Seer, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the SEER fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star 111 on your telephone. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Ms. Carrie Mendeville with Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Thank you.

Earlier today, SEER released financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31st, 2022. If you have not received this news release, or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor at seer.bio. Joining me today from SEER is Omid Farraqzad, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chair, and David Horn, 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. then 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 in the press release to your issue today. For a more complete list and description, please see the Risk Factors section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, SEER disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projections or 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 March 2, 2023. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Omid.

Thanks, Kerry, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. Let me start by thanking our team for the huge strides we made in 2022 and for their ongoing commitment, focus, and hard work to support our growing customer base. I will begin our call today with a review of our accomplishments and performance over the past year, and then I'll share our core focus areas to drive growth in 2023 and beyond. Then I will turn the call over to David to provide more details on our financial results and revenue outlook for 2023. This was a foundational year for SEER as we pushed the boundaries of what is possible to provide access to large-scale, deep, unbiased proteomics. We made important strides during our first year of broad commercial release of the Proteograph product suite. We shipped 22 instruments and more than doubled the number of instruments compared to 2021. bringing our cumulative instrument shift to 39 as of December 31st, 2022. We established our Centers of Excellence program to accelerate the adoption of unbiased deep proteomic at scale by enabling access to the ProteoGraph product suite through providers across North America, Europe, and Asia. We continued to broaden our intellectual property portfolio and ended the year with more than 125 patents issued and pending representing approximately 7,500 claims. This culminated in $15.5 million of revenue in 2022, more than doubling our 2021 revenue of $6.6 million with a growth rate of 134%. And importantly, we remain well capitalized with approximately $426 million on our balance sheet and no debt outstanding. I'm confident our balance sheet will fuel our growth to become the definitive tool leader in proteomics while we operate a lean and efficient organization over the coming years. SEER has the most differentiated technology to change the trajectory of proteomics. I've never been more bullish about our opportunities than I am today. In 2023, we will continue to execute across our four core focus areas. One, enabling breakthrough discoveries with the Protograph product suite. Two, demonstrating the power of our technology. Three, catalyzing new applications and markets. And four, expanding our industry-leading team. Starting with our first objective, enabling breakthrough science with the Protrograph product suite. We're excited to see our more established customers ramping their use of our technology with an increasing interest in larger studies ranging from hundreds to thousands of samples and achieving an unprecedented depth of coverage at a scale that was impossible just two years ago. In fact, in January, one of our multi-omic liquid biopsy customers, Prognomic, announced early results from what they believed to be the largest deep multi-omic study to date. This study demonstrated the power of diverse molecular biomarkers to improve the sensitivity and specificity in the early detection of cancers across 1,031 subjects comprised of 371 cancer and 670 non-cancer samples. It combined deep unbiased proteomics data generating using the Protegraph product suite with metabolomics, lipidomics, fragmentomics, methylation, and transcriptomics to drive a first-of-its-kind large-scale multiomics study. They're expecting to present their data at upcoming conferences in the first half of the year. The success of this study in identifying multiomics markers that differentiate between cancer and controls catalyze the launch of a 15,000-subject prospective clinical program, which has already enrolled its first patient. Prior to the launch of the Protegraph product suite, the largest deep unbiased plasma proteomic study was just 48 samples. Now, we know of multiple studies of 1,000 or more samples that have been run using the Protegraph. This progress shows how far we have come in just two short years of commercial availability of this product. We believe the existing completed 1,000-plus subject studies and prognomics-planned 15,000-subject study has major implications on the field, representing a series of step function change in deep undiased proteomics and what has become possible for the future of deep multiomic studies. Another example of novel biological insights derived from the photograph comes from Dr. John Pritwick, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of South Dakota Stanford School of Medicine and a member of the Pediatrics and Rare Disease Group at Stanford Research. Dr. Pritwick is working to develop a better understanding of Batten disease and develop novel therapeutic strategies. Blastin' disease is a family of rare lysosomal disorders caused by mutations in one of at least 13 genes which encode a diverse set of lysosomal and extra-lysosomal proteins. There are a variety of gene mutations, signs and symptoms that range in severity and progress, including progressive vision loss leading to blindness, seizure, movement disorders, and dementia. Despite decades of research, the development of effective therapies has remained intractable. For some slow-processing disease like CLN3 batten, small animal models poorly recapitulate patient phenotypes requiring the focus on large animal models. Unfortunately, immunodepletion is simply not feasible for pig plasma samples, creating a substantial barrier to his interrogation into proteomics for biomarker discovery. Dr. Brutt ensured that working with SEER and the SEER Center of Excellence has been transformative for his multiomics biomarker discovery initiatives. SEER's proteograph workflow has allowed his team to generate unbiased, quantitative data of over 3,000 plasma proteins and to find new biomarker signatures of the disease. Dr. Brudwig and his team plan to publish these studies in 2023, which will fill important knowledge gaps in the batten disease field. We believe that deep unbiased proteomics at scale enabled by the Proteograph product suite is necessary to sufficiently access and catalog the proteome, which is vastly more complex than the genome. As this content is cataloged and functionally characterized relative to the genome, novel insights will be generated. These novel insights will fuel clinical applications and create new clinical utility for both genomics and proteomics biomarkers. Customer-driven exemplification and data are essential in developing the market. We believe that as more third-party data enters the public domain, the differentiated value proposition of the proteograph and the novel insights it provides will become more established, accelerating the next generation of multi-omic studies. We have seen a growing validation of our technology with 19 poster presentations from customers to date. There's also a steady stream of scientific content coming from SEER, including over 100 presentations, posters at conferences and events, and three published high-impact papers with a fourth paper accepted and impressed, demonstrating the unique performance of our proprietary engineered nanoparticles. We're seeing increasing interest from genomics researchers who want to access proteogenomic content and are excited about having unbiased access to the proteome so that they can discover novel protein variants and deepen their multiomic insights to get closer to the phenotype. We're aware of multiple manuscripts that have been submitted or are in the process of being submitted in early 2023 for peer review. I'm excited to be able to share more in the coming months as these submissions run through the peer review process, which of course takes time. In the interim, we will continue to collaborate with our customers to take advantage of opportunities for them to share preliminary data at conferences and events as they move from study to analysis and author their manuscripts. Now turning our attention to our second objective. We're demonstrating the power of the proteograph product suite as we drive toward the next set of innovations to further extend the capabilities of the technology. In 2022, we published two seminal papers demonstrating the power of nanobio interactions for deep unbiased access to the proteome that is enabled by our proprietary engineered nanoparticles. These papers demonstrated superior performance of our technology for deep, unbiased, precise, and scalable proteomics. Our disruptive technology is also being recognized across our industry. Last year, the protocol product suite was ranked among the top 10 innovations for 2022 by the scientists, and we received the Science and Technology Award from the Human Proteome Organization. We are executing against our product roadmap, building on what is already a disruptive product that includes innovations in nanoparticles, workflow, and analysis. Last August, we released the ProteoGraph Analysis Suite, POS 2.0, a proteogenomic workflow that allows for streamlined data analysis of protein variants to genomic variants and paves the way for more genomic labs to leverage unbiased deproteomics at scale. We have been receiving extremely positive feedback from customers on their ability to easily connect genomic data to proteomic data and assess peptide-level disease association. We plan to continue to expand our software and later roadmap for population-scale deproteomic studies. We will introduce multiple tools FEATURE SETS AND WORKFLOW FOR LARGER STUDY AND DATA SETS INTO OUR PROTOGRAPH ANALYSIS SUITE RELEASES IN 2023 WE ALSO PLACE OUR NEXT PRODUCT IN THE HANDS OF EARLY ACCESS CUSTOMERS IN LATE 2022 AND WE EXPECT TO MAKE IT BROADLY AVAILABLE LATER THIS YEAR WE HAVE COMPLETED TESTING with multiple sites and are getting positive feedback on the workflow and its new features. The proteome is highly complex with millions of protein variants. This is underscored by a 454,000-subject study published by UK Biobank in Nature describing over 9 million potential protein variants, of which more than 6 million are potentially deleterious across their cohort. On an individual basis, each participant had an average of 9,500 protein variants of which 2,900 were potentially deleterious. Importantly, this does not account for protein variants that are generated because of post-translational modifications or RNA processing to produce protein slice forms. If you add these in, then it significantly increases the number of protein variants. And this is exactly why our technology is important. In a paper accepted and currently in press for publication, we highlight the importance of generating data at the peptide level using the proteograph product suite to allow for the identification of splice form arising from the same gene locus. Our study found that the four known isoform of BMP1 exhibit differential abundance in cases of lung cancer and controls. The single short splice form of BMP1 is more abundant in cancer cases, while the three long splice form of BMP1 are more abundant in controls. It is important to note that affinity-based approaches inherently cannot differentiate between splice forms. This peer review manuscript will be published over the coming weeks, and the preprint is available currently on bioRxiv. Turning to our third objective, catalyzing new applications and markets, we're continuing to drive progress with our partnerships and expand the applications that can be performed with the proteograph, such as model organisms, animal health, and different biofluids. At the beginning of 2022, we formed a proteogenomic consortium with our partners at Discovery Life Sciences and SIACS, empowering genomics researchers to add deep unbiased proteomic analysis to the large-scale discovery, translational, and clinical studies at an unprecedented resolution. Discovery Life Sciences has now launched their world-class proteomic services division with a new facility in the Boston area, creating a leading provider for large-scale population studies, biobank characterization, and multi-omic biomarker analysis to support drug and diagnostic development. They're up and running with multiple proteographs and mass specs and are ready to receive customer samples. We look forward to continuing to partner with them to co-promote the proteograph and expand access to new customers as they scale their business in 2023. Market development is a key part of our focus as we demonstrate the differentiated value of deep unbiased proteomic at scale, spanning from discovery to clinical utility, enabled by the proteograph product suite. Affinity-based approaches are effective when a known target and a specific epitope measurement is desired and best utilized in low-plex configuration for specific applications, but cannot cover the vast complexity of the proteome. They're analogous to microarrays in genomics, where a specific DNA fragment is used in a targeted or biased manner to confirm the presence of a specific mutation or a single nucleotide polymorphism. The huge gap in the market remains access to the content that reaches the depth and complexity of the proteomics. This content will expand existing end markets and create entirely new end markets and is uniquely enabled by unbiased approaches at scale. We saw a similar in-market expansion play out in the genomic space as well with the growing genomics content over the past 15 years. Through our market development efforts, we're gaining traction with key opinion leaders and expanding our scientific advisory board. We've also opened an in-house application lab that is purely focused on expanding the methods and sample types that can be used with the proteograph. For example, one of the first projects for this lab in 2022 was to assess lower volume sample inputs to enable smaller organism work. We found that starting sample volumes less than 250 microliter still allows higher coverage of low abundant proteins compared to the direct digest workflows. explored volumes as low as 10 microliter of starting sample while still delivering 68% of the protein coverage with our standard volume. And importantly, we get this coverage across the entire dynamic range. This provides a superior performance method to those looking to study model organisms on smaller size, such as mouse. The proteograph has also been demonstrated in a wide variety of organisms, including plant, feline, bovine, canine, and baboon to name a few. The Protograph is the only commercially available system that can be utilized across species in a decentralized manner. As we mentioned on our last earning call, we recently hosted a joint webinar with Evotech to discuss their data with different human biofluids using our technology. This webinar highlighted how the ProteoGraph product suite was able to uncover thousands of previously undetectable proteins. During their presentation, Evotech highlighted how the ProteoGraph enabled unique insight into different sample types, including human serum, plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, and cell secretome. This webinar was well attended and generated significant interest The recording is available on our website. Our technology is inherently extensible. It is species agnostic and is able to analyze biofluids beyond plasma and serum. As we gain momentum in the market, expand the use cases for our technology, and pave the way for more adoption of the protograph, our customer base is growing to span academic research, translational, commercial, pharma, CROs, and even applied markets. Interestingly, we are seeing these customers working across a broad range of applications, from cataloging protein variants to proteogenomics, from target identification to multiomics for complex disease, and from biomarker discovery to early disease detection. We are very much at the onset of this journey and I'm excited to see what our customers do next. And finally, we continue to build an industry-leading team as we recruit top talent and expand our global capabilities to support our growing install base. We ended the year with more than 160 employees, with most additions in the last year to the commercial organization. Looking ahead, We will continue to drive execution against our core focus areas, enabling breakthrough discoveries with the Protograph product suite, demonstrating its power, catalyzing new applications and markets, and continuing to build an industry-leading team. While much work remains, we're excited and inspired by the opportunity in front of us. I truly believe that we have the technology, the team, and the strategy to bring the next phase in OMICS to the labs globally. With that, I will now turn the call over to David.

