This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

SOPHiA GENETICS SA
8/4/2026
Good morning, my name is Joelle and I will be your conference operator today.
At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Sophia Genetics second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kellen Sanger, Sophia Genetics head of the
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Sophia Genetics Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today to discuss the results are Ross Muken, our Chief Executive Officer, and George Cardoza, our Chief Financial Officer. 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. Thank you for joining us. We will present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of IFRS and non-IFRS measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is available on our website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Ross.
Thanks, Kellen, and good morning, everyone. Today is my first earnings call as CEO. So before we jump into the quarter, let me tell you about where we are as a company and where we're going. Since Sophia was founded in 2011, the mission has not changed. Jurgi started Sophia with a dream to use genomic and clinical data to improve patient outcomes across the world. Today, the destination is just as clear. We intend to become the AI platform for precision medicine, the connective intelligence layer that makes every clinical decision smarter than the one before it. What has changed over the past decade is how close we are to the destination and how clear the path forward has become. Our business today is healthier than ever. Revenue is accelerating, the network is built, the platform thesis is proven, and customer trust, which we have earned across more than 1,000 institutions in 75 countries, is a moat that cannot be bought or replicated. This is a company built on a proven foundation with a large market ahead of it and everything it needs to operate at scale it has not yet reached. My job is deliver that scale for patients who deserve better outcomes, for shareholders who trusted in this platform's long-term potential, and for a team that has spent years earning the right to win. The plan for getting there was laid out in the founding strategy. Phase one was to build. We spent a decade building a network and AI platform driving widespread adoption and delivering value to clinicians and patients along every step of the way. Phase two is to leverage. To leverage our network and its data to power biopharma partnerships, build real-world evidence, and bring clinical intelligence closer to the point of care. This is how Sophia DDM becomes the AI platform for precision medicine. As we look ahead, four interconnected pillars will fuel our future growth. First, we will continue to scale genomic diagnostics globally, landing new customers and expanding within existing accounts to build the network that powers everything we do. Second, we will evolve our genomic applications into regulated companion diagnostics and software as a medical device to get us closer to the patient, collect even more data, and further extend our network. Third, we will use companion diagnostics and multimodal software as a medical device to evolve our genomic data stream into a true real-world evidence data layer that connects clinical, genomic, and other multimodal data and creates a strategic asset for biopharma and clinicians broadly. And last, we will leverage our data and AI to pioneer clinical intelligence and create tools like digital twins that power decisions across the full clinical picture. In other words, we are past the existential questions. Is the thesis right? Can the network be built? We have answered both. Now we execute. With that, let me update on what we delivered in the second quarter and how we are setting the tone for expected future performance. Revenue grew 27% year over year in Q2, and analysis volume was up 22%. We demonstrated strong operating leverage in the quarter as adjusted EBITDA loss improved 27% year-over-year, dropping 60% of our revenue growth down to the bottom line. We continued to push to scale genomic diagnostics globally by performing a record 115,000 patient analysis in Q2, while also fueling future growth with new wins. We landed 24 new customers in the second quarter alone and expanded nicely across existing accounts with net dollar retention of 117%, 1000 basis points versus last year. The primary drivers behind our performance in the second quarter was growth in the U.S. and in liquid biopsy. In Q2, we delivered 64% year-over-year revenue growth in the U.S. market. This performance was driven by 60% volume growth as many US customers begin to come online. The growth has been especially impressive given the increasingly large base in the U.S. To