IQVIA Holdings Inc (NYSE: IQV) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Oct. 28, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Kerri Joseph — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury
Ari Bousbib — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Ron Bruehlman — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mike Fedock — Senior Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis
Analysts:
David Windley — Analyst
Justin Bowers — Analyst
Elizabeth Anderson — Analyst
Michael Cherny — Analyst
Shlomo Rosenbaum — Analyst
Eric Coldwell — Analyst
Jeff Garro — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the IQVIA Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Joseph, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury. Mr. Joseph, please begin your conference.
Kerri Joseph — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings call. With me today are Ari Bousbib, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Ron Bruehlman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Eric Sherbet, Executive Vice President and General Counsel; Mike Fedock, Senior Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis; and Gustavo Perrone, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Today, we will be referencing a presentation that will be visible during this call for those of you on our webcast. This presentation will also be available following this call in the Events and Presentations section of our IQVIA Investor Relations website at ir.iqvia.com.
Before we begin, I would like to caution listeners that certain information discussed by management during this conference call will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by forward-looking statements due to the risk and uncertainties associated with the company’s business, which are discussed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. In addition, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call, which should be considered a supplement to and not a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures is included in the press release and conference call presentation.
I would now like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Ari Bousbib.
Ari Bousbib — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Kerri, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. We delivered another strong quarter. Revenue and profit were towards the high end of our guidance, reflecting solid operational performance. Free cash flow was particularly impressive this quarter. It was actually the highest quarterly free cash flow ever, even when you consider the large advances we got during the COVID era for vaccine trials. This strong free cash flow, of course, reflects a good and disciplined working capital management by the team, but also an improved overall industry backdrop. On the clinical side, net bookings in the quarter totaled exactly $2.6 billion, which resulted in a net book-to-bill ratio of 1.15, also reflecting the improving trends in customer demand that we started seeing in the second quarter, as well as, of course, solid execution from our sales teams.
In fact, our third quarter net bookings were 5% higher sequentially, 13% higher than a year ago, and 21% higher than the trough that we experienced in Q1 this year. Key demand metrics were also strong in the quarter. The EBP funding momentum is building this year, with each quarter delivering steady sequential growth, reaching $18 billion in Q3 according to BioWorld. Our qualified pipeline was up 6% year-over-year, driven by large pharma and EBP segments. You will recall that in the second quarter, we had high single-digit sequential RFP flow growth and low teens growth year-over-year. This quarter, we saw again high single-digit RFP flow growth sequentially and 20% growth year-over-year, with growth across all segments. Importantly, client decision-making timelines have been improving sequentially. Finally, our backlog reached a new record of $32.4 billion at the end of the quarter, showing growth of 4.1% compared to the prior year.
On the commercial side, TAS continued to perform well in the third quarter and delivered strong results despite tougher year-over-year comparisons. In fact, if you look historically at sequential revenue growth, Q3 is generally flat to down versus Q2, and we were slightly up this quarter. This was driven by ongoing momentum from drug launches and the strength of our broader commercial portfolio.
I do want to mention the good growth we had this quarter in CSMS, about a third of which was from an acquisition. We decided to increase our capabilities in this segment, as we are seeing a developing trend of large pharma clients increasingly looking to outsource commercial operations for established brands in specific markets. These tend to be large multiyear engagements, typically spanning across therapies and geographies, and IQVIA is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this trend by combining our information and analytics and domain knowledge with a local sales force footprint.
Let me turn to the results of the quarter. Again, strong revenue and profit results. Revenue for the third quarter came in at the high end of our guidance range, representing year-over-year growth of 5.2% on a reported basis and just under 4% at constant currency. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was up 1.1%. Third quarter adjusted diluted EPS of $3 increased 5.6% year-over-year.
