Alpha Teknova, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TechNOVA third quarter 2022 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Jennifer Henry, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Technova. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Technova's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With me on today's call are Stephen Gunstring, Technova's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Lowell, Technova's Chief Financial Officer, who will make prepared remarks and then take your questions. 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 they 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 its 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 posted to Technova's website and at www.sec.gov. Non-GAAP financial measures should always be considered only as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for or as superior to, 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. It 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, Jen. Good afternoon and thank you everyone for joining us for our third quarter earnings call. Tecnova is a leading provider of critical reagents that accelerate the introduction of drug therapies, novel vaccines, and molecular diagnostics. We manufacture high-quality customer agents 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 the cell and gene therapy market, as well as in the synthetic biology and liquid biopsy markets, where there's a significant need for custom-made reagents in volumes smaller than 1,000 liters. Our ability to manufacture custom research and clinical grade solutions with short turnaround times enables our customers to reduce the time from discovery to clinical impact. As our revenue growth performance demonstrated this quarter, we continue to see healthy demand growth across our broader customer base. We were encouraged by large custom orders we received from customers in the synthetic biology and liquid biopsy spaces, two attractive high growth end markets for which our custom made reagents are well suited. As expected, we did see a softening of demand from our early-stage biopharma customers, particularly in cell and gene therapy, which negatively impacted our revenue in the quarter. However, we remain optimistic about this market despite what we believe to be current headwinds. During Q3, we advanced the construction of our new state-of-the-art modular manufacturing facility. In fact, we successfully completed our very first wet run demonstrating the end-to-end functionality of the manufacturing platform. This facility remains on track to be operational by the end of 2022 for research-grade production and will ultimately give us the capacity to manufacture approximately an additional $150 million in product revenue when fully utilized. After the opening of the facility, we will continue to work on validation activities to meet our goal of producing GMP-grade products for sale by mid-2023. On the R&D front, we have made great progress advancing our new product pipeline. Last month at the annual Cell and Gene Meeting on the Mesa, we introduced an early access program for two novel products intended to streamline downstream gene therapy process development. We're already seeing interest in both products with numerous customers reaching out to participate. In addition, earlier today, based on customer demand, we announced a new WIPI quality water product line to help address critical supply chain challenges in bioprocessing. We have onboarded nearly all the critical hires we require to execute our growth plan over the coming years. Technova has grown significantly since our public offering, and I want to thank all of our associates whose dedication has been and will continue to be critical to our success. Matt will provide specific comments on our guidance, but I want to give an update on some of the trends we are seeing in Q4 and some directional thoughts on what we are anticipating heading into 2023. We remain optimistic about the long-term potential of early-stage biopharma, despite the recent referrals of large orders from customers in this segment. We continue to engage with these customers, including with those who have deferred orders, while establishing a strong pipeline of opportunities that we believe may begin to generate additional revenue mid to late next year. For the next several quarters, however, we continue to anticipate a headwind from limited early stage biopharma purchases, which we expect to be partially offset by growth in other markets. With the certification of our new facility to produce GMP grade reagents anticipated mid next year and the recent investments we have made to expand our commercial marketing teams, we are focused on building our commercial pipeline. Heading into 2023, we will have completed a planned two year period of accelerated investment that has prepared our business to scale commercially over the next five years. As a result, We anticipate a significant decline in our capital expenditures in 2023 and comparatively moderate increases in our operating expense base going forward. We are committed to creating value for shareholders through strategic capital allocation that balances investment for future growth while also ensuring a path to profitability. I will now hand the call over to Matt for discussion of the financials.