continue fueling this growth, we landed several new customers in the corner. We signed the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the first pediatric hospital in America and a global leader in pediatric oncology. Together, we are developing a new liquid biopsy test optimized for pediatric cancers. I couldn't be more excited for this partnership and I'm looking forward to working together to help young cancer patients. This signing, as well as other recent momentum in the US, is part of a broader trend. In the past 12 months, we have seen an inflection of demand in the US market. As reimbursement rates become more established and denial rates improve, hospitals and labs are waking up to the benefits of launching their own testing capabilities. Central U.S. labs have proven that testing is immensely profitable and that genomic data has significant value. Now U.S. hospitals and labs are making in-house testing part of their core strategy, and those who adopt SOPHIA are seeing significant benefits. The second key growth driver in Q2 was liquid biopsy. where we delivered 80% year-over-year revenue growth. We also signed major new customers in the quarter, including AZ Delta Rosalere, one of the largest hospitals in Belgium, Policlinico Riuniti Hospital at the University of Foggia in Italy, and Sultan Qaboos Cancer Center in Oman. In total, we've now signed 80 liquid biopsy customers globally, more than half of which are still yet to begin generating revenue, giving a substantial runway to support future growth. As our genomics footprint continues to expand and our network becomes larger, many players in the space have come to recognize the value of our unique global reach and the data being streamed through our platform. AstraZeneca, in particular, has been a key partner of Sophia for the past several years. They have contracted us to build AI models for patient selection and trial design, partnered with us to access real-world evidence from our network, and sponsored the deployments of our tests globally. Today, I'm thrilled to announce the latest collaboration between Sophia and AZ. This morning, we announced the launch of not one but two companion diagnostic programs with AstraZeneca, the first CDX wins in Sophia's history. I'm excited now to share a bit of information about each program. For the first CDX program, we will develop our solid tumor application into a decentralized companion diagnostic. The second CDX program will leverage our hematological oncology application to support a therapy for patients with blood cancer. These two CDX programs represent the value of our global network and decentralized model, as well as our ability to get even closer to the patient with increasingly regulated products. These programs will not only provide a meaningful revenue accelerator for years to come, but they will also provide a foundation to collect even more data about the patient, build real-world evidence assets, and develop new and unique clinical intelligence tools. And with these two wins, we are just getting started. Beyond biopharma, we also announced a significant evolution of one of our closest clinical partnerships in Q2. In the spirit of pioneering clinical intelligence, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Sophia announced the signing of an MOU to form a joint venture. The JV will combine MSK's clinical expertise, testing footprint, and unmatched multimodal data assets with Sophia's AI platform to accelerate the new generation of precision oncology, specifically We will aim to build an AI lab of the future in New York City with infrastructure to develop and launch new applications, support biopharma, and build new multimodal clinical intelligence tools. We couldn't be more excited about this partnership, and I look forward to keeping you updated as we move to a definitive agreement in the coming months. To conclude, Q2 was an outstanding quarter. Revenue growth continues to accelerate and we continue making great progress towards profitability. The market is reshaping itself around intelligence and we are perfectly positioned to accelerate this movement. As a result, we are raising our full-year revenue guidance to $94 million to $96 million or 22% to 24% growth. This reflects our confidence in both our execution and the opportunity ahead. In addition, we also reaffirm our commitment to profitable growth. As stated previously, we expect to be approaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven by the end of this year and crossing over to positive adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2027. In June, we closed an oversubscribed public offering that raised approximately $57.5 million. Thank you, Ross. As mentioned, Q2 results were strong and our outlook remains positive.