Let me just now, as I usually do, share a few highlights of business activity. Let me start with TAS. New drug launches continue to be a key area of strength for IQVIA. A few examples, a biotech client awarded us a multiyear integrated partnership to support faster product launches. This win includes a full suite of information assets and analytics capabilities. A top 10 pharma client awarded IQVIA a program to support the launch of a novel oncology therapy. A top 20 pharma client awarded IQVIA a contract to support the launch of a dual indication metabolic therapy utilizing AI capabilities to integrate advanced patient insights into product utilization and patient response. A top 10 pharma client selected IQVIA to provide launch support for a new autoimmune disorder therapy. The engagement includes advanced AI-enabled patient-level solutions that enable performance tracking and analytics near real-time and integrate specialty pharmacy data and payer insights.
A good example of the commercial outsourcing trend I mentioned earlier was a very large award from a top 5 pharma clients to manage end-to-end commercialization and promotion of an established brand portfolio in a very large overseas market. We’re progressing as planned to deploy highly specialized industry AI agents. So far, we have approximately 90 agents in development covering 25 use cases across commercial, real-world world and R&DS. We, in fact, are seeing growing demand to help our clients accelerate AI adoption. We are increasingly helping our clients build data infrastructures that are robust and AI-ready by leveraging IQVIA’s health care-grade AI ecosystem, combining advanced information management, integrated platforms, security, safety, and privacy, along with domain expertise.
Let me share a few examples of key wins in the quarter. A top 20 pharma client selected IQVIA to deliver a next-generation information management solution that streamlines hundreds of sales data feeds into an AI-enabled, centralized, simplified global warehouse. Another top 10 pharma client awarded IQVIA a contract to deploy a next-generation AI-enabled SaaS platform to optimize global compliance reporting. A biotech client chose IQVIA to deploy a new global master data management program to enhance AI-enabled omnichannel marketing and analytics operations.
Our real-world business continues to perform well. Here are some examples. Top 10 pharma clients selected IQVIA to lead a post-market commitment study evaluating treatment outcomes in African-American patients with lung cancer. A biotech client selected IQVIA to lead a prospective real-world study supporting a regulatory commitment to a rare oncology disease. A biotech client selected IQVIA to deliver a retrospective real-world study supporting post-marketing commitments for their newly approved drugs to fulfill regulatory requirements.
Turning to R&D Solutions. The positive momentum that we saw in Q2 continued to build through Q3. A few stand-up wins with our biotech customers first. In oncology, a first-time sponsor selected IQVIA to lead a Phase 1 trial for a novel leukemia treatment. Another biotech client selected IQVIA to lead a complex Phase 1 and Phase 2 trial in hematologic oncology, targeting multiple cohorts across two indications. It was also selected as the exclusive CRO partner for a biotech’s entire cardiovascular program. And of course, this recognizes our leadership in cell and gene therapy and cardiovascular research, as well as our ability to execute globally. Large pharma was also strong in the quarter. We were, for example, selected to lead a Phase 2 study in stroke therapy, demonstrating our deep neuroscience expertise and global trial capabilities.
Another top 10 large pharma client selected IQVIA to manage a global Phase 3 MASH program, leveraging AI-enabled pathology tools and a robust site network to accelerate execution. We were also selected to lead a Phase 3 ovarian cancer study, highlighting our deep therapeutic expertise and the strength of the integrated delivery model we’ve built in partnership with these clients.
Now, before I turn it to Ron for details on our financial performance in the quarter, I want to say a word about the CFO transition we’ve announced some time ago. As you know, Mike Fedock will step into the CFO role on February 28, 2026, succeeding Ron Bruehlman, who will retire after a remarkable tenure. Ron — and that’s the good news. Ron will stay on as a Senior Advisor to continue to help us on specific projects and to help ensure a smooth transition.
Ron has been a highly valued leader of this company for many years. In fact, Ron and I have been working together for over a quarter century. Ron has been instrumental in shaping IQVIA’s financial strategy, driving its transformation into a leading global organization. He was here from managing the IMS Health IPO in 2014 through the Quintiles merger in 2016. And of course, he returned in 2020 to help us navigate the pandemic. His steady leadership and strategic long-term vision have been essential in building a high-performance global finance organization and in helping IQVIA remain resilient during unprecedented times over the past few years. Mike brings deep industry experience, and he has held key financial leadership roles across IQVIA, including as CFO of our R&D Solutions business and prior to that, as CFO of our IQVIA laboratory business. He’s worked closely with me and the senior team for years now, and he’s very well positioned to lead our finance function into IQVIA’s next phase of growth.
