Agriculture business review

Performance in 2025

Full-year sales in Life Sciences were increased 5.5% to £532.2m (2024: £504.3m) or by 7.7% at constant currency. Pharma sales grew by 4% at constant currency, with the regulatory environment in the USA creating uncertainty for our customers and impacting sales, particularly for vaccine adjuvants.

The fourth quarter was Pharma’s strongest quarter of 2025, driven by higher excipient sales for both small molecule and biologic applications. Lipid sales for drug research also improved in Q4.

Full-year sales in Crop Protection were up 14% at constant currency, driven by the recovery in demand from larger crop science customers following an extended period of destocking, aided by our proactive actions.

Although momentum in Crop continued into the fourth quarter, demand in 2026 is not expected to benefit from the customer inventory rebuild that positively impacted our performance in 2025. Seed Enhancement grew sales by 8% at constant currency, with its predominantly services business model continuing to deliver consistent sales growth.

Adjusted operating profit increased by 12.0% to £116.5m (2024: £104.0m) or by 15.6% at constant currency. Although the adjusted operating margin of 21.9% (2024: 20.6%) remains significantly below its medium-term potential, the margin improved compared with both the prior year and H125, driven by the recovery in Crop volumes despite the associated negative impact on business mix. IFRS operating profit was £16.3m (2024: £85.5m).

Strategic priorities and progress

To take full advantage of opportunities in key Life Sciences markets, we are rebalancing Pharma and driving differentiation in our Agriculture businesses. Across the Life Sciences portfolio, we are refocusing innovation, improving customer experience, and maximising returns from investments in line with Group priorities. Reflecting the progress we have made in improving customer experience, the customer Net Promoter Score (NPS) for Life Sciences increased to +49 (2024: +41).

Driving differentiation in our Agriculture businesses

Our Agriculture businesses have a ~9% share of a $4bn addressable market with a top three position in niches growing at least 1.5x market growth (2.6% CAGR). As regulations tighten and crop care formulations become more complex, Agriculture customers have significant development needs, providing us with opportunities to innovate.

This is reflected in strong demand for the highly differentiated ingredients at the top end of our portfolio, which have grown at ~10% CAGR since 2019. We are therefore driving further differentiation in Crop Protection and Seed Enhancement. our two Agriculture businesses.

Refocusing innovation

In Crop Protection, we are focused on enhancing portfolio differentiation by developing new adjuvant effects that meet unmet needs (for example, for rainfastness), expanding our portfolio through technology partnerships, and enhancing supporting data to prove performance.

The lower carbon footprint is also an important point of differentiation, particularly at the lower end of the portfolio.

In Seed Enhancement, innovation is focused on adding to our range of seed coatings that are free from microplastics, strengthening our position ahead of the European ban on microplastics in seeds in 2028, as well as countering abiotic stress in seeds due to extreme heat, drought, and high soil salinity.

We are also applying AI modelling techniques to accelerate the development of new priming, pelleting, and X-ray processes, meaning we can derive commercial benefits from innovation during the same planting season.

Improving customer experience

The customer environment in Agriculture has been changing with multinational customers (MNCs) focusing on their core activities, the rise of generic manufacturers, particularly in China, and ongoing consolidation of smaller biopesticide specialists.

We are responding to this dynamic customer environment through comprehensive customer segmentation and the continued regionalisation of our R&D and formulation expertise.

Aided by inventory rebuild by our larger customers following an extended period of destocking, sales to MNCs grew by 14% at constant currency in 2025, with a 36% increase in sales to ‘tier 2’ customers.

Local and regional customers now represent 56% of sales, in line with the prior year, and up from 44% in 2019.

Maximising returns from recent investment

Our Agriculture businesses have limited capital requirements, but the new production centre in Dahej, India will support Crop Protection growth in Asia.

Future sales growth

Assuming current economic conditions continue, we are targeting an organic increase in sales in Life Sciences of 4-7% CAGR 2026-28.