Revenue and volume growth accelerated once again as our momentum continues to build. Total revenue for Q2 was $23.3 million, compared to $18.3 million in the second quarter of 2025, representing year-over-year growth of 27%. Platform analysis volume was a record 115,000 analysis in Q2, representing year-over-year growth of 22%. From a regional perspective, we delivered strong growth across geographies. North America and specifically the U.S. market continued to be a primary growth driver. As Ross highlighted, U.S. volume grew 60% in Q2 and U.S. revenue grew 64%. Asia Pacifico performed as well with 27% volume growth and 31% revenue growth. EMEA was also strong and volume growth was roughly in line with the company average. and Latin America picked up a few recent wins which we will begin to come online. From an application standpoint, Hemonc rare diseases and liquid biopsy all outperformed. Hemonc volumes were up 34% year over year in Q2 and rare disorders were up 35%. Solid tumor testing grew slightly above the company average as well, largely driven by new applications like our CGP test and MSK Impact Flex. Outside of the core genomics business, biopharma contributed nicely to overall growth, as recently signed projects continue to deliver, including the major deals announced with AstraZeneca at the beginning of the year. As we've previously stated, biopharma is now an accelerator to our growth rate, and we believe it will continue to be that in future years. Core genomic customers were 542 as of June 30th, up from 490 in the prior year period. In the first half of 2026, we implemented 40 new customers who have now entered routine usage. Credit to the team for continuing to manage the recent influx of new customer signings. Despite the strong bookings, pipeline remains strong and healthy. Both clinical and biopharma businesses carry net new business pipelines of over 100 million, as the number of large opportunities continues to expand. We believe the market is moving in our direction and we are excited to continue capitalizing on our opportunity. On the expand side, we continue to grow nicely within existing customers as they add more and more applications. Our net dollar retention for the quarter was 117%, up 1,000 basis points from 107% in the prior year period. In addition, annualized revenue churn remained world-class at less than 1% in Q2 2026. Demonstrating the stickiness of our platform once customers join. Gross profit was $15.1 million compared to $12.3 million in the prior year period, representing growth of 23%. Gross margin was 64.6% compared with 67% for the second quarter of 2025. The increase in our pharma business and in other services income led to a slight margin decrease in Q2, which I'll talk more about in just a few minutes. Adjusted gross profit was $16.8 million, an increase of 23% compared to the prior year period. Adjusted gross margin was 72.1% compared to 74.4% in the second quarter of 2025. The decline in gross margin was primarily due to an increase in our biopharma business and our services business. A biopharma business typically has lower margins at the start of projects, and this quarter it depressed our gross margins by 0.8%. On the clinical side, we also saw an uptick in our services revenue in Q2 as we help clients set up robotics and efficient NGS workflows in their labs. In this case, we had more R&D resources than usual working on customer implementations. This moves dollars from the R&D line up to the COGS line as they are linked to revenue and we charge for the implementations. These services typically come at smaller margins than our standard analysis margins. Total operating expenses for Q2 were $35.1 million compared to $30.8 million in the prior year period. Some specific items temporarily impacted reported operating expenses and are worth calling out directly as they do not reflect the company's underlying operating performance and have been removed in order to get to the adjusted EBITDA numbers. First, we mentioned during our last earnings call that we executed a series of targeted cost actions in April. These actions will drive material savings in the second half of 2026 and future years. But in Q2, we will be absorbing a restructuring cost of approximately $1.25 million related to terminations and severance. Second, as previously disclosed, Garden Health filed patent infringement claims against us in the United Kingdom and at the Unified Patent Court in Paris last year. We incurred approximately $1.1 million in related net legal expenses during Q2. which is reflected as a litigation adjustment in our adjusted EBITDA reconciliation. In January, the UPC rejected Garden's request for provisional measures and ordered them to pay us $700,000 in interim costs, $500,000 of which we received in Q1 and $200,000 of which we received in Q2. On July 2nd, the UPC Court of Appeals in Paris issued its final decision, rejecting Garden's appeal in full. The court confirmed that there will be no injunction and that we can continue to commercialize the MSK access test without restriction. GARDEN has been ordered to pay us a further $100,000 in interim costs. We remain confident in our position, both on non-infringement and on the validity of GARDEN's patents, and the UK proceedings remain ongoing. Beyond these one-off items, we did invest in sales and marketing during the quarter. specifically adding a few headcount in North America to support the strong U.S. growth. You should expect us to make small additions in this team slightly throughout the year to invest in the substantial opportunities we have in the U.S. market. Adjusted operating expenses, our OPEX excluding items in the adjusted EBITDA table, was $25.6 million in Q2, exactly flat compared to last year. Operating