Let me now turn to Ron for more details on our financial performance.
Ron Bruehlman — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Ari, and good morning to everyone. Let’s start by reviewing revenue. Our third quarter revenue of $4.1 billion grew 5.2% on a reported basis and 3.9% at constant currency. Now, excluding COVID-related work from this year and last, revenue grew 4.5% at constant currency. And this included about 0.5% of contribution from acquisitions. Technology and Analytics Solutions revenue for the third quarter was $1,631 million, that is up 5% reported and 3.3% at constant currency. R&D Solutions’ third quarter revenue was $2.26 billion, growing 4.5% reported and 3.4% at constant currency. Now excluding the step-down in COVID-related revenues, R&D Solutions revenue grew 4.5% at constant currency. And lastly, our Contract Sales and Medical Solutions business, or CSMS, grew revenue of — had revenue of $209 million, and that was up 16.1% reported and 13.9% at constant currency. Year-to-date revenue for the company was $11,946 million, that’s up 4.4% reported and 3.7% at constant currency, and excluding all COVID-related work, our year-to-date growth was approximately 4.5% at constant currency.
Technology and Analytics Solutions revenue was $4,805 million year-to-date, that’s up 6.7% reported and 5.8% at constant currency. R&D Solutions year-to-date revenue of $6,563 million was up 2.5% at actual FX rates and 1.9% at constant currency. Excluding COVID-related work from both periods, revenue grew approximately 3.5% at constant currency. And CSMS year-to-date revenue of $578 million was up 6.8% reported and 5.9% at constant currency.
Let’s move down to P&L now. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $949 million, representing growth of 1.1%, while year-to-date adjusted EBITDA was $2,742 million, that’s up an even 2% year over year. Our third quarter GAAP net income was $331 million, and GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.93. Year-to-date GAAP net income was $846 million, or $4.86 of diluted earnings per share.
Adjusted net income was $515 million for the third quarter, and adjusted diluted EPS was an even $3. Year-to-date adjusted net income was $1.48 billion or $8.50 per share. Now, as Ari noted, we had strong net new bookings this quarter, confirming the improved demand environment we started to see in the second quarter. The R&DS backlog as of September 30th was $32.4 billion, up 4.1% year-over-year. Next 12-month revenue from backlog was $8.1 billion, that’s up 4.0% year-over-year.
Reviewing the balance sheet, as of September 30th, cash and cash equivalents totaled $1,814 million, and gross debt was $14,957 million. That resulted in net debt of $13,143 million. Our net leverage ratio ended the quarter at 3.52 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. And third quarter cash flow from operations was $908 million, and capital expenditures were $136 million, which resulted in record free cash flow for the quarter of $772 million.
Now, I’ll turn it over to Mike Fedock, who will share details on our guidance. Mike?
Mike Fedock — Senior Vice President, Financial Planning & Analysis
Thanks, Ron, and good morning, everyone. Let’s start with our full-year guidance. We are confirming our full-year 2025 guidance and are narrowing the ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted diluted earnings per share, and are maintaining the midpoint of our prior guide. We expect revenue to be between $16,150 million and $16,250 million, representing year-over-year growth of 4.8% to 5.5% or 5.2% at the midpoint. This revenue guidance includes approximately $100 million of COVID-related revenue step-down entirely in RDS, approximately 100 basis points of tailwind from foreign exchange, and approximately 150 basis points of contribution from acquisitions. These assumptions are unchanged from the prior guide. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $3,775 million and $3,800 million, growing 2.5% to 3.1% year-over-year or 2.8% at the midpoint. We expect adjusted diluted EPS to be between $11.85 and $11.95, up 6.5% to 7.4% versus the prior year or about 7% at the midpoint.
