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spk03: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SEER first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a Q&A session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 1-1 on your telephone, and you will hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would like to handle the conference over to your speaker today, Carrie Mendeville, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you. Earlier today, SEER released financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023. 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 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 in the press release SEER issued today. For a more complete list and description, please see the risk factors section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, 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-listing 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 May 9th, 2023. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Omid.
spk05: Thanks, Kerry, and thank you everyone for joining us this afternoon. I will begin our call today with a review of our first quarter results, as well as the progress we're making across our core focus areas to drive growth. Then I will turn the call over to David, to provide more detail on our financial results. Thanks to the tremendous effort of the entire team at SEER, we had a solid start to the year and ended the first quarter with $4.1 million in revenue and continued growth in our installed base. Even more importantly, we're increasingly seeing more and more data being shared by our customers, the initiation of larger studies with a growing interest in population scale studies. and the first customer publications making their way through the peer review process. We have consistently said that the increased publication of customers and third-party data will be critical to developing the market, and this is exactly what we're seeing. We now have more than 150 public presentations on Sears technology to date with additional data expected at the American Society of Mass Spectrometry, or ASMS, annual conference in early June. With this solid start, we're reiterating our 2023 guidance and continue to expect revenue in the range of $23 to $25 million for 2023, representing significant year-over-year growth of 48% to 61%. While we continue to drive top-line growth, we're taking a very disciplined approach with our operating expenses in order to protect a robust balance sheet With over $410 million in cash, we're well positioned to execute on our multiyear strategic plan and are building a resilient organization that can make a meaningful impact on the advancement of science and medicine. We're committed to leveraging our resources to drive innovation, creating value for our customers and investors, and contributing to the positive trajectory of the proteomics field and human health overall. As mentioned on the last earning call, this year, we're focused on executing across our four core areas. First, enabling breakthrough discoveries with the prototype product suite. Second, demonstrating the power of our technology. Third, catalyzing new applications and markets. And finally, fourth, expanding our industry leading team. Starting with our first objective. The Proteograph product suite is highly extensible and is providing reproducible, unbiased access to the proteome with flexibility and scale, allowing it to address many unmet needs in our customers' hands. We're encouraged by the growing enthusiasm for what the Proteograph workflow can enable. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, more customer data is being shared publicly. Dr. Karsten Suri, a leading multiomics researcher and a professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, has a manuscript under peer review that is now available as a preprint in BioRxiv. This is the first study using the Proteograph product suite to perform protein quantitative trait loci or PQTL analysis. I view this study as an important milestone in which the biological value of connecting genomic variant data to deep unbiased proteomic data at the peptide level has been robustly exemplified. In a cohort study of 325 diabetic subjects and controls, Dr. Suri identified approximately 3,000 proteins and over 18,000 peptides and associated these with genetic variants across the study, allowing him to identify variation in plasma protein concentration among subjects. Importantly, this publication highlights the shortcoming of affinity-based approaches in which the measured abundance of a target protein may be impacted by protein-altering variants that change the binding epitope of the affinity reagent. Dr. Tsui's work highlights the importance of peptide-level resolution to more deeply understand the proteome, which the ProteoGraph product suite is uniquely able to deliver at scale. Another interesting emerging application of the ProteoGraph is targeted mass spectrometry workflows for quantifying specific high-value human plasma and serum proteins. For example, in obesity and diabetes research. Most assays today in obesity and diabetes research rely exclusively on antibodies. Yet certain publications have shown this approach has limitations, including failure to detect the intended target for the post-transitionally modified biologically active forms. The combination of mass spec-based targeted proteomics combined with the proteograph workflow provides a solution to this problem with a robust, highly reproducible method for detecting and quantifying the desired protein variants across a wide range of concentrations at the