loss for the second quarter was $20.1 million, Thank you for joining us. In other words, we dropped more than 60% of each incremental revenue dollar down to the bottom line. Dropping down this much revenue growth to the bottom line by holding expenses relatively flat is especially impressive in the face of our accelerating revenue growth. Lastly, total cash burn, which we defined as a change in cash and cash equivalents, excluding cash received from borrowings and stock sales, as well as FX impacts, was $12.9 million. compared to $11.9 million in the prior year period. This year-over-year increase includes two expected dynamics. First, cash costs related to the restructuring reserve we took based on cost reduction actions in the second quarter of 2026, including severance and separation costs. And the second reason was the net legal costs related to the garden health lawsuits. In the quarter, we executed an oversubscribed public follow-on offering that raised approximately $57.5 million in gross proceeds, bringing our cash and cash equivalents to $107.7 million at the end of Q2 2026. This raise will enable us to continue investing in our future growth and allow us to control our own destiny going forward. We remain confident in our path to profitability and expect to be approaching adjusted EBITDA break-even by the end of this year and fully crossing over to positive adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2027. I'll now turn to our 2026 outlook. Given the strength of our performance in the first half of 2026, Sophia Genetics is raising our full-year revenue guidance for 2026 from 92 to 94 million to 94 to 96 million, representing 22 to 24% year-over-year growth. A few notes on second half revenue. As a reminder, our business is typically seasonally stronger in Q4. The CDX deals announced today will impact growth primarily in 2027 as the programs reflect multi-year agreements with tiered milestones. Beyond revenue, we are reaffirming our full year adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of 29 to 32 million compared to 41.5 million in fiscal year 2025. As previously mentioned, we took a series of cost actions and have realized the benefits of adopting AI across our teams. These actions reinforce our conviction to grow revenue without increasing headcount. They also give us confidence that we will be able to continue holding the line on operating expenses and reach our profitability guidance. With that, I would like to turn the call back over to Ross for the closing remarks before we take your questions. Ross?
Thank you, George. To summarize, Q2 was an excellent quarter. We continue to accelerate revenue growth, improve our bottom line, and fuel future growth with strong new business momentum across clinical and biopharma. The Sophia mission remains strong, and I couldn't be more excited to lead the company in its next phase of growth. Thank you to our employees, our partners, and our shareholders for the trust you've placed in this next chapter. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star, followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that you had and has been raised. Did you wish to decline from the polling process? Please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any key. Your first question comes from Subbu Namdi with Guggenheim. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. This is Ricky on for Subbu. Congrats on the quarter, guys. So 64% revenue growth and 60% volume growth in the U.S. is really impressive. Could you provide some additional color on where you're seeing the most growth here? Maybe which types of customers and how much of this is from existing Sofia DDM applications and how much of it is from MSK applications?
Thank you, Rikki.
So in terms of the U.S. market, we're incredibly excited about trends that we're currently seeing. And really, I would say the strength is across the board. And we're seeing, I would say, again, a bias, particularly with sort of what's happening with falling sequencing costs and firming of reimbursement rates. We're seeing entities of all size really shift their thinking and look at in-house testing as kind of a very viable option. I would say in the immediate term, where we're seeing the most demand is really, I would say, in two product lines. So one, it's in exos. Where we're seeing our enhanced exome product really, I would say, drive great demand relative to a combined offering for rare disease, but also enabling customers to do hereditary cancer testing, pharmacogenomic testing, and carrier screening. So it's really a unique product in the market and one where we're seeing really good demand across the board. I would say the other product for us that's been a strain for some time that we continue to build on is more on the heme side. And so we're seeing that in many of the traditional areas, in myeloid, et cetera, but also increasingly in CLL, AML, MRD. And so we're incredibly excited as well around what we're seeing in blood cancer. But frankly, across the board now, we're also seeing early signs, to your point on MSK, that there's an increased interest in liquid biopsy testing being brought in-house. And then solid tumor testing as well has been done for some time, but I think moving more to the CGP side of things is also a trend. So again, it's really quite broad-based, and we expect the U.S. market to remain a real growth driver for us for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for that color. That's really helpful. And then in the U.S. and also maybe more broadly, how has the cross-selling of applications been trending so far year to date? Is there anything you could share maybe on like the average applications used per customer? Thank you.
That's a good question.