Thanks, Omid. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $4.6 million, representing an increase of 50% compared to $3.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in fourth quarter revenue was primarily due to increased consumable and SB100 instrument sales related to our prototype product suite, the completion of service projects, and lease revenue related to our SP100 instruments. Product-related revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $3.2 million, including related party revenue of $1.7 million, and consisted of sales of SP100 instruments, consumable kits, and platform evaluations. Service revenue was $708,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022 and was primarily derived from a significant project completed for a large multinational corporation. As we have mentioned previously, we will continue to be strategic in undertaking certain service projects for customers that we ultimately believe will lead to purchases of the Proteograph. Grant and other revenue was $745,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022. As expected, contributions from grant and research-related collaborations were resumed beginning in the fourth quarter as our SBIR grant from the NIH was renewed in the third quarter. The grant period will run through May of this year. In addition, we recognized revenue from lease agreements related to the placement of our instruments in the fourth quarter. Total gross profit was $2.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, representing a gross margin of 49.8%. Our gross margins were in line with the prior quarter as a result of higher consumable sales in the fourth quarter offset by overhead allocations. We expect to see variability in our overall gross margin on a quarter-by-quarter basis as the proportion of instrument and consumable sales will fluctuate between any given quarter. We continue to expect our long-term gross margins to be between 70% and 75%. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $27.2 million, including $8.2 million of stock-based compensation, compared to $21.3 million, including $6.7 million of stock-based compensation in the fourth quarter of 2021. Research and development expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $12.6 million, an increase of 54% compared to $8.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in R&D expenses was primarily due to an increase in product development efforts related to the Protograph product suite, including employee compensation costs due to growth in R&D personnel and expenses associated with the build-out of our facility. Selling general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 or $14.6 million, an increase of 12% compared to the $13.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in SG&A expenses was primarily driven by greater employee compensation expenses due primarily to growth in personnel for our global commercial organization. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $22.5 million compared to $19.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Turning to the full year. Total revenue for the full year 2022 was $15.5 million compared to $6.6 million in 2021, representing growth of 134% year-over-year. Product-related revenue was $13.8 million compared to $5.9 million in 2021. The increase in revenue is primarily attributable to increased sales of products related to the Protograph product suite and primarily consisted of sales of the Protograph SP100 instrument, consumable kits, and platform evaluations, of which $5.2 million was attributed to related parties. Service revenue was $913,000 for the full year 2022 compared to $500,000 for the full year 2021. Revenue related to grant and other revenue was $808,000 in 2022 and consisted of our grant-funded activities related to our SBIR grant from the NAIH and leased revenue related to our SP100 instruments. As Omid highlighted, we shipped 22 SP100 instruments in 2022, more than doubling our instruments placed year over year, and bringing our cumulative shipments to 39 instruments as of December 31st, 2022. We continue to see a mix of commercial and academic customers, with the majority of placements continuing to be with commercial customers at this stage. Last year was our first year of broad commercial release, and our emphasis was on providing access to the proteograph and allowing customers to experience the power of deep, unbiased proteomics at scale. Given the disruptive nature of our technology and the broad macroeconomic uncertainty, we experienced an elongated sales cycle for the placement of our Protograph SP100 instruments. However, a subset of these prospective customers chose to pursue their studies through a service project, and for our existing and new customers that did adopt the Protograph, we experienced higher than anticipated pull-through of consumables since they ran significant sample sets. In addition, our centers of excellence proved to be valuable partners in providing access to the Protograph for select customers who want to access the technology through an outsourced service model. Finally, as I mentioned, we selectively entered leasing arrangements in the fourth quarter that also help customers adopt the proteograph more rapidly. During these early days of commercialization for a first-of-its-kind product, and while we wait for customer data to be published, we will continue to work to reduce the hurdles for adoption, including access through our Centers of Excellence and the Proteogenomics Consortium for new customers while encouraging increased utilization and pull-through for our existing customers. Total gross profit for the year was $7.1 million, representing a gross margin of 45.8%. Full-year gross margins benefited from strong consumable kit sales, platform evaluations, service projects, and grant revenue. Total operating expenses for 2022 were $104.3 million, inclusive of $33.7 million in stock-based compensation, compared to $74.9 million, inclusive of $25.9 million in stock-based compensation in 2021. Research and development expenses for 2022 were $45.8 million compared to $29.1 million in 2021. SG&A expenses for 2022 were $58.5 million compared to $45.8 million in 2021. The increase in R&D expense was primarily due to an increase in product development efforts related to the Protograph product suite, including $10.3 million in employee compensation costs and other related expenses, including stock-based compensation due to growth in R&D personnel and a $4 million increase in allocated overhead related to the allocation of facility expense associated with the build-out of our facilities to support our R&D efforts. The increase in SG&A expense was primarily due to an $8.3 million increase in employee compensation and other related expenses, including stock-based compensation, mainly due to growth in personnel in our commercial organization. Net loss for 2022 is $93 million compared to $71.2 million in 2021. We ended the year with approximately $426.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. With our extremely strong balance sheet and disciplined deployment of capital, we believe we are well-funded to execute on our strategic plan for many years to come. Turning to our outlook for the year, we expect revenue to be in the range of $23 to $25 million for 2023 representing significant year-over-year growth of 48% to 61%. Similar to this past year, we expect revenue to be more weighted to the second half of the year. We continue to see challenges in the macroeconomic environment globally and continued limited customer access in certain geographies, such as China, that is elongating customers' purchasing decisions, especially as it relates to new disruptive technologies like the proteograph. That said, we continue to see strong interest in the proteograph and its value proposition for customers, which is reflected in our robust revenue growth outlook for 2023. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Amid for closing comments.