peptide level. Dr. Jenny Van Eyck, who's a professor of cardiology and director of the Advanced Clinical Biosystem Research Institute and founder of the Precision Biomarker Labs at Cedars-Sinai, is leading this work. Dr. Van Eyck is an international leader in clinical proteomics and current president of the Human Proteome Organization, or HUPO. Her team has leveraged the Proteograph product suite to identify and quantify clinically relevant biomarkers that are inaccessible to immunoassays. The targeted methods they perform using the proteograph ensures accurate quantitation of lower abundance proteins that are not easily acceptable by standard proteomics workflow, while also allowing the monitoring of several hundred other plasma proteins of interest, which may contain additional biomarker leads. Importantly, this method allows for rapid completion of large-scale studies and the potential for quick diagnostic turnaround in an assay that can be offered as a service to stratify obese and diabetic patients into optimal treatment groups. Her team presented the prototype evaluation data at the targeted mass spectrometry assays in diabetes and obesity research meeting that is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases late last year and are currently in the process of scaling up this study toward a publication later this year. Dr. Van Eyck's research is a great illustration of the unmet needs that the proteograph workflow can address in the hands of customers and speaks directly to its potential to deliver new clinical applications that have not been possible with existing methods. In January, one of our multi-omic liquid biopsy customers, Prognomic, announced early results for what they believe to be the largest deep multiomics study to date. This study was run across 1,031 subjects with non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC, and non-cancer control, and demonstrated the power of diverse molecular biomarkers to improve sensitivity and specificity in early detection of NSCLC. Last month, They presented new data in two posters at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting that demonstrated novel biomarker discovery and the potential feasibility of their approach for early cancer detection. Their first poster leveraged deep multi-omics profiling of proteins, metabolized transcripts, and cell-free DNA in blood from NS-CLC patients for biomarker discovery. Data showed multiple biomarkers for NSCLC detected across all omic types with many overlapping biomarkers of interest and demonstrated a broad ability to distinguish between individuals with and without cancer. The proteograph played a significant role in biomarker identification, demonstrating the importance of peptide-level resolution to drive novel biscomfrey. The second poster, demonstrated that a multi-omic classifier achieved high sensitivity and specificity for detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC, also referred to as PDAC. In a case control study of 146 subjects, In this proof of concept study, Prognomic leveraged multi-omic data to identify novel combination of analytes with both known and unknown relation to PDAC into high performance biomarker panel for detection and discrimination of PDAC from non-cancer controls. The high performance of analytes collected from blood draws makes these panels amenable to rapid development and utilization. Results support the feasibility of this approach as a potentially clinical useful test for early detection of PDAC. These results from Prognomic illustrate how the proteograph can drive the identification of novel biomarkers, which can then be utilized in clinical application. This is just the beginning of what we believe the proteograph will enable in the hands of customers. In late March, at the U.S. Human Proteome Organization Conference, There was one podium presentation and nine posters highlighting SEER technology, including customer data on COVID-19 vaccine response and an optimized method for the prototype with the Thermo Fisher Orbitrap Explorys 4AV using SAMES Pro. The oral presentation covered the first look at the Alzheimer's disease cohort of approximately 1,800 plasma samples using our next product, which is in the hands of several early access customers. We also hosted a well-attended industry workshop with three featured presentations highlighting protograph performance, flexibility to address multiple sample types, and ability to drive large-scale studies. In June, at the upcoming American Society for Mass Spectrometry, or ASMS, annual conference, We are looking forward to more exciting data with 15 SEER and 12 customer abstracts in the program. Customer posters and presentations include using an aging in mouse model, translational pharmacoproteomics in non-alcoholic Staphylohepatitis or NASH, improved sensitivity with precision for quantitation in targeted applications, and host cell proteins for biologic manufacturing among others. And we're continuing to drive standardization and partnership with our commercial partners Thermo Fisher, Brooker, and Cyax, with multiple posters and talks demonstrating the exceptional performance of the photograph across these leading mass spec platforms. One customer study of note at AFMS is from Dr. Steve Carr's lab at the Broad Institute. Dr. Carr will have an oral presentation demonstrating the performance of the proteograph in plasma from multiple myeloma patients using the Bruker PIMSTOP-HT and DIA-PICEPS. These results are particularly exciting as they show how larger-scale studies that are enabled by the proteograph with optimized mass spec protocol can get us deeper into the proteome