me draw your attention to the remarkable performance in Process Solutions, delivering double-digit growth at +16% in the quarter.

For the first time since Q1 2023, Process Solutions reported more than €1 billion of sales in a single quarter. Healthcare's organic decline of -3% was mainly driven by generic competition for MAVENCLAD in the US.

Aside from that, we saw a solid contribution of our rare disease franchise with a +4% portfolio effect. Moving to Electronics, which showed a positive organic sales development in Q1, this was driven by a double-digit growth in Semiconductor Materials.

The overall solid start to the year and the particularly strong finish of the quarter led us raise our guidance for full year 2026. You may also remember that we guided just one week after the crisis in Middle East broke loose.

Since then, we have gained more visibility on the macro trends, and therefore we are reflecting these developments in our updated 2026 guidance today. Lastly, at the AGM on April 24, our dividend proposal of €2.2 per share was approved by our shareholders.

Let's turn to slide 6 for an overview of our performance by business sector. Life Science was the largest contributor with organic sales growth of +8.3%.

All three business units within Life Science achieved organic growth, led by Process Solutions, which experienced a visible growth acceleration towards the end of the quarter, resulting in a growth rate well north of the average mid-term aspiration of around 10%. Discovery Solutions and Advanced Solutions developed according to plan.

Healthcare saw an organic sales decline of -3.4%, driven by the anticipated decline of MAVENCLAD amid generic competition in the US. However, let me highlight CM&E, which demonstrated continued resilience as well as continued double-digit growth of PERGOVERIS.

Electronics grew by +4.2% organically as our semiconductor business was up, driven by double-digit growth of Semiconductor Materials franchise. Moving now to the right side of the slide, EBITDA pre increased by +5.3% organically versus the same quarter last year.

FX headwinds had a negative impact of -5.7%. Please bear in mind that we saw a disproportionate currency headwind in Q1 relative to what we expected for the full year.

As flagged in our Q4 earnings call, EBITDA pre in Q1 was supported by two one-off effects. First, divestment of our OLED IP portfolio to Universal Display Corporation, resulting in a gain of €42 million in Electronics.

Secondly, we indicated that a potential recovery of cost could be incurred in connection with a supplier mislabeling dispute not related to product quality. I'm pleased to confirm that we have successfully closed this matter, resulting in an additional gain of €25 million in Electronics.

With that, let me hand over to Helene for a more detailed review of our financials.

Thank you very much, Kai, and a warm welcome also from my side. I'm now on slide 8 for an overview of our key figures in the first quarter.

Reported net sales fell -2.8% to €5.134 billion. Organic growth of 3% was offset, as guided in our last earnings call, by disproportionate FX headwinds this quarter, notably from the US and Asian currencies.

We do expect this impact to ease throughout the year. Reported EBITDA pre was down by -0.3% to €1.530 billion.

However, on an organic basis, EBITDA pre grew by 5%, driven by Life Science and two one-offs in Electronics as Kai just mentioned. The EBITDA pre margin improved by 70 basis points year-on-year to 29.8%, with the underlying margin remaining approximately stable.

EPS pre showed a similar trend as EBITDA pre and reached €2.11 per share, compared to €2.12 per share in Q1 '25, also supported by lower than anticipated financing cost. This trend gives rise to the assumption that the midpoint of our financial result in 2026 will be €10 million better than guided in March.

Operating cash flow increased significantly by 47.2% to €880 million, reflecting changes in other assets and liabilities. You heard Kai talking about accelerated momentum in Life Science toward the end of the quarter.

This in particular had effects on the development of our working capital as of 31st of March. In order to support future growth, we kept inventory levels high.

At the same time, we saw a significant increase of trade account receivables linked to the steep sales increase at the end of the quarter. Net financial debt decreased moderately by -3.5% to €8.318 billion, compared with end of December last year, largely driven by a strong operating cash flow and focused CapEx.

Now let me turn to a detailed overview of our three businesses, and I'm starting with Life Science. This is the first quarter in which we are reporting under a new organizational setup and based on our newly implemented go-to-market strategy.

As a reminder, the scope of Process Solutions remains unchanged, while Advanced Solutions now comprises our business in lab water, diagnostics and regulated materials, biomonitoring, contract testing, as well as contract development and manufacturing services. Our third unit, Discovery Solutions, combines our chemistry and biology franchises.

Life Science sales grew organically at 8.3% in Q1, and this is fueled by an acceleration in Process Solutions, supported by a strong underlying demand for downstream processing and single-use solutions towards the end of the quarter alongside limited customer safety stock buildup and new customer projects. Not only actual sales, but also order intake was strong again in Q1, and book-to-bill stayed comfortably above 1.

As we have closed the acquisition of JSR on April 1st, we will have a broader offering in our downstream business as of Q2. This transaction adds advanced Protein A chromatography capabilities, enhancing our ability to offer more efficient, scalable protein purification solutions that support accelerated biopharmaceutical production.

Moving on to Discovery Solutions, sales were up 1.6% organically against a low comparable basis and amid ongoing headwinds from muted spending in academia and government and an evolving Chinese market environment. Advanced Solutions recorded an organic sales growth of 4% in a gradually improving market, driven by industrial testing and large pharma customers.

EBITDA pre was up by 7.4% organically in Q1, with the EBITDA pre margin up by 50 basis points year-over-year, driven primarily by volumes in Process Solutions. M&S and admin spend remain around stable, reflecting cost discipline, while R&D expense has increased as planned to ensure continued future growth and differentiation.

Moving on to slide 10 and sharing details of the developments in our Healthcare business. Healthcare reported an organic sales decline of -3.4% in Q1, which is ahead of our indication provided on the Q4 earnings call.

The main reasons are MAVENCLAD sales in the US and positive phasing in China. In terms of franchises, rare diseases was the largest contributor to growth, including a 4.4 percentage points contribution from SpringWorks and initial sales from a promising launch of pimicotinib in China.

As indicated in our March call, sales of Ogsiveo and Gomekli were sequentially down amid US stocking effects. CM&E posted a slight organic increase of 1.2% against tough comps.