Thanks, David. I'm extremely proud of the SEER team and our accomplishments over the past year. We're seeing fantastic data being produced by our customers across a range of applications. Looking forward to 2023, we will continue to drive executions against our core strategies.

And with that, we will now open it up to questions.

Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your touchtone telephone. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Our first question comes from Derek DeBruin of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I guess the first one is, David, can you just sort of give us some color on your cash burn and OpEx outlook for this year, and how should we think about it? I mean, I know you've got You basically think you've got three years of cash on it, but just any sort of, like, commentary would be helpful.

Sure, Derek. So, as you'll see when we file our 10-K, what we really track is our free cash flow, operating cash flow plus CapEx. You'll see that's the $71 million in 2022. We expect it to be in a similar place for 2023 as well. Got it.

I'm sort of curious, you know, if you look at the product revenue X, the related party, it's actually down year over year, quarter on quarter. Can you just sort of talk about the dynamics and how much of that, you know, what, I guess, just sort of what is going on there? I just was surprised to sort of see it down on that sense and how much of that shifted to, you know, how much of the stuff you thought was going to be product shifted to services and just a little bit dynamics, because as I said, just not sure how to model that you know, product X third party revenue, related party revenue line for this year?

Yeah, Derek, appreciate the question. So I think the way to think about it is, again, we look for our growth globally, I mean, annually, and we certainly feel like from quarter to quarter, the composition of that, you know, overall number is going to change. Just each quarter will be a little bit different. I think what we saw in the fourth quarter was, you know, more from – some of that revenue moved into service. As we also mentioned, there was some lease revenue that's included in grant and other. And so – and then related party had a little bit more. So I think overall, the composition was a little bit different, but I think we still feel good about you know, the overall momentum we have in terms of providing access, because really what we're trying to do is get people access to the technology, whether that's, you know, purchasing outright, using it through a service model, or potentially, you know, doing a kind of a lease arrangement of some sort. So, again, I think we're going to continue to see fluctuations, Derek, but again, I think As we look year over year, obviously we're looking for some nice growth on an annual basis. Got it.

