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Item 1. Business

2026-02-26 compared with 2025-03-03 · 165 added, 135 removed, 325 unchanged (48% of the section changed)

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We believe we are well positioned to leverage our global scale, scientific and therapeutic expertise, access to clinical data-driven insights, industry network, and decades of experience to bring customers distinctive, expert solutions.

Our team of approximately 15,500 employees provides services in approximately 100 countries.

Our team of approximately 14,300 employees is able to conduct operations in approximately 100 countries.

Our solutions streamline the biopharmaceutical product and medical device development process.

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We are a recognized leader in clinical pharmacology, known for first-in-human and exploratory clinical pharmacology studies as well as biopharma label support studies.

We offer an integrated clinical pharmacology solution that delivers precision, quality and safety.

Our solutions include our clinical pharmacology units and external partnerships, project management, study design and monitoring, bioanalytics and biomarkers, pharmacokinetics (“PK”), modeling and simulation, and biometrics.

Fortrea’s clinical research units (“CRUs”) are located in Leeds, U.K.

We offer an integrated clinical pharmacology solution that delivers with precision, quality and safety.

Our solutions include our clinical research units (“CRUs”) and external partnerships, project management, study design and monitoring, bioanalytics and biomarkers, pharmacokinetics (“PK”), modeling and simulation, and biometrics.

Fortrea’s CRUs are located in Leeds, U.K.

offering 100 bed capacity;

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All Fortrea CRUs have current good manufacturing practice (“cGMP”) pharmacies within them, enabling on-site manufacture of sterile and non-sterile drug product.

A global bedside data capture system has been implemented across all CRUs.

A global bedside data capture system has been implemented across all CRUs, enabling increased efficiency and quality, and providing real time access to data.

• Clinical Development .

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Services include, but are not limited to, regulatory affairs, protocol design, operational planning, study and site start-up, patient recruitment, project management, comprehensive site and medical monitoring, data management and biostatistics, pharmacovigilance, medical writing, and mobile clinical services.

Our service offerings are supported by technological innovations such as digital and decentralized clinical trial capabilities.

Our service offerings are supported by technological innovations, leveraging strategic relationships with leading technology vendors together with Fortrea’s operational expertise to support more connected patient and site centric solutions, digital health and decentralized clinical trial capabilities.

We are making focused investments in artificial intelligence (“AI”), machine learning (“ML”), other advanced technologies, and workflow automation and orchestration to drive speed, agility, quality and enhanced patient safety in clinical research.

We focus on rapidly expanding research areas such as oncology, central nervous system and neurodegenerative, metabolic disorders including MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis), immunology and inflammation (including autoimmune diseases and rheumatology), rare diseases, and cell and gene therapies.

Additionally, we have deep scientific expertise in a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas and diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, nephrology (renal), infectious diseases, dermatology, ophthalmology, respiratory, and women’s health, among others.

Over the previous five years, we have conducted more than 5,925 phase I through IV clinical trial projects involving more than 1,000,000 subjects.

For instance, during the period from January 2020 to December 2024, we conducted more than 5,930 phase I through IV clinical trial projects involving approximately 1,000,000 subjects.

Clinical Development is enhanced by our pharmacology learnings, which we apply to future clinical programs.

We also have a medical device and diagnostics offering, which has conducted more than 500 studies in the previous five years.

We also have a medical device and diagnostics offering, which has conducted more than 500 studies during that same period.

We believe Fortrea is poised to capture additional market share in the large and expanding development market.

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Prior to commercialization, a biopharmaceutical product or medical device must undergo extensive preclinical and clinical testing as well as regulatory review to demonstrate an acceptable benefit-risk profile by regulatory authorities.

As a result, bringing a new biopharmaceutical product or medical device to market can take up to 12 years 1 and costs $2.3 billion or more on average.

As a result, bringing a new biopharmaceutical product to market takes about a decade 1 and costs $2.23 billion on average.

The biopharmaceutical product development process consists of three stages:

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The clinical development market is a large, attractive and growing market.

Clinical development spend by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry was estimated to be $100 billion in 2024 3 .

Of this, we estimate the current addressable market for Fortrea to be $35 billion.

Phase I-IV clinical development spend by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is forecast to be ~$145 billion in 2026 3 .

Of this, we estimate the current addressable market for Fortrea to be approximately $41 billion 4 .

Over the next several years, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are projected to increase R&D investment, grow their pipelines, and outsource more programs to CROs.

We believe these underlying market trends represent a significant opportunity for us.

1 McKinsey and Company, Fast to first-in-human | Getting new medicines to patients more quickly February 2023

2 Deloitte, Unleash AI’s potential | Measuring the return from pharmaceutical innovation – 14th edition, April 2024

3 Industry Standard Research’s May 2023 report on CRO Market Size and Growth Projections and 2024 Pharma R&D Spend.

Evaluate Ltd.

1 McKinsey and Company, Operational excellence in biopharma research and early development, January 2025

2 Deloitte, Be brave, be bold – Measuring the return from pharmaceutical innovation – 15th edition, March 2025

3 Evaluate Pharma, Citeline, internal analysis

4 Evaluate Pharma, Citeline, William Blair, Jefferies, Industry Standard Research, Internal analysis

In addition to the growth in R&D expenditures, an increase in outsourcing has also supported the growth of the CRO sector.

