Alpha Teknova, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Alpha Tech Nova fourth quarter 2021 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during this session, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today, Yes, sir. You may begin.

Great. Thank you, operator. And welcome, everyone, to Technova's fourth quarter and 2021 earnings conference call. On today's call, Stephen Gunstream, Technova's president and chief executive officer, will provide business highlights and updates, followed by Matt Lowell, Technova's chief financial officer, who will review financial results and provide commentary on the company's 2022 outlook. After we conclude the prepared remarks, we'll be happy to take your questions. Before we begin, as a reminder, the forward-looking statements that we make during this call, including those regarding business goals and expectations for the financial performance of the company, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ. Additional information concerning these risk factors is included in the press release the company issued earlier today. and are more fully described in the company's various filings with the SEC. Today's comments reflect the company's current views, which could change as a result of new information, future events, or other factors, and the company does not obligate or commit itself to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law. The company's management believes that in addition to GAAP results, non-GAAP financial measures can provide meaningful insight when evaluating the company's financial performance and the effectiveness of its business strategies. During this call, we will therefore use non-GAAP financial measures of certain of our results. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are included in the press release that we issued this afternoon, which is also posted to Technova's website. Non-GAAP financial measures should always be considered only as a supplement to and not a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation may differ from similarly named non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Please also be advised that the company has posted a supplemental slide deck to accompany today's prepared remarks, which can be accessed on the investor relations section of Technova's website and on today's webcast. And now I will turn the call over to Stephen.

Thank you, Sarah. Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for our fourth quarter in year-end earnings call. Technova is a leading provider of critical reagents that accelerate the introduction of drug therapies, novel vaccines, and molecular diagnostics. We manufacture high-quality custom reagents with short turnaround times and are positioned to scale with our customers as they advance their products from discovery to commercialization. This is best exemplified in cell and gene therapy, where there's a significant need for custom-made reagents in volumes less than 1,000 liters. Our ability to rapidly manufacture custom clinical-grade bioprocessing solutions enables our cell engine therapy customers to reduce the time from discovery to clinical impact. Our interaction with current and potential customers continues to validate the growing need for high-quality custom research and clinical-grade solutions across the industry, and we are investing aggressively to meet the demand. As part of this investment, we are building the depth and breadth of our leadership team, including our customer-facing functions, where we recently brought on board a chief commercial officer and a senior vice president of marketing. Bringing new talent to Technova remains a priority in 2022 as we execute on our long-term strategic initiatives. Our organization has grown significantly over the past year, and I want to thank all of our associates whose dedication has been and will continue to be critical to our success. Q4 capped off a year of great accomplishments at Technova. We drove significant growth in our business, made meaningful progress against our strategic priorities, and exceeded the 2021 goals we communicated to investors at the time of our June IPO. We had a strong commercial year in 2021, posting full-year revenue growth of 31% year-over-year, excluding sample transport. We saw robust growth in both lab essentials and clinical solutions. Lab essentials revenue grew 28% year-on-year due to an 18% increase in average revenue per active customer and an increase in the total number of active customers. Clinical Solutions revenue grew 41% year on year, driven by a near doubling of active clinical customers from 12 in 2020 to 22 in 2021. Over the past 12 months, we transitioned a number of accounts that in previous years solely purchased catalog reagents to accounts that now also purchase custom research or GMP reagents. We expect these accounts to continue to grow as their products advance through the clinical pipeline. This was particularly notable in our cell and gene therapy customer base, which now stands at approximately 80 accounts, up from 65 in 2020. In 2021, 46 of these accounts purchased custom or GMP reagents, up from 25 the previous year. Importantly, we exited 2021 with significant momentum and started 2022 with the largest order book in the company's history. I will now discuss the progress made against our stated investment priorities in 2021. First, we made meaningful investments to enhance our existing capacity and advanced construction on our new state-of-the-art GMP manufacturing facility in Hollister, California. We continue to expect that our new facility will be operational by the end of 2022 and will have an annual production capacity of $150 million in revenue. Second, we continued to build our organization by bringing in new talent across the company that will help ensure our near and long-term success. This included building out R&D, sales, marketing, finance, and operations. Lastly, we secured significant capital to fuel our growth plan, including a $27 million credit facility last March and proceeds from our $110 million IPO in June. We exited the year with a solid balance sheet and are putting our capital to work. We are now fully focused on the year ahead. 2022 is the second year of an aggressive investment plan for the company that will solidify the foundation for our future growth. Specifically, we are focused on the following priorities. First, deliver revenue between $44 and $48 million, a growth rate of 30% at the midpoint, excluding sample transport. Second, increase our current production capacity and bring on our new manufacturing facility by year end. Third, build out our commercial and marketing teams and associated capabilities to drive demand in advance of our new facility opening, and lastly, develop new products and enhance our process engineering capabilities. Overall, we are pleased with our performance and the progress we've made against our long-term strategic plan. I will now hand the call over to Matt for a discussion of the financials.