And just one final one, if I may. Just thinking the total instrument number for the year came in a bit below where the consensus number was. I think it was around 29 instruments on visible alpha. So implying that when we look at the product revenue, it's, you know, significantly higher consumable pull-through on it. Can you just give us some sort of general sense on the consumables that are, and average pull-through that's going on, just sort of like where that's ramping, how that's ramped for the year, and sort of see, you know, what you sort of see that, how that sort of like goes through next year?

Yeah.

So again, I think on the instrument placements, you know, as we've been saying, we are seeing an elongated sales cycle. So I think that was a partial contributor, obviously. I think on the flip side, we did see a nice consumable pull through on that. And so, again, that kind of made up for the shortfall in instruments relative to consensus. And so, again, I think it's something we're continuing to try and help people gain access to the technology. Some of that was gained through some of these service projects, we do think those will ultimately lead to purchases, outright purchases. But again, I think just given this is our first year of commercialization, you know, just the dynamic and the uncertainty in the back half of the year macroeconomically and with some budgets kind of, you know, shifted some of the timing of that. But I think the good news is we continue to see good pull through for those that do have the instrument. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Brennan of Cowan. Your line is open.

Hi. Good afternoon. This is Kyle. I'm for Dan. I just want to start on the guidance here. Your guidance brackets the consensus, and given the elongated sales cycle, could you maybe break down the key drivers here, like the split between instruments and consumables and sort of how you're thinking about that through the year?

Yeah, thanks, Kyle.

You know, I think we'll have a pretty consistent, well, as we said, I think, first of all, you're going to see revenue, you know, more back half-weighted as we saw this year. I think you'll see that again in 2023, at least as we're looking at it. Again, there still is a lot of uncertainty out there. especially as we've seen it related to new disruptive technologies. I think people are just more thoughtful in terms of their analysis and what they're going to do prior to purchasing. But I think we'll continue to see from those, again, from those who do have it, nice pull through. And again, I think we'll see, as we saw this year, the majority of revenue being consumable revenue. And so, you know, again, I think that the pull through has been pretty healthy. And so, you know, we'll continue to try and help customers drive those larger sample projects and really help that pull through in 2023. Got it.

And then on the commercial side for the commercial team, you know, how much more do you think you need to expand head counter? You know, do you feel like you're pretty right-sized right now for the current scale of the company?

Yeah, look, this is Omid. As we've said, the commercial organization is going to continue to expand as we grow access to the product globally. So that's going to continue. Our commercial organization, which is our marketing, sales, and support, you know, it's roughly... a little bit more than a half of our total SG&A, and that's going to continue to grow.

The pace of growth for us is to keep headcount about one or two quarters ahead of need, so just try to hire ahead a bit and to continue that momentum as needed.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of PJ Savant of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for the time here. Maybe, David, one for you to kick things off, sort of similar to what Derek was asking earlier. As we think about that $24 million at the midpoint of the guide, how much of a revenue contribution are you expecting from Prognomic in there? And I know you also mentioned the NIH grant, which runs out in May. So any guardrails around that? I'm assuming that's a lot smaller than prognomic, but just curious as to what the contributions are that are baked in at the midpoint.

Sure.

So in terms of prognomic, Tejas, I'm sure you're aware that they completed their 1,000-sample study, and they're kicking off their 15,000-sample prospective study. So we expect for this year for them to be pretty consistent, pretty steady with where they've been historically. We may see some small fluctuations quarter to quarter, but I think overall for the year, they're gonna be pretty steady in just in terms of where they have been in terms of dollars. So that's really the assumption around prognomic. Again, there may be some time shifting from quarter to quarter, but overall for the year, we expect them to kind of be in a similar place. And then on the grant revenue, you know, It'll run, we should recognize it through the second quarter. We may choose to try and renew it and get some additional grant revenue, but I think you can assume it's pretty minimal. Just so you know, most of that revenue in Grant Another was related to the lease agreements this quarter.

Got it. That's helpful. And then, David, you mentioned sort of the phasing being a little bit back-end loaded, similar to this year. So are you sort of pointing to essentially a 40-60 split? Is that fair, or could it be a little bit more even than that?

No, I think that's fair, Tejas. That's kind of how we're thinking about it.

Got it. Okay. And then in terms of just the on-the-ground situation in China, you know, given the surge in COVID cases and the subsequent sort of reopening, are you baking in at the midpoint a normalization in the back half of the year or not really?

Yeah, no, Tejas, our assumption is that Our access to China is going to continue to be constrained from an assumption perspective, which is have no visibility.

I mean, we would have thought that with the opening that access would free up, and we certainly didn't see that.

So we're going to continue to be a bit guarded about our view of access in China. And so the assumption assumes that the status quo will continue for the year.

Got it. Okay. And then last one for me here on the proteogenomics consortium, you said they're now open to receive samples from customers. How are you thinking about the ramp through the year here? Obviously, I think in the past you've talked about potentially 100,000 samples a year, Just walk us through the cadence of the ramp here, and then on the center of excellence side, help us dimension the size of that contribution, if you can, Omid, in terms of the guide.

Yeah. Let me take the proteogenomics consortium, and then Omid can do the centers of excellence. On the PGC, you're correct, Tejas. The ultimate goal is 100,000 samples. annually. Certainly, it's going to take them a few years to get to that. And so this year, we are assuming a pretty modest ramp. As you know, they said they are open for business. And so they're working through going out with their marketing efforts and doing a great job. They've been a great partner. But again, we're tending to be pretty modest in terms of that contribution this year as they kind of see the demand out there. I think they certainly see it. And again, this is part of the overall DLS proteomics services group, which offers a full range of proteomics services. But again, we're super excited about what they can do in terms of the SEER platform and unbiased proteomics. But we've been relatively modest assumptions around this year in terms of actual sample volumes.

building on the proteogenomic consortium kind of and thinking more broadly about our COEs. I mentioned the Evotech webinar.

So they're getting started. They're getting up and running. They've now done customer projects going forward. Again, I think that you should assume in terms of sample number volume, you know, something in the neighborhood of, maybe 5% to 10% of revenue this year is going to be services. And for the most part, we are not in the services business model. So you can assume a lot of that is going to come from our COEs. Now, on occasion, for strategic reasons, we may do a service contract. In fact, Q4 is a good example of that. And you saw that in the revenue breakdown that we did do a service contract. Now, just in the case of that particular example, and I don't think that's going to be the case in every example, that particular customer is now in discussion with us to take an instrument in-house. So we may do a service from a SEER perspective strategically. The balance of those service revenues you can assume is coming from our COEs.

