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spk02: Good morning and welcome to SomaLogic's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session toward the end of today's call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Marissa Beisch with Gilmartin Group Investor Relations for introductory comments.
spk01: Thank you. Today, Filmologic released financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make forward-looking statements during this call within the meaning of federal securities laws, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements contained in this call that relate to expectations or predictions of future events results or performance are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements, including without limitation, those relating to our market opportunity, growth margin and future financial performance, protein content and database growth, customer base, diagnostic pipeline, expectations for hiring, and growth in our organization are based upon our current estimates and various assumptions. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated or implied by these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. For a listing description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business, please refer to the risk factor section of our most recent Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the section entitled Risk Factors in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today November 14, 2022. Somalogic disclaims any intention or obligation, except as required by law, to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. With that, I will turn the call over to Roy Smyth, Chief Executive Officer.
spk04: Thank you, Marissa. Good morning, and welcome to our 2022 Third Quarter Update Call. I'd like to start by thanking all who invested and support Semilogic as we continue to successfully translate 20 years of innovation into a more complete understanding of human biology, safer and more effective therapies, and better patient care by leveraging the power of proteomics in ways that no other platform can. The commercial staff and structural reorganization we have previously discussed for our life sciences business, as well as continued commercial growth, are already bearing fruit. We appointed a new leader for life science commercial efforts, moved from a centralized to a business unit structure to align all aspects of our life science commercial efforts, including sales, marketing, and product, under one vertical, and are putting much more emphasis on training for the large number of new sales staff hired over the past year. I'm proud to share that we achieved $41.7 million in revenue for this quarter. Most importantly, We delivered on the imperative to stabilize the life science business and put that effort back on a growth track, with $20.5 million of core revenue, in addition to licensing royalties of $21.2 million. Sean Blakeman, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss his comments, the components of our top-line revenue, as well as our ongoing cash management initiatives. Our go-forward plan is to thoughtfully focus the bulk of our efforts and internal investment on our life sciences commercial business
spk03: and adjust expenditures on other parts of our business accordingly. We are executing well on this new business unit structure and we plan to continue to do so.
spk04: Regarding our core business, the team has been acutely focused and is successful and achieving greater scale and customer diversity. Important to both continue to smooth out quarterly variability and to drive sequential revenue growth. We are attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, and turning smaller customers into larger ones. Pursuant, we have added 50-40 customers using our products and services over the past 12 months. Our biopharma customer revenue growth over the past two years is another important fundamental building block to assure progressive long-term growth. Comparing current year to date and excluding long-term recurring contracts, average quarterly revenue from biopharma customers has increased more than 200% since during the 2020 fiscal year, due both to the addition of new customers as well as the development of more project contracts with a large number of This trend of continuing customer diversification gives us a great deal of confidence in our ability to continue to substantially compound both financial and human value over the next several years. Regarding the one-time royalty payment of our revenue for this quarter, I would like to remind everyone that developing a robust licensing component and associated revenue to our business has always been a part of our strategy. As we know, our thousands of proprietary reagents have potential application and a wide variety of licensed use cases. We previously shared that we hired Ken Cascun as our new Senior Vice President of Licensing and Intellectual Property Strategy this past March from Qualcomm, where he held a similar position. He and his team are now working on new licensing opportunities and we are confident many of these will pay off over time. The proteomics market has objectively grown. And solutions like ours are being used more frequently by biopharm and academic research customers for biologic discovery, to facilitate clinical trials, and to improve patient care. We are actively making it easier and more impactful for customers to work with us by growing our commercial team, expanding our current protein measurement identification product advantage, and deploying, developing, and launching side-of-service solutions. Commercial team build-up is a key area of focus, especially as we look to expand our international footprint in EMEA and APAC in order to capitalize on the substantial and largely untapped revenue opportunities in these geographies. Sixty percent of the top 50 biopharma companies in the world are located outside the United States, as well as a number of important academic centers with specific interests in proteomics. While we are still definitely in growth mode, we have seen good progress. with 10 talented, new, and experienced additions to our sales team in the third quarter, six of whom will be working at EMEA and APAC. Our unique ability to synthesize our reagents, rather than having to work in biologic systems to create them, enables much faster development of new protein identification and measurement content than other approaches. Our development of proprietary aptum reagents for our new 10K project will be completed over the next few months, and we anticipate launch of this new product in late 2023, one that will widen even