than previously possible. In 2017, Dr. Carr published a seminal paper that achieved a depth of 4,500 proteins in plasma, and this paper has remained a benchmark for deep unbiased proteomics in plasma until now. Importantly, the 2017 study, given the complexity of the workflow, was accomplished on only 16 samples. Dr. Carr's current study identified over 5,900 proteins and is being applied to 300 samples. This is yet another example of the step function increase in the depth and throughput of proteomics that has been enabled by the proteograph product suite. It is exciting to see an acceleration of customer-driven data beginning to make its way into publications of significance. One such notable example of a customer manuscript under peer review includes the use of the proteograph to follow the civilian crew of SpaceX Inspiration4 combined with additional multi-omic data to further understand the body's response to space flight. This project is providing new opportunities to understand the molecular and cellular changes that occur in humans during space travel. We look forward to sharing more details following the publication of this study. We have visibility to multiple additional manuscripts being submitted by customers in the coming months. As more third-party data is generated, we will see more proof of the unique value of Pertograph to drive novel biological insights that will accelerate the next generation of multi-omic studies. We feel very confident about our market opportunities and thrilled by the emerging validation of the Pertograph in ANZA customers and expect a progressive increase in the velocity of adoption in the coming several quarters. Turning our attention to the second objective, demonstrating the power of the Protegraph product suite. We continue to innovate, extend the capabilities of our technology, and drive our own abstract and publications. In March, we announced that our paper on bone morphogenic protein 1, or BMP1, was published in PLOS One. This peer-reviewed publication highlighted the importance of the Protegraph in identifying peptide level insights that discovered links between protein variants and lung cancer progression at the protein isoform level. In upcoming months, we expect to have multiple papers released from SEER, in addition to what we are expecting from our customers. These papers will continue to advance the field of nanobio interactions proteomic workflows and large-scale data science, showcasing the disruptiveness of our technology and its unique ability to push the boundaries in proteomics. We remain committed to delivering cutting-edge solutions that drive more access to proteomic data. We know that enabling streamlined data processing, analysis, and interpretation is key. Throughout 2023, We will continue to expand our software capabilities and lay the roadmap for large-scale studies with our proteograph analysis suite. We believe that this will be an important component of our workflow and will serve to enable more customers to onboard deep unbiased proteomics at scale. From the very beginning, We believe there would be broad interest to incorporate unbiased deep plasma proteomics into studies at scale, well beyond the existing install base of mass spec users engaging proteomic research. That is exactly what we're seeing play out in our discussion, consistent with our original vision The market opportunity is large spanning the mass spec install base as well as the genomic market with increased appetite for adding multi-omic data to genomic data sets. Our next product is meant to capitalize on this need to serve a broader audience. It is already in early access with multiple sites and we're getting great feedback on its performance. Our first product delivered a step function change in unbiased proteomics, and this next product does the same. We are really excited about what it will enable in the market, and we look forward to sharing more with you in the upcoming months. Turning to our third objective, catalyzing new applications and markets. Our technology is inherently extensible. It is species-agnostic, and it's compatible with a diverse range of sample types. The ProteoGraph product suite is being used in a range of applications across our growing customer base in academic research, translational, commercial, pharma, CROs, and even applied markets. One example of a new application that has emerged from our customer base is the use of the ProteoGraph to detect host cell proteins or HCPs. HCPs are proteins produced or encoded by the host organism used to produce recombinant therapeutic protein, such as those used in biomanufacturing of vaccines. Removal of HCP is one of the biggest challenges for the production of biopharmaceuticals. An ideal HCP screening assay is high throughput, reproducible, quantitative and sensitive with high dynamic range. The proteograph fits this bill. In a study in partnership with a major pharmaceutical company, we demonstrated that the proteograph product suite detects two to six times more HTPs than traditional methods, identifying 98% of the HTPs and overall improving measurements across purification steps. A poster on this work will be presented at the upcoming ASMS by our pharma partner. Customers continue to find value in proteograph proof of principle studies as they build the case for capital equipment funding within their organization, including the grant submission process for academic customers. These small studies of 40 to 100 samples are a key enabler for customers to onboard our technology and often result in posters or abstracts on their own, as preliminary insights and putative biomarkers can be