Now turning to the fourth quarter. We’re expecting revenue to be between $4,204 million and $4,304 million, which represents year-over-year growth of 6.2% to 8.7%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $1,033 million and $1,058 million, representing growth of 3.7% to 6.2% versus prior year. And adjusted diluted EPS is expected to be between $3.35 and $3.45, which represents year-over-year growth of 7.4% to 10.6%. This guidance assumes that foreign currency rates as of October 27th continue for the balance of the year.
So to summarize, in the third quarter, we delivered strong top and bottom line results, as well as record high free cash flow. R&DS net bookings were $2.6 billion, growing 13% year-over-year and resulting in a net book-to-bill ratio of 1.15 times.
The forward-looking demand metrics in the clinical business continue to trend in the right direction, with 20% RFP flow growth year-over-year and sequential improvements in client decision-making timelines. TAS performed well and delivered solid results, driven by ongoing momentum from drug launches and the strength of our broader commercial portfolio. And we reaffirmed our full-year 2025 guidance.
With that, let me hand it back to the operator for Q&A.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of David Windley from Jefferies. Your line is now open.
David Windley
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Ari, I wanted to ask you about what I think you call your see more, win more strategy and how that has played out through the middle of the year or through this year in terms of contributing to the RFP flows improvement that you’re highlighting, as well as your win rate and how we should think about an amount, if any price competitiveness you’re applying in that strategy and how that plays out through the P&L as that business converts to revenue. Thank you.
Ari Bousbib
Okay. Well, usually, we keep the best for the last, but you start with the big strategic question. Let’s start with that. Okay. Well, look, the strength in bookings momentum and RFP flow, I think we have to say, and we can see it in the industry in general, I think, reflects a reduction in the level of uncertainty in the market environment and the macro political environment. I think there have been a few developments that have sort of helped tilt decision-making at large pharma on certain programs, favorably. And the climate overall has improved. That’s undeniable in our sector. So that certainly is a big driver of our growth.
The specifics of our See More, Win More strategy, which we started earlier this year, which has, as you know, now has a lot of imitators, has borne fruits as well in the sense that we’ve been looking at markets that we previously hadn’t been touching and had left some more marginal players essentially in a quasi-monopoly situation in those segments. We’ve decided to go after that. The pricing conversation is a little bit overdone, in my opinion. In a climate where market dynamics were unfavorable, with a lot of uncertainty and less deals to be had. There was more competition on pricing. And all we did in the first part of the year was to align to those pricing discounts that were being offered as opposed to walk away in order to continue to build our book of business. We don’t see that trend continuing. It hasn’t been an issue at all. Certainly, this past quarter, the opposite. We’ve walked away from deals. And we think that the sector in general is a lot healthier in terms of market dynamics. The level of uncertainty has gone down, and pricing has returned to normal levels.
You had a question and a follow-up on P&L implications. Look, we have a $32 billion plus backlog, and only a tiny portion of that was subject to a few discounts that we did earlier in the year. The revenues associated with those things are going to bleed over our P&L over the next five years. And we do not expect that to have any impact whatsoever on our P&L going forward.
David Windley
Great. Thanks, Ari. I’ll stick to the one question. Thank you.
Ari Bousbib
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Justin Bowers from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Justin Bowers
Hi. Good morning, everyone. So Ari, it sounds like the business environment is improving, funding is up, consumer confidence improving. And both of the segments, TAS and RDS are strengthening at least on a two-year stack basis. Is this momentum that we should expect to continue over the next few quarters, and into 2026? And maybe if you could just give us a glimpse of how you’re thinking about those two?
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. Well, look, I can’t have a crystal bone here, and I’m not going to give you 2026. This was a clever way of asking me about 2026 guidance. We’re not going to do that here. As you know, we usually provide guidance for the year concurrent with the release of our fourth quarter and full-year earnings early in the year. So, end of January or early February, we’ll provide that. We are in the midst of our planning process and still early, still in October and — but look, what I can tell you is, we are going to deliver this year over 5% in top line revenue growth, which frankly, given what we’ve been through and the environment of being in the past year and a half, two years, I think, is a very, very strong performance and you can see that compared to our larger — certainly, the larger CRO peers, we are doing very, very well.