more our already substantial current global lead in platform content. Shifting to our distributed solutions, we expect full access launch for our site-of-service 7K SomaScan array-based kits into more SomaScan-certified sites by the end of this year. We believe there is substantial upside potential for our business as we make existing kit products more widely available and develop and deploy additional distributed products. These solutions not only provide augmented top line revenue and meet more customer needs, but also reduce service business variability by limiting reliance on customer project completion, sample batching, and delivery to us. In addition to our own kits, our work with Illumina to develop a co-branded distributed NGS protein measurement and identification kit product continues to go very well. We value our close relationship with Illumina as well as our unwavering commitment to create, market, and sell an NGS application of SomaScan that will change the commercial landscape for aptamer-based assay. Consistent with Illumina's reporting, we anticipate these co-branded products to launch in 2024. Both we and our partners at Illumina look forward to updating you with further details in coming quarters. In addition to these new products, sales of modular distributed sample prep solutions that we now have in development for both array and NGS SomaScan formats is targeted in the 2024 timeframe. In addition to new array-based and NGS product and solution development and commercialization, We are committed to the development of novel chip-based approaches, as evidenced by our recent acquisition of Palometrics, a San Diego-based global leader in DNA nanotechnology. We are incredibly excited about the intermediate and longer-term opportunities for this work, and to have such a talented development group now on the team to accelerate it. Beyond executing on core customer growth and diversification, We have also been working tirelessly to alleviate pressures experienced over the summer, notably supply chain dynamics and customer spending behavior. Despite the continued unpredictable nature of international trade, the impact of supply chain issues on our business are less pronounced at this time. We've been proactively dealing with this fluid environment by taking matters into our own hands, anticipating issues before they occur, and offering sample shipping supplies or other assistance where needed. Like many others, we continue to see stress on biopharma budgets in this market. While we are very optimistic about our fourth quarter performance due to continued customer growth, our conservative assessment, one shared by others as well, is that we could generally see a more modest cadence than is typical for customers who usually work to spend down remaining budgets, and therefore less sequential growth in the fourth quarter than you might see in a typical year. As we have discussed, we will adjust our spending conventionality as needed. Regarding our efforts in proteomic diagnostics, we have previously shared that we have created 16 laboratory-developed tests, or LDTs, on our platform. Related, we will be announcing soon the results of a very positive trial for one example of these products, our secondary cardiovascular risk test, which is superior, predicting the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death in individuals affected by diabetes and other cardiovascular risk factors. This clinical study was performed in conjunction with Cura Healthcare, coverage for new healthcare products. We continue to pursue licensing and partnership opportunities for these novel assets. A quick note on two recent manuscripts published by teams at the NIH and FDA, two organizations respected for unbiased scientific integrity and rigor. The NIH transcript published in Nature Scientific Reports represents the largest technical evaluation of our 7K SomaScan platform today, demonstrating its extensive coverage of the human proteome, remarkable sensitivity, and consistent low variability. The authors point out that these characteristics are unique in comparison to other proteomics approaches. The FDA manuscript, publishing clinical pharmacology reports, demonstrates the ability And according to the FDA investigators, Sonoscan represented a, quote, sensitive, dynamic, and highly reproducible method. We are encouraged and confident in our recent progress and the improvements we have made in execution over a short period of time. We have reset and stabilized our core service business, supported by a growing list of bioforma and academic research customers, and we have proven technology and platform a tremendous runway ahead. Against this backdrop, and based on the current trends in our business, as well as the one-time licensing royalties, we are raising revenue guidance for the full year of 2022. Sean will provide more detail on that guidance shortly. In closing, it's important to note that we continue to maintain an enviable balance sheet in all the optionality that comes with that resource. However, in this market environment, it's absolutely prudent to preserve as much capital as possible while still aggressively capitalizing and executing effectively on top-line revenue opportunities. While some of our recent uptick in spending has been necessary to put information technology structure in place to support life science commercial growth, as well as public company operating structures in place, we have previously announced our intent to make significant operational expense reductions moving forward. By focusing on life sciences commercial needs and opportunities and continuing to invest in them, We will do this while still growing the scale and success of that business. Sean will discuss how we are executing and are on track for the initial stages of that plan. Before I turn it over to Sean, I'd like to reemphasize what we're building at SomaLogic. Insights garnered from the use of our platform have already improved the landscape for customers and their important work in discovery, clinical trials, and patient care. It's no longer debatable that proteomics is a rapidly expanding market and our unique technology is the right one to capture a significant and increasing share of its value. While we are still building our commercial capabilities, we are confident the tremendous opportunity objectively in front of us will unlock growth, deepen relationships with existing and new customers, and create significant financial returns and human benefits. As I have shared, There is a great deal more to come in the near term and beyond. And now I can turn it over to Sean for a review of our financial results. Sean. Thanks, Rory.