So I would say this year, relative to last year, we've been much more focused on the expand than we have the land, right? You see that a bit in the new logo numbers, and it's been intentional. And so we've focused on the land side on larger accounts. Sometimes, to your point, that will come with a multi-application land. So we've certainly seen that trend and that's helped our ACVs in general for the land side. But I would say really on the expand side, there remains massive potential. So, you know, we today are a little bit over two and a half applications per customer, right, of the, I would say, double digits that folks can adopt. And so there's huge room For us, hence why we focus on the NDR, for us to continue to upsell even within our existing base. And so we're seeing really nice, I would say, new examples where people are combining both liquid and solid testing. So MSK access with MSK impact on the land. We're seeing on the expand side, people go from hematological malignancies into solid tumor with us. We're seeing folks that were doing hereditary cancer move into rare disease and other areas. So there's really some natural places where we can have a multi-app land and or expand. And so I would expect this to continue to be a really nice trend for us. And again, if we think about our penetration to the point I made earlier in terms of two and a half applications per user, again, we can grow it in our existing base at a very high rate for the foreseeable future. That's really nice in terms of having a recurring revenue business. And it's also, I would say, quite good as you're trying to sort of minimize your incremental spend. This is one of the kind of the secret sauces of how we've been able to also keep our operating expenses at bay while continuing to accelerate the growth rate.
Your next question comes from Mark Macera with BTIG.
Your line is now open.
Hey guys, this is Megan on for Mark. Thank you for taking our questions. Our first one has to do with headcount. You touched on it a bit on the call, but was just hoping we could double click a bit there. So with almost 110 in pro forma cash, does that change how you're thinking about adding commercial and implementation resources around the U.S. and maybe also ex-U.S.
Sure, so maybe I'll start with some high-level comments and then I'll let George give a few specifics on the operating expense side. So I'd say broadly, you know, we've been able to keep FTE count relatively flat. And that's really a testament again to sort of the hard work of the Sofians as we've been able to increase our productivity across the organization. Kellen as well has been very focused on us becoming more AI native. So he and a number of other individuals in the organization are finding ways for us to use some of these more advanced models and other tools to allow us to be more productive as well. So I would say overall, really pleased around our ability to absorb the growth with very minimal headcount additions. To your point on the commercial side, and particularly in the U.S., At the moment, with the growth being elevated, the opportunities that we're seeing, we are investing in that portion of the sales force. And so you're seeing us selectively at headcount there in a number of key geographies, as well as covering a few customer bases. Historically, we have not touched like community oncology. So I would expect that to continue. You've also seen us globally make select investments. When we entered Japan, we're continuing to invest in that market. We see it become One of the biggest potentials for Sophia over the next few years. We've invested a bit in the UK. We've seen great growth actually in Austria and Belgium and have put some feet there as well. And then Germany would be the other big area. So I would say overall, you know, we've been very, I would say, targeted with the investments we've made and we expect high return on those investments. And so again, A lot of that is in order to continue the acceleration revenue growth that we've been exhibiting. And then the last part would be also on the pharma side where we had today two tremendous wins. And these are really for Sophia, I would say landmark contracts and ones that will bring other business. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Relative, you know, obviously our cash balance now is very strong, you know, with over nine figures in the bank, which is a nice position to have. And certainly we feel, you know, we now are in a good position to control our own destiny and, you know, where there were great growth opportunities. And, you know, we're at 27% growth, but, you know, certainly we're aiming even higher in 2027 and 2028. So we're optimistic about where this company can go. And as the growth opportunities and the high ROI opportunities come before us, We're going to take action now, especially now that our balance sheet is strong.
Your next question comes from John Wilkin with Craig Hallam.
Your line is now open.
Hi, guys. Congrats on another good quarter. I'm wondering if you could give a little more detail on this Lab of the Future with MSK. Sounds like it's essentially an R&D center. to fuel AI-related precision medicine initiatives, but any additional detail you can give there, including if there's any financial impact over the next year or so.
Thanks, John, for the question.