uncovered even from small studies at its size. We had the shipment of a proteograph to a non-human health company in the first quarter, for example, following a small proof of principle study conducted for disorganization. With our proof of principle study program, we have demonstrated use of the proteograph in chicken, dog, cat, baboon, and plant tissue across studies looking at cold exposure, diet, aging, cognitive impairment, multiple cancers, and transplant. We will continue to drive market development efforts such as these studies, collaboration, and KOL work to accelerate and enable broad market adoption. Through these efforts, we're building relationships with key opinion leaders and expanding our scientific advisory board with the recent addition of Dr. Josh Kuhn, Dr. Chris Mason, and Dr. Jenny Lanike. Dr. Kuhn is a professor of chemistry and biomolecular chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Mason is a professor of genomics, physiology, and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and a director of the Wolfe Quant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, as well as an affiliate of Memorial Full Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, Harvard Medical School, and Yale Law School. As mentioned earlier, Dr. Van Eyck is professor of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai, as well as the director of the Advanced Clinical Biosystem Research Institute, founder of the Precision Biomarker Labs, and the current president of the HUFO. These relationships are reinforcing the power of the photograph in the hand of these luminaries in their field. They're partnering with us to imagine a new future in multiomics, and I'm excited to continue our engagement to push the boundaries of what's possible together. Before I turn the call over to David, I want to share an update on our leadership team. Scott Thomas, our chief commercial officer, will be transitioning from here in July. I want to thank Scott for his contribution leading and developing a commercial organization. Our two senior regional vice presidents will lead commercial in the Americas and EMEA, APAC, respectively. We have an excellent team in place and we're confident We will continue to deliver on the promise of our transformational technology. With that, I will now turn the call over to David.
spk04: Thanks, Omid. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2023 was $4.1 million, representing an increase of 22% compared to the $3.3 million in the first quarter of 2022. The increase in first quarter revenue was primarily due to increased consumable kit sales related to the Protograph product suite. Revenue recognized primarily consisted of sales of prototype SP-100 instruments and consumable kits. Additional sources of revenue include platform evaluation, service grant, and lease revenue. Product-related revenue for the first quarter of 2023 was $3.6 million, including related party revenue of $1.3 million, and consisted of sales of SP-100 instruments, consumable kits, and platform evaluations. Service revenue was $69,000 in the first quarter of 2023, It was primarily derived from the completion of a customer service project. 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 paragraph. Grant and other revenue was $335,000 in the first quarter of 2023. As discussed last quarter, contributions from grant and research-related collaborations were resumed beginning in the fourth quarter of 2022 related to our SBIR grant from the NIH. The grant period will run through May of this year. In addition, we placed some instruments with key accounts that also require these customers to purchase consumables. We recognize a portion of this revenue as lease revenue. Total gross profit was $2.1 million for the first quarter of 2023, representing a gross margin of 51%. Gross margins were aided by the mix of consumable versus instrument revenue and additional grant revenue in the first quarter. This was offset by overhead expenses and other costs of revenue. 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. Total operating expenses for the first quarter of 2023 were $29.5 million, including $8.7 million of stock-based compensation, an increase of 18% compared to $25 million, including $8.1 million of stock-based compensation in the first quarter of 2022. Research and development expenses for the first quarter of 2023 were $14.5 million, an increase of 35% compared to $10.7 million in the first quarter of 2022. 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 and other related expenses due to growth in R&D personnel and expenses associated with the build-out of our facility. Selling general and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2023 were $15 million, an increase of 5% compared to $14.3 million in the first quarter of 2022. 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 first quarter of 2023 was $24 million compared to $23.6 million in the first quarter of 2022. We ended the quarter with $410.5 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. As Omid mentioned, while we continue to drive growth on the top line, we're taking a very disciplined approach to spend in order to protect our robust balance sheet. We'll continue to be very mindful of our level of spend as the year progresses in light of the volatile macroeconomic environment and its potential impact on demand. With 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 continue to 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 2022. We expect revenue to be more weighted to the second half of the year. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Omid for closing comments.