spk08: Revenue for the third quarter of 2022 was $41.7 million, compared to $20 million in the same period of the prior year. We are pleased with the improvement in our athlete services business, and we are excited about the work our commercial team is doing. All of the ingredients to grow our platform are in fact. And in Q3, we saw the results of improved commercial execution. And though the amount of licensing revenue we recognized this quarter was unexpected, to Rory's point, this is just one example of licensing opportunities we hope to pursue in the future. Given the amount of licensing revenue this quarter, I would like to provide additional clarity on our revenue breakdowns to help you understand our underlying business performance. Breaking down $41.7 million, we recognize $17.6 million from our core assay services business, a 0.4% increase from our third quarter 2021 assay services revenue of $17.5 million, and a 60.8% increase from the $10.9 million of assay services revenue we recognized last quarter. We also recognize $2.9 million in revenue for our other core businesses, including KISS, licensing and collaboration revenue. And then we recognize the $21.2 million in one-time licensing revenue that Roy mentioned. This $21.2 million was comprised of an $8 million upfront payment, which we received from NEB as part of the terms of our new licensing agreement, and $13.2 million recognized under GAAP of future guaranteed minimums of $5 million that we pay to Somalogic over the next three years from 2023 to 2025 for a total of $15 million. Due to that, we account for this arrangement as a financing type arrangement with $1.8 million allocated to interest income that will be recognized over the next three years. So this means that each year we will be receiving $5 million that will not be recognized in those future years other than the small interest component I just described. Gross margin for the third quarter of 2022 was 72% compared to 56.1% in the third quarter of the prior year. Gross margins were primarily driven by the large amount of licensing royalty revenue at 100% margins. If you back that out, our margins ex-royalties would be 39.7%, which is due to lower margin biobank samples, as I discussed we would be running in Q2. we will continue to process those samples in Q4. I would reiterate that at our current volumes, our core sum of scan margins without biobank and large customer mix remain in the low to mid 50% range. We think of last quarter in our Q2 or earnings call that due to the impact of those low margin samples, our second half margins would be overall fairly flat compared to the first half of 2022. Given the additional royalty revenue this quarter, We anticipate gross margin for the second half of the year to improve the low 60% range. Total operating expenses for the third quarter of 2022 were $70.7 million, compared to $36.2 million in the third quarter of 2021. RID expenses for the third quarter of 2022 are $19.4 million, compared to $15.6 million in the third quarter of 2021. Sales, general, and administrative expenses for the third quarter of 2022 was $51.2 million compared to $20.6 million in the third quarter of 2021. G&A included one-time charges this quarter for stock-based compensation and lease termination, adding approximately $15 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2022 was a loss of $31.9 million compared to the loss of $18 million in the third quarter of 2021. Please see our press release on file with the SEC as of this afternoon for a reconciliation between GAAP net loss and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. We ended the quarter with $566.3 million of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. Our strong capital position is an important differentiator for our business in the current market environment and allows us increased flexibility to evaluate and act upon both organic and inorganic opportunities, accretive to our current growth prospects. And as part of our focus on reducing cash burden, we are successfully implementing our plan to reduce operational expenses by $75 million from last quarter's operating expense consensus through 2023, which we announced last quarter. We have implemented over $10 million of savings this year, net of one-time items in Q3 and Q4 related to business optimization. And we are finalizing our plans with over 85% of the operating expense improvements through 2023 now identified. We are appropriately pointing resources toward our highest revenue generating activities, focused on life sciences, and fully supporting the commercial growth of that business. As Warren mentioned in his comments, while we do not anticipate seeing larger year-end volume influx from our biopharma customers, we nevertheless expect and look forward to continuing to build our commercial execution to end the year and going into 2023. So turning to guidance, based on our year-to-date progress, and including this third quarter's licensing revenue, the current trends in our business. We now expect 2022 revenue to end in the range of $93 to $98 million. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Roy.