This is supported by positive phasing in China, as mentioned before, and offset by negative phasing in the Middle East. Fertility declined by -5.2% organically in Q1, mainly due to remaining pricing headwinds for Gonal-f in the US.

Most of these will annualize in Q2, suggesting Gonal-f's trajectory should improve to around stable for the remainder of the year. PERGOVERIS, on the other hand, continued its very strong growth, up 20% organically in Q2, and we continue to prepare for US launch in H2.

Oncology sales were down -4.9%, mainly reflecting competition for ERBITUX and BAVENCIO. N&I declined -9.2% amid continued erosion of Rebif in line with the interferon market and generics competition for MAVENCLAD in the US.

The MAVENCLAD ex-US business grew double digits. A few words on our pipeline before turning to margins.

We announced in April the dosing of the first patient in our Phase 3 enpatoran program building on encouraging Phase 2 data. The [Ellouence?]

studies are evaluating enpatoran in lupus rash patients with an active skin manifestation. Turning to profitability, EBITDA pre declined by -8% organically.

This is better than the organic decline in sales despite significantly higher R&D, implying swift execution on cost measures. Yet, taking into account slight dilution from SpringWorks and significant FX headwinds, the EBITDA pre margin came in at a very healthy 35%.

Based on our updated guidance, which Kai will present in a minute, we continue to expect lower margins for the remainder of the year amid lower US MAVENCLAD sales and launch investments, such as for pimicotinib and for PERGOVERIS. Moving on to Electronics on slide 11, organically sales increased by 4.2% in Q1, while currency headwinds of -7.5% were most pronounced in this segment, and a portfolio effect of -10.6% from the divestment of Surface Solutions led to a decline of reported sales by -13.9%.

The solid organic growth was driven by strong performance in our Semiconductor Solutions business, which grew organically by 7.5%, fueled by continued growth in semi materials at low double-digit organic growth rates. Healthy growth continues to be driven by AI, advanced nodes, alongside specialty and mature nodes in Asia.

Our DS&S business performed in line with our expectations in Q1 with sales stabilizing quarter-over-quarter. In Optronics, the Q1 development is consistent with the dynamics we flagged during our last quarterly call.

To strengthen our position in metrology and inspection, we recently opened a new site near Grenoble, expanding our production capacity for tools that enable our customers to develop the next generation of AI chips. On profitability, EBITDA pre increased significantly by 30.1% organically, with the EBITDA pre margin at 34.6% among strong currency headwinds and positive portfolio effects.

It is important to note that the EBITDA pre margin was significantly elevated by one-off items totaling €68 million, related to the divestment of the OLED IP portfolio to UDC and by cost recovery tied to a non-quality supplier mislabeling dispute. Before handing back to Kai, let me also briefly comment on our balance sheet and cash flow.

As you can see on slide 12, our balance sheet increase went by €1.6 billion compared with the end of December '25. It increased from €51.5 billion to €53.1 billion, which is more than €1.1 billion, and is related to an increase in net equity driven by profit after tax of €669 million and an increase of OCI by more than €550 million.

Our equity ratio remains stable at 56%. Taking a closer look at important movements on the asset side, please remember this is a comparison versus December 2025.

Receivables increased from €3.9 billion to €4.3 billion, driven by FX effects and a strong sales performance closer to the end of the quarter. Inventories were slightly up from €4.6 billion to €4.8 billion, mainly due to FX effects.

Goodwill and other intangible assets increased from €25.6 billion to €26 billion, and other assets were up from €4.7 billion to €5.1 billion, both mainly due to FX effects. Moving to the last slide in the financial section, the year-over-year comparison of cash flows.

Operating cash flow increased significantly from €556 million in Q1 '25 to €880 million in Q1 2026 despite a decrease in profit after tax. Changes in other assets and liabilities turned positive, contributing €30 million compared to -€224 million in Q1 '25, driven by higher deferred income for goods in transit and increased bond interest accruals.

Changes in working capital improved by €75 million year-on-year to -€322 million. Investing cash flow increased significantly to €-750 million from €419 million in Q1 '25, which is a change of €336 million driven by the short-term investments and payment from the acquisition of JSR Chromatography.

Financing cash flow improved significantly from -€1.6 billion in Q1 '25 to -€62 million in Q1 2026, as the prior-year financing cash flow included the repayment of €1.5 billion of US dollar denominated bonds. With that, let me hand back to Kai for the outlook.

Thank you, Helene. Let's now turn to slide 15 to share our upgraded guidance with you.

You heard my initial comments on better visibility after navigating two more dynamic months and the strong momentum we continue to build across the businesses. Based on that, we are adjusting our 2026 target corridor for the group, now expecting €20.4 billion to €21.4 billion in sales and EBITDA pre in the range of €5.7 to €6.1 billion.

The majority of this adjustment is a result of our assumptions regarding a stronger momentum in our Life Science business and Healthcare navigating well in a challenging environment. As a consequence, the implied corridor for organic growth of group sales moves to 0% to +3%, up from -1% to +2%.

Our guided FX impact on sales was previously -4% to -2% and is now expected to be at -3% to -1%. The group EBITDA pre organic growth rate is now expected to be in a range of -2% to +2%, up from -4% to +1%.

The expected FX impact on EBITDA pre has been updated to -5% to -2%, up from previously -7% to -3%. EPS pre guidance is now at €7.50 to €8.20 per share, up from the prior €7.10 to €8 range.

For some additional color by business sector, let's take a look at slide 16. Starting with Life Science, we are increasing our organic sales growth guidance corridor resulting in +4% to +7%, up from +3% to +6%.

This is underpinned by the strong performance of our Process Solutions business at the end of the quarter. For Advanced and Discovery Solutions, our underlying assumptions have not changed.

We anticipate improving market conditions in biotech funding and academic research stabilization while we navigate an evolving market environment in China. We now expect EBITDA pre to show an organic increase of between +4% and +8%, up from +2% to +6%.