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R&D spend of large biopharmaceutical companies is forecast to grow at approximately 4-5% CAGR over the period 2025-2030.

In 2024, biotechnology funding rebounded from the relative downturn in 2022-23 that followed historically high funding levels stemming from the COVID pandemic.

Over the medium to longer term we expect the biotechnology funding environment to be strong.

In 2024, biotechnology funding modestly improved from the relative downturn in 2022-23 that followed historically high funding levels stemming from the COVID pandemic.

Biotech funding slowed in the first half of 2025 due to policy and macroeconomic headwinds but began to strengthen in the second half of the year.

Over the medium to longer term we would anticipate the biotechnology funding environment to reflect more historical levels of solid investments.

• Expanding Scope of Capabilities .

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CROs that can capitalize on extensive datasets to inform decisions and increase efficiency in executing international clinical trials have benefited from these changing dynamics.

As customers continue to reprioritize their R&D pipelines with biologics and advanced therapies, such as cell and gene therapies, additional complex clinical trial capabilities will also be required from CROs.

With the continued growth of biologics and advanced therapies, such as cell and gene therapies, in R&D pipelines additional complex clinical trial capabilities will also be required from CROs.

We are built to handle the increased complexity and global demand that underpin these industry tailwinds.

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As large biopharmaceutical companies seek to reduce the cost and time to develop biopharmaceutical products, and periodically reprioritize their pipeline investments, they have increasingly relied on CROs for services to preserve flexibility and reduce costs associated with clinical trials and improve time to market.

While some companies anticipate a reduction in Full Service in the near-term, they expect increased use of Functional Service Provider models, which is sometimes referred to as insourcing.

While some companies anticipate a reduction in Full Service in the near-term, they expect increased use of Functional Service Provider models.

Both Full Service and Functional Service Provider delivery models create demand for CROs, and we believe Fortrea is well positioned as we offer flexible delivery models to the industry.

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Large and Diversified Customer Base

We have a balanced and diverse customer mix serving large, small and emerging pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device organizations.

As of the fiscal year ended 2024, two customers accounted for approximately 14.3% and 10.5% of our revenue.

We have a balanced and diverse customer mix serving large, mid-size, small and emerging pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device organizations.

As of the fiscal year ended 2025, one customer accounted for approximately 18.1% of our revenue.

In 2025, 56% of our revenue came from leading pharmaceutical customers.

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Our scale and expertise are key competitive advantages that make us a multi-dimensional partner for our customers.

Our top 20 customers have consistently represented approximately 64% of total revenue for 2024, 61% for 2023, and 55% for 2022.

Our top 20 customers represented approximately 69% of total revenue for 2025, 64% for 2024, and 61% for 2023.

Additionally, most of our customers use us for more than one service.

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With a portfolio of projects that extend over multiple years, our longer-term contract durations give us confidence and visibility into our future revenues.

Access to Actionable Clinical Data and Insights

Access to data is foundational to any CRO and we believe our arrangements with strategic data partners provide a higher quality of insights to our customers.

We continue to prioritize actionable data as we further scale our data repositories.

We believe that we have the opportunity to optimize the clinical development process through identification of high performing investigator sites, accelerating recruitment and improving retention of patients in studies.

Further, in 2024 we launched a leading integrated solution to increase participation in clinical trials from historically underrepresented populations.

Expertise Across Therapeutic Areas

Deep Therapeutic Expertise in High Growth Therapeutic Areas

We believe that our focus and expertise across rapidly growing scientific areas provide us with advantages over our competitors.

Fortrea’s expertise spans oncology, CNS and neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular, renal, MASH, rare disease, cell and gene therapy, and many more.

These scientific areas represent the majority of the life sciences industry’s drug development pipelines.

Fortrea’s expertise spans oncology, CNS and neurodegenerative disease, metabolic diseases including MASH, immunology and inflammation, cardiovascular, renal, rare disease, cell and gene therapy, ophthalmology and several emerging therapeutic areas.

These scientific areas represent the majority of the life sciences industry’s existing drug development pipelines.

Oncology makes up a large portion of our business and continues to grow.

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In 2025, 40% of our full service therapeutic-based revenue related to oncology studies.

In addition to Fortrea’s success in oncology, we plan to leverage our capabilities in science, innovation, and technology to successfully capture additional market share across high-growth therapeutic areas, such as CNS and neurodegenerative disease, cell and gene therapy, cardiovascular, renal, MASH, rare disease, and more.

Growth Strategy

Our growth strategy builds on Fortrea’s strong foundation and aligns with our customers’ priorities.

Fortrea’s strategy includes the following elements:

Lead with Scientific and Therapeutic Expertise, Expand in Existing and Novel Therapeutic Areas

We believe our therapeutic expertise across phase I through phase IV of drug development is critical to early engagement with customers and to optimizing the design and management of clinical trials.