spk04: Thank you, Sean. Again, thanks to everyone for joining us for this third quarter 2022 report. As a result of continuing to put the fundamental building blocks in place, our business is gaining momentum. There is ongoing and more commercial infrastructure growth and differentiation to come, as well as the development, diversification, and launch of new products leveraging our unique core technology, one that partners, collaborators, and customers both want and need to deliver on our shared goals of the prevention of human suffering and the prolongation of meaningful life. We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months, and with that, I'll turn it back over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?
spk02: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question will come from Brandon Couillard from Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk07: Thanks. This is Matt on for Brandon. Sean, quick one for you. On the prior 80 to 90 million guide, were there any of the various pieces of the New England Biolabs royalty baked into that number?
spk08: We did anticipate. We knew that we were in negotiations, so we did anticipate getting some elements of that. Certainly, the exact amount was unknown at that time. And some of the recognition around the minimums was unexpected going into the quarter. So the answer is yes, but I would also point out that our core business is also performing as we had anticipated going into the second half. So we're trying to put out a reasonable guide based on all of that as we're seeing things right now.
spk07: Okay, thanks. And then for the fourth quarter, you know, you guys noted more modest cave to spend at customers. You know, as we sit here kind of halfway through the quarter now, you know, is that actually what you're seeing, you know, show up in order trends or is it more kind of anecdotal? And so taking a more conservative approach, you know, into maybe, you know, a more traditional year-end budget flush.
spk04: Yeah, this is Roy. You know, I think we're on target compared to where we've would hope to be for the fourth quarter. We're just anticipating, again, based on signals that we're hearing and others are hearing as well, that this rush in the fourth quarter, especially for biopharma customers, to spend down their budgets in this market may be less pronounced. But we do feel good about the upcoming quarter.
spk08: I would also point out, this is a matter you think about the guide, If you recall what I said regarding the NEB licensing revenue, that's not going to be recognized now in future quarters the same way. So, as you typically might see $1 or $2 million historically come in, we're not going to see that next quarter for the reasons I explained.
spk03: Super. Thank you.
spk02: Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. And our next question will come from Kyle Mixon from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
spk06: Hey, thanks. I just want to go back to the fourth quarter. I know, Roy, you talked about some of the puts and takes. I just want to kind of dive into it a bit more. It's pretty important. So this update of the guidance, I think it implies like $15 million in services revenue, the 15% quarter-to-quarter decline. Maybe just talk about what that assumes for the macro headwinds. Maybe specifically name each factor and then elaborate on these biopharma trends I'm specifically wondering if that's applicable to both small biotechs and large pharma. And is there any catch-up from prior quarters in the fourth quarter kind of guidance as well? I'm just trying to kind of figure out the conservatism baked in there. Thanks.
spk08: Okay, good. Hi, Guy. This is Sean. I'll actually just clarify something, I think, and then I'll let Roy talk about some of the trends in further detail. Because if you think about the guide, again, you know, as I just, you know, told Brandon we're not going to see that typical, maybe million and a half, two million dollars of NED revenue. So if you actually back that out, you're seeing, you know, at the midpoint, our assay services remaining relatively flat, which is again, as we described, a reflection of our anticipation that, you know, the biopharma volumes are going to be somewhat subdued compared to previous fourth quarters. And also just trying to account for you know, typical risks that might happen around the holidays and things like that with, you know, getting, again, new samples in. But we don't see, you know, really or anticipate or calling out any kind of deterioration in that business, you know, quarter to quarter. Again, anything to add, Lori?
