Twist Bioscience Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 2, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to Twist Biosciences Fiscal 20 24 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Angela Bidding, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank all of you for joining us today for Twist Biosciences conference call to review our fiscal 2024 Q1 financial results and business progress. We issued our financial results release this morning, which is available at our website at www.twistbioscience.com. With me on today's call are Doctor.

Speaker 1

Emily Leprouc, CEO and Co Founder of Twist and Adam Lapona, CFO of Twist. Emily will begin with a review of our recent progress on Twist businesses. Adam will report on our financial and operational performance. Emily will come back to discuss upcoming milestones and direction. We will then open the call for in the Investors section of our website and will be available for 2 weeks.

Speaker 1

During today's presentation, we will make forward looking statements within the meaning of the U. S. Federal securities laws. Forward looking statements generally relate to future events or future financial or operating performance. Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize and actual results and financial periods are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.

Speaker 1

These risks include those set forth in the press release we issued earlier today as well as those more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward looking statements in this presentation are based on information available to us as of the date hereof and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our CEO and Co Founder, Doctor. Emilie Laproust.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Angela, and good morning, everyone. It is a very exciting time for Twist with revenue, margin and market share increasing, New products introduced recently with more to come and growing market for our products, which enable a diversified customer base. Today, as we report our financial results for the Q1 of fiscal 2024, we will focus on 3 important items that drive our business: Revenue growth, margin expansion and financial discipline track to our past profitability. Our entire team at risk is laser focused on these initiatives, while simultaneously bringing exceptional products to our customers. We continue to deliver record revenue and consistent robust growth year over year.

Speaker 2

We expanded market share in Boston, Bayer and NGS with strong commercial and operational execution across our teams. We are building a resilient and diversified business with a portfolio of solutions that stem from our innovative DNA Synthesis platform. This allows us to pursue multiple market opportunities simultaneously while mitigating risk. Several years ago, We established a plan to achieve profitability for the business. We continue to execute against the plan we laid out for ourselves and we are firing on all cylinders.

Speaker 2

Diving into the specifics. Revenue for the Q1 increased significantly to $71,500,000 with others to more than $77,000,000 and margin increasing to 40.5%. Moving to the products area. Revenue for synbio increased to $26,800,000 with strong orders of $29,200,000 Synbio revenue grew 25 year over year excluding in both periods, the app revenues from a key account that was affected by timing of the quarter and expected to be done in the current quarter. In November, we began a limited launch of our Express Gene product, which is our clonal genes delivered faster in 5 to 7 days.

Speaker 2

I am pleased to report that as for Q1, 98% of X-ray genes ordered have been delivered in the quality timeframe. Delivering clonally perfect genes in this timeline at scale is an exceptional feat. This performance is driven by our platform, Our site in Oregon and our operations team that implements orders successfully. We are the only X-ray offering that can deliver at scale. If you need one gene or thousands of genes, we can deliver clinically perfect genes in as few as 5 days.

Speaker 2

Importantly, Our differentiated Xpress offering allows us to charge a premium price over our standard clonal genes in exchange for this bid. Customers can choose to order standard jeans with a turnaround time of 10 days or Xpress jeans with a turnaround time beginning at 5 days. The premium price for the Express offering varies daily and by the capacity available in our manufacturing facility in Wilsonville, Oregon. To date, we have tested premiums from 20% to as high as 200%. As a reminder, We use the same manufacturing line for both Xpress and Stellar genes, so all increased pricing applies directly to margin expansion.

Speaker 2

Because the manufacturing line is the same, it also means that our capacity has increased whether we sell gene standard or Xpress. When we launched in November, half of our clonal gene volume qualified for Express service. Last week, we announced that virtually all clonal genes at all prep scales Now clarify for Express service. With this expansion, we began a full marketing launch around the Express portfolio, largely using digital marketing tactics keep the cost of customer acquisition low. We are pleased with the early days of the launch, particularly the balance of uptake between Pharma, Industrial, Chemical and academic customers.

Speaker 2

Early feedback indicates that this product resonates. We monitor orders daily and we are seeing the early stage of a revenue ramp. We consistently observe varying degrees of customer willingness to pay a premium and daily we gain valuable insight into pricing sensitivity, geographic nuances, industry specific trends and account level patterns. Moving forward, this allows the sales team The potential to proactively secure contract pricing for key accounts in exchange short term such as volume commitments and fixed premiums, which enables expanding margin as well as predictability for manufacturing. As of January 30, we have received confirmed interest from several pharma companies, reflecting a positive trajectory.