So I cannot tell you yet what ’26 will be in the next few quarters, but I mean, look, I would be surprised if revenue growth in ’26 is not at least the same or better than the growth that we are seeing this year. So I see that with a certain amount of confidence.
Justin Bowers
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Anderson from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Elizabeth Anderson
Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks so much for the question and congrats, Ron, on your retirement. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit, Ari, about some of the differences between what you’re seeing on the pharma side versus the biotech side. I think you covered the biotech side nicely in the See More, Win More answer, but just sort of wanted to peel back the onion a little bit on the pharma side as well.
Ari Bousbib
You mean the large pharma side?
Elizabeth Anderson
Yes.
Ari Bousbib
Look, large pharma went through a lot of transformation internally in terms of their investment programs. You — going back to the IRA, there was this whole phase of reprioritization of programs and reviews of their pipelines, which led to an elevated level of cancellations due to this reprioritization activity. And that lasted for year, year and a half, beginning mid of ’23 and certainly continuing through ’24. We see that activity as having essentially been completed, and we haven’t seen any further cancellations as a result of that type of activity? So we think that the pipelines are now fully sanitized. Of course, there continue to be cancellations. That’s kind — but they are all like more business-as-usual due to futility or other reasons, and nothing unusual. Large pharma is actually the RFP flow for our pharma is very strong. I mentioned that our RFP flow growth year-over-year is 20%. And that applies to large pharma and EVP equally. I mean, there is strong, strong momentum. And again, that’s helped by the more calming environment and perhaps more certainty around what’s coming. And it’s also helped by the fact that these reprioritizations have been largely completed and the programs that now on the table are programs that our clients want to engage in and want to go forward with. Our cancellations, I always say, in recent years were about $0.5 billion a quarter, plus or minus a couple of $100 million. So they could range between $300 million and $700 million in a given quarter. So a couple of billion dollars plus year in, year out.
In ’24, we had more than 50% higher cancellation than that, right, over $3 billion in ’24 because of these reprioritizations from large pharma. So that essentially is behind us. And year-to-date, our cancellations follow the regular pattern. I think it’s actually somewhere between $500 around — on average, about $550 million per quarter. I saw the numbers yesterday. I think nothing much to talk about. This quarter, we were a little bit towards the higher end of that range, not because of reprioritizations. It’s simply the normal course of business. Our growth of bookings were very strong, very, very strong this year. And you can see that also in our $2.6 billion of net bookings, which were up 13% year-over-year, and sequentially missing the digits. The trough we experienced Q1 probably was the trough. We don’t see that in the details. Again, large pharma dynamics returning to normal business conditions, trending towards normal business conditions. And biotech funding is improving, which, as you know, is the driver of EBP growth. And that, again, is reflected in our bookings and in our RFP flow as well.
Elizabeth Anderson
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Cherny from Leerink Partners. Your line is open.
Michael Cherny
Good morning, and thanks for taking the question. Maybe if I can ask a little bit about TAS, nice growth against, obviously, a tough comp. As you think about the pathway forward, what do you see as the contributions you’re getting from some of your inorganic advancements? And where do you see the best opportunities to continue to expand that business above and beyond your own R&D? Talk AI, talk anything along that vein. That’d be great. Thanks.
Ari Bousbib
Thank you, Michael. You spoke about inorganic. I think we said the 1.5 points of the contributions of our research to the company as a whole. As you know, as always has been the case, the bulk of that is in TAS. Although I think, in this past quarter, we did a large acquisition that was in R&DS and SFO. I think that what we spent $485 million that we spent in total. And most of that is one acquisition called NEXT Oncology, which is an SMO special in oncology, very attractive business. We acquired this end of Q3, so not much contribution in Q3. And the inorganic contribution to R&DS will be a few million dollars, I guess, in the double digits, like $50 million or thereabouts of revenue to R&DS in Q4. With respect to TAS, we didn’t do much in Q3. And so I guess the acquisition is contribution for the year. We did a CSMS deal as well, right, which is small, obviously, but since CSMS is a small segment, it was a large piece of it. So not much in TAS in Q3. In general, we try to buy technology companies, companies that can add capabilities to our suite of products, analytics companies. There’s a lot of innovation, as you know, in the AI space.