Very helpful. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm showing no further questions this time. I'll just turn the call back over to Amid for any closing remarks.

Thank you all very much. We look forward to keeping you up to date. Thanks so much, everyone.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the SEER fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star 11 on your telephone. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Ms. Carrie Mendeville with Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Thank you.

Earlier today, SEER released financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31st, 2022. If you have not received this news release, or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor at seer.bio. Joining me today from SEER is Omid Farraqzad, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chair, and David Horn, 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. than 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 in the press release to your issue today. For a more complete list and description, please see the risk factors section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2022. and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, SEER disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projections or 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 March 2nd, 2023. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Omid.

Thanks, Kerry, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. Let me start by thanking our team for the huge strides we made in 2022 and for their ongoing commitment, focus, and hard work to support our growing customer base. I will begin our call today with a review of our accomplishments and performance over the past year, and then I'll share our core focus areas to drive growth in 2023 and beyond. Then I will turn the call over to David provide more details on our financial results and revenue outlook for 2023. This was a foundational year for SEER as we pushed the boundaries of what is possible to provide access to large-scale, deep, unbiased proteomics. We made important strides during our first year of broad commercial release of the proteograph product suite. We shipped 22 instruments and more than doubled the number of instruments compared to 2021, bringing our cumulative instrument shift to 39 as of December 31st, 2022. We established our Centers of Excellence program to accelerate the adoption of unbiased deep proteomic at scale by enabling access to the Proteograph product suite through providers across North America, Europe, and Asia. We continued to broaden our intellectual property portfolio and ended the year with more than 125 patents issued and pending representing approximately 7,500 claims. This culminated in $15.5 million of revenue in 2022, more than doubling our 2021 revenue of $6.6 million with a growth rate of 134%. And importantly, we remain well capitalized with approximately $426 million on our balance sheet and no debt outstanding. I'm confident our balance sheet will fuel our growth to become the definitive tool leader in proteomics while we operate a lean and efficient organization over the coming years. SEER has the most differentiated technology to change the trajectory of proteomics. I've never been more bullish about our opportunities than I am today. In 2023, we will continue to execute across our four core focus areas. One, enabling breakthrough discoveries with the Protograph product suite. Two, demonstrating the power of our technology. Three, catalyzing new applications and markets. And four, expanding our industry-leading team. Starting with our first objective, enabling breakthrough science with the prototype product suite. We're excited to see our more established customers ramping their use of our technology with an increasing interest in larger studies ranging from hundreds to thousands of samples and achieving an unprecedented depth of coverage at a scale that was impossible just two years ago. In fact, in January, one of our multi-omic liquid biopsy customers, Prognomic, announced early results from what they believed to be the largest deep multi-omic study to date. This study demonstrated the power of diverse molecular biomarkers to improve the sensitivity and specificity in the early detection of cancers across 1,031 subjects comprised of 371 cancer and 670 non-cancer samples. It combined deep unbiased proteomics data generating using the Protegraph product suite with metabolomics, lipidomics, fragmentomics, methylation, and transcriptomics to drive a first-of-its-kind large-scale multiomics study. They're expecting to present their data at upcoming conferences in the first half of the year. The success of this study in identifying multiomics markers that differentiate between cancer and controls catalyze the launch of a 15,000-subject prospective clinical program, which has already enrolled its first patient. Prior to the launch of the Protograph product suite, the largest deep unbiased plasma proteomic study was just 48 samples. Now, we know of multiple studies of 1,000 or more samples that have been run using the Protograph. This progress shows how far we have come in just two short years of commercial availability of this product. We believe the existing completed 1,000-plus subject studies and prognomics-planned 15,000-subject study has major implications on the field, representing a series of step function change in deep undiased proteomics and what has become possible for the future of deep multiomic studies. Another example of novel biological insights derived from the photograph comes from Dr. John Pritwick, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of South Dakota Stanford School of Medicine and a member of the Pediatrics and Rare Disease Group at Stanford Research. Dr. Pritwick is working to develop a better understanding of Batten disease and develop novel therapeutic strategies. Bassen disease is a family of rare lysosomal disorders caused by mutations in one of at least 13 genes which encode a diverse set of lysosomal and extra-lysosomal proteins. There are a variety of gene mutations, signs, and symptoms that range in severity and progress, including progressive vision loss leading to blindness, seizure, movement disorders, and dementia. Despite decades of research, the development of effective therapies has remained intractable. For some slow-passing disease like CLN3 batten, small animal models poorly recapitulate patient phenotypes requiring the focus on large animal models. Unfortunately, immunodepletion is simply not feasible for pig plasma samples, creating a substantial barrier to his interrogation into proteomics for biomarker discovery. Dr. Brudwick shared that working with SEER and the SEER Center of Excellence has been transformative for his multiomics biomarker discovery initiatives. SEER's proteograph workflow has allowed his team to generate unbiased, quantitative data of over 3,000 plasma proteins and to find new biomarker signatures of the disease. Dr. Brudwig and his team plan to publish these studies in 2023, which will fill important knowledge gaps in the batten disease field. We believe that deep unbiased proteomic at scale enabled by the ProteoGrav product suite is necessary to sufficiently access and catalog the proteome, which is vastly more complex than the genome. As this content is cataloged and functionally characterized relative to the genome, novel insights will be generated. These novel insights will fuel clinical applications and create new clinical utility for both genomics and proteomics biomarkers. Customer-driven exemplification and data are essential in developing the market. We believe that as more third-party data enters the public domain, the differentiated value proposition of the proteograph and the novel insights it provides will become more established, accelerating the next generation of multi-omic studies. We have seen a growing validation of our technology with 19 poster presentations from customers to date. There's also a steady stream of scientific content coming from SEER, including over 100 presentations, posters at conferences and events, and three published high-impact papers with a fourth paper accepted and impressed, demonstrating the unique performance of our proprietary engineered nanoparticles. We're seeing increasing interest from genomics researchers who want to access proteogenomic content and are excited about having unbiased access to the proteome so that they can discover novel protein variants and deepen their multiomic insights to get closer to the phenotype. We're aware of multiple manuscripts that have been submitted or are in the process of being submitted in early 2023 for peer review. I'm excited to be able to share more in the coming months as these submissions run through the peer review process, which of course takes time. In the interim, we will continue to collaborate with our customers to take advantage of opportunities for them to share preliminary data at conferences and events as they move from study to analysis and author their manuscripts. Now turning our attention to our second objective. We're demonstrating the power of the proteograph product suite as we drive toward the next set of innovations to further extend the capabilities of the technology. In 2022, we published two seminal papers demonstrating the power of nanobio interactions for deep unbiased access to the proteome that is enabled by our proprietary engineered nanoparticles. These papers demonstrated superior performance of our technology for deep unbiased, precise and scalable proteomics. Our disruptive technology is also being recognized across our industry. Last year, the product product suite was ranked among the top ten innovations for 2022 by the scientists, and we received the Science and Technology Award from the Human Proteome Organization. We are executing against our product roadmap, building on what is already a disruptive product that includes innovations in nanoparticles, workflow, and analysis. Last August, we released the ProteoGraph Analysis Suite, POS 2.0, a proteogenomic workflow that allows for streamlined data analysis of protein variants to genomic variants and paves the way for more genomic labs to leverage unbiased deproteomics at scale. We have been receiving extremely positive feedback from customers on their ability to easily connect genomic data to proteomic data and assess peptide-level disease association. We plan to continue to expand our software and later roadmap for population-scale deproteomic studies. We will introduce multiple tools feature sets and workflow for larger study and data sets into our prototype analysis suite releases in 2023 we also placed our next product in the hands of early access customers in late 2022 and we expect to make it broadly available later this year we have completed testing with multiple sites and are getting positive feedback on the workflow and its new features. The proteome is highly complex with millions of protein variants. This is underscored by a 454,000 subject study published by UK Biobank in Nature describing over 9 million potential protein variants, of which more than 6 million are potentially deleterious across their cohort. On an individual basis, each participant had an average of 9,500 protein variants of which 2,900 were potentially deleterious. Importantly, this does not account for protein variants that are generated because of post-translational modifications or RNA processing to produce protein slice forms. If you add these in, then it significantly increases the number of protein variants. And this is exactly why our technology is important. In a paper accepted and currently in press for publication, we highlight the importance of generating data at the peptide level using the proteograph product suite to allow for the identification of splice form arising from the same gene locus. Our study found that the four known isoform of BMP1 exhibit differential abundance in cases of lung cancer and controls. The single short splice form of BMP1 is more abundant in cancer cases, while the three long splice form of BMP1 are more abundant in controls. It is important to note that affinity-based approaches inherently cannot differentiate between splice forms. This peer review manuscript will be published over the coming weeks, and the preprint is available currently on bioRxiv. Turning to our third objective, catalyzing new applications and markets, we're continuing to drive progress with our partnerships and expand the applications that can be performed with the proteograph, such as model organisms, animal health, and different biofluids. At the beginning of 2022, we formed a proteogenomic consortium with our partners at Discovery Life Sciences and SIACS, empowering genomics researchers to add deep unbiased proteomic analysis to the large-scale discovery, translational, and clinical studies at an unprecedented resolution. Discovery Life Sciences has now launched their world-class proteomic services division with a new facility in the Boston area, creating a leading provider for large-scale population studies, biobank characterization, and multi-omic biomarker analysis to support drug and diagnostic development. They're up and running with multiple proteographs and mass specs and are ready to receive customer samples. We look forward to continuing to partner with them to co-promote the proteograph and expand access to new customers as they scale their business in 2023. Market development is a key part of our focus as we demonstrate the differentiated value of deep unbiased proteomic at scale spanning from discovery to clinical utility enabled by the ProteoGrav product suite. Affinity-based approaches are effective when a known target and a specific epitope measurement is desired and best utilized in low-plex configuration for specific applications but cannot cover the vast complexity of the proteome. They're analogous to microarrays in genomics where a specific DNA fragment is used in a targeted or biased manner to confirm the presence of a specific mutation or a single nucleotide polymorphism. The huge gap in the market remains access to the content that reaches the depth and complexity of the proteomics. This content will expand existing end markets and create entirely new end markets and is uniquely enabled by unbiased approaches at scale. We saw a similar end market expansion play out in the genomic space as well with the growing genomics content over the past 15 years. Through our market development efforts, we're gaining traction with key opinion leaders and expanding our scientific advisory board. We've also opened an in-house application lab that is purely focused on expanding the methods and sample types that can be used with the proteograph. For example, one of the first projects for this lab in 2022 was to assess lower volume sample inputs to enable smaller organism work. We found that starting sample volumes less than 250 microliter still allows higher coverage of low abundant proteins compared to the direct digest workflows. explored volumes as low as 10 microliter of starting sample while still delivering 68% of the protein coverage with our standard volume. And importantly, we get this coverage across the entire dynamic range. This provides a superior performance method to those looking to study model organisms on smaller size, such as mouse. The proteograph has also been demonstrated in a wide variety of organisms, including plant, feline, bovine, canine, and baboon to name a few. The Protograph is the only commercially available system that can be utilized across species in a decentralized manner. As we mentioned on our last earning call, we recently hosted a joint webinar with Evotech to discuss their data with different human biofluids using our technology. This webinar highlighted how the ProteoGraph product suite was able to uncover thousands of previously undetectable proteins. During their presentation, Evotech highlighted how the ProteoGraph enabled unique insight into different sample types, including human serum, plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, and cell secretome. This webinar was well attended and generated significant interest The recording is available on our website. Our technology is inherently extensible. It is species agnostic and is able to analyze biofluids beyond plasma and serum. As we gain momentum in the market, expand the use cases for our technology, and pave the way for more adoption of the protograph, our customer base is growing to span academic research, translational, commercial, pharma, CROs, and even applied markets. Interestingly, we are seeing these customers working across a broad range of applications, from cataloging protein variants to proteogenomics, from target identification to multiomics for complex disease, and from biomarker discovery to early disease detection. We are very much at the onset of this journey and I'm excited to see what our customers do next. And finally, we continue to build an industry-leading team as we recruit top talent and expand our global capabilities to support our growing install base. We ended the year with more than 160 employees, with most additions in the last year to the commercial organization. Looking ahead, We will continue to drive execution against our core focus areas, enabling breakthrough discoveries with the Protograph product suite, demonstrating its power, catalyzing new applications and markets, and continuing to build an industry-leading team. While much work remains, we're excited and inspired by the opportunity in front of us. I truly believe that we have the technology, the team, and the strategy to bring the next phase in omics to the labs globally. With that, I will now turn the call over to David.