Our expertise helps us deliver enhanced value to customers through a reduction in the cost and time to bring drugs and devices to market.

We have significant expertise in several rapidly growing scientific areas including oncology, CNS and neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular, renal, MASH, rare disease, cell and gene therapy, and several emerging therapeutic areas.

The oncology market remains an area of unmet medical need that receives significant investment in R&D.

As part of our mission to drive value for customers, we will continue to try to capitalize on the expansion of opportunities in these important, growing therapeutic areas.

While Fortrea has significant expertise and experience in these scientific areas, we believe that there is ample opportunity for future growth.

Support Sites to Solve the “Last Mile” Problems of Patient Recruitment and Trial Starts

Site and Patient Centric Approach to Improve Delivery and Outcomes

Fortrea establishes high-value site relationships to support scientific engagement and reduce the time and cost for our customers to develop products.

The third-party clinical sites we work with include healthcare systems, dedicated research networks, large group practices, consortiums, and governmental coordinating bodies that represent multiple research partners around the globe.

Our Global Site Advisory Board now includes more than 440 unique sites and includes representatives from customers.

In 2024, we established the China Chapter of the Board and created therapeutically focused site networks, starting with the Early Phase Oncology Network.

Our Global Site Advisory Board represents a network of more than 400 sites and community partners, as well as our customers.

The Advisory Board aims to shape industry best practices and drive process improvement through the adoption of innovative technological solutions at Fortrea.

We leverage data-driven approaches to target sites that align with our customers’ protocols, with a focus on accelerating patient recruitment, efficiently executing trials with high quality, and enhancing the site experience.

We work with key sites to plan, design and win new studies through therapeutic guidance and patient engagement strategies.

As noted below, Fortrea is leading a collaboration with top technology innovators in our industry to deliver integrated patient and site centric solutions that streamline the clinical trial experience.

Fortrea offers a range of site augmentation services to support sites with selecting trials, identifying and enrolling patients, conducting and closing out of studies.

We work with key sites to plan, design and win new studies through therapeutic guidance and patient engagement strategies, recognizing the importance of site and patient-centricity in a trial’s success.

Fortrea collaborates with top technology innovators in our industry to deliver integrated patient and site centric solutions that streamline the clinical trial experience.

We provide sites with a dedicated point of contact, from initial outreach through study close out, to streamline communication.

Fortrea also offers a range of site augmentation services to support sites with selecting trials, identifying and enrolling patients, conducting and closing out of studies.

These services include administrative and clinical support, tools, data and analysis to enable sites to be more productive and help to overcome challenges with disparate technologies, complex protocols and their resource constraints.

We are committed to increasing the representation of patient populations within clinical trials, and we developed a holistic strategy focused on partnering with customers, sites, investigators, and communities to address this commitment.

Through these collaborations and by utilizing innovative solutions to support the diversity plans expected by global regulatory authorities, we will further strengthen our reputation as a strategic partner of choice.

Pursue “Ideal Scale” to Support the Research Requirements of Our Customers

We are committed to increasing the representation of patient populations within clinical trials, and developed a holistic strategy focused on partnering with customers, sites, investigators, and communities to address this commitment and support the diversity plans expected by global regulatory authorities.

Data Driven Insights to Optimize Trials

Access to data is foundational to any CRO and we believe our arrangements with strategic data partners together with our ability to integrate, analyze and visualize datasets provide a higher quality of insights to our customers.

We leverage these insights to improve study design and feasibility, identify high-performing investigator sites, accelerate recruitment, and improve retention of patients in studies, among other uses.

We continue to explore new data sources that enrich the breadth and depth of our geographic, therapeutic and site datasets.

Pursue Ideal Scale Combining Global Delivery with Agility and Customer Intimacy

The landscape for clinical trials is evolving, both with changes to global business practices, and the commercialization strategies of our clients.

While the number of novel therapies is increasing, the willingness of markets to approve, pay for and distribute therapies is changing.

At the same time, geopolitical events and uncertainties have impacted the locations where clinical trials can be conducted.

In certain countries the need for inclusion of underrepresented minorities and other related goals has become paramount.

While the number of novel therapies is increasing, a confluence of factors influence where clinical trials are conducted, including site capacity and patient availability, improvements to regulatory timeframes, changes in the willingness of markets to approve, pay for and distribute therapies, and geopolitical events.

Fortrea has the scale and expertise to advise, design and deliver our customers’ programs, projects and programs globally.

We are able to conduct trials in over 100 countries including all of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets.

We are able to conduct trials in approximately 100 countries including all of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets.

Fortrea’s approximately 14,300 employees are strategically balanced throughout the world, with employee breakdown by region of:

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We believe our size also offers advantages in more efficient decision making and increased accessibility to key leaders.

Align with Innovators Through Selective Investment in Technology, Data and Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Speed and Simplification

The last decade has seen an explosion in technology supporting clinical research, creating a crowded digital and technology landscape, as well as an increase in both access to and analysis of relevant data.