Michael Cherny
Medical Affairs, Clinical Affairs.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. Medical affairs, real world. Real world is very strong. Real-world evidence was really very, very strong in the quarter. And we expect that to continue into the future. So, yeah, I mean, for the year, again, a point and a half, I would say, 50%, 60% of that would be TAS, and the rest for the year, right, for 2025. And then the rest R&DS, and then a little bit CSMS.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum from Stifel. Your line is open.
Shlomo Rosenbaum
Hi. Thank you. Ari, before I ask you a question, I just want to also commend Ron. So Ron, I’ve seen you retire before, and I’m not fully convinced you’re gone right now.
Ron Bruehlman
No, I’m not.
Ari Bousbib
The wrong word to apply, Ron, is not retiring.
Shlomo Rosenbaum
Yeah, you’ve dragged him out of retirement in the past, Ari. So I don’t know. Ari, I want to ask you to talk a little bit about the subcomponents that in TAS and how they’re growing in terms of real-world evidence and consulting, and analytics, and just, some of the trends that you’re seeing there. I know consulting often kind of leads the trend in terms of if you see that picking up, that means that the environment is getting better. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about each of the components and what you’re seeing, and maybe what that says about the market.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. So look, the growth rate in Q3, it’s hard to derive big trends because, as you know, Q3, in general, is the weakest quarter in the year. But specifically, this year, we had a tough compared with last year. What was the growth of TAS Q3 last year? It was like 8.6%, I want to say. I don’t remember the number.
Ron Bruehlman
Yeah.
Ari Bousbib
8.6% growth last year. So we knew we had a tough compare this quarter. But as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, sequentially, we’re slightly up. And usually, because Q3 is the toughest quarter, given nothing happens for six weeks in Europe. It used to be three weeks, then it’s four, and now it’s six, and it’s going to eight. Anyway, nobody is working. So I think that the performance this quarter was very strong. It was led largely by the real-world evidence, which was very, very strong. Everything else was obviously data is usually low single digits, and everything else was between low to kind of mid-single digits growth. Again, against very tough compares, same for consulting.
Shlomo Rosenbaum
Are you seeing a pickup in that consulting?
Ari Bousbib
You will recall that I know why you’re asking consulting because it’s kind of the most discreet and it’s positive in terms of leading indicator. When things were trending negative territory, consulting went down very rapidly. In the ’24, end of ’23, or first part of ’24 timeframe, consulting was down, actually negative. One of the quarters, I think it was almost negative double digits. But it’s positive this quarter, and — again everything outside real-world evidence in aggregate was in single digits or thereabouts.
Shlomo Rosenbaum
Thank you.
Ari Bousbib
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Coldwell from Baird. Your line is open.
Eric Coldwell
I’ll stick on the TAS question here just to make sure we’re all level set for the fourth quarter. Back in February, you guided to $6.3 to $6.5 billion. That was quite a while ago. A lot of things changed. But if I use that original range and I take out what you’ve done year to date, that would put the implied fourth quarter revenue guidance about $100 million to $300 million below the street on TAS. That’s a big range and obviously a lower number than where consensus lies today. So I’m just hoping you can give us a little specificity on what you’re thinking for TAS in the fourth quarter, so we aren’t ahead of our skates here.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. I’m not sure, and you’re talking about our targets, and then you talked about the street.
Eric Coldwell
Yeah. You guided from February to $6.3 billion to $6.5 billion. And the year-to-date number through three quarters is a little over $4.8 billion. That leaves less than $1.5 billion to less than $1.7 billion to get to the full year, if I’ve done the math.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. I am going to talk to the finance team here and ask them. I do not have the numbers in front of me. What you are suggesting that TAS would be lower than our guidance, I don’t see that.