Thanks, Omid. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $4.6 million, representing an increase of 50% compared to $3.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in fourth quarter revenue was primarily due to increased consumable and SP100 instrument sales related to our prototype product suite, the completion of service projects, and lease revenue related to our SP100 instruments. Product-related revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $3.2 million, including related party revenue of $1.7 million, and consisted of sales of SP100 instruments, consumable kits, and platform evaluations. Service revenue was $708,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022, and was primarily derived from a significant project completed for a large multinational corporation. As we have mentioned previously, we will continue to be strategic in undertaking certain service projects for customers that we ultimately believe will lead to purchases of the Proteograph. Grant and other revenue was $745,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022. As expected, contributions from grant and research-related collaborations were resumed beginning in the fourth quarter as our SBIR grant from the NIH was renewed in the third quarter. The grant period will run through May of this year. In addition, we recognized revenue from lease agreements related to the placement of our instruments in the fourth quarter. Total gross profit was $2.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, representing a gross margin of 49.8%. Our gross margins were in line with the prior quarter as a result of higher consumable sales in the fourth quarter, offset by overhead allocations. We expect to see variability in our overall gross margin on a quarter-by-quarter basis as the proportion of instrument and consumable sales will fluctuate between any given quarter. We continue to expect our long-term gross margins to be between 70 and 75 percent. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $27.2 million, including $8.2 million of stock-based compensation, compared to $21.3 million, including $6.7 million of stock-based compensation in the fourth quarter of 2021. Research and development expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $12.6 million, an increase of 54% compared to $8.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in R&D expenses was primarily due to an increase in product development efforts related to the Protograph product suite, including employee compensation costs due to growth in R&D personnel and expenses associated with the build-out of our facility. Selling general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $14.6 million, an increase of 12% compared to the $13.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in SG&A expenses was primarily driven by greater employee compensation expenses due primarily to growth in personnel for our global commercial organization. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $22.5 million compared to $19.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Turning to the full year, total revenue for the full year 2022 was $15.5 million compared to $6.6 million in 2021, representing growth of 134% year over year. Product-related revenue was $13.8 million compared to $5.9 million in 2021. The increase in revenue is primarily attributable to increased sales of products related to the Protograph product suite and primarily consisted of sales of the Protograph SP100 instrument consumable kits, and platform evaluations, of which $5.2 million was attributed to related parties. Service revenue was $913,000 for the full year 2022 compared to $500,000 for the full year 2021. Revenue related to grant and other revenue was $808,000 in 2022 and consisted of our grant-funded activities related to our SBIR grant from the NAIH and leased revenue related to our SP100 instruments. As Omid highlighted, we shipped 22 SP100 instruments in 2022, more than doubling our instruments placed year-over-year and bringing our cumulative shipments to 39 instruments as of December 31, 2022. We continue to see a mix of commercial and academic customers, with the majority of placements continuing to be with commercial customers at this stage. Last year was our first year of broad commercial release, and our emphasis was on providing access to the Proteograph and allowing customers to experience the power of deep, unbiased proteomics at scale. Given the disruptive nature of our technology and the broad macroeconomic uncertainty, we experienced an elongated sales cycle for the placement of our Proteograph SP100 instruments. However, a subset of these prospective customers chose to pursue their studies through a service project, and for our existing and new customers that did adopt the Proteograph, we experienced higher than anticipated pull-through of consumables since they ran significant sample sets. In addition, our centers of excellence proved to be valuable partners in providing access to the Protograph for select customers who want to access the technology through an outsourced service model. Finally, as I mentioned, we selectively entered leasing arrangements in the fourth quarter that also helped customers adopt the Protograph more rapidly. During these early days of commercialization for a first-of-its-kind product, and while we wait for customer data to be published, We will continue to work to reduce the hurdles for adoption, including access through our Centers of Excellence and the Proteogenomics Consortium for new customers while encouraging increased utilization and pull-through for our existing customers. Total gross profit for the year was $7.1 million, representing a gross margin of 45.8 percent. Full-year gross margins benefited from strong consumable kit sales, platform evaluations, service projects, and grant revenue. Total operating expenses for 2022 were $104.3 million inclusive of $33.7 million in stock-based compensation compared to $74.9 million inclusive of $25.9 million in stock-based compensation in 2021. Research and development expenses for 2022 were $45.8 million compared to $29.1 million in 2021. SG&A expenses for 2022 were $58.5 million compared to $45.8 million in 2021. The increase in R&D expense was primarily due to an increase in product development efforts related to the Protograph product suite, including $10.3 million in employee compensation costs and other related expenses, including stock-based compensation due to growth in R&D personnel and a $4 million increase in allocated overhead related to the allocation of facility expense associated with the build-out of our facilities to support our R&D efforts. The increase in SG&A expense was primarily due to an $8.3 million increase in employee compensation and other related expenses, including stock-based compensation, mainly due to growth in personnel in our commercial organization. Net loss for 2022 was $93 million compared to $71.2 million in 2021. We ended the year with approximately $426.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. With our extremely strong balance sheet and disciplined deployment of capital, We believe we are well-funded to execute on our strategic plan for many years to come. Turning to our outlook for the year, we expect revenue to be in the range of $23 to $25 million for 2023, representing significant year-over-year growth of 48% to 61%. Similar to this past year, we expect revenue to be more weighted to the second half of the year. We continue to see challenges in the macroeconomic environment globally and continued limited customer access in certain geographies such as China and that is elongating customers' purchasing decisions, especially as it relates to new disruptive technologies like the Proteograph. That said, we continue to see strong interest in the Proteograph and its value proposition for customers, which is reflected in our robust revenue growth outlook for 2023. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Amid for closing comments.