Obviously, this is a really exciting development for Sophia. We've been incredibly pleased with the progress we've made with MSK. We're gaining both the impact and access solutions now to north of 100 counts globally. So this is really, I would say, a game changer for us. And it's been, I think, a fantastic partnership as well for MSK. So obviously, as we look at the landscape and sort of particularly what's developing in the U.S. market, and we look at what our pharma customers are asking of us, you know, we want to remain highly innovative. And so you should expect this to be a center where new product development, new tools, and sort of new ways of practicing oncology and bringing that concept of collective intelligence to the patient, to the clinician, become a reality. At the moment, we're still working through the definitive agreement, so I don't want to share too much in terms of our expectations for both the financial contribution and sort of long-term So, John, unfortunately, you're going to have to wait a bit for us to kind of finish out some of the points, but I would say for us, this is really a groundbreaking, again, kind of concept, and one I think that others will see and likely want to follow suit with. Again, the U.S. market right now is really looking to transform itself. You know, you see the tremendous value that's been created by the central laboratories, and I think You know, particularly in oncology, but also in rare disease, this is becoming an area for hospitals where this can be really strategic. And so, again, I think this is an expression of that and willing, again, of a large academic medical center, the top in the world, to want to put capital behind it. So, again, stay tuned, but we're incredibly excited about what this can become.
Great. Thank you. And then on the pharma side, One, just wondering if there's any more detail you can give around the two new deals that were signed, including if you're able to quantify just the order of magnitude deal size. And then within Q2, if you're able to parse out at all, with U.S. growth accelerating at 64%, obviously very impressive. If you're able to parse out how much of that is coming from pharma versus some of these large new customer wins that you guys have talked about coming online. Sure.
So first, in terms of the CDX deals that we announced today, this is obviously a really important, I would say, development for Sophia, not just financially in terms of how it will contribute in 27 and beyond, but frankly, moving into kind of regulated assets and being able to demonstrate that we can go through a regulatory process in three or four geographies The main ones for pharma. This is a real, I'd say, milestone for us. And so we're incredibly excited about what we're embarking on here. We really think for the CDX market broadly, this approach of a global CDX that's truly, I would say, compatible across China, Japan, Europe, and Asia, sorry, the US, is really, I would say, differentiated. And so, We would expect this to allow us to kind of build on what we can do with other pharmas as well over time. Now, in terms of sizing, I think you guys have a pretty good sense of what a typical CDX relationship would look like on a multi-year basis. Obviously, it's a material amount of revenue. There are a sort of milestone and other components to it as it develops, but certainly these are quite sizable wins. They will be impactful for us in 27, and I would say as they start to contribute and play out in 27, we will update you accordingly. As George mentioned, there will be only a modest amount of contribution in the second half from both of these. Thank you for joining us today. to be a major driver for us in the second half and beyond. Now, in terms of some of the new accounts, those are starting to come online. You'll see a little bit of that in some of the pressure in our gross margins as we're bringing on some new business. But I would say over time, obviously, that will scale up. But certainly, the majority of the contracted revenue that will come from some of those large new contracts in the U.S., will still contribute or as of yet to contribute materially this quarter and will contribute to some of that second half step up as well as our continued momentum into 27. I know, George, if you want to add anything on the growth cadence.
Again, the pharma revenue, we're very pleased with these big contracts. I think pharma is extremely well positioned for what we're expecting in 2027 and even 2028. So I think our projections have been significantly de-risked based on these wins. But also the pipeline is strong, so we're very pleased about that as well. So these contracts are primarily going to be out in 2027 and 2028, but certainly I think the contribution here continues to gain. You know, our pharma business really now is an accelerator of our growth, and I think it's going to be, it's going to continue to turbocharge it in the future years. We really think the pharma business has got rocket-type potential in terms of what we can build here, so we couldn't be more excited about what we're doing on the pharma front.
Awesome. Thanks a lot, guys.
That's very helpful.
Your next question comes from Ramat Kant. Why Pacula with HCA? Wainwright. Your line is now open.
Thank you. This is RK from Hesse Wainwright. Good morning, Ross and George. A couple of questions. The first one on the AstraZeneca deals that you announced this morning. Is the regulated CDX infrastructure that you have been building, both with Myriad here in the U.S., and Yeri Yam in Japan. Are those the intended submission and deployment to vehicles for this? Or is this going to be a separate build? And part two of that question is, you know, the assets and know-how that you develop for AstraZeneca, could you utilize that, you know, beyond AstraZeneca?
That's a great series of questions.