Speaker 2

Up until we turned on our marketing machine last week, our focus was on existing customers. Today, we are targeting new customers who use other providers and we plan to use our differentiated Express product portfolio to take share from incumbent suppliers. We are also targeting customers who currently make their own DNA because they need it quickly. We call the little group of potential customers DNA makers and we know that to convert DNA makers to DNA buyers, it will take time to change behavior. We assume that we have the product, the channel and the operational capacity to drive a generational change where ordering jeans rather than making jeans becomes the standard operating procedures across the globe.

Speaker 2

Moving to NGS. Our revenue increased to $39,400,000 Revenue for the quarter included several large customers' reorders, Primary diagnostic customers running clinical trials and ramping commercial volumes. For these larger customers, we invested time and energy into the relationship and we are now included into their workflow. While the sales cycle for NGS is quite long, we are now seeing the benefit of this long term investment of our time as their tests advance to the clinical and commercial stages. As a reminder, DiaSternet customers, including those pursuing or selling liquid biopsy and minimal residual disease assets, choose Twist For the target enrichment solution, we bring their testing workflow as we save our customers about half of their downstream sequencing costs.

Speaker 2

And each sample run by our customers uses some Twist DNA, so the larger the volume, the more they buy from Twist. In a constrained macroeconomic environment, our offering provides margin expansion for our customers and in some cases, our workflow makes a substantive difference in our customers' business viability. Over the last two quarters, we have seen customers trendlining test, Selecting the tests within their portfolio that includes a Twist workflow to save downstream sequencing costs and improve their overall COGS. In addition to larger customers in advanced stages of development and commercial scale up, we see NGS Workflow components as an increasing percentage of our NGS revenue. For example, a customer who ordered a custom target enrichment panel previously may now us order library prepped, buffers, beads, blocker, UDI, UMIs and more front Twist as their supplier, expanding our share of wallet within existing accounts.

Speaker 2

Our customers appreciate reaching their number of suppliers and benefit from our exceptional and responsive customer service and supply chain teams, allowing them to focus on expanding their business. This focus on enabling the workflow between the sample and the sequencer We'll continue next week during the AGBT conference, when we will introduce several products, bringing truly differentiated solutions for key workflows within specific applications. Moving forward, we expect revenue growth in NGS to come from increasing commercial adoption of our customers' assays, workflow expansion in existing customer accounts and the acquisition of smaller accounts as well as penetration of the research market through RNA Seq. Moving to biopharma. Revenue increased to $5,200,000 with orders coming in at $4,900,000 We were free staffed on our commercial team as of November and we do see green shoots for this business including 41 new programs start in the quarter.

Speaker 2

We know that the process of ramping up a sales representative to full capacity typically takes about 6 months and we are cautiously optimistic that revenue from biopharma services will increase steadily in the back half of the year. In addition to providing antibody discovery services for our partners, This area of our business builds off of our silicon platform which enables the ability to create antibody discovery libraries that we can then pair with our in vivo and AI ML capabilities. There is a strategic fit here As we serve pharma and biotech customers through both our Finbio offering and biopharma solutions, providing a full and complementary spectrum of offering to our customers and partners. For data storage, we completed the end to end demonstration of the Gigabyte Century archive workflow. This was an internal demonstration designed to refine and validate our workflow and we succeeded.

Speaker 2

We are encouraged by our engineering advancements and we remain on track to deliver an early access terabyte central archive solutions in 2025. We continue to believe But the market for data storage provides a large opportunity and we see this area of our business as a valuable asset with optionality at multiple points of development. In early January, we welcomed Adam Laponnes to the team as our CFO. Adam brings a wide range of in finance and operations from large and smaller companies and is ideally positioned to support our next phase of growth. With that introduction, I'll turn it over to Adam to discuss our financials.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Emily. Revenue for the Q1 increased to $71,500,000 growth of 32% year over year and approximately 7% sequentially. Orders increased to $77,500,000 and gross margin was 40.5% for the Q1 of fiscal 2024. We served a total of 2,140 customers during the Q1 and ended the quarter with cash, Cash equivalents and short term investments of approximately $311,100,000 When we talk about cash moving forward, we will be talking about cash, cash equivalents and short term investments. Taking a deeper dive into revenue.

Speaker 3

Syn Bio revenue increased to $26,800,000 Growth of 24% year over year with orders increasing to $29,200,000 Synthetic genes revenue, A primary growth driver for synbio increased to $19,700,000 growth of 22% year over year. We shipped approximately 171,000 genes during the quarter. Within the synbio umbrella, Oligo Pool revenue increased to $4,200,000 and library's revenue increased to $2,900,000 year over year growth of 13% and 60%, respectively. Growth in synbio across all product lines was driven primarily by healthcare customers. NGS revenue for the Q1 grew to approximately $39,400,000 compared to $24,400,000 in the Q1 of fiscal 2023, an increase of 62% year over year.

