Quantum-Si Incorporated

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Quantum SI Q4 2021 earnings 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. If you'd like to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised, today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference over to Juan Avendano, Head of Investor Relations for Quantum SI. Juan, please go ahead.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Today, after market close, Quantum SI released financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31st, 2021. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Joining me today are Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Claudia Creighton, Chief Financial Officer, and Dr. Michael Mina, Board Member and Chair of QuantumSci's New Scientific Advisory Board. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will be making certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. 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 of our Press Release. For a more complete list and description of risk factors, please see the company's filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the live broadcast today, February 28, 2022. Except, as required by law, the company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. During this call, we will also be referring to certain financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP, including adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release. With that, I will turn the call over to Dr. Jonathan Rothberg.

Thank you, Juan. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We're excited to discuss the progress that Quantum SI has made over the last two months as we work to commercialize our single molecule protein sequencing system. To summarize, in 2021, we more than doubled our employee base. We took proactive measures to secure our supply chain. Some of the best scientists in the world are using our instruments, and we ended the year with over $470 million in cash on our balance sheet, providing us with sufficient runway to continue investing in the business. In today's call, we will review the previously announced CEO transition, our unique value proposition, opportunities in immunology and long COVID, provide a business update and present our fourth quarter full-year financial performance and outlook for 2022. We will then open the lines for questions. QuantumSI has created a new generation of semiconductor technology to pioneer and enable next-generation protein sequencing, the next great frontier after next-generation DNA sequencing. Next-generation DNA sequencing provides insights by decoding our DNA QuantumSI's next-generation protein sequencing by decoding proteins will unlock a new understanding of disease and illuminate paths to health. As reported on February 14th, the QuantumSI Board of Directors appointed me as interim CEO. I come back to this role well prepared after founding the company in 2013 and previously serving as its CEO from December 2015 through November 2020. While I am excited to be back leading this productive and experienced team, I am an interim CEO and along with our board of directors have initiated the search for a long-term CEO. We are looking for a strategic leader who can inspire our scientists and engineers, understand the commercial opportunities in proteomics, and execute exceptionally well. A leader with an extraordinary ability to inspire, motivate, and execute to create products others can't. Deep insight into applications of protein sequencing in life science research and human health. Simply put, a leader who can own the fork in history our next generation protein sequencing is poised to create. Under my interim leadership, our goal for 2022 is clear, to commercialize our next generation protein sequencing platform. Two years into the COVID-19 global pandemic, understanding basic biology and especially our immune system is more important than ever. Oncology drove the adoption of next-generation DNA sequencing, and now immunology and COVID-19 are serving as catalysts for the commercial adoption of quantum SI's next-generation protein sequencing. To best position us for commercial success, We've established a new scientific advisory board to identify high-impact, routine applications of single-molecule protein sequencing across research, clinical, and diagnostic applications. We are pleased to announce that the scientific advisory board will be led by renowned immunologist, epidemiologist, and current board member, Dr. Michael Nina, formerly of Harvard TH Chan School. and includes Dr. Anton von Ugin, Director of Australian Molecular Horizons Institute and formerly Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Andrew Griffiths of ESPCI in France. 2021 was a transformative year for the proteomic sector of the life science tools industry. Several companies entered the public market doing analog or semi-quantitative protein measurements, However, QuantumSI stands apart as the only company seeking to commercialize digital or sequencing-based next-generation massively parallel protein sequencing. Similar to how DNA microarray companies enabled measurements of gene expression, these other proteomic companies are generally focused on measuring protein levels using affinity reagents to identify and try to quantify known proteins. These approaches are limited in that they only work on known proteins and are mostly blind to critical, functional, and predictive protein modifications. Uniquely, QuantumSI is focused on commercializing a system that enables protein sequencing to decode the linear sequence of amino acids and post-translational modifications that make up a protein and determine its function. Similar to how next-generation DNA sequencing transforms genomics, single-molecule protein sequencing is poised to change the way life science research is conducted. We studied DNA because we could. We studied DNA often as a surrogate for proteins, the machinery of life, because methods for characterizing proteins have, until quantum SI, lagged behind those for DNA. Unlike DNA, proteins cannot be amplified, so our unique single-molecule technology provides us with the ability to perform protein sequencing on the individual peptides or segments making up a protein. We describe this unique and powerful approach to massively parallel single-molecule protein sequencing in a recent technical manuscript available in bioRxiv. There is a tremendous opportunity for quantum SI to change the way we understand disease and, as I've singled out, immunology. By putting protein sequencing on a semiconductor chip, quantum SI is poised to change the way life science research is conducted. Semiconductors bring with them the power of Moore's Law, in which a technology continues to improve exponentially while naturally reducing in costs. Many of QuantumSI's employees worked to bring Moore's Law to DNA sequencing, changing medicine, agriculture, and pathogen detection forever. In fact, it was our next-gen DNA sequencing technology, developed at Ion Torrent, that alerted the world to Omicron. While oncology drove the adoption of next-generation DNA sequencing, we believe that immunology, including our body's responses to COVID-19, will drive the adoption of next-generation protein sequencing. To elaborate on this, I would now like to invite Dr. Michael Mina to talk about the role and opportunity of quantum SI single molecule protein sequencing in immunology.