spk05: Thanks, David. We started the year off with a good momentum as more and more customers generated data using the putter graph further solidifying the need for large scale unbiased deep proteomics studies. It is exciting to see the ProteoGraph enabling breakthrough science as shown through its power, extensibility, and ability to catalyze new applications on market. I have never been more excited about the opportunities ahead. With that, we will now open it up to questions.
spk03: Thank you. At this time, we will conduct our question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from TJ Savant from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, this is Gabby on for TAGES. Thanks for taking my question. So maybe just to start with what you're seeing right now with your customer base, What impact are you seeing currently from elongated sales cycles in academic versus biopharma customers? And are you seeing any constrained spending from Chinese CDMO customers? Thanks.
spk04: Yeah, thanks, Gabby. It's David. In terms of the customer base, we are continuing to see a somewhat elongated sales cycle. Again, I think the environment continues to be cautious, but at the same time, we are seeing capital being deployed. It's just, I think, as we've said historically, that for a new disruptive technology, it is just a little bit of longer sales cycle for us in terms of the data coming out and the proof points. And a lot of customers choose to run a proof of principle study with us. And so that's really what's creating some of the elongated sales cycle. But I'll note that we have had some publications that Omid mentioned during his remarks one from Dr. Suray and another one coming out. So we're excited about those presentations. We're also excited about what's coming up at the ASMS conference in June to kind of continue to have those customer proof points. But again, we are continuing to see, you know, it just takes some time for people to get comfortable with the technology and ultimately decide to bring it in-house. In terms of China, we do feel like the market has opened up. We still, you know, in terms of working with our distribution partner over there, are still seeing, you know, again, some kind of ramping back up and getting back up to speed. But certainly the access over there has certainly improved.
spk01: Great, thanks. And then just on your plans to further build your commercial org, could you share maybe progress on that and how many reps you're planning to add before year end?
spk05: This is Omid. So we've said that we're not going to be disclosing the specifics of the size of our commercial organization. That said, in terms of the number of sales, that's the total organization right now that includes sales support marketing is around 50 people. We think that's the right size. We're going to continue to scale commensurate to demand and revenue coming in, trying to stay about one to two quarters ahead of it. And I think we're well in that pace right now.
spk01: Okay, great. And then you had mentioned at a conference recently that you believe other OMIC integration will be in SEER's future. So what is your next focus for enhancing the Proteograph Suite and moving towards achieving that? And I guess just what is the latest feedback you've received from your customers and how are you thinking about improvements to the platform based on the customer feedback? Thanks.
spk05: Sure. We released the Proteograph Analysis Suite 2.0, POS 2.0. That was last August. That software allows a user, a customer, to integrate genomic information and proteomic information as part of their analysis. It was the first step to help a customer achieve proteogenomic look at a particular subject that they're looking at. We're going to continue to innovate in that space. That looks at genomic information, but we can bring in transcriptomic information as well on top of that. And so those innovations in terms of analysis is forthcoming. With regards to feedback from customers, look, feedback in terms of product one has been fantastic. We made some claims in terms of how we would see the ecosystem develop, the product to be used, and it's playing out exactly as we had predicted. If you look at the paper that Professor Karsten Suri has under review, and he was kind enough to put it on BioArchive, which is now available if you want to look at it, that paper has generated incoming interest from genomic scientists I personally view that paper to be a watershed moment, a moment where it becomes clear that you can tie genomic information at the nucleotide level to proteomic information at amino acid, at peptide level. And when you do that, you begin to look at changes that happen in terms of protein up and down regulation in response to genetic variants of the population at the protein variant level. Fundamentally disruptive. I think that's the way these kinds of studies should be. So we're beginning to see customers publish papers that validate that we need to look at the proteome at the level of the protein variant because the complexity of the proteome exists because it's biologically relevant. And SEER uniquely enables that to be done accurately, precisely, and at scale. Now, we released product one, and it was a step increase in terms of being able to go deep at a scale and throughput. The feedback that we got from customers was, look, can we go deeper? Can we go faster? And can we use smaller amount of sample volume because our biological samples are precious to us. And so we have product number two that's now in the hands of our early access customers. The feedback has been fantastic. More to come on that. Suffice it to say that that product in my mind is yet another stepwise increase in terms of what becomes possible with our product, too. It certainly addresses some of the feedback that we have gotten from customers on product one, and I'm super, super excited to be able to reveal more and tell you more about it over the upcoming weeks and months as we put that product broadly in commercial in the hands of customers.