spk04: No, not really anything to add. Again, just that in this market, we're not anticipating a huge spend down. In previous fourth quarters, you know, in the last month of the quarter, we've often seen large drop-in projects so that our biopharma customers can spend on their budgets. And we're just not hearing that that's going to be the philosophy this year. But again, we feel really good about the guide as it sits.
spk06: Okay. Okay, guys. Thanks. But just like in biopharma specifically, is that going to be the small companies and the big companies? Just kind of wondering, the kind of dynamic there. And then also the catch-up. Like, you know, we've talked about this in the past. Is there any of that in the fourth quarter as well? Could that be upside maybe?
spk04: Sure. You know, there's the possibility that some of the business that got pushed in the second quarter will be able to close that out in the fourth quarter. There is a knock-on effect with our larger biopharma customers in that, you know, they usually are doing projects sequentially. So some of that takes longer to catch up than two quarters because they have to finish a project that wasn't finished in the second quarter. In the third quarter, maybe look at that data and then, you know, over a quarter or so and then up the next project on our docket. So, but there should be some of that coming into the fourth quarter. In regards to the difference between large biopharma and small biopharma, You know, it's fairly idiosyncratic. You know, it really depends mainly on not only the market context, but, you know, how well those companies are faring in this market context. We've all heard, you know, that some are doing well and some are having a massive layoff. So, but there's no real pattern there. It really varies from customer to customer. And again, we're not talking about something dramatic here. We're just saying, as we mentioned, that we do believe there'll be a modest decrease in that rush to spend down budgets at the end of the year to space. And we're not the only one seeing this or predicting this for the fourth quarter.
spk06: Right. It's in common, you know, currently what we're hearing from companies. So that was helpful. I really appreciate that. And then, Sean, on gross margins, appreciate the commentary that, you know, product and service gross margin declined to, like, high 30s compared to the normalized kind of low to mid-50s. I just want to know if you've got to break down what you think services and product margins have been or could be. Services looks like it's been high 30s. Products have been like 29% to 61% looks like this past three quarters. I mean, what do you think that gets to, like how normalized? You spoke to the 50s. I'm just kind of curious when you break it up for services and kits. Just curious about that. Thanks.
spk08: Well, I mean, I would not. I think what we're seeing early on in the kits margin, you know, I wouldn't use that as the yardstick because there's a lot of ins and outs in terms of, you know, equipment placement, et cetera. And then, quite frankly, also in that, you know, product category, it's not, you know, just kits, although certainly that's the bulk of it this quarter. So, you know, again, I would anticipate that to, you know, as we progress and really, you know, expand our kit franchise, that that would be over 50% margin business. Looking at the core, you know, athlete services, You know, again, I've always said that, you know, kind of baseline we started at, if you really take out some of the noise, that's a mid-50s, sorry, mid to high 50s type business. You know, right now with volumes, just in the core athlete services being a little below 20, that keeps it in the low to mid-50s, but as we continue to expand, as we continue to expand volume there, I expect, you know, and again, normalize the margins. just our current cost structure would go back to the high 50s with volume leverage. But, you know, again, it's really just the biobank samples that are really dragging that down this quarter.
spk04: Yeah, this is Roy. I would add that as we discussed in past quarters, these large population-based studies are important for our business based on, you know, the potential creation of, you know, one or two measurement standards in the market. And we We obviously want to be one of those, one or two, if not the one. So these large population-based studies are important. The one Sean referred to that we're running now is the Human Technical Institute from Italy. And these biobank projects are usually public-private partnerships, you know, where governments apply some of their resources to running the biobank. and we have to apply some of our own resources as well. There is top line revenue coming from most of these. It's just that we have to accept lower margins in exchange for the ability to run these large population-based biobank studies and to participate in the development of measurement standards.