Speaker 3

For the quarter, revenue from our top 10 customers accounted for approximately 44% of revenue. Orders increased to $43,300,000 setting the stage for further NGS growth. We served 538 NGS customers in the quarter with 135 having adopted our products. For biopharma, revenue increased to $5,200,000 with orders coming in at 4,900,000 We had 69 active programs as of the end of December 2023 and we started 41 new programs during the quarter. The total number of completed programs as of December 31 was 843 with 69 including milestones and or royalties.

Speaker 3

Looking at revenue to another lens. Healthcare revenue rose to $40,900,000 for the Q1 of 2024, compared to $30,000,000 for the same period in fiscal 2023, reflecting the increased uptake of our products by pharma, Biotech and Diagnostic Companies. Industrial Chemical revenue rose to $16,300,000 in the first quarter, up from $16,300,000 in the same period of fiscal 2023, steady growth year over year. Academic revenue was $13,800,000 for the Q1 of 2024, up from $10,000,000 in fiscal 2023, with growth coming from both synbio and NGS customers. Looking geographically, Americas revenue increased to approximately $44,000,000 in the Q1 compared to $33,600,000 in the same period fiscal 2023, growth of 31% year over year.

Speaker 3

EMEA revenue rose to $21,200,000 in the first quarter versus $16,300,000 in the same period of 2023, growth of 30% year over year. APAC revenue increased to $6,300,000 in the 1st quarter compared to $4,300,000 in the same period for fiscal 2023, growth of 48% year over year. Our gross margin for the Q1 increased to 40.5 percent driven by large NGS orders in the quarter, higher mix of NGS and some pricing lift for synbio from Express G. In total, operating expenses for the Q1 were $118,500,000 compared with $98,900,000 in the same period for 2023. Breaking this down.

Speaker 3

Cost of revenues increased to $42,500,000 in the Q1 of 2024, compared with $29,400,000 in the same period of fiscal 2023, primarily due to higher product volume and personnel costs as well as increased depreciation and amortization expense. R and D decreased to $23,100,000 compared with $31,200,000 in fiscal 2023, primarily due to the reduction in headcount as well as lab supplies. SG and A was $52,800,000 for the Q1 compared with $42,300,000 The increase was driven largely by the increase in stock based compensation as the comp for Q1 FY2023 included a significant reversal of stock based compensation resulting from employee stock forfeitures related to the Alveris acquisition, offset by pre commercialization costs included in the Q1 fiscal 2023, but not in Q1 fiscal 2024 as we have launched the Oregon manufacturing site. Operating expenses included $8,000,000 for data storage. Stock based compensation for the quarter was approximately $11,000,000 Depreciation and amortization were $8,200,000 for the quarter compared with $5,300,000 for the same period of 2023.

Speaker 3

Net loss attributable to stockholders was $43,000,000 or $0.75 per share for the Q1 of 2024, compared to a net loss of $41,800,000 or $0.74 per share for the same period of fiscal 2023. Turning to guidance. We are updating specific metrics that we intend to use moving forward. For fiscal 2024, we now expect Total revenue to increase by $3,000,000 across the range to approximately $288,000,000 to 2.93,000,000 anticipated growth of 18% to 20% year over year synbio revenue of 114,000,000 to 117,000,000 an increase of $1,000,000 across the entire range and year over year growth anticipated to be 16% to 19%. NGS revenue of $150,000,000 to $152,000,000 an increase of $3,000,000 in the range and anticipated growth of 21% to 23% year over year.

Speaker 3

Biopharma revenue of approximately $24,000,000 a decrease of $1,000,000 from the prior guidance and growth of approximately 3% year over year. We are increasing our expected gross margin to approximately 40% 41% for the year. Loss from operations guidance before taxes of approximately $189,000,000 to $194,000,000 compared with prior guidance of $180,000,000 to $188,000,000 as we invest in G

Speaker 2

and A capabilities to continue to scale our business.

Speaker 3

CapEx is projected to decrease by $5,000,000 to approximately $15,000,000 for fiscal 2024. No change in our projected ending cash of approximately $245,000,000 at the end of fiscal 2024. For the Q2 of fiscal 2024, we expect Overall revenue of approximately $70,000,000 to $71,000,000 Syn Bio revenue increasing to approximately $28,500,000 with the full launch of Express Gene's portfolio. NGS revenue of $37,000,000 to $38,000,000 as we see larger accounts reordering in the second half of the year, on track with our increased annual guidance. Biopharma revenue of 4,500,000 Gross margin of 39%, primarily due to mix shift.