spk01: Great. Thank you for the color.
spk03: Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Brennan from TD Cohen.
spk02: Hey, good afternoon. This is Kyle. I'm for Dan. Thanks for taking the questions. So how meaningful will third-party publications be to your customer conversations? And is a notable pickup in customer interest, you know, slash instrument purchases post these publications implied in the 23 guide? And then maybe just going off of that, you know, after the first quarter, you know, what's your confidence and visibility into the, you know, the back half ramp here?
spk05: Hey Tyler, let me, I'll take a part of that and I'll have maybe David answer part of it as well. So we have visibility to at least a handful of customer papers that are on various stages of publications, including one that you saw is now publicly available on bioRxiv, but others that are in late stage reviews that should be coming and then others that are being submitted I had predicted late last year that we would see probably about five customer papers, you know, and kind of tilt it toward the second half of the year. It may actually be more than that. And then interestingly and importantly and related to this is also the number of presentations from customers. So, you know, we're now seeing customer presentations at conferences where we weren't even aware of those studies being done or those studies being presented. That's exactly what you want to see in that you put up the abstract book and you see one of your customers has something going on that they're sharing and they're talking about it. And I think we're also seeing that. I'm super optimistic, Tyler, in that the velocity of customer data presentation is going to be increasing at a progressively sharper slope as we head into the second half of 2023. And then, you know, kind of the balance of the year hitting into 2024, Kyle. So with that, let me turn this to David and see if he can give you additional color in terms of revenue. And before I do, I would say that I... I reiterated the guidance, so I'm confident about the year being that 23 to 25 that we have guidance. So with that, let me hand it to David.
spk04: Yeah, Kyle, just in terms of the 2023 guide, as Amit said, we did reiterate guidance, and so we feel comfortable with that. And as Amit also mentioned, we did have some visibility into some of these papers coming when we did provide our initial guidance. So we certainly had some of those papers baked in, you know, to the extent there are other papers that, you know, come out or, you know, presentations. Again, we feel like that, you know, that could potentially be a benefit. But I think that would be a benefit in terms of just helping, you know, kind of shorten that sales cycle a little bit for us in terms of getting other folks interested in in evaluating the technology. So I think we feel pretty good where we are, and we did have the fact that some of these papers would be out as part of our original guidance.
spk02: Got it. Thank you. So how is customer interest in the lease program? Is this something you're actively offering to all potential SEER customers, or is it just a select number of potentially more meaningful customers?
spk04: Yeah, great question. So what we've decided to do is we've rolled out what we call our strategic instrument placement program. And really what we're looking to do is identify key parties, whether they be KOLs or large customers with large sample sets, people who can, again, help drive awareness of the technology and really just trying to lower barriers to accessing the technology in the short term. And so we did place some of the instruments we placed in the first quarter were part of that. And so essentially what that program is, it does require consumable purchase. So there's a consumable purchase that goes along with that. And then they have a, you know, essentially we agree to place the instrument for a period The customer has the option to purchase it at the end of that. And again, it just helps facilitate, you know, the getting up and using the technology and ultimately, you know, help drive a consumable revenue stream for us. I will say the amount of lease revenue that we recognize as part of that is pretty de minimis. And it's really about, you know, continuing to drive consumables and consumable revenue around that. But again, I think the overall objective is to find ways to, you know, improve access and help drive, you know, again, presentations, papers, publications with accounts that are going to be leaders, either thought leaders and others, or large accounts that have large sample sets to help drive consumable volume over the So it's been a really – it's been a great – it's been well-received by customers. And so we, you know, again, we'll see how it plays out over the balance of the year, but we certainly feel like it's a good program that's helping us. But from a – you know, obviously there's consumable revenues that is meaningful, but from overall lease revenue, it's not really significant.
spk02: Got it. Thank you.
spk03: Thank you. Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
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