Moving on to Healthcare, we raise our guidance for organic sales growth by 1 percentage point to -6% to -3%, mainly reflecting two additional months of US MAVENCLAD sales. Consequently, we also increase our organic EBITDA pre guidance resulting in -12% to -8%, up from -14% to -10% previously.

Regarding MAVENCLAD US, please note that our forecasting methodology remains unchanged. We take into account what is in the books and take a conservative view on the remainder of the year.

There may be some near-term upside to this assumption. However, visibility beyond the next couple of weeks is limited amid additional generic entries.

Relative to Q1, we expect weaker organic growth in Q2 amid phasing effects and likely lower MAVENCLAD contribution, while H2 will see contributions from SpringWorks becoming organic. Also note that as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our Healthcare business, we are remodeling our franchise into four therapeutic areas to align our product offering with the commercial capabilities required.

The four TAs are: rare diseases, cardiometabolic, fertility and endocrinology, and specialty care. The latter being the combination of oncology and N&I.

We will report in the new structure as of Q2, and to support your modeling, we'll share historical numbers for the new structure with you in due course. For Electronics, we confirm our organic sales guidance and EBITDA pre growth projections, including the ranges of the guidance.

In summary, Q1 was a solid start to the year in a challenging environment. Through disciplined execution, we captured opportunities across our portfolio.

While macro conditions remain demanding, we now have a greater clarity on the actions we will take and the markets we can win. Our updated guidance reflects these assumptions.

With that, let me now zoom out to give you my initial views on the strategic direction of the Merck Group going forward. Merck is operating from a position of strength.

We are strategically positioned in growth markets from lab to customers and patients, operating across the entire value chain of the broader life science spectrum. Our expertise in biology, chemistry, and physics, combined with our unique position as both an enabler and a user of AI, gives us a powerful foundation to drive next-gen innovation.

We observe customer and patient needs are changing. The profound technological transformation is accelerating.

The digital and physical worlds are converging, driven by artificial intelligence. AI dramatically accelerates discovery and early-stage R&D, reducing the time it takes to identify promising drugs, materials, and biologic candidates.

As innovation cycles compress, competitive advantage shifts downstream towards companies that can rapidly validate, manufacture, scale, and commercialize innovations. Against this backdrop, Merck is uniquely positioned to lead with our diverse portfolio and our inherent capabilities.

How are we going to address that? To make the most of these opportunities, I'm sharing our new strategic direction.

It is designed to create superior value for customers and patients and, in turn, to deliver stronger structural growth at attractive margins for Merck. Specifically, we will leverage four streams, which I will come back to in a moment.

Ultimately, we will not only adapt our offering vertically, we'll also bundle and integrate our capabilities. In short, we'll optimize for speed and scalability where it matters, leveraging our unique footprint.

Having said this, we also remain firmly committed to our mid-term guidance shared with you during our Capital Markets Day last year. We plan to unlock growth and value creation through four strategic streams.

This will help to elevate our company towards higher speed and better scaling. Scaling will be crucial for the implementation of our strategy.

First, we'll focus on high-growth value drivers. We continue to take a disciplined portfolio management approach, prioritizing products and businesses that deliver the highest value.

Second, we'll shift selected product portfolios towards integrated workflow solutions. This means expanding from stand-alone products to integrated end-to-end solutions where we can solve high-value customer problems and build on our existing expertise.

Third, we'll leverage platform capabilities across businesses. We will identify capabilities to integrate and platform across the enterprise, enabling us to better support all businesses and improve our agility, speed, and scale.

Fourth, we will source and scale innovation through M&A and in-licensing. We see M&A as a growth lever for all businesses, clearly aligned to high-growth value drivers.

Above all, we will implement those four pillars over time, expecting their financial impact to materialize progressively while supporting our mid-term guidance. In select high-value markets, I'm now on page 20, we will build on strong expertise ranging from stand-alone products to integrated end-to-end offerings.

We observe a shift in a number of areas towards higher demand for solutions that cut across different parts of the value chain, such as materials, consumables, equipment, tools, software, and services. This is essential to solve our customers' problems, and we call that integrated workflow solutions.

In order to address those more integrated requirements, we have to work in a more integrated way in our company as well. We call that platform capabilities.

For example, in AI deployment, post-merger integration, carve-outs, and an integrated management systems approach we plan to build. While this serves as a strategic direction, not just mid, but also long term, it's an important journey we embark on.

We are not starting from scratch. Let me highlight two of our highly successful examples in bioprocessing and heterogeneous integration.

In bioprocessing, we have already made strong progress into becoming a provider of integrated workflow solutions, combining consumables like our bags with instruments like our bioreactors, supporting processing steps across multiple critical control points, and controlled by software products like our PAT solution. In the fast-growing area of heterogeneous integration for advanced semiconductors, we complement our advanced materials with tools like metrology and inspection to offer a more integrated approach to our customers.

Now on page 21, you won't be surprised we will leverage inorganic moves to invest in the opportunities ahead of us. M&A always was and continues to be a crucial component, and we will broaden our M&A scope.

Having said this, we will remain disciplined, in line with our strategic direction. Above all, we will optimize our portfolio across the group, aligning to identified high-growth value drivers.

M&A will also be an important component in the context of programmatic innovation. This covers targeted transactions to improve our product offering and accelerate our integrated solutions approach, and we could also expand into opportunities to foster our internal capabilities.

Next, we will drive external innovation to build a risk-balanced pharma pipeline, strengthening the early- and mid-stage development. We are committed to manage Healthcare north of 30% EBITDA pre margin, with an R&D-to-sales ratio towards 25% in the mid-term.

Our financial criteria are unchanged: IRR above WACC, EPS pre accretion post synergies, and strong investment-grade rating at all times. Now on slide 22, the Executive Board and I are confident in our way forward.

We build our strategic direction on a strong foundation, connecting our capabilities and identifying new sources of growth. By combining our core strength in biology, chemistry, and physics with data and AI, we will become a more agile company that delivers at greater speed and scale.

This is how we will best serve customers and patients. Merck has tremendous potential, and we have an exciting journey ahead of us unlocking more of it.