Obviously, as you mentioned, we have fantastic partners that have helped us certainly Thank you very much. I think that partnership will continue to bear fruit and has been one where we've already made significant strides and I think we've worked incredibly well together. As you mentioned, Adam will become critical for Japan and the launch there. Now, as you think about the European market, this remains still a decentralized or kitted market. And so there we are taking the lead and can do so with our own capabilities. And so very much it sort of depends on geography. But certainly this was the motivation of why we had the partners down. We can also deploy in other labs or other seros. We didn't announce all the specifics, but you should assume that given our model, we could work with any player that could serve pharma at scale in a clinical trial setting and then be able to then turn that assay or capability into a regulated CDX that we can deploy through a various number of models commercially post-launch across the large network that we have. Certainly again, I think this is very differentiated versus what the traditional players do and solves a major challenge pharma has had as that business continues to globalize. Now, in terms of what we announced today and its applicability more broadly, certainly we are hopeful and optimistic that the products we are bringing to CVX can be replicated across other pharma's and actually As we started to share confidentially some of the progress we had made with pharma and ASCO, this is something that really came out as a higher of interest. So we see already opportunities in the funnel around both of these indications. And we think, again, this is really a validation event for our business to compete against the largest labs you look at in the world with our sort of differentiated model. And so I'm quite, as George said, optimistic that This will help turbocharge our pharma business and bring other pharma to the table for these type of capabilities. So certainly, we're in a place where I feel quite confident.
Thank you. And the second question is on the financials. The adjusted gross margin that was announced this morning was 72.1% down both sequentially and year over year. Last quarter, the guidance was that the full year gross margin should actually expand beyond 2025. So, what needs to happen in the second half for things to reverse from here to get to that point?
So, good question. Obviously, the gross margin did come down sequentially. I would say, ultimately, if we take a step back from when we came public, We've been incredibly proud of the work we've done on the gross margin line, and it's shown over 1,000 basis points of expansion over time. So I think we've shown the ability to really drive the business toward profitability under a number of levers. Now, I think if you step back, and I'll let George comment on the specifics, I think you have a couple things here in play at the moment. So one, you are seeing some elevation, I would say, in cloud and AI compute costs. And particularly as we launch in new regions of the world, that tends to be a bit dilutive to margins. So that's one piece. And then I would say as well, just the sheer number of new business starts and sort of new account starts, particularly as well on the pharma side, you typically have as well a cadence there where you have to mature into the margins. So George, I don't know if you want to give some specifics.
Yeah, no, if you think about our pharma business, typically our costs are a little bit higher at the start of projects. So we saw a little bit of that in Q2 on the pharma business. Our margins were depressed a bit because we had some projects that were launching and your costs do tend to be a little bit higher in the early stages of projects. Ross mentioned our hosting costs. And it's important to realize, too, when you look at our costs, we do have to build a framework. So there is sort of a framework, if you would, that we have to build in terms of establishing a cloud, whether it's in the Netherlands or in the United Arab Emirates. and there is sort of a fixed cost component of that then obviously as new clients come on you grow into that and that piece does change if you would. So I think we had a few things in the second quarter that worked against us but obviously Q1 was very strong. We said that that was probably a little of a strong side. Q2 came down a bit and certainly we're going to be working on this in Q3 and Q4 as things balance out. Our long-term guidance certainly has been over time We expect gross margins to improve gradually, and that's still what we're continuing to work towards.
Thank you. Thank you both for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star 1. Your next question comes from Dan Brennan with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning. This is Kyle on for Dan. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to ask a quick one on the updated guidance. You know, you raised your guide by a bit more than the magnitude of the beat, which I think sort of implies, you know, second half growth is pretty similar to the first half if you sort of average it out. So just wondering what some of the puts and takes are Thank you, Kyle. Obviously, you know, we're really pleased with our first half performance, and we tried to express that in the increase, and obviously now, you know, the lower end of the range is actually above our prior high end of the range, right?
