Cytek Biosciences, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by and welcome to SciTech Biosciences' third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Alexander Kahn, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Earlier today, SciTech Biosciences released financial results for the quarter-ended September 30, 2021. If you haven't received this news release or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investors at SciTechBio.com. Joining me today from SciTech are Wenbin Zhang, CEO, and Patrick Jean-Meneau, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding SciTech's business plans, strategies, opportunities, and financial projections. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section entitled forward-looking statements in the press release CITEC issued today and in CITEC's filings with the SEC. This call will also include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures may be found in today's earnings release submitted to the SEC. Except as required by law, SITEC disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast, November 8th, 2021. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Wendon.

Thanks, Mary Kate, and welcome everyone to our first earning calls as a public company. I want to start by thanking the incredible CITAC team. This is an exciting milestone for our company made possible by their relentless pursuit of excellence. On today's call, I will start with a brief overview of our company. Next, I will provide an overview of our progress for the quarter. And finally, I will turn the call over to Patrick for a more detailed look at our financials. For those of you new to the SciTech story, we are a leading cell analysis solutions company advancing the next generation of cell analysis tools by leveraging novel technical approach to our full spectral profiling, or FSP, platform. Our FSP platform, which includes instruments, reagents, software, and application services, utilizes the full spectrum of fluorescent signatures to deliver high resolution, high content, and high sensitivity cell analysis. while our flow psychometry is a widely used tool for single-cell analysis. Conventional flow psychometry and the early approach to spectral flow psychometry have been challenged, as they are only able to detect a few markers in a single tube. Their limited dimensionality, suboptimal resolution, low throughput, high cost for performance, and the significant technical expertise required to operate their systems has really limited the advanced cell analysis field. Our patented FSP technology optimizes sensitivity and accuracy through its novel optical and electronic design that utilize an innovative method of light detection and distribution. This novel technological application allows us to address the inherent limitations of other technologies by providing a higher density of information with greater sensitivity, more flexibility, and increased efficiency, all at a lower cost for performance. Our technology has been validated by the more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, 970 instrument placements, and a growing number of applications. To highlight a recent publication of Node, Two weeks ago, a paper was published in Science, exploring human immune response to the COVID mRNA vaccine. The researchers used our Aurora instrument to collect data on immunological cells after low-dose mRNA vaccination. With the use of our platform, they found how the vaccine includes durable and functional protection as well as the biological mechanisms involved. Just one example of the exciting data being generated of our technology. As I mentioned earlier, we provide our customers with an end-to-end solution consisting of instruments, regions, software, and application services. We launched our flagship instrument, the Aurora, in 2017. A year later, we launched the Northern Lights instrument, an entry-level product. Both instruments are cell analyzers offering high throughput, ultra-sensitivity analysis, and intuitive workflows that work to address the unmet needs of our customers. These instruments are efficient and compact, making them well suited for clinical research. In October 2020, we launched our reagents to capitalize upon the recurring revenue opportunities derived from the installed base we have generated. Our 14-color seafloor immunoprofiling commercial kit and the 40-color optimized multi-color immunofluorescence demonstration panel provide users with ready-to-use protocols and antibodies. Simplifying the workflow from sample preparation to data analysis. This year, we began shipping our cell sorters, which allows researchers to isolate the living cell populations from lower to higher complexity panels beyond the 40 biomarkers, enabling deeper downstream genomic and proteomic analysis. While our cell analyzers have been strong drivers of our revenue growth to date. We expect that the reagents and the sale solvers will play an important role in driving our revenue growth over the next three to five years. Our commercial strategy is sequential. Academic customers create breakthroughs, attracting the attention of pharmaceuticals who develop that proof of concept further. and then ultimately handed off to CROs who industrialized those protocols. This eventually leads to clinical applications. This quarter, we placed 115 instruments, bringing our total installed base to 970 instruments. Once an instrument has been placed, our intuitive workflow allows customers to quickly get up to speed on the technology and begin generating results. Additionally, we routinely work with KOLs, engaging with these industry leaders to address their particular scientific question by optimizing the agents and the protocols on our instrumentation. This often creates blueprints for other customers to build upon. By collaborating with customers, to create these novel reagent panels or kits. We are continually opening new applications and markets for our FSP platform. Our customer base includes over 125 biopharma customers, including all of the top tier vaccine developers, more than 10 CROs, and a large number of academic institutions, including all of the universities in the top 10 list having medical schools as led by QS World University Learnings. We are excited by the growing enthusiasm around our products and the value our customers are seeing relative to competing technologies for high-dimensional cell analysis beyond the 30 kilometers. In line with our commitment to provide the researchers with a complete cell analysis solution and a jump-starting scientific discovery. In October of this year, we launched a new 25-color immunoprofiling assay and thereafter acquired the leading business of Tombow Biosciences, which we will discuss further shortly. Both additions will further strengthen our position as a full solution provider to our customers. Our 25-color immunoprofiling assay includes reagents and tools optimized for use with our Aurora full-special flow cytometer. We are creating a new normal for flow cytometry by making such a high-dimensional panel available as a standardized kit. This provides researchers with a ready-to-use solution for identifying major human immune subpopulations, which play important roles in the innate and adaptive immune response to various diseases. Version kits function as the backbone of the cell analysis workflow, upon which users can build through the addition of more markers or the expansion of the panel. By providing our customers with pre-optimized panels, we allow them to avoid the time-consuming, laborious, and costly panel design and optimizations. Simplifying this workflow offers researchers a much more efficient way to obtain their data of interest, thereby shortening the time from biological question to answer and, in this case, hopefully advancing the development of vaccines, personal immunotherapy, and the cures for cancer and infectious diseases. Additionally, we announced the acquisition of Tumble Biosciences extensive portfolio of life science research reagents for full psychometry. The addition of tumble reagent offerings, which cover application areas of immunology, apoptosis, and immunoprofiling, will enable SciTech to meet customer needs in protein and cell analysis research. Tumble's high-quality, high-performance reagents will be a natural complement to our CIFRO family of proprietary reagents. I'm excited by the progress our team has made this quarter as we continue to establish ourselves as a leading cell analysis solutions company. As we push forward a cadence of new products and applications, we are deeply focused on providing a complete cell analysis solution to our customers. We look forward to continuing to provide our novel FSP platform to these customers as they push the bounds of scientific discovery. With that, I would now turn the call over to Patrick for more details around our financials.

