$VEEV Veeva Systems Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call

This video provides an in-depth exploration of Veeva Systems' fiscal 2026 first-quarter earnings, offering a comprehensive look at their financial performance, strategic initiatives, and market outlook within the life sciences industry. The call features CEO Peter Gasner, EVP Strategy Paul Shawa, and CFO Brian Manwagner, who discuss key product areas like Vault CRM, Crossix, and the burgeoning Veeva AI, alongside broader market trends and customer sentiment. The discussion highlights Veeva's strong execution, significant investments in innovation, and its unique position in providing mission-critical, cloud-based software solutions tailored for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

A central theme of the call is the accelerated adoption and strategic importance of Veeva's next-generation Vault CRM. The company reports substantial progress in customer migrations and new wins, driven by the enhanced product roadmap and the integration of sales, marketing, and service functions into a unified platform. Furthermore, Veeva's AI strategy is presented as a major initiative, with the CEO expressing strong confidence in its potential to revolutionize efficiency across the life sciences sector. The discussion also delves into the robust performance of Crossix, Veeva's digital marketing analytics platform, which is experiencing significant growth due to expanded capabilities and increased customer demand for digital optimization.

The earnings call also touches upon Veeva's broader portfolio, including its R&D Cloud and Data Cloud offerings, providing updates on customer adoption and future growth prospects. While acknowledging a degree of macroeconomic uncertainty, the executives emphasize the resilience of their subscription-based business model and the long-term orientation of the life sciences industry. A new strategic direction, the expansion into horizontal CRM markets outside of life sciences, is also introduced, signaling Veeva's ambition to leverage its core strengths in new domains. The Q&A session further elaborates on customer feedback, the drivers behind product adoption, and the company's approach to pricing and investment in emerging technologies like AI.

Key Takeaways:

• Strong Financial Performance: Veeva reported a robust Q1 2026 with $759 million in total revenue and a 46% non-GAAP operating margin, exceeding guidance and achieving its calendar 2025 revenue run rate goal of $3 billion.
• Accelerated Vault CRM Adoption: Veeva is seeing strong momentum with Vault CRM, having over 80 customers live and projecting approximately 200 customers live within the next year. This growth is fueled by both new customer acquisitions and migrations from legacy Veeva CRM, driven by product innovations like Service Center and Campaign Manager.
• Veeva AI as a Game Changer: CEO Peter Gasner is highly bullish on Veeva AI, projecting it could increase life sciences efficiency by 15% by 2030. The strategy involves deeply embedding AI agents (e.g., CRM bot for pre-call planning, safety AI for case transcription) directly into core applications, emphasizing industry-specific, tangible use cases.
• Crossix Driving Commercial Growth: Crossix, Veeva's analytics platform for pharmaceutical brands, is a significant growth engine, expanding its capabilities from digital consumer measurement to include HCP measurement, optimization, and audience building. It's growing at over 30% year-over-year, providing rapid ROI for customers' digital marketing spend.
• Expansion into Horizontal CRM: Veeva is strategically entering the horizontal CRM market, targeting large enterprises outside of life sciences. This initiative leverages Veeva's core values of customer success and product excellence, with the goal of securing first customers by the end of the year.
• Data Cloud Traction: Veeva's Data Cloud, including Compass, is gaining momentum, with Compass adding about 10 brands in the patient data area this quarter. The comprehensive data network supports both Crossix and Compass, enabling robust measurement and sales data projections across retail and non-retail channels for complex therapies.
• R&D Cloud Dominance: Veeva's R&D Cloud continues to perform strongly, with ETMS (Electronic Trial Master File) now adopted by 19 out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies. This widespread adoption signals an opportunity for Veeva to double down on investment to further standardize and simplify the industry.
• Customer Sentiment and Macro Environment: Despite general macroeconomic uncertainty (e.g., US administration dynamics, interest rates, funding for small biotechs), Veeva's core business remains insulated due to its subscription-based, mission-critical solutions and the long-term nature of the life sciences industry. No material impact on financials or pipeline has been observed yet.
• Integrated Commercial Solutions: The shift to Vault CRM enables a unique value proposition by bringing sales, marketing, and service together in a single customer database, which is resonating with customers seeking greater customer-centricity.
• AI Adoption Prioritization: In the Gen AI world, Veeva sees significant focus and investment in the sales side (e.g., CRM bot) due to the potential for substantial productivity and effectiveness gains for field teams, followed by customer service (case intake) and marketing.
• AI Pricing Strategy: Veeva plans to charge an appropriate, reasonable license fee for its AI features to encourage broad adoption across the industry, aiming for a net positive impact on revenue, though specific packaging and projections are not yet finalized.
• Industry Challenges: Key challenges for life sciences customers include fragmented data, the need for connected software and data for faster insights, and the demand for deeply embedded, industry-specific AI solutions that deliver a clear return on investment.
• CRM Migration "Red Zone": Large pharmaceutical companies using legacy Veeva CRM are expected to make migration decisions to Vault CRM in 2025 or 2026, ahead of the "red zone" starting around 2027, to ensure ample time for a smooth transition.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• Veeva Vault CRM Suite
• Veeva Medical
• Veeva PromoMats
• Veeva Crossix (analytics platform)
• Veeva OpenData
• Veeva Link
• Veeva Compass (de-identified longitudinal patient data)
• Veeva CRM Pulse
• Veeva Clinical Platform (including ETMS, CTMS, EDC, Safety, RIM)
• Veeva Quality Cloud
• Veeva AI (including CRM bot, Medical Legal Regulatory Approval Agent, Safety AI Agent)
• Campaign Manager (part of Vault CRM)
• Service Center (part of Vault CRM)

Key Concepts:

• Vault CRM: Veeva's next-generation CRM platform, designed to replace its legacy CRM and offer integrated sales, marketing, and service capabilities within a single customer database for life sciences.
• Crossix: A key component of Veeva's commercial cloud, providing advanced analytics for pharmaceutical brands to measure and optimize digital marketing spend, target audiences, and assess campaign effectiveness.
• Veeva AI: Veeva's strategic initiative to embed artificial intelligence, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI agents, directly into its core life sciences applications to automate tasks and enhance efficiency.
• Horizontal CRM: A new market expansion strategy by Veeva to offer its CRM expertise and technology to industries outside of its traditional life sciences focus.
• Red Zone: A term used to describe the critical period, anticipated to start around 2027, when large pharmaceutical companies using legacy Veeva CRM will face increased urgency and potential challenges if they have not yet migrated to Vault CRM.
• Connected Software & Data: Veeva's approach to solving the industry's fragmented data challenge by harmonizing data sets and integrating them seamlessly with core software applications at a foundational level.