So I think Ultimately, for us, this was an expression of great confidence in the continuation of the trends you've seen from the first half. Now, I think as you look toward the second half, we still have obviously quite a bit of business coming online. We also have pharma that continues to ramp. So I would say overall, we're working hard to continue to accelerate the growth rate and as well try to balance that against kind of the cost commitments we've made, right? So I feel... As if what we've expressed is quite optimistic and, again, consistent with the accelerating trend you've seen. Now, I would say we have tended to remain conservative with how we guide, and so you should assume this is the posture that we continue to exhibit as we kind of communicate with the street. But, George, we want to give some specifics.
Yeah, no, I mean, obviously, you know, the last two years, I think we've established a pattern of, you know, meeting our guidance. And certainly, that's something we take very seriously. So I think we're, you know, we're confident that we can achieve these targets. And we feel that the momentum in the business is building. So I think these are responsible. I think they're reasonably conservative. But I think this is something that we're going to work to achieve. And again, we're positioning the business for a great 2027 and 2028 and we're really managing this business for the long term.
And I would just add maybe, you know, with some of the larger contracts coming on, right, timing is critical. And so again, just going to the point of conservatism, we tend to be quite, I would say, conservative with our expectation of when new business starts happening. So to the degree that they would happen sooner, that typically is where you would see us be able to provide upside at the guided levels.
Thanks, Kyle. Thank you. And maybe just one more just on customer implementations. I guess, where do you stand right now in terms of implementations? What does the backlog look like? I know any of you guys have added quite a number of new logos every quarter, but I guess just sort of what does that backlog look like and how have you been working through that backlog?
So, unfortunately, Kyle, despite and this is a number I look at every month despite great efforts on behalf of the Safians across the business focused on bringing customers into routine and getting them live where we've done a very good job we continue to also have really good bookings and so as we've accelerated in a backlog conversion actually bookings remains elevated and so despite our best efforts we continue to sustain a pretty So, again, the good news in that is obviously it gives us a high degree of future revenue visibility for the next several quarters, but certainly we like to shave off, and we've been doing so, implementation time. Now, one of the points I mentioned earlier, you know, Kellen is incredibly focused on our conversion to being a more AI-made business, partnering with our people organization and others, and so I think implementation is probably right there. for AI-based assistance. And we do think over the next 24 months, that's an area where we can continue to make improvement. I won't say though, and again, it's always a balance, because remember, again, we're trying to basically drop down a super high level of growth to the bottom line. And so to do so, you're a bit in capital constraint when you add headcount. And so Just remember, you know, certainly we could accelerate that backlog probably a bit more, but at what expense? And so I think ultimately we're trying to thread that needle and deliver both top and bottom line growth that's quite appealing and within our commitments. And so I think that's really the, you know, the sort of balance at the moment and where we are. But generally, I would say we are carrying a very healthy level of backlog now as well given today's signatures in the pharma business. And so... Think about this as giving us a high degree of confidence on kind of future growth. I don't know, George, if you want to add anything.
You know, we added people last year to the implementation team, and they've done a really good job. You know, the vast, vast majority of the times, you know, we're waiting on the clients, obviously, to do validations, to resolve things like IT firewall issues and the like. But our implementation team really has improved, and they've done a really good job. And as Ross said, I think the problem has been the buildings keep coming on, and they've been very, very strong. So, I guess this is a good problem to have, if you would, but I think our, we call it our MaxCare team, they've actually done a very good job in terms of turning these around and getting to the point where the customers aren't waiting on us, we're really waiting on the customers, and we try to nudge them along gently, but obviously there's a balance there in terms of how much you can do, but certainly I think when you start looking at some of the things we potentially could do with AI, there are exciting opportunities here, but Our backlog is strong and our pipelines are strong, so this is just something that we're going to have to continue to work with as we try to work to accelerate this.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
For the questions at this time, I will now turn the call over to management for closing remarks.
Thank you so much for joining us today. Obviously, my first call as CEO, so it's an exciting one for us, and it's It's really great that we were able to have such fantastic results in that context. I want to thank all of the green Sophia's who helped contribute to this really strong outcome and also thank our patients and our customers who continue to exhibit trust in us. And we look forward to engaging with many of you on the investor side in the upcoming conference season in September.
So thank you, everybody. Have a good rest of your day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.