It's time to get to work now. We'll keep you updated on an ongoing basis, and we currently envisage a dedicated stand-alone event in the course of next year.

I hope you are as excited as we are on the journey ahead of us. Having said this, Florian, now over to you to kick us off for Q&A.

Thank you so much, Kai. Before we move on, just a minor clarification on the Q1, we had negative portfolio effect in Electronics.

With that, I hand it back to Sarah to moderate our Q&A session.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. First question, please, on Process Solutions.

Could you give us a bit more color around the growth in the quarter from an underlying basis? What was the safety stock build, and what was the fill of the customer warehouse?

Aligned to that, how should we think about that business going forward? Would you anticipate a quick reversal of some of those elements on the safety stock, or would you expect this to linger given the uncertainty on the geopolitical environment?

Your thoughts on the underlying business, which does seem very, very strong as well. Just your thoughts on that going forward.

Then second question, just on the strategic elements that you've just highlighted, Kai. M&A clearly a key driver.

It does seem like the elements around the healthcare pipeline have taken a sort of a higher level within the thoughts in terms of M&A. Is that right, or should we think of it as more balanced across the group?

How should we think about business development going forward? Thanks very much.

Thank you, Richard. Jean-Charles speaking.

Let me answer the first question. Overall, Process Solution Q1 performance was driven by three effects.

First, I would like to mention operational efficiency gain, which had a stronger impact than anticipated. It was driven by improved inventory management and fill rates to enhance customer experience linked to our new go-to-market model.

If you remember, I announced the new go-to-market model where we want to make sure that our business will work closely with our supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, and today it's paying off. The second key driver, it's about the contributions from new customer projects this quarter, which boosted results based on their strong performance in their molecules, as well as an effect of stocking of new warehouse.

Finally, the third driver relates to the fact that we observed stronger buying patterns, particularly from APAC customer, partially due to the fact that it may be related to the global crisis advancing in March. Excluding this effect, we will still be closer to the upper end of the 8% to 12% range we talked about during the Capital Market Day last year and during the March conference call.

While some of this exceptional effects of Q1 may persist in Q2, their impact is expected to be less pronounced over the course of the second half of the year, leading to a return to an anticipated normalized average underlying growth rates in the range of 10% in the future. Overall, to answer your direct question about the underlying business, the underlying business is very solid.

We have a very solid and strong order book. As mentioned earlier by Helene, our book-to-bill ratio is far above 1.

Last comment from my side, if you think about our mid-term guidance, our mid-term guidance remain unchanged for Process Solution, around 10%.

Richard, let me take the M&A question. Let me start with Healthcare.

On Healthcare specifically, Healthcare will be managed, as I indicated in my speech, north of 30% EBITDA pre margin. That means it's accretive to the group margins, and we will focus to strengthen the pipeline predominantly in early- and the mid-stage part.

Here we will leverage external innovation, might it be M&A or our in-licensing. Now to zoom out to the group level, that's the bigger picture.

Looking at the group overall, we will invest into opportunities ahead of us which fit to our strategic direction. This includes targeted transactions to improve our product offering and accelerate our integrated solutions part, as I've stated in the speech, and we could also expand into opportunities to foster our internal capabilities.

The two examples I mentioned earlier in terms of bioprocessing and heterogeneous integration, they can serve as good direction in general. We will be anchored around what we call the broader life science value chain.

That is bigger picture that we have mentioned.

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions.

Just a couple, please. One, first actually for Kai, just to clarify some commentary from your strategic remarks.

I think within the Healthcare comment, you mentioned R&D spend you're now targeting 25%. I wonder if you could just comment on how quickly you get to that level.

Maintaining EBITDA above 30%, I just think consensus is sort of in the 33%, 34% range. Should we think about R&D spend being downside to consensus Healthcare EBITDA margins with this sort of refocus on pipeline investments?

Second, you reiterated the mid-term guide, which is very helpful. That obviously implies an acceleration from what you're guiding for '26.

Would we see the underlying mid-term guide appear in '27, or is again that a bit further out? Then the final one is just for Danny, if you could just update us where you are on PERGOVERIS submission and timelines.

You've obviously reiterated 2H '26, but I think on the earlier call you gave a very detailed assessment of submitting Part 2 and then a 60-day review. Wondering if you could just update us where we are on that.

Thank you.

Let me start on the margins just to be very clear on this one. We're talking about moving towards that 25% range for R&D in order to secure the 30% above 30% EBITDA pre margin and being accretive to group margin.

Of course that always depends on what we have in our hands. There's no automatism.

It depends on what are the pipeline candidates that we have in our hands, and how much do we need to invest in order to drive these opportunities. It's very important to keep that in mind.

So '26 will be tracking at where we are. There's nothing specific here in addition to mention on '26.

Now let's talk about the second part of your question concerning the guidance and how we go towards '27. I think it's very important to understand we have confirmed our mid-term guidance today that was part of my speech.

For 2027, Life Science, Electronics are well on track. I think there's nothing to add for Life Science and Electronics.

For Healthcare, it's important to consider that depending on where MAVENCLAD will be for the next quarters, the more successful we are, the tougher '27 will be. That's pretty straightforward.

Of course, the open question remains on what exactly happens to PERGOVERIS and will depend on, of course, the timing of a possible launch. Now I hand it to Danny.

Thanks, Kai. Sachin, hi.

Regarding PERGOVERIS, on the backdrop of continued very strong growth of 20% organically and also expecting double-digit growth for the full year, when it comes to the US, to be very honest with you, not so much change. That's actually good news.

We continue to have very constructive exchange with the FDA and plan to submit the Part 2 of the file under the voucher procedure in the coming months, and that's fully consistent with our unchanged goal to launch in the second half of 2026. We will only be able to talk more about the US opportunity once we have clarity on the label, as I said several times ago.

We are doing whatever we can in order to bring the product to patients as soon as possible and maximizing the potential, but regarding the label language, it would be tough to discuss now.

Thank you.

Thanks. Peter Verdult here, BNP.