Thanks, Wenbin. Total revenue for the third quarter 2021 was $34.4 million, a $37.8 percent increase over the third quarter of 2020. This increase was primarily driven by an increase in product revenue due to higher unit sales of our Aurora, Aurora Self-Sorter, and Northern Light systems. Gross profit was $21.4 million for the third quarter of 2021, an increase of 37 percent compared to a gross profit of $15.6 million in the third quarter of 2020. Gross profit margin was 62 percent in the third quarter of 2021 as compared to 62 percent in the third quarter of 2020. Adjusted gross margin in the quarter was 64 percent as compared to 62 percent in the third quarter of 2020 after adjusting the stock-based compensation expense. Operating expenses were $18.3 million in the third quarter of 2021, a 106% increase from $8.9 million in the third quarter of 2020. Over 50% of this increase came from R&D and sales and marketing expenses. Research and development expenses were $6.1 million for the third quarter of 2021, as compared to $3.4 million for the third quarter of 2020. The increase in R&D expenses was primarily due to the expansion of our R&D team. We plan to continue to invest in R&D going forward as we continue to develop new products and enhance existing instruments and technologies. Sales and marketing expenses were $6.3 million for the quarter as compared to $3.8 million for the same quarter last year. The increase in expense was primarily due to headcount and personal related expenses, as well as an increase in advertising and marketing activities. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to increase as we hire additional sales and marketing personnel, expand our sales support infrastructure and invest in our brand and product awareness to further penetrate the United States and the international market. General and administrative expenses were $5.9 million for the third quarter of 2021, an increase from $1.7 million in the third quarter of 2020. The increase of $4.2 million in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to the cost of becoming a public company as well as infrastructure service to support the growth of our overall operations. Income from operations in the third quarter of 2021 was $3.1 million compared to $6.7 million in the third quarter of 2020. Net income in the third quarter of 2021 was $1.6 million as compared to net income of $6.5 million in the third quarter of 2020. We ended the quarter with approximately $376 million in cash and cash equivalents. With that, I will turn it back over to Wenbin.