Eric Coldwell
Well, I’m not really suggesting anything. I’m hoping you’ll tell us. [Speech Overlap]
Ari Bousbib
Okay. You can take that on your follow-up.
Eric Coldwell
Yeah. I’m hoping you’ll tell us that things have changed since the February numbers, but it is possible that maybe the street’s just a little high on this segment. I mean, it looks like you’ll cover it with R&DS and CSMS, but I just want to make sure we’re.
Ari Bousbib
Again, Eric, I think you’re — I’m with that. We are delivering on guidance. Is that, am I wrong?
Ron Bruehlman
Yeah. Eric, we’ll help you with some of the Q4 details. On a full-year basis, there’s been no change all year with TAS that the full-year CFX growth rates were between 5% and 6%. There’s no change there. We can help you with that.
Ari Bousbib
We always said 5% to 6% growth year-over-year, correct?
Eric Coldwell
Yeah. CFX.
Ari Bousbib
CFX.
Eric Coldwell
Correct.
Ari Bousbib
That is exactly what we are.
Eric Coldwell
I think you said 5% to 7% constant currency. And I think I believe it was 5% to 7% on February 6th, was the range.
Ron Bruehlman
We narrowed our guide in the last call, Eric. So we’re still sticking with the 5% to 6%. There’s no change from the prior guide and no change where TAS is going to land in the full year.
Eric Coldwell
Okay. I don’t see any change.
Ari Bousbib
Well, there’s no change, Eric.
Ron Bruehlman
Yeah. We’ll help you with that with the Q4, but there’s been no change.
Eric Coldwell
Yeah. Perfect. Thanks. Just want to make sure we’re not ahead of our skates. I appreciate that very much.
Ari Bousbib
Anything else you had other than this clarification?
Eric Coldwell
I had 42 questions, but you told us to stick to one. Let me —
Ari Bousbib
No, I know, but I am going to give you a special discount because that wasn’t really your question. So —
Eric Coldwell
Well, look, I mean —
Ari Bousbib
That was like a commentary. I know you were trying to get some color.
Eric Coldwell
I appreciate it. I’ll sneak two in. I’ll take advantage and give an inch. I’ll take a mile. Two things, just quickly. One, do get some ongoing questions on those couple of mega trials that you mentioned earlier this year. I’m just curious if you can tell us what the status is. I think one was definitely ramping back up here in the back half, and I believe the other was still pushed out till next year, if happening at all. So maybe just an update on the mega trials. And then secondarily, Ari, in your prepared commentary, you highlighted some interesting wins. And you mentioned Phase 1 a couple of times. And my historic interpretation of past conversations was that you weren’t really a big Phase 1 shop. Maybe you partnered with some others. I’m curious on what your involvement is these days in actually managing or even having Phase 1 CPU units. Maybe give us a little more color on what you’re doing there. Thanks so much.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. It’s a very good observation, Eric. We are seeing a lot of demand for Phase 1 work. And we are the network partners. We don’t have any significant presence in that segment, but we are expanding. And this is why I chose to highlight a couple of examples. It’s also, by the way, part of our See More, Win More strategy. And it happens to be that there is more demand. Things are getting sort of “restarted again” and the pipelines are strong. And so, we are seeing more demand, and we are ourselves being more present in the segment.
Ron Bruehlman
Yeah. Phase 1 in oncology is a little bit different because you’re not dealing with healthy volunteers. You’re right, it tends to feed your later business than other Phase 1 trials. So there is some distinction there. That’s what NEXT Oncology was, Phase 1 oncology.
Eric Coldwell
Yeah. Perfect. That’s super helpful. Thanks.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. And then the two trials.
Ron Bruehlman
Yeah, the two trials, no change there. We don’t have anything factored into our fourth quarter guidance for revenue burn from either of them. So I suppose that’s a slight change from what we said for.