For example, there is wider availability of electronic medical record data;

the proliferation of digital health and trial solutions with remote consent, electronic Clinical Outcomes Assessments, electronic Patient Reported Outcomes, connected devices, and telemedicine;

the use of natural language processing;

use of artificial intelligence (“AI”), machine learning (“ML”) and robotic process automation (“RPA”);

and the integration of genetic, pathology and other data into key decision processes.

Fortrea leverages its in-house data, data from strategic data partners and a broad range of additional third-party data sets, using proprietary tools, intelligence and analytics expertise to develop insights that inform protocol design, study feasibility, identification of diverse sites and patients, and accelerate trials.

We continue to explore new data sources that enrich our geographic, therapeutic and site data sets.

Fortrea has strategic relationships with a number of top technology vendors in the industry, including Advarra, Cognizant, Medidata and Veeva among others.

Through partnerships with leading players, Fortrea aims to bring together best-in-class technologies and leverage Fortrea’s process expertise to deliver integrated patient and site centric solutions that streamline the clinical trial experience, and to enable Fortrea’s digital transformation to drive agility and efficiency.

Over the last five years, we have significantly invested in our platform to advance all facets of our clinical development services, key technologies, and data utilization to better serve our customers.

These investments include AI, ML and RPA, data visualization, a full suite of biometric services and clinical data management globally across all phases and delivery models, and digital health and DCT capabilities, among others.

In 2024, we continued to develop and deploy AI and ML technologies that drive speed, agility, quality and enhanced patient safety in clinical research.

Growth and Margin Expansion Strategy

Our growth and margin expansion strategy builds on Fortrea’s strong foundation of more than 30 years delivering clinical research expertise and is meant to align with our customers’ evolving priorities.

Fortrea’s strategy centers on three pillars:

commercial excellence, operational excellence and financial excellence, and includes the following elements:

Increase our Reach, Relevance and Repeat Business

We continue efforts to increase our brand awareness, identify new clients and opportunities to expand existing relationships, and to improve our win-rates to drive Fortrea’s growth.

We are working to leverage data, analytics and AI-enabled tools to support the identification, targeting and qualification of prospects;

bring the right expertise into early engagement with customers;

tailor and sharpen our value propositions;

upskill our commercial and account management teams;

increase senior management engagement with customers;

and focus on consistently delivering.

Through these initiatives, we aim to grow our reach, relevance and repeat business.

Lead with Scientific and Therapeutic Expertise, Expand in Existing and Novel Therapeutic Areas

We believe our therapeutic expertise across phase I through phase IV of drug development is critical to early engagement with customers and to optimizing the design and management of clinical trials.

Our expertise helps us deliver enhanced value to customers through a reduction in the cost and time to bring drugs and devices to market.

We have significant expertise in several rapidly growing scientific areas including oncology, CNS and neurodegenerative disease, metabolic diseases including MASH, immunology and inflammation, cardiovascular, renal, rare disease, cell and gene therapy, ophthalmology, and several emerging therapeutic areas.

The oncology market remains an area of unmet medical need that receives significant investment in R&D.

As part of our mission to drive value for customers, we continue to try to capitalize on the expansion of opportunities in these important, growing therapeutic areas.

While Fortrea has significant expertise and experience in these scientific areas, we believe that there is ample opportunity for future growth.

Build on Strengths in Clinical Pharmacology

We are a market leader in clinical pharmacology studies, known for first-in-human and exploratory clinical pharmacology studies as well as biopharma label supporting studies.

Our integrated clinical pharmacology solution supports the increasing complexity in early phase trials with precision, quality and safety.

We are focused on increasing the utilization of our units and expanding the wraparound services we offer.

We seek to optimize delivery in more complex hybrid study designs that include both healthy volunteers and patients through the utilization of our four clinics in combination with a global site network to expand our service offerings into phase 1B studies in patients and serve as investigator sites for phase 2 studies and vaccine studies.

Selective Investment in Technology, Data and Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Speed and Simplification

Fortrea takes a focused, digital-led approach to technology, investing selectively in platforms, data assets, AI, ML, other advanced technologies, workflow automation and orchestration that accelerate trial execution and drive quality and simplification across clinical development.

The digital and technology landscape for clinical trials has evolved rapidly over the last decade, with proliferation of digital health and trial solutions, wider availability of electronic medical record and patient generated health data supporting the rise of decentralized trial models, real-world data integration, and analytics.

The use of AI, ML and other advanced technologies in clinical research is still relatively early in adoption, but promises further improvement in study design, site selection, patient recruitment and engagement, and streamlining of operational processes.

Fortrea integrates its in-house datasets, those from strategic data partners and a broad range of additional third parties, using proprietary analytics and AI-enabled tools to guide protocol design, optimize study feasibility, identify diverse sites and patients, and accelerate study delivery.

We continue to explore new data sources that enrich the breadth and depth of our geographic, therapeutic and site data sets.

Fortrea has strategic relationships with a number of leading technology vendors in the industry, including Advarra, Cognizant, Medidata and Veeva among others.

We bring together digital solutions with Fortrea’s operational expertise to support more connected patient and site centric solutions, digital health and DCT capabilities that streamline the clinical trial experience and to enable Fortrea’s digital transformation.