Kai, can I just push you on the pace of business development? Should we anticipate that to pick up in 2026?

Perhaps, yeah, thanks for your strategic update, but could I just push you for some, concrete examples of immediate changes you've made to how Merck operates on a day-to-day on a day-to-day basis since you stepped up to Group CEO? Be interested to know what you sort of what immediate changes you've made.

Then secondly, Danny, just on ASCO and for the rest of the year, any updates or better updates or clinical trial starts that you want to flag to the market to keep an eye on? Thank you.

Peter, I'm not not sure whether I get your question perfectly right because audio was not perfect, but the on on the the BD side of your of your question, of course, as we are continuously assessing opportunities, and market becomes becomes more more attractive going forward. We handling that as we go forward, nothing to share at this point in time, just stay tuned on on that.

Now, on the strategy itself, we are actually in in week in week two. It was very important to get started with our implementation work.

Very important that we get started as fast as possible with the implementation work, and this is why we shared the direction today. Of course, we cannot share now details on implementation steps as it is only week two.

Stay tuned on on on our progress. Here we keep you informed, and of course, most importantly, towards the end of the next year event and we will share a much more detailed picture on how we how we progress, and of course, I would expect some more series updates on on details.

For now, that is the frame, and bear with us now working on the details.

Hi, Peter. It's Danny.

Regarding clinical trial starts, you heard Helene about enpatoran, two twin studies, global studies, Phase 3 in lupus rash as a potentially first-in-class drug for this huge unmet need. We dosed the first patient.

This adds to the already ongoing Phase 3 cladribine capsules study in generalized myasthenia gravis, which is also recruiting very well. The next one to start, and I guess that we will announce it in the next couple of weeks, not more than that, is our anti-CEACAM5 ADC, [Pritol?]

, M9140 in third-line metastatic colorectal cancer global Phase 3 study, very exciting. We have additional ongoing data that will come out, very exciting, also from pimicotinib extension study, and we have recently started a bridging study to maximize the opportunity also in Japan.

There is a lot of good traction from David's team.

Thank you.

Thank you. Two questions, please.

The first for Danny on SpringWorks. Now that we should be washing through, I guess, all of the integration dynamics, can you walk us through what you think investors should expect kind of quarter-by-quarter for SpringWorks growth going into potentially competitor launches and Merck really delivering the full potential of the acquisition?

Then the second question is one for Kai. I know you've been pushed in a number of different directions, but we've had the kind of strategic update headlines.

I realize it's very early, and you've reiterated mid-term guidance, which I assume is a statement where you want to reassure investors that there isn't a meaningful incremental cost of what you have planned. I would love to know how you envisage the new strategic thinking manifesting for investors, what timeframe, and how we will see it.

Will we see a faster-growing Merck? Will we see a more profitable Merck?

How will we actually judge the success?

Hi, Matthew. It's Danny regarding the SpringWorks question.

I'll try to address your question from several angles. On the quarter, Q1 2026, rare disease in general, and rare disease include the SpringWorks legacy products, Gomekli and Ogsiveo, as well as pimicotinib in China.

The rare disease in general came in at €94 million. €93 million were attributed to Ogsiveo and Gomekli, as I flagged last time.

Q1 sales were sequentially down versus Q4, -€9 million. It's mostly pronounced for Ogsiveo, actually.

For Gomekli, it was rather flat. This is the reason, and the main reason for that is the stockings ahead of WAC increases, which we have minimized as we promised, if you remember the dynamics for SpringWorks last year.

We minimized it as we promised. Now if you drill down to one of the most important surrogates for launch dynamics here with a focus on Ogsiveo, which is new patient starts, we see a healthy increase in Q1 versus Q4.

The phasing that you suit towards Q4 has nothing to do with the increase in new patient starts. The launches in Germany and in Austria are, I would say, quite encouraging.

For Gomekli, we are actually working against a competitor. That, quite established one, and our launch is progressing very well.

If you take a look at the numbers for the competitor in the US for their MEK inhibitor, you will clearly see that our EMD team there is doing a very good job in terms of share. Now, you are right, the integration is behind us.

There is a lot to be done as we are working on many fronts: reduction of surgical procedures according to the guidelines for both products, raising shares in systemic first-line therapy, taking care of discontinuations and drug holidays. Here, the real life for these tumors is different from a clinical trial because patients tend to go on and off, not necessarily because of the therapy, we get used to that as well.

Mostly finding those patients who are under active surveillance, we are making quite a lot of progress there using a lot of advanced analytics and AI and to find these patients, and I see the results. A little bit more color, number of prescribers.

Number of prescribers for Ogsiveo was sort of, I would say, flattish, slightly increasing, but in the last 4 months there is an 20% increase in the number of prescribers. If you're referring to the around €1 billion expectation for Ogsiveo and near-blockbuster for Gomekli, we still believe that the potential is there.

Now, we increased the guidance slightly for the first half to at least €200 million for both products. We do expect a ramp-up in the second half.

We have a plan how to deliver it. I don't dismiss the challenges, but I see initial signals that there is a strong likelihood that we can make it.

Now that we are fully integrated in Europe, and countries beyond Europe are picking up, I overall feel comfortable with the current market expectation for the two products in 2026.

Matthew, appreciate your question on the on on the strategy. Again, let me reiterate.

The the strategy is a mid- to long-term direction that I've shared today, and it's it's a pretty substantial development of how we operate in the group where the first part, the earlier part, is to support our mid-term guidance, and then on top of that, progressively we'll see impact as we move forward kind of beyond the the the mid-term guidance. I I need your patience of of staying tuned on the updates that we will share then in the course of next week next year how we then build that progression over over the coming over the coming years.

Very important understand mid- to long-term strategy, important to capture growth opportunities on the mid- and long long-term horizon, and we will share details as we go forward.

Thank you.

Great, thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please, and unfortunately, they're both clarification questions.

On Healthcare R&D, you sort of mentioned it depends on what's in the pipeline now in order for the 20% or for the new guidance for 25%. We're around 20% to 21% now.