Ari Bousbib
Right. It’s basically all pushed out of the year, and it’s not contemplated in the guidance, right? Not. Yeah. Bear in mind that we mentioned these, what is it, like a year ago at this time, because it caused us at the time to change our guidance for R&DS. These were fast-burning and had already gotten started, and they were interrupted. And that caused us to change our guide for R&DS in the fourth quarter for the fourth quarter of last year, and so we had to mention it. We only mention specific trials to the extent we can, and we try to be very careful because we are mindful of confidentiality for our clients and so on. We cannot say very much, but we do mention it when there is a significant event attached to one trial. In this case, it was two. And that caused us to change anything in our numbers. But bear in mind, at any point in time, we’re working on a couple of thousand trials, and we keep building backlog, as you saw. And thankfully, we have had very positive momentum in our bookings, and it’s continuing. So we feel good about that, and it continued to stagger on our book of business, so — which, again, enabled us to continue to deliver and do even better on R&DS, even without those trials resuming this year. Thank you, Eric.
Eric Coldwell
Thank you.
Ari Bousbib
I’ll give you one more question.
Ron Bruehlman
Yes. One more.
Ari Bousbib
Next question, operator? This should be our last question.
Operator
Your last question comes from the line of Jeff Garro from Stephens. Your line is open.
Jeff Garro
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask more about AI and maybe try to make it a two-parter. First part being if you have any insights on how AI is changing your customers’ business models, and specifically their appetite for outsourcing. And the second part would be how is IQVIA using AI internally to deliver results for clients that may be a little bit more efficiently? And whether you have any visibility into potential gross margin improvements from those internal use cases. Thank you.
Ari Bousbib
Yeah. So, thank you, Jeff. We’ve spoken about this in the past. So far, we have about 90 AI agents in development that cover 25 use cases, and we continue to progress that. By early 2027, we plan to develop 500 highly specialized agents. And what these do is they essentially eliminate a lot of physical labor from the tasks that we perform for our clients. So internally, I think the second part of your question first, certainly, that will help improve our margins longer term. Now it takes time to deploy, obviously, and it takes time to translate that into margin improvements. We’ve had great examples on the commercial side. We have — we use, for example, AI tools to compare patient cohorts to each other and highlight differences with natural language output, which leads to improvements in cycle times from several weeks to a couple of weeks.
We really have a lot of examples, and it takes a long time to recite those. But we see significant value in continuing to do more with less through deploying agents within our internal processes. For our clients, I give a number of examples in my introductory remarks. Our clients are very interested, of course, in using AI. So early on, before we get involved in discovery, there’s a lot of focus from our clients in the discovery space to try to use AI to sort out molecules and try to identify the most like — quote-unquote most likely to succeed trials to tackle a specific disease. So we participate a little bit with some models and some tools that we have. But later on, the issue on the clinical side is that it’s highly regulated, and you get to go through standard processes that are defined by regulations. And you have to use the intermediary spaces between those regulatory interactions to utilize and deploy AI. At the sites, it’s very helpful. And our clients are using, of course, AI in all the technology tools that some of which are our tools that they use commercially. They use AI, I gave a few examples, to manage their promotion campaigns, marketing campaigns. They use AI to get patient insights in the real world. Real-world evidence is a big area for us. And one of the reasons we experience such great growth is we got very advanced capabilities given our vast information assets in real-world patient data. Using AI tools and trying to evaluate how a drug behaves in the real world using AI becomes a great, great opportunity. So these are the areas.
Now, with respect to the margin, as you know, we’ve had a lot of margin headwinds, certainly this year, because of more pass-throughs, largely because of the FX tailwind, which all of which comes without profits and a little bit of the mix, for example, in Q3, CSMS was stronger and CSMS is lower margin. So when you have the market headwinds like that, certainly we are counting in our usual cost reduction programs, offshoring, and so on, but longer-term AI certainly, AI enablement will help mitigate those headwinds and help us long-term improve margins. Thank you. And I think the team will be available for follow-up questions as always. Thank you.
Ron Bruehlman
Thank you for taking the time today.
Operator
Mr. Joseph. Back over to you.
Kerri Joseph
Thanks for taking the time to join us today. And we look forward to speaking with you again on the 2025 fourth-quarter earnings call. The team will be available the rest of the day to take any follow-up questions you might have.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]