We are making focused investments in AI, ML, other advanced technologies, and workflow automation and orchestration to drive speed, agility, quality and enhanced patient safety in clinical research.

In 2025, we made solid progress with the modernization of our Xcellerate platform, which supports Risk Based Quality Management, central monitoring, and study oversight across our portfolio of projects.

We also released an initial version of our CRA mobile app and digital assistant and plan to scale its rollout and enhance its features going forward.

In addition, we leverage tools such as Microsoft ML/AI Foundry and Microsoft Copilot broadly across our enterprise to enhance employee productivity.

Our approach is compliant with “Ethical Artificial Intelligence,” which refers to AI systems designed and deployed in alignment with principles such as fairness, transparency, accountability, privacy and respect for human rights.

We strive to ensure our AI systems operate responsibly, balancing innovation with societal values while minimizing harm and bias.

We plan to continue to invest in our capabilities, our ability to generate insights through data and analytics, reduce cost, and increase the speed and efficiency of clinical trial execution to enhance the quality of our offerings for our customers.

Become the Partner of Choice for Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Device Companies

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Early sharing of development and pipeline goals, protocols and issues by all parties combined with strong relationship and program management increase efficiency and promote the adoption of innovative delivery models.

Fortrea supports many small and mid-size customers through contributing scientific, therapeutic, regulatory and operational expertise and insights to help shape their clinical development strategy and protocol design to achieve their goals.

Fortrea supports many small and mid-size customers through contributing scientific, therapeutic, regulatory, commercial and operational expertise and insights to help shape their clinical development strategy and protocol design to achieve their goals.

We offer seamless support across Clinical Pharmacology and Clinical Development, reducing white space between phases.

We provide expert full-service teams, data-driven site selection and patient-centric recruitment approaches to deliver their studies with agility and flexibility, underpinned by quality.

We support customers from early to late phase, both locally with country-level regulatory and operational capabilities, and regionally/globally as they seek to broaden their strategy to key global markets.

We will continue to expand our small and mid-size customer base and to build long-tenured partnerships with these customers, enhancing our offerings to meet their needs.

We will continue to expand our small and mid-size customer base and to build long-tenured partnerships with these customers, enhancing our biotech operating model and offerings to meet their needs.

Fortrea also supports leading large pharmaceutical customers as a preferred provider for services across our range of offerings, including Clinical Pharmacology, Phase I-IV Full Service, Consulting Services, Clinical/Biometrics/Safety FSP, and Hybrid models that combine Full Service and FSP.

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We will continue to provide high levels of service and to expand existing partnerships, as well as to add new partnerships where there is a strong strategic alignment.

Fortrea believes that excellence in project management is foundational to the consistency of delivery for customers of all sizes and types.

We continue to embed a disciplined, quality-centric approach and to increase access to training, tools, technology and infrastructure to support world-class project management.

Create an Inclusive Culture for Careers with Meaning as a Competitive Advantage

Fortrea’s employees are motivated by our purpose of delivering solutions that bring life-changing medicines to patients faster, and we are committed to making Fortrea an engaging place where talented professionals can grow and advance their careers.

Since our spin-off, Fortrea has collected input from employees and other stakeholders to develop and activate a culture to support our strategy.

Our FOUR cultural beliefs underpinning how we care and deliver are:

Fortrea’s distinctive culture is underpinned by FOUR cultural beliefs that guide how we care and deliver:

• Forward Together - I partner with my customers to understand their needs and achieve results together

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• Respect People - I am inclusive, seek feedback and create positive experiences for all

In addition, we will continue our investments with global early talent development academies;

In addition, we plan to continue our investments in global early talent development;

career paths;

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and Employee Resource Groups (“ERG”).

These initiatives will be supported by investments in process and technology that benefit both our workforce and our customers.

Build on Strengths in Clinical Pharmacology

We are a market leader in clinical pharmacology studies, including highly specialized human absorption, metabolism, and excretion (“AME”) studies.

We have integrated technology and artificial intelligence successfully within our clinic scheduling process to optimize the utilization of bedspace and have implemented bedside data capture technology to improve the speed and accuracy of data collection.

We are also focused on optimizing delivery in more complex hybrid study designs that include both healthy volunteers and patients through the utilization of our own clinics in combination with a global site network, to expand our service offerings into phase 1B studies in patients and serve as investigator sites for phase 2 studies and vaccine studies.

These initiatives are supported by investments in process and technology that benefit both our workforce and our customers.

Margin Expansion

Fortrea believes we have the opportunity to increase our operating margin over time.

We maintain a disciplined approach to pricing and to managing the mix of our business to improve the quality of our backlog and support margin expansion.

We continue to focus on right-sizing the organization to match resources to demand and to improve efficiencies in operations and SG&A while protecting delivery quality.

We anticipate that with revenue growth we can drive operating leverage across both operations and SG&A.

Our operations in the drug development services industry involve high levels of competition, consisting of hundreds of small, limited-scope service providers, and a smaller number of large full-service drug development companies.

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This team leverages the relevant subject matter experts from across Fortrea to develop innovative solutions to our customers’ needs.

