MaxCyte, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MaxSight first quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Eric Abdaal, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's conference call. Joining me on the call from MacSite, we have Meher Masood, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Doug Swirsky, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, MaxSight released financial results for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2025. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I need to read the following statement. Statements or comments made during this call may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal security laws. Any statements contained in this call that relate to expectations or predictions of future events, results, or performance are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, which are discussed in detail in our SEC filings. Except as required by applicable law, the company has no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. And with that, I will turn the call over to Mehar.

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining MagSite's first quarter 2025 earnings call. Before discussing our business performance, I would like to take a little time to discuss the current environment. It's obvious the macro backdrop has become more dynamic since the start of the year, with headlines emerging that can have an effect on our industry and the lifelines of space as a whole. As stated in our release, we had a strong first quarter and remain confident in operational focus and underlying business. However, we are aware of and adapting to macro uncertainties that could affect our business. As to the new tariff policies, as it stands today, we see limited impact on our gross margins and U.S. revenue. All of our manufacturing is in the U.S., and more than two-thirds of our revenue is from the U.S. We could potentially have greater exposure in Europe and Asia in the event of tariff retaliation, but we have mitigated tariff impacts in 2025 by leveraging our global distribution network where appropriate. It is the management team's job to navigate through this more challenging environment, and we remain focused on executing our growth plan for 2025 and beyond. Jumping into the first quarter, MaxR reported $10.4 million in total revenue, which included strong core revenue of $8.2 million and SPL program-related revenue of $2.1 million. We were pleased with the business performance to start the year, which was in line with our expectations. The quarter was highlighted by continued demand for our expert platform, strong execution from our sales team, and successful progress integrating SecureDX. We have begun 2025 as a more agile and focused company than ever before. which has allowed us to adapt to the dynamic macro backdrop so far this year. Throughout 2024, we conducted a bottom-up review of MaxSight to optimize new product development, manufacturing, commercial execution, and capital allocation initiatives. The streamlining of the business resulted in some workforce changes, including a reduction in inefficiencies and the addition of key personnel. These changes across MaxSight have improved accountability and better aligned resources with the company's long-term goals. We have reduced our operating expenses and cash burn, while we also increased our product offerings, best positioning the company to achieve profitability with our existing balance sheet. As stated earlier, the operating environment for our customers continues to be challenged, particularly as the macro environment has become increasingly dynamic since the beginning of the year. Customers have become more hesitant in capital equipment purchasing decisions over the last few months, with a few customers reallocating R&D spend to prioritize certain programs over others. That said, we still expect planned this year. Our team has adapted well to the evolving environment so far this year, and we are confident that our operational focus and highly differentiated offerings will allow us to deliver against our 2025 guidance, which we have reaffirmed today. To summarize the core business results in the first quarter, the instrument install base grew to 787 as of March 31st, with instrument revenue of $1.4 million. License revenue was stable quarter over quarter and year over year at $2.5 million. demonstrating strength from SPLs as they progressed through the clinic. And we were pleased with the continuation of strong PA demand, as PA revenue grew 13% year over year, driven by activity from early stage and clinical customers. Lastly, we have seen solid initial traction with SecureDx in the first two months we have owned the company, and remain on track to deliver at least $2 million in SecureDx revenue for the year. Stepping back, despite a difficult market environment over the near term, we remain very optimistic about the cell and gene therapy market and associated trends that MaxSight's platform helps to address. Non-viral cell therapy continues to move towards engineering approaches that involve more complex therapies across an expanding variety of cell and disease types. Additionally, cell and gene therapy developers and regulators are placing an increasing emphasis on safety. MaxSight's solution, including SecureDx, is incredibly well-positioned to support these trends. As discussed on the last course call, The SecureDX services platform provides developers with safety assessment of their therapy earlier in the discovery process through on- and off-target gene editing assessments, which provides a range of benefits for programs. With the addition of SecureDX to MaxSight, we can now provide ex vivo and in vivo solutions to both cell therapy and gene therapy customers. The integration of SecureDX is going very smoothly. Customers have been receptive and interested in the SecureDX offerings. We are seeing strong synergies in leveraging our sales and marketing teams, and we have added tremendous talent, expertise, and drug safety assessment with the SecureDx team. Over time, we believe that gene editing assessments will continue to become increasingly important and eventually essential to sell gene therapy development programs and their safety profiles. Turning to our SPLs, we continue to support our existing clients as they progress their programs through the clinic and strengthen our expanding portfolio. In the first quarter of 2025, we signed TG Therapeutics, we entered into an agreement with Precision Biosciences to acquire a license to AsiaCell, bringing our total number of active SPLs to 29. We continue to see a robust pipeline of SPL opportunities ahead of us and expect to sign SPLs at our historical rate of 3 to 5 per year in 2025. MaxSight's skill set of commercial and field application scientists, regulatory support with an accessible FDA master file, and differentiated operation technology with superior results differentiates our offering and allows us to continue to capture meaningful economics in our SPL agreements. In the quarter, SPL program-related revenue was $2.1 million, including milestone revenue and revenue that came from cash JV commercial royalties. During Vertex's first quarter earnings call just a couple of days ago, the company indicated that there are now 90 patients who completed cell collection, up from approximately 50 patients stated in their fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. Further, more than twice that number of patients, so more than 180 patients, have been referred by physicians to activate treatment centers to initiate the treatment process, with many centers having collected cells from multiple patients. The company indicated that interest in cash charity continues to be incredibly high in the sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia patient and physician communities globally. An uptake is accelerating as access and reimbursement are secured and familiarity with the process for collecting cells and infusing this truly transformative treatment grows. Vertex indicated eight patients have received their infusion of Caschevy-edited cells in Q1 and reiterated that they believe Caschevy has the potential to be a multibillion-dollar product for Vertex. As we look ahead, the future potential programs we are supporting in the clinic continues to grow as we add SPLs. There are eight potential approved therapies in 2027 and 2028 supported by MaxSight and an additional potential 12 approved programs from 2029 to 2031. As a management team, we'll maintain an operational rigor in 2025 and beyond, continuously evaluating ways to be more efficient while ensuring we prioritize investments in areas of high growth. This will include ongoing organic investments in the company, along with inorganic investments and external opportunities, such as SecureDX. Our management team, in collaboration with our board, always strategically assesses capital allocation initiatives that offer superior returns for MaxSight and our shareholders. Organically, we are very confident in the processes and roadmaps we have put in place to drive growth. Inorganically, we strive to broaden our offerings to solve critical pain points in cell and gene therapy development. In both cases, we carefully manage our financial health and are very selective with capital allocation decisions. All in all, we are committed to deploying capital to drive value for shareholders over the long term. I would like to take a moment to talk about the anticipated delisting from the AIM markets. In April, we announced that MaxSight is seeking shareholder approval to delist from the AIM and maintain a single listing on NASDAQ at our annual meeting of stockholders, which will be held on June 18th. As we have stated, the company and board believe that it is no longer in the best interest of MaxSight or its shareholders to continue to trade on AIM. I want to emphasize, however, that we are thankful to our UK-based shareholders for their support and belief in our long-term vision, and we will continue to engage with and request support from our UK shareholders in future years. We will provide an update following the AGM. To close, we are pleased with our first score results and the progress that we have made so far this year. We are navigating a dynamic and evolving macro environment and remain on track to deliver on our 2025 goals. We are optimistic about long-term opportunity in the industry and for MaxSight as a premier cell engineering platform. With that, I will now turn the call over to Doug to discuss our financial results. Doug?