Is it safe to assume that this is the level where we should stay at until we see further M&A or BD, and then that's what boosts us sort of towards the 25% level? Just also on the increase sort of the decision to increase, what was the key decisions or the key factors that led you to increase that R&D threshold?

Would there be a skew towards discovery or development for the R&D spend? The second question, on Process Solutions.

Jean-Charles, you mentioned that the underlying would be closer to the top end of the 8% to 12% range. On slide 28, it says that underlying organic growth is slightly north of 10%.

How'd you reconcile those comments, or your comments versus the slide? Then could you help us out a little bit more on the actual impact of those three key growth drivers or three three impacts for Process Solutions?

Particularly in terms of quantifying the growth impact of the stocking from APAC customers and on the warehouse, presumably the stocking from APAC customers could continue in the second quarter, as you said. Just to give us an idea of how the cadence of growth might develop in Process Solutions through the quarters, that would be great.

Thank you.

Hi, James. It's Danny.

I'll take the first one. Regarding R&D needs, right now, when you look at the pipeline, you see pretty much the first time that we have three uncorrelated Phase 3 programs ongoing or just underway, and this is quite an achievement.

I don't remember that at Merck, this is a great testament for what we can do. Now, once we move things from Phase 2 to Phase 3, and also after we told you last time that we closed the efforts in the DDR space, our mid- and early-stage pipeline is rather slim, I would say.

Here we need to build that in order to sustain or to ensure that we grow beyond the low- to mid-single-digit mid-term guidance that we gave you beyond 2030, beyond 2031, and this is something that we need to start building now. If you're talking about what will we focus on in terms of BD, bolt-on M&As, and so on, it will be mainly on the early to mid-stage, not excluding discovery platform deals that can actually continue relying on validated biology and using our own strengths in conjugations and so on and so forth.

This is regarding what will we invest in. Now in terms of the R&D ratios, right now we are at around the 21%.

As Kai said, we would gradually go towards the 25%. We will do that only with keeping the EBITDA margins above 30%.

It's not going to be in one shot. It will need to be based by a good acquisition or a good in-licensing that is worth investing in.

Take that into account. It will be gradual.

It needs to feed the mid-term pipeline in order to secure the long term of the Healthcare business.

Hi, James. Jean-Charles speaking.

Let me provide you some more color. As I said, Process Solution Q1 performance was driven by three effects: operational efficiency linked to our new go-to-market model; the second one was new customer projects, as well as stronger buying pattern, as I said, many coming from our Asian customer.

All in all, I would like to repeat that while this exceptional effects impact Q1, some of them may persist in Q2. When you are working on your modeling, you should think about it.

Then, when you think about H2, we assume that we'll return to a kind of more normalized underlying growth rates around 10%. All in all, to answer the question, I'm feeling very confident with the overall underlying business for Process Solution in 2026.

Great, thank you.

Hi, guys. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Two, if I may. Firstly, for Jean-Charles, thanks very much for providing that extra detail on the extraordinary items for PS.

I was just wondering if you could give a little bit more detail around the overall underlying performance that you remain confident in. I'm just wondering if you're able to speak at all to any share gains that you saw within the quarter.

Then just thinking about the kind of underlying mix, firstly, can you just confirm your exposure to the equipment mix? Given you talk about a rapid gain towards the end of the quarter, I'm wondering if the return of demand for equipment in this space is what has supported the performance in 1Q, any details you can provide would be very helpful.

Then just a second question in terms of your guidance. In your release note, you mention that you are assuming the Middle East conflict will de-escalate in 2Q and stabilize and normalize from there.

Given relatively limited exposure to Middle East for you, I'm just wondering if you can give us an idea of any potential impact that we could see, especially for Healthcare, should we not see that return to normalization? Thank you.

Let me start with your first question about the gain in market share. We don't comment versus our competitor, but overall, as we say, within a quarter, it's very hard to comment on market share trends.

Concerning the underlying mix, keep in mind that our portfolio is mainly composed by consumables. Call it 90% of our portfolio is based on consumables, 10% call it service and equipment.

Related to your second question on Middle Eastern conflict, I will hand over to Kai.

Charles, I'll take the Middle East question. As you're aware, only 3% of our sales in total are Middle East and Africa.

In Healthcare, I think we are pretty used to crisis-related phasing in the region over quite a longer period of time. In Life Science, I think we have already indicated the temporary effects of the crisis.

In Electronics, we are probably there more exposed to consumer sentiment as compared to other sectors, but this has been fully integrated in our guidance already.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my questions.

The first one is on your strategy update. On slide 20, you show the value chain of Life Sciences, and this slide suggests that the expansion potential is the biggest for instruments and equipments, which is, from an industry perspective, underrepresented at you.

Would you agree with that? Is it possible to expand more into this area organically, or is there something where you really need more inorganic growth?

This brings me also to my second question, because on slide 21, you describe a financial criteria for M&A, which there is also brought down the criteria for accretive deals. How do you think about technology-accretive deals, which are not necessarily earnings-accretive, and we think about Life Sciences, it's hard to find earnings-accretive deals?

The last one is very quick on Electronics, a quick calculation. The DS&S business should have been down only in the low single-digit territory, which would be a sequential improvement.

Do you expect this positive trend to continue and DS&S to turn positive already in Q2? Thank you.

Oliver, thanks for your question. Let me start with the different perspectives on the chart you have mentioned on let's say how to expand beyond materials and consumables.

We already do that in certain areas where I've shared examples, and we intend to do it where it really makes economic sense. There is no intent to do it kind of across the full portfolio to go into equipment and tools, but where it makes sense in order to drive growth in our core business, namely materials and consumables, to create additional value for our customers.

Then in these areas, we intend to selectively do that. That's the idea, which we have already demonstrated, and you remember the examples in bioprocessing or the more recent one with Unity SC in heterogeneous integration.

I think very important that you bear that in mind as one of the other components. On the financial criteria, for bigger moves, they are clearly as they are stated on the chart.