We aspire to provide world class customer relationship management through the collaboration of scientific, operational, and technical staff with our business development, customer facing project personnel, and senior leadership teams.

We aspire to provide world class customer relationship management through the collaboration of scientific, regulatory, operational, and technical staff with our business development, customer facing project personnel, and senior leadership teams.

From the first touchpoint with a potential customer, we engage our therapeutic, scientific, and project personnel to build an understanding of the customer’s unique needs and culture.

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We take pride in bringing together a diverse and experienced global workforce that enables advances in medicine that improve lives.

Our team of approximately 15,500 employees conducts operations in about 100 countries and stands behind our vision of powering customers to achieve their aspirations with innovation that combines the best people, science and technology.

Our team of approximately 14,300 employees is able to conduct operations in approximately 100 countries and stands behind our purpose of delivering solutions that bring life-changing treatments to patients faster and creating lasting value for all stakeholders.

Workforce Demographics

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We believe in cultivating a workplace where all employees can thrive.

Our focus on responsible people practices is core and fundamental to our purpose and strategy.

With our code of conduct forming the foundation of who we are and how we work together, our company ethos is to promote the voice of all our employees.

Our focus on responsible people practices is core to our purpose and strategy.

Our company ethos is to promote the voice of all employees.

All employees are responsible for upholding our Code of Conduct, which forms the foundation of our personnel and ethics policies and practices.

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Fortrea intentionally crafted a strategic framework that focuses on our people (internally) and the patients our customers serve and other partners (externally).

Our broad global footprint enables us to leverage broad and deep experience and ideas, and this is reflected in our global representation across our management and leadership.

Our broad global footprint enables us to leverage broad and deep experience and ideas, and this is reflected in global representation across our management and leadership.

Our people strategy is designed to grow and further evolve in alignment with the changing dynamics of the global workforce.

Employee Listening and Engagement

Since becoming an independent company, Fortrea has prioritized connecting with employees through initiatives like the Forward with Fortrea Interactive Employee Discussion Series.

Following these discussions, we conducted our first annual global engagement survey, which set the foundation for our commitment to listening and acting on employee feedback.

In 2024, we built on this commitment by fielding both a pulse survey and repeating our annual engagement survey, achieving a strong response rate in both instances.

The results demonstrate sustained alignment with industry benchmarks and highlight our ongoing progress in fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture.

Since becoming an independent company, Fortrea has strengthened its commitment to employee listening and connection, placing a deliberate emphasis on building meaningful, in‑person relationships between our executive team and employees.

This creates a deeper understanding of local experiences and strengthens trust through visible, accessible leadership.

These discussions, alongside our continued commitment to annual engagement surveys and pulse checks throughout the year, lay the foundation for Fortrea’s global engagement program.

Participation remains strong, reflecting employees’ willingness to share feedback and actively partner in shaping Fortrea’s culture.

The insights gathered show consistent alignment with industry benchmarks and demonstrate meaningful progress across key engagement drivers, including collaboration, inclusion, and confidence in leadership.

Our continued investment in in‑person connection, executive visibility, and robust listening practices underscores Fortrea’s commitment to creating an engaging, supportive, and high‑performance workplace, one where employee voices are heard, valued, and translated into action.

Learning and Development

Fortrea cultivates a culture of learning and development to empower employees’ professional and personal growth throughout their career journey.

Our learning strategy encompasses a focus on expanding employee knowledge, skills and capabilities to underpin the importance of supporting business growth.

We work to optimize our offerings through implementing innovative solutions that leverage technology and industry best practices.

This approach allows Fortrea to be responsive to our employees’ learning needs by partnering with leaders across the business with the objective that all performance solutions have measurable benefits and value.

Fortrea provides dedicated development programs along the employee career journey.

This includes onboarding programs for new hires, functional and therapeutic training, soft skills and leadership programs and rotations, talent management, cross cultural training and required regulatory and compliance training.

Fortrea provides a mix of learning options, including interactive online courses, workshops, mentoring programs, scenario based and on the job training.

This allows us to cater to diverse learning styles and be more flexible in our delivery methods.

We leverage the latest technology to find innovative ways to enhance the accessibility and effectiveness of our learning programs.

We seek feedback from our employees to ensure our methods are creating a supportive environment focused on their development needs.

In 2023, we launched the following skills development programs:

Level-Up Learning, Fundamentals for Fortrea Leaders, and Fortrea Mentoring Program.

Level-Up Learning is a dynamic and comprehensive program designed to equip individuals with knowledge, tools and expertise to successfully thrive in their professional lives.

This program focuses on leadership and soft skills.

Key features of this program include real world applications, expert guidance, interactive workshops, and flexible delivery.

This program consists of approximately 20 different leadership and soft skill topics.

Across those topics more than 4,000 trainings were completed.

To create a powerful blend of customized and diverse learning opportunities, we partnered with LinkedIn Learning to include not only leadership and soft skill training but also technical and industry specific topics to fill skill gaps and support career goals.

Fundamentals for Fortrea Leaders is an internal program designed for both new, experienced and rising line managers to equip managers with the skills, knowledge, and tools needed to effectively lead teams, drive performance, and achieve organizational goals.