spk06: Okay, that was great. One more for me. As we prepare for the co-branded kits rollout, just kind of wanted to get an update on the NGS market, how you're kind of viewing that or sort of interacting with that. How are you seeding that market today, Roy, to ensure that you and your partner hit the ground running for the launch in 24? Saw you guys at ASHG. Are you going to be attending AGBT, things like that? Thanks.
spk04: Yeah, Kyle, the partnership with Illumina has gone exceedingly well. So far, the development of the KIT product is on track from a timeline perspective. The, you know, Illumina is already out talking to putative customers, and as they have discussed in the past, there's a big opportunity to convert potentially large throughput genomic centers that they're very familiar with and have great relationships with, you know, to proteomics customers as well. We also feel like over the next year, as we increase our kids' business, that this will have a knock-on effect for the co-branded kits from Illumina as well.
spk06: Okay, that was great. Looking forward to it. Thanks, guys.
spk02: Thank you. And again, to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Our next question will come from Evan Stampler from CIFL. Your line is open.
spk00: Hey, guys. How's it going? It's Evan here on for Dan. I just want to go back to this question about the fourth quarter and just kind of doing quick math, it looks like expectations came down by about $5 million. And I know you referenced kind of $1.5 to $2 million of, I guess, royalty revenue that you are not going to see in the quarters. That kind of leaves another 3 million or so. Is that kind of the way to think about it? And is that all because of lack of budget flush that maybe you were contemplating previously? Or are there other things that we should be thinking about that cause you guys to bring down the number?
spk08: Hi, Evan. This is Sean. You mean relative to fourth quarter consensus coming out of last quarter's call? um you know so again yeah i would say it's really more of a reflection of just right i mean you know i think that the consensus models you know logically assumes you know they they ramp up And, you know, we really are, as we've always said, you know, we really look at this as a full-year type game. And typically, historically, you know, we have seen Q4 exhibit some, you know, seasonality around biopharma budgets that, you know, we've talked about a couple times today that, you know, that that's been more subdued this year. And that's really, you know, all you're seeing there. If you look at the core services business, as we show in our, sorry, as would be implied in our guide, at the midpoint, you're really not seeing a degradation. We expect it to be fairly consistent with what we're doing this quarter. And we're continuing to build out that pipeline from our Q2 and claw back out of that. And that's really as simple as that. There's not really any anticipated degradation again there, like I said previously. It's just, we're trying to put out a guide you know, we can rely on taking in all the factors into account. And, you know, we look forward to being able to continue to, you know, improve upon that in the future.
spk04: Yeah, I would add, this is Roy, that, you know, this quarter's core business is a 45% sequential increase compared to the second quarter. And we certainly have no reason to believe that We're going to have, you know, any divergation from our current execution progress in the fourth quarter. We feel pretty good about the fourth quarter.
spk00: Gotcha. And so, I mean, I guess, all right, so maybe there's no degradation, but it sounds like 4Q year on year, I think it's going to be about flat. And I guess year over year, you have a big investment in your commercial team. It's grown a lot since last year. Is the commercial team just kind of getting up to speed? Where are you in that process relative to expectations?
spk04: Well, first thing I would say is, yeah, 74% of our sales staff have been hired in the last year. It takes about nine months to get people fully productive in a new territory. And, you know, we're making good progress on bringing more people to that group and getting those people trained up and productive. Fourth quarter last year was an unusual quarter. We had a large drop in deal in the fourth quarter. In addition to the fourth quarter spin down, you know, that you normally see. So I wouldn't put much weight on this year's fourth quarter performance compared to last year's fourth quarter performance. As we stated repeatedly, at this stage of our business and the fact that we're mainly a service business still, but we're obviously moving away from that rapidly with a very strong plan for distributed products, that there's a fair bit of variability and unpredictability quarter to quarter. And fourth quarter last year with a large drop in deal is an example of that. So I certainly wouldn't say that comparing fourth quarter last year to fourth quarter this year implies anything of significance.
spk00: Thanks. And just one last question, if I can. Are there any additional licensing deals that are maybe in the pipeline? Maybe you can't talk specifics, but are these kind of things that we should anticipate down the road? Thanks.