For some smaller capability-related moves, these are more bolt-on moves, we would then of course apply a more kind of strategic lens to that, but that is reserved for only some smaller bolt-on related technology moves. Let's cross that bridge once we get there.

Thank you very much. Let me cover the DS&S question.

It's Ben speaking. Semiconductor Materials represents about 2/3 or 65% of Electronics sales, and in Q1, it's once again the main growth driver, benefiting from AI, advanced nodes, and continued demand across both specialty and mature nodes in Asia.

Coming to DS&S, it represents roughly 15% of sales, and after bottoming out in Q4 2025, has now shown quarter-over-quarter stabilization in Q1. We expect DS&S to be stable in 2026, and therefore no longer to be a growth headwind going forward.

Thank you. A quick follow-up of the last one because DS&S comps in H2 are very low.

It means sequentially that DS&S in H2 will be worse than it was in H1. Would you confirm that, or do you see it not more optimistic from the base comparison perspective?

I agree, comps are easier, especially towards H2. Over the full year, we expect DS&S to be by and large flat compared to the previous year.

Thank you.

Thank you, good afternoon. My first question is on the Discovery Solutions business within Life Sciences.

How is the market environment in China evolving, and how would you characterize the US market environment at the moment? Then secondly, a quick one on Advanced Solutions, which showed a nice pickup in organic growth in Q1, and I saw that you called out the services business in the appendix of your presentation as a key driver.

Can you add a bit more color on what exactly was driving this and whether this type of growth could be sustainable over the next few quarters? Thank you.

Hi, Falko. Jean-Charles speaking.

Let me comment on both Advanced Solution and Discovery Solution business. In both cases, the two business unit delivered solid quarterly performance within the 2026 guidance.

I call it all clean. We don't see any exceptional effect neither for Advanced Solution or Discovery Solution.

The key driver for Advanced Solution include again very strong and solid performance for call it quality testing business, biomonitoring, but also solid performance from a low comp when I mention business services, think about CTS and think about CDMO. Overall, I will say we had a solid growth across the different franchises within Advanced Solution with, let's say, no exceptional effect.

Concerning your question on Discovery Solution, we observed slight organic growth versus our initial guidance, which is good. It was driven by, I would say, low funding in US academic customer last year, if you remember correct.

If you remember last year, in March, we suffered a bit in US from an academic segment perspective, we have a lower comp. We also enjoy an increase of our service level within the quarter for Discovery Solution, which is again linked to our new go-to-market model.

For Discovery Solution, you have two driver: a lower comp in 2025, and you have a higher service level from a supply chain point of view, which boosted a bit our performance, and it's aligned with our new go-to-market model. Concerning your question on China, for Advanced Solution and Discovery Solution, we are still navigating through changing environment situation in China.

I would say the market overall for this two business unit remain soft.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just two quick questions on pharma.

The first one on fertility. You had a guide I think for low single-digit growth for the year.

Given the performance in Q1, is this still on track? For Gonal-f in particular, what should we expect once you lapse the price cut that you took in Q2 last year, should we expect stabilization, can we see growth?

That's the first one on fertility. The second one just on CME.

CME, I think Q1 was expected to be the worst for the year, actually it's probably better than what was expected. Could the mid-single-digit guidance for the year actually land a bit better given what we saw in Q1?

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Sorry.

I will start again. It's Danny.

Regarding fertility, Gonal-f, 16% organic decline is the key driver there is the remaining pricing headwinds in the US. We took a significant price cut in the second quarter of last year, which is carrying over here, annualizing.

However, this effect annualizes, we expect Gonal-f momentum to improve significantly as of Q2. In fact, we expect Gonal-f sales to be broadly stable year-over-year from Q2 onwards, which will also improve the overall fertility trajectory more towards our mid-term ambition of mid-single-digit growth.

Of course our ability to predict pricing with the MFN deal will help us a lot as well from that perspective. Now, the key growth engine of fertility business continues to be PERGOVERIS.

As I said, another strong quarter, 20% up in sales. We are successfully leveraging PERGOVERIS's differentiated profile as the only recombinant FSH and LH product.

As a reminder, we launched PERGOVERIS recently in China, one of the largest fertility markets, and we start seeing a little bit of encouraging early signs from the launch. Then of course, as we spoke about the US, the assumption is that we will launch in the second half of this year based on the priority review voucher.

If that happens, then of course it brings us even closer to the ambition of mid-single-digit growth. Now, when it comes to CM&E, for the CM&E franchise, we reported yes, organic sales growth of 1.8% increase, and this is quite remarkable against the very tough comp from prior year where the organic growth was more than 10% for this entire franchise.

Now you also heard Helene talk about phasing effects, and actually there are two that we are calling out: one on the positive side related to China, the other one on the negative related to the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, both were pretty similar in terms of the magnitude of about €30 million and actually neutralizing each other. Looking ahead, we are confirming our indication that in 2026 CM&E should grow in line with its mid-term outlook of mid-single-digit organic growth.

It assumes that the phasing effects should wash out over the rest of the year, as we said before. For Q2, I don't expect CM&E to be back to mid-single-digit growth yet, but rather a bit below, while the second half of 2026 should be well in line or even slightly above the mid-single-digit line.

Please take that with a grain of salt as the situation in the Middle East continues to be quite volatile, and phasing could be different from what we currently assume, but rest assured that the underlying trends for CM&E are fully intact.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Can I do a follow-up on Process Solutions?

You gave some very precise quantification or not quantification, in terms of color, in terms of why you think your growth is so much higher than most of your other global peers, lower exposure to consumables, lower exposure to instruments, lower exposure to China, but also you quantified that APAC stronger buying patterns. In terms of your management systems, when you look at these quantifications, what is the solidity of this estimate that 2% to 3% benefit came from stocking from APAC customers?

I.e., how much of that is an estimate based on the processes you improved during COVID, and how much of that is a known fact because you have visibility on your customer's inventory? The second follow-up question is, we are starting the year in Process Solutions with a very high growth run rate, then we probably go back to the normal 10%.