This program focuses on enhancing leadership capabilities, fostering emotional intelligence, and cultivating a results-oriented mindset to empower managers to excel in their pivotal roles.

In 2024, 118 employees completed this leadership program.

Fortrea Mentoring Program fosters meaningful, one-on-one relationships that promote learning, knowledge sharing, and skill enhancement in a structured and supportive environment.

This program connects experienced professionals with individuals seeking guidance, support and inspiration for their professional growth.

The mentoring program supports our commitment to making the organization an exceptional place to build great careers.

The goal of the program is to increase engagement, create a culture of mentorship throughout our organization, and deepen relationships.

We ensure our learning solutions and development programs are deployed and evaluated using technology, tools, and strategies that promote a user-friendly learning culture that is compliant with the expectations of regulatory authorities and our customers.

Talent Acquisition

Our success is anchored in our ability to attract, develop, and retain a highly specialized global workforce.

We work to manage labor costs effectively while fostering an environment where employees thrive and add lasting value.

We prioritize skills development, career transitions, and talent retention with a strong commitment to inclusion and learning opportunities.

Recognizing the need for external talent, we market our people and brand across the globe and ensure that we are visible to top talent in every region.

Our Talent Acquisition team provides us with a competitive edge through its diverse and global presence, utilizing a blend of innovative and traditional recruitment strategies.

Candidates are meticulously screened and evaluated based on job-specific criteria, and we continuously enhance our candidate experience.

We are building strong relationships with universities and professional networks, ensuring that Fortrea is fueled with best-in-class experience and the next generation of talent.

By actively engaging with communities around the world, we ensure that we provide opportunities to the diverse populations we serve.

Fortrea is committed to fostering a learning environment that supports the development of employee capabilities critical to the execution of our business strategy.

Our learning framework is designed to strengthen workforce skills, reinforce regulatory and quality standards, and support career progression across the organization.

We regularly assess and enhance our learning portfolio to ensure alignment with operational needs, industry requirements, and the evolving skills necessary for future growth.

To further develop leadership capability across the organization, we launched the Fortrea IMPACT Leaders Program, a new development pathway focused on building core leadership competencies, driving accountability, and equipping leaders to guide high‑performing, engaged teams in a rapidly evolving environment.

This program represents a significant investment in developing our next generation of leaders and supporting a consistent, enterprise‑wide leadership culture.

In addition, we have expanded our curriculum to include AI‑related learning and digital literacy training, ensuring employees are prepared to adopt new technologies that enhance productivity, data‑driven decision‑making, and operational efficiency.

These offerings focus on practical applications of AI in daily work, responsible AI use, and foundational digital capabilities that enable ongoing workforce adaptability.

Together, these learning initiatives reflect Fortrea’s commitment to building a future‑ready workforce—one equipped with the skills, tools, and leadership capabilities necessary to support innovation, deliver operational excellence, and continue advancing our mission.

Development Programs

Fortrea provides employees with access to a comprehensive set of development programs spanning the employee lifecycle.

These include new‑hire onboarding, job‑specific functional and therapeutic area training, leadership and professional skills development, cross‑cultural training, mentoring, talent management resources, and required regulatory and compliance training.

These programs are structured to support role readiness, capability building and adherence to applicable regulatory expectations.

Learning Methods and Delivery

Training is delivered through a blended model that incorporates interactive digital learning, facilitated workshops, scenario‑based and experiential learning, mentoring interactions, and on‑the‑job training.

This multimodal approach is intended to accommodate diverse learning needs and enhance accessibility across our global workforce.

Program design is informed by employee feedback, business priorities and operational requirements to maintain relevance and effectiveness.

Quality, Evaluation and Governance

Fortrea maintains processes to support an audit‑ready learning environment.

Learning activities are developed, deployed and tracked using standardized tools and methodologies.

We use established evaluation models, including the Kirkpatrick framework, to assess learning effectiveness and to drive ongoing improvement.

Centralized governance structures provide oversight of regulatory and project‑specific training, helping ensure consistency, compliance and alignment with quality management expectations.

Fortrea’s mentoring program provides structured one‑on‑one developmental relationships that promote knowledge sharing, skill development and professional growth.

Participants are matched to foster meaningful connections between experienced professionals and employees seeking guidance and career support.

The program is designed to strengthen engagement, reinforce a culture of continuous development and expand opportunities for learning across the organization.

Talent Strategy

Fortrea has a unified Talent Strategy Group which integrates Learning and Development, Talent Management and Talent Acquisition.

This alignment creates a seamless talent ecosystem, spanning attraction, development, and retention while enabling data driven decision making for workforce planning and upskilling.

It fosters a unified approach to mitigate talent risks, enhance business agility, foster personal development and strengthen our ability to deliver on global priorities.

Our success depends on attracting, developing, and retaining a highly specialized global workforce.

We balance effective labor cost management with creating an environment where employees thrive and deliver lasting value.

We prioritize skills development, career transitions, and talent retention, underpinned by a strong commitment to inclusion and continuous learning.