Thanks, David. I'm extremely proud of the SEER team and our accomplishments over the past year. We're seeing fantastic data being produced by our customers across a range of applications. Looking forward to 23, we will continue to drive executions against our core strategies.

And with that, we will now open it up to questions.

Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your touch-tone telephone. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Our first question comes from Derek DeBruin of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I guess the first one is, David, can you just sort of give us some color on your cash burn and OpEx outlook for this year and how should we think about it? I mean, I know you've got – you basically think you've got three years of cash on it, but just any sort of, like, commentary would be helpful.

Sure, Derek. So, as you'll see when we file our 10-K, what we really track is our free cash flow operating cash flow plus CapEx, you'll see that's the $71 million in 2022. We expect it to be in a similar place for 2023 as well.

Got it. And I'm sort of curious, you know, if you look at the product revenue X, the related party, it's actually down year over year, quarter on quarter. Can you just sort of talk about the dynamics and how much of that, you know, I guess just sort of what is going on there, I just was surprised to sort of see it down on that sense, and how much of that shifted to, you know, how much of the stuff you thought was going to be product shifted to services, and just a little bit dynamics, because as I said, just not sure how to model that, you know, product X third-party revenue, related party revenue line for this year.

Yeah, Derek, appreciate the question. I think the way to think about it is, again, we look for our growth globally, I mean, annually, and we certainly feel like from quarter to quarter, the composition of that, you know, overall number is going to change. Just each quarter will be a little bit different. I think what we saw in the fourth quarter was, you know, more from more, some of that revenue moved into service. As we also mentioned, there was some lease revenue that's included in grant and other, and then related party had a little bit more. So I think overall, the composition was a little bit different, but I think we still feel good about the overall momentum we have in terms of providing access, because really what we're trying to do is get people access to the technology, whether that's purchasing outright, using it through a service model or potentially, you know, doing kind of a lease arrangement of some sort. So, again, I think we're going to continue to see fluctuations, Derek, but, again, I think as we look year over year, obviously we're looking for some nice growth on an annual basis. Got it.