I'm assuming that this stocking, let's hope the stocking effect will not repeat in '27, and the world might be slightly clearer place. Should we then expect first quarter next year to face this difficult comp, taking you to the lower end of the 8% to 12% corridor, or could it go below that corridor given the comp effect you've seen in the first quarter this year?

Thank you, Kumar, for the two questions. Let me try to answer the first one on the quantification.

Yes, you're right. I mentioned the three effects, and you drop a number 2% to 3%.

I will not comment on it. You should assume that learning from the past, learning from the new go-to-market, we have quite a deep understanding of our order book.

I mentioned several times that we have a report, called a rainbow report, where we could slice and dice our order intake, order book by customer, by region, by product type. We also could have our order aging from 0 to 1 month, 1 to 3, 3 to 6, 6 to 9.

Overall, we don't see any abnormal pattern excepted with few customer in Asia. The quality of our insight is extremely high.

One point I would like to highlight on top of our quantify reports, now for several quarters, we have implemented qualitative survey with our global strategic accounts, and we are fostering the interaction with our global strategic accounts, and I'm personally involved in some of them. Again, nothing which is abnormal.

I want to repeat, I feel comfortable and confident in the full year for Process Solution. To your next question concerning the stocking effect for 2027, what I would like to mention is we don't expect the normalization of inventory to happen in 2026, maybe in 2027, and it will depend of the geopolitical situation of the Middle East, and this is something we cannot predict.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking my questions. Two, if I may, please, both on Healthcare.

Going back to I think it was Sachin's question about the drift upwards in R&D as a percentage of sales over time, I just wondered if there are any countervailing cost reductions, because in the quarter, on one side, you did have higher than expected R&D, but your SG&A cost control was very impressive. Is that a trend we should extrapolate as the coming years?

Then going back to the strategy, looking at the framework that you've presented, Kai, I just wonder if there's been any change in the perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the pharma business, because if we dissect it into the commercial and the innovation, that the commercial performance of Healthcare over the last 15 years has been absolutely outstanding, that the performance in R&D less stellar. Within this framework, is there any change in where you view the strengths and the opportunities for investment in pharma based on the framework and based on the performance of those two activities?

Thanks so much.

Hi, Simon, I will take the margins question and the R&D ratio. You are right, the Q1 EBITDA pre margin was still at a very solid level of 35%.

In fact, the year-over-year decline in the margin was mainly due to FX and to a minor extent from dilution from SpringWorks. On an organic basis, we were able to even slightly increase the margin, which is quite an achievement considering the significantly higher R&D and also lower MAVENCLAD sales.

Now, while there was also a bit of benefit from a couple of smaller one-timers together adding some 100 basis points to the margin in Q1, this clearly speaks to our disciplined cost management approach. Now, as we said at the beginning of the call, we are streamlining the organization, the entire organization, to mitigate pressures on some of our more mature brands like MAVENCLAD, not just MAVENCLAD.

This is what you actually see in the numbers. Looking at the remainder of the year, just to give a little bit more color on that, we do expect lower margins in the coming quarters, still above 30%, in line with our updated guidance.

Key drivers to consider here in this context are also launch investments in rare diseases, particularly outside of the US, pimicotinib launch in China and in the US, hopefully, at the end of this year, and also for PERGOVERIS when it comes, you need to balance that. Now, the increase in the R&D right now, as we speak, is a reflection of the ramping up of Phase 3 programs, which are quite extensive.

That's good news, we like Phase 3s. As I've said before, the continuous increase will be gradual based on the opportunities, up to 25%, maintaining the EBITDA margin above 30.

Simon, let me take the strategy question. I think it's important to zoom out first and look at the group picture.

It's very important to look at the capability perspective I've shared with you kind of across the group, and where all businesses contribute to these capabilities that we need in order to serve customers and patients better. It's important to start at that level, and there every business has an important role to play.

Now zooming into pharma, we have expertise in different parts, and we address already kind of the commercial expertise with our move in rare diseases and how we utilize that. We will stay very much focused in pharma on risk and profitability, on the right balance of the two.

This is very important to always bear that in mind for pharma specifically. Again, let me remind you, there's many opportunities if you think broader, what we call the broader life science value chain across the different businesses, to, in addition, with using AI, to improve the way we do research, the way we do manufacturing in the company, the way we drive new businesses.

It's very important to see every part of our company has an important role to play across the different businesses.

Great, clear. Thanks so much.

Good day, thank you for taking my two questions. First, given that specific guidance for Q2 was not provided, could you please provide a kind of qualitative trading update for the second quarter?

My second question, the strategic update outlines a plan to develop the portfolio and increase company velocity by leveraging capabilities across the existing businesses. While this reinforces the three-pillar structure of Life Science, Healthcare, and Electronics, were alternative structures, such as more focused two-division approach or strategic swap of divisions, considered as part of this review?

What makes the current three-sector model the optimal structure for future value creation of Merck? Thanks.

Peter, let me start with the second question. I think there's a chart in the deck that shows you the kind of the two ends of the spectrum that we have been addressing.

There's what we call the front end, this is the customer-facing side, the market-facing side of our businesses. I think it's essential and is a competitive advantage that we feel we have, how much aligned we are in different businesses with the different customer groups, different markets, and I think that's the strength that we should build on, and that's competitive strengths as we compare that across the industries.

It's always important in your structure, you have to have the end customer in mind to focus predominantly on that part. However, at the same time, it should not exclude options for kind of better collaboration across different businesses.

That's what we call building platforms, because it helps us to scale better, it helps us to increase speed in the implementation. These are the two different angles that we have to balance.

It's very important that you bear these two extremes of the picture in mind as we look into our strategic development going forward.

Who takes the first question? Could you repeat the first question again, please, Peter?

Thank you.

It's basically could you give us a qualitative guidance or trading update for Q2 for the whole group?

No, that's typically not something which we do on the running level. There, I hope you understand we will keep you posted around August.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. I think we have reached the end of a long call.

With that, I would say we close the call for today. Thank you very much, and then see some of you at the upcoming roadshows.

Thank you, and have a great day. Bye-bye.