Thanks, Patrick. Over the last few years, SciTech has continually demonstrated our commitment to developing tools to advance the next generation of cell analysis. I would like to express my deep gratitude for the team we have here at SciTech Their excellence and the shared belief in this important mission drives our progress. Going forward, our team aims to become the full self-analysis solutions partner of choice for players throughout the life science field as we leverage our novel technology to continue to drive innovation, transform the self-analysis market, and enable researchers to make significant scientific advances in key areas of medical discoveries. With that, we will now open the call up for questions. Off you go.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. We please ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. And our first question comes from Matt Masucci from Cohen & Company. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking the questions. First one is, is Tonbo Biosciences generating revenues from the sale of their reagents? And if so, how should we think about any contribution in Q4? And then curious if you're acquiring any sales reps from the company as well.

So Matt, thanks for the question. So Tonbo will be a small creation to our revenue in Q4. And yes, we are adding two sales reps from Tumble.

Okay, great. And then just on the corner, revenues came in above our estimate. I'm just trying to understand if the beat came from a higher mix of Aurora placements or, you know, higher than expected reagent sales for, you know, for those that are internally developed.

Yeah, so the lead comes from a better mix of the instruments we sold in Q3. Great, thanks.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Tihaz Staran from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. This is Edmund on for Tejas. Thanks for taking the questions. I was wondering if you guys can talk a little bit more about the traction of your Aurora sales order, specifically the demand that you're seeing in the market. Is this meeting up to your expectations? And for some of these emerging technology platforms, they have an expected six to nine months window for users to wrap up and optimize their workflow, run some pilot experiments before they start doing larger scale experiments. I noticed that you guys said in your prepared remarks the management of your platform is an expedited onboarding process. So I was wondering if you can talk about your expectations there in terms of how long it will take people to get used to the self-sorter before we actually see a significant ramp up in consumable pull-through. Thanks.

Yeah, you are correct, actually. Typically for a new instrument, Normally, it takes some time for the training to get used to the workflow and to establish a process, and then they start to do their own experiment. This is basically what's going on at present. The market has continued to welcome our product, and the attraction is going on very well for our sorters. So we are able to continue to see more and more sorters being distributed and placed over the next two quarters.

Got it, Wenbing. That was very helpful. And then I guess a follow-up question would be, It seems like your instruments may have came a little shorter than what we were expecting in terms of placements. I was wondering if you could speak to the operating environment that you guys are seeing. Have you seen any sort of increased logistics pressures or longer lead times to deliver the instruments to your customers? Or in terms of maybe a supply chain, are you seeing any pressures there?

First, in terms of the number of instruments, in fact, it's basically a mix of products. In fact, we are seeing more of the high-end instruments coming from our customers. Now, in terms of the supply chain logistics, indeed, we are seeing various kind of issues over time, which is the same as others. Right now, however, we have been trying to work through those problems, and we don't see any immediate near-term impact yet.

Got it. That was very helpful. Thank you for the time.

And thank you. And if you'd like to ask a question, that is star 1. And our next question comes from David Bellahunt from Goldman Sachs. The line is now open.

Hey, guys. This is Dave on for Matt. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on the strong quarter. Can you give us any additional color on what you're seeing in the consumables and reagents markets and what areas you're seeing the most strength?

Yes, so looking at the total revenue, obviously, I mean, the instrument revenue remains the strongest for high tech. The second largest would be service revenue and then following with the reagent revenue. And we're not going to extend too much on the reagent on the ramp. We might do that next year, but not at this point. the revenue for the quarter on the instrument was in line with our expectation. We had a better mix overall.

And also, we do see the combo acquisition is going to help us on the region's revenue side as well.

Thanks. And what are you seeing in the market of terms of the supply chain tightness? We've seen Any thoughts on pricing as it relates to inflation and your strategy there?

We do see actually because of the shortage of the parts out there, especially the IC, there's some price pressure. But internally, we have been working through this to improve our efficiency and also leveraging our international distributions to really help us addressing such issues.

Great. Thanks.

And thank you. And I am showing no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.