spk04: Yes, as I said, we believe this will be an important part of our business moving forward. New England Biolabs is one legacy deal. We have not had the talent or the focus that we need to put on this, you know, on the ground here until recently. And we are in discussions with a number of other potential licensees. You know, it may not be next quarter or the quarter after that, but depending on how things go, but we feel very confident that the use cases for somomers, of which we now have thousands and thousands that we've created and are capable of distributing to others, the use cases for these in life sciences contexts are fairly similar to the use cases for antibodies. with some added use cases as well as the New England Bio deal exemplifies. So, yeah, we are in discussions with some other licensees. I do believe over the next year that we will land some additional deals.
spk02: Mr. Stampler, please make sure your line is not on mute.
spk00: That was all I had. Thank you.
spk02: Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. And our next question will come from Dan Brennan from Cowan. Your line is open.
spk05: Great. Thanks. Thanks, guys, for taking the question. Maybe just a few more on the fourth quarter, and then we can go bigger picture. Just, Sean, I think you mentioned – The guide reflects flat quarter to quarter on a raise. I mean, if you take the 93 to 98, it implies 14.2 to 19.2 for the fourth quarter. So that's 16.7 million at the mid. And you just did 17.6 million in a raise. I just wanted to square the circle on the comment that the guide implies flat raise. You're just saying like within the range, although the midpoint's below, maybe just give me some color on that first.
spk08: Yeah, hi, Dan. Well, I mean, to be clear, no, I wasn't trying to put out, you know, the exact number for Q4, because that's obviously, you know, why we're giving a range. But I just was trying to clarify, because I believe the question, you know, put it at the low end. I was just trying to clarify that if you really look at the core assay service business component of that, that is relatively flattish. It could be, you know, a little bit more or less than that, you know, given the range, you're right, but I'm not specifically implying a number with that comment other than just that if you go to the low end, you know, I think, you know, trying to point more toward the mid-range and that being relatively flattish is all I meant by that.
spk05: Got it. And then does the guidance assume any product business in the fourth quarter? I would assume, I mean, even getting, you know, a million or so, roughly a quarter in the KIPP business while the full launches. Maybe you can clarify when the full launches go into occur. I heard in the prepared remarks, but just give us some sense of what's expected in the fourth quarter for that.
spk08: Well, we're not specifically breaking out the product categories in the guide, but again, the guide is all-inclusive. So that's all of the core components with the exception of, again, the typical licensing revenue, which is primarily NEB that previously would have been recognized you know, each quarter, and historically it's kind of been, you know, a million to two million dollars in the last year each quarter, that's not going to be recognized due to the new arrangement.
spk04: Yeah, Dan, this is Mark. We've had a successful beta program for kits. We do plan to add some more certified sites in the fourth quarter to that beta program and for full access to really kick off right at the end of the year. We do have a a number of sites in the pipeline for that full access as well.
spk05: Got it. Got it.
spk04: Okay.
spk05: So you had basically, Sean, and thanks for that, Roy. So basically in the fourth quarter, you would have anticipated in the prior guide to have basically gotten a million or $2 from this royalty in the fourth quarter. And then you wind up getting a much, much bigger amount, obviously with the up feel, but part of the fourth quarter, you know, the prior way we thought about the fourth quarter was that million or two was coming and now it's not going to come. Is that fair?
spk08: Yeah, certainly as of last quarter before we signed the agreement and went through all the proper accounting on it, yeah, I would have anticipated the quarterly revenues from that to be analogous to what we've seen previously. So that is a change going forward for us, certainly from our previous expectations.
spk04: This is Roy. Again, we're trying to be mindful of all of the context in the fourth quarter, the NEB revenues, being obviously paid into this quarter instead of next quarter, the likelihood that some of our large biopharma customers are not going to rush to spend down on their budgets in the fourth quarter. But I want to be clear that the sort of reset and stabilization of our core SomaScan business we believe will continue into the fourth quarter.