And just one final one, if I may. Just thinking the total instrument number for the year came in, a bit below where the consensus number was. I think it was around 29 instruments on visible alpha. So implying that when we look at the product revenue, it's significantly higher consumable pull-through on it. Can you just give us some sort of general sense on the consumables and average pull-through that's going on, just sort of like where that's ramping, how that's ramped for the year, and sort of see what you sort of see, how that sort of like goes through next year?

Yeah.

So again, I think on the instrument placements, as we've been saying, we are seeing an elongated sales cycle. So I think that was a partial contributor, obviously. I think on the flip side, we did see a nice consumable pull through on that. And so again, that kind of made up for the shortfall in instruments relative to consensus. And so again, I think it's something we're continuing to try and help people gain access to the technology. Some of that was gained through some of these service projects. We do think those will ultimately lead to purchases, outright purchases. But again, I think just given this is our first year of commercialization, just the dynamic and the uncertainty in the back half of the year, macroeconomically and with some budgets, It kind of shifted some of the timing of that, but I think the good news is we continue to see good pull through for those that do have the instrument. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Brennan of Cowan. Your line is open.

Hi. Good afternoon. This is Kyle for Dan. I just want to start on the guidance here. Your guidance, you know, brackets the consensus, and given the elongated sales cycle, could you maybe break down the key drivers here, like the split between instruments and consumables and sort of how you're thinking about that through the year?

Yeah, thanks, Kyle.

You know, I think we'll have a pretty consistent – well, as we said, I think, first of all, you're going to see revenue, you know, more back half-weighted, as we saw this year – I think you'll see that again in 2023, at least as we're looking at it. Again, there still is a lot of uncertainty out there, especially as we've seen it related to new disruptive technologies. I think people are just more thoughtful in terms of their analysis and what they're going to do prior to purchasing. But I think we'll continue to see, again, from those who do have it, nice pull through And, you know, again, I think we'll see, as we saw this year, you know, the majority of revenue being consumable revenue. And so, you know, again, I think the pull-through has been pretty healthy. And so, you know, we'll continue to try and help customers drive those larger sample projects and really help that pull-through in 2023.

Got it, and then on the commercial side, for the commercial team, how much more do you think you need to expand HeadCounter? Do you feel like you're pretty right-sized right now for the current scale of the company?

Yeah, look, this is Omid. As we've said, the commercial organization is going to continue to expand as we grow access to the product globally. So that's going to continue. Our commercial organization, which is our marketing, sales, and support, you know, is roughly a little bit more than a half of our total SG&A.

And that's going to continue to grow. The pace of growth for us is to keep headcount about one or two quarters ahead of need. So just try to hire ahead a bit and to continue that momentum as needed.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of PJ Savant of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for the time here. Maybe, David, one for you to kick things off, sort of similar to what Derek was asking earlier. As we think about that 24 million at the midpoint of the guide, How much of a revenue contribution are you expecting from Prognomic in there? And I know you also mentioned the NIH grant, which runs out in May. So, any guardrails around that? I'm assuming that's a lot smaller than Prognomic, but just curious as to what the contributions are that are baked in at the midpoint.

Sure. So, in terms of Prognomic, Tejas, I'm sure you're aware that they completed their 1,000-sample study and they're kicking off their 15,000-sample prospective study. So we expect for this year for them to be pretty consistent, pretty steady with where they've been historically. We may see some small fluctuations quarter to quarter, but I think overall for the year, you know, they're going to be pretty steady in just in terms of where they have been in terms of dollars. So that's really the assumption around prognomic. Again, there may be some time shifting from quarter to quarter, but overall for the year, we expect them to kind of be in a similar place. And then on the grant revenue, you know, it'll run, we should recognize it through the second quarter. We may choose to try and renew it and get some additional grant revenue, but I think you can assume it's pretty minimal. Just so you know, most of that revenue in grant and other was related to the lease agreements this quarter. Got it.

That's helpful. And then, David, you mentioned sort of the phasing being a little bit back-end loaded, similar to this year. So are you sort of pointing to essentially a 40-60 split? Is that fair, or could it be a little bit more even than that?

No, I think that's fair, Tejas. That's kind of how we're thinking about it.

Got it. Okay. And then in terms of just the on-the-ground situation in China, given the surge in COVID cases and the subsequent sort of reopening, are you baking in at the midpoint a normalization in the back half of the year or not really?

Yeah, no, Tejas. Our assumption is that Our access to China is going to continue to be constrained from an assumption perspective, which is have no visibility.

I mean, we would have thought that with the opening that access would free up, and we certainly didn't see that.

So we're going to continue to be a bit guarded about our view of access in China. And so the assumption assumes that the status quo will continue for the year.

Got it. Okay. And then last one for me here on the proteogenomics consortium. You said they're now open to receive samples from customers. How are you thinking about the ramp through the year here? Obviously, I think in the past you've talked about potentially 100,000 samples a year, but Just walk us through the cadence of the ramp here, and then on the center of excellence side, help us dimension the size of that contribution, if you can, Omid, in terms of the guide.

Yeah, let me take the proteogenomics consortium, and then Omid can do the centers of excellence. On the PGC, you're correct, Tejas. The ultimate goal is 100,000 samples. annually. Certainly, it's going to take them a few years to get to that. And so this year, we are assuming a pretty modest ramp. As you know, they said they are open for business. And so they're working through going out with their marketing efforts and doing a great job. They've been a great partner. But again, we're tending to be pretty modest in terms of that contribution this year as they kind of see the demand out there. I think they certainly see it. And again, this is part of the overall DLS proteomics services group, which offers a full range of proteomics services. But again, we're super excited about what they can do in terms of the SEER platform and unbiased proteomics. But we've been relatively modest assumptions around this year in terms of actual sample volumes.

building on the proteogenomic consortium kind of and thinking more broadly about our COEs. I mentioned the Evotech webinar. So they're getting started.

They're getting up and running. They've now done customer projects going forward. Again, I think that you should assume in terms of sample number volume, you know, something in the neighborhood of, maybe 5% to 10% of revenue this year is going to be services. And for the most part, we are not in the services business model. So you can assume a lot of that is going to come from our COEs. Now, on occasion, for strategic reasons, we may do a service contract. In fact, Q4 is a good example of that. And you saw that in the revenue breakdown that we did do a service contract. Now, just in the case of that particular example, and I don't think that's going to be the case in every example, that particular customer is now in discussion with us to take an instrument in-house. So we may do a service from a SEER perspective strategically. The balance of those service revenues, you can assume, is coming from our COEs.

Very helpful. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm showing no further questions this time. I'll turn the call back over to Amid for any closing remarks.

Thank you all very much. We look forward to keeping you up to date. Thanks so much, everyone.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.