Recognizing the importance of external talent, we actively market our people and brand worldwide to remain visible and appealing to top talent in every region.

Talent Acquisition provides a competitive edge through its diverse, global presence and a blend of innovative and traditional recruitment strategies.

We assess candidates against clearly defined, role-specific criteria to promote consistency, objectivity, and alignment with business needs.

In addition to evaluating current capabilities, we consider indicators of future development, including learning agility, ability to problem-solve, and capacity to assume increased responsibility over time.

This approach supports the development of a high-performing workforce while enabling us to attract and retain individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

By building strong relationships with universities, professional networks and engaging with communities across the globe, we ensure Fortrea is fueled by best-in-class expertise and the next generation of talent.

Global Benefits, Compensation, and Rewards

Our compensation philosophy is rooted in fairness and transparency and is tied to performance.

Our mix of base and variable pay, long-term incentives and special recognition rewards is compelling and designed to not only attract the best but also engage and reward those who contribute significantly to our mission.

Our objectives are clear:

to incentivize high performance, foster long-term commitment to our vision, and align our employees’ success with our corporate ambition.

As a life sciences organization, we recognize that interconnected factors can contribute to a healthy environment.

Our comprehensive benefits package is designed to fuel our ambition and address all facets of employee well-being.

We offer premium health coverage, retirement solutions, wellness initiatives, a progressive paid time off policy, flexible work arrangements, and continuous learning and development opportunities.

At the start of our journey as Fortrea, we held virtual focus groups with numerous Fortrea employees.

During that time of questioning and listening, we learned a lot about what matters to our employees, and we strive to offer benefit choices that reflect what is most important to them.

Our compensation strategy is designed to drive sustainable performance and align employee success with shareholder value.

We maintain a balanced mix of base salary, variable pay, long-term incentives, and recognition awards to attract and retain top talent in a competitive market.

We believe this structure reinforces accountability for results, fosters long-term engagement, and supports the execution of our corporate objectives.

By linking compensation directly to performance, we are incenting our workforce to remain focused on delivering outcomes that advance our strategic priorities and create value for customers and investors.

We believe that employee well‑being is foundational to long‑term value creation.

Our benefits offerings are designed to support health, balance, flexibility, and professional growth across the organization.

We provide competitive health coverage, retirement programs, wellness initiatives, paid time off, flexible work options, and continuous learning opportunities, reflecting our commitment to attracting, developing, and retaining talent.

Health and Safety

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These regulations collectively are termed GCP by industry, and the Good Clinical Practice (“GCP”) guidelines issued by the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (“ICH”) have been agreed upon by industry and regulatory representatives from the U.S., the European Union and Japan.

GCP requirements address, among other things, IRBs, qualified investigators, informed consent, recordkeeping and reporting.

GCP requirements address, among other things, IRBs, qualified investigators, informed consent, recordkeeping and reporting and data governance.

These laws and regulations might not be similar to the laws and regulations administered by the FDA, and other laws and regulations regarding the protections of patient safety and privacy and the control of study pharmaceuticals, medical devices or other materials may apply.

53 unchanged sentences

Data Protection Act 2018 (together the EU and U.K.

data protection regulations are referred to as “GDPR”).

In addition, similar data protection regulations addressing access, use, disclosure and transfer of personal data have been enacted or updated in regions where we do business, including in Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

data protection regulations are referred to as “GDPR”) and the U.K.

Data (Use and Access) Act (“DUA”).

In India, we are subject to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (“DPDPA”) to the extent the terms are currently in force and the Digital Data Protection Rules (“DDPR”) that came into force in November 2025.

We understand that implementation of DPDPA and DDPR is in phases with full implementation anticipated in May 2027.

In China, we are subject to privacy and data security and cyber security laws including Personal Information Protection Law.

We are aware of the need to continue to train our staff of local privacy requirements as we expand our business in China.

In Australia, we are subject to the Privacy Act, in Canada, the Personal Information Protection and electronic Documents Act, and in Brazil, Law No.

13.709 of 14 August 2018, General Personal Data Protection Law (as amended by Law No.

13.853 of 8 July 2019).

In addition, similar data protection regulations addressing access, use, disclosure, and transfer of personal data have been enacted or updated in other regions where we do business.

We have established processes and frameworks, including appropriate technical and organizational safeguards, to protect the personal and health information we collect, process and otherwise maintain.

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“Risk Factors—Risks Relating to Regulatory and Compliance Matters—Failure to comply with privacy and security laws and regulations could result in fines, penalties and damage to our reputation with customers and have a material adverse effect upon our business.”

As AI is adopted within the industry, we are aware of the risks to clinical trials in the potential for re-identification of study subjects particularly in smaller populations.

We have established an AI Governance Committee to risk assess our use of AI in relation to our business.

We also comply with our obligations under the EU AI Act.

We have adapted our AI privacy assessments of third-party providers to incorporate enhanced questions for our AI assessments.

We anticipate ongoing privacy, data security, and artificial intelligence laws being developed, adapted or changed over the coming year and will continue to assess and adapt as required.

Anti-Corruption Laws and Regulations

46 unchanged sentences

Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business