spk05: Got it. And Back at 3Q, when you were providing guidance, and I think the way you articulated it, the low end was very conservative. So basically, what you were seeing from pharma back then, and you thought there was a conservative element to it, I guess things just have gotten worse on the overall end markets? Or is there just a much bigger degree of conservatism that you're baking and just trying to think through what transpired? Because I know at Q2, you guys had seen, obviously, this pause in pharma spending. And I thought that you guys would try to incorporate kind of that pause persisting into the fourth quarter.
spk04: Yeah, Dan, you know, the second quarter slowdown in contracting was fairly idiosyncratic. We're certainly not seeing a slowdown in contracting now. Things are moving along. I think we, like everybody else at the beginning of the year, hoped that this market would would already be much better. It's just not. And so, again, we're just trying to be, you know, if not conservative, pragmatic about the spinning behavior in this market in the fourth quarter. But we're not, you know, the supply chain issues that we saw earlier in the year have mostly abrogated, in large part due to our proactive activities. And contracts are moving along at sort of the usual pace now. We're just, again, trying to be pragmatic about the prolongation of this tough market and the impact that it could have on our biopharma customers in the fourth quarter. It's really nothing more than that.
spk05: And what's happening on the academic front? Is spending pretty consistent there, or is there any topiness just from kind of the global macro?
spk04: Spending's been pretty consistent on the academic front. side and, you know, not surprising, right? Because most of the academic spending is driven by grants. And the impact of the economy on grant funding usually is a couple of years in arrears. So based on what the federal government outlays for federal grant support programs. So we really haven't seen much of a change there. And then, you know, a significant percentage of our growth over the last year or year and a half has been adding, you know, more academic sites in addition to farm out customers as well.
spk05: Got it. Okay. I'm trying to think if there was one more I could go to here. And in terms of, you know, the ongoing licensing strategy, so obviously this is a, you know, this royalty deal is certainly a notable one. I know, Roy, you wanted to exit 22 with the view that you've got multiple drivers of your business. Obviously, this notable loyalty deal is a big one. What's the pipeline look on that front in terms of additional licensing deals, whether before year-end or over the course of the next, say, 12 months?
spk04: Yeah, we don't anticipate any large licensing deals before the end of the year, although You know, we certainly are going to turn one down if we get one over the finish line before the end of this fiscal year. We just hired our head of licensing this past March. He's really, I would say, just now coming fully up to speed, has a small team working with him, has a number of conversations ongoing. While I don't see any large licensing deals before the end of this quarter, You know, there could be some licensing deals signed in the next year. We have a lot of opportunities. Again, the use cases for some of our reagents in the life sciences context are large, and the conversations we're having now sort of span the spectrum of those use cases.
spk05: And maybe last one, I know we're not going to talk about 23 today, but The consensus models have revenues up 35% year-on-year. Obviously, you're talking about a still pharma spending environment, having some pauses in it right now. Any lead indicators about that lifting as we exit 22 without giving numbers? How do you feel about the trajectory of the business going into 23?
spk04: We feel good about the trajectory of the business. Obviously, we can only control what we can control. We feel good about expanding into EMEA and APAC. I mentioned that we put six individuals into those regions this last quarter. Probably more important to note is that we hired the market leaders for both of those regions, which should accelerate our success in creating a full contingent of folks on the ground there. We're looking at some partnerships XUS as well. And obviously, the large new customer growth that we've experienced over the last year will begin to bear fruit as those customers complete their first projects and move on to second and third larger projects, and we get more projects under each of those umbrellas. We certainly can't control the market context in 2023. It would be great if we could. We can only control what we can control, but the things that we can control Finishing out the growth of the commercial team, expanding our geographic reach, putting our distributed solutions more effectively and more heavily into the market for all things we anticipate happening in 2023, in addition to beginning to hopefully capitalize more on this significant customer growth we've had over the past 18 months.
spk05: Got it. Okay. We'll start again. Thanks very much.
spk02: Thanks. Thank you. And I am showing no further questions from our phone lines, and I'd like to turn the conference back over to Roy Smites for any closing remarks.
spk04: Great. Thank you, Operator.
spk02: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
spk07: The conference will begin shortly. To raise your hand during Q&A, you can dial star 11.
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