Speaker 3

In summary, we continue to maintain financial discipline throughout the organization and make progress on our path to profitability. I joined Twist about a month ago. I couldn't be more excited about where we are going. This is a talented and determined mission driven team that understands the value we bring to our customers. Our focus on driving revenue growth, Margin expansion and maintaining financial discipline will continue as we leverage our capabilities of supply chain management, manufacturing excellence and of course delighting our customers.

Speaker 3

With that, I'll turn the call back to Emily.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Adam. When we are into our fiscal year, we continue to see momentum in our synbio and NGS groups. With a diversified customer base, a robust product portfolio that provides significant differentiation from competitors, growing market opportunities and committed employees, are executing on the plan we laid out to drive to profitability for the business. Coming back to the 3 initiatives at Twist. First, we expect to grow revenues through Xrefs Gene and Syn Bio and grow revenue in NGS through customers' expansion as well as new product introductions.

Speaker 2

Keep your eye out for launches next week during the AGBT conference. For biopharma solutions, we will focus on increasing the number of active and program start as well as signing new and repeat customers. 2nd, to expand our margin, we plan to continue dynamic pricing for Express Gene in Syn Bio. As we increase the number of genes shipped, our margin also increases given the factory is fully functional and staffed. We will also focus on leveraging our increased volume with our supply chain to drive efficiencies at scale.

Speaker 2

On the corporate side, in addition to driving revenue growth and increasing contribution margin for our products, we identified key initiatives that we expect to pursue over the course of the next 18 months that we believe will have a meaningful impact on COGS selling. This includes in sourcing opportunities, products and packaging, alternative workflows and many more. We are excited about these opportunities to increase our gross margin further. And third, we remain diligent in our commitment to financial discipline, renewing our commitment to end fiscal 2024 with €245,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and short term investments. Overall, we are executing on an aggressive objective to become a profitable company.

Speaker 2

We continue to execute effectively on our past profitability and look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress. With that, let's open the call for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank Our first question comes from Matt Sykes with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the quarter. Could you talk about the volume and mix of Express Genes in the quarter? Just given the mid November launch and limited marketing for a period during the quarter, how do you see Express Cheens contributing to margin expansion for the full year?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Matt. Maybe I will start. So There's really 2 phases. The first phase is the mid November launch, still the launch last week and then the second phase is now. So in the first phase, the volume was basically fully focused on existing customers.

Speaker 2

And we've seen really good, pick up by actually both biopharma and academic customer. So That's quite exciting to see that both of our target markets have been testing the products and experiencing the great performance of the product and reordering. So that was the mix then. It's a bit too soon to say about the 2nd phase. As you know, the 2nd phase, the goal is to continue Having existing customers use the product, which deliver great value for them and improve gross margin for us.

Speaker 2

But the big drive for us now is to bring net new customer onto the platform and deliver revenue growth and margin growth. So Q2 sorry, Q3 will be the 1st clean quarter where we'll have The full marketing launch for the entire quarter, we are already into Q2. And so therefore, Q3 will be the 1st clean quarter where we'll have the full quarter expense of Express gene. And what we expect is as the year progresses, we'll have more penetration into those new net new customers and then we'll start to see the benefit of ExpressGene on gross margin.

Speaker 5

Got it. And then

Speaker 4

just two quick follow ups. Could you just talk about this I know you're focused on existing customers, but could you just talk about the split in the quarter of gene buyers versus gene makers for Express Jeans? And then just do you think the digital marketing will be enough to drive growth? Or you plan on augmenting that with additional marketing efforts over the course of the year? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. So I think We basically have 1 week and a half of trying to convert Bayer into makers. So I would say that right now For all intents and purposes, all of the volume so far has been DNA buyers, so it's very early innings for DNA makers. We now have the tool. And In terms of digital marketing, it is our strategy to reach smaller customers, so Tier 3, Tier 4 customers.

Speaker 2

However, In addition to that, we have our sales team that has been engaged for now Years with top accounts, they are also working on converting Big accounts to ARP Express Gene. And as mentioned in my remarks, we've had some initial success in getting level of interest to convert to Express Genes also for big accounts as well. So it's going to be all hands on deck and we want to see growth in both The Tier 1, Tier 2 customers as well as Tier 3, Tier 4.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Ma with Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the quarter. Maybe just a follow-up to Matt's questions. On the gross margin in the quarter, It's much higher than we had modeled. Was there any impact at all from Express Jeans in the quarter?

Speaker 6

Or was it Driven entirely by the scale up of the factory of the future or if not, what kind of drove the gross margin beat? And then could you also then provide your thoughts around the full year guide of 40% to 41% given you're already at 40.5% In Q1? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Do you want to take that question, Adam, those questions?

Speaker 3

Sure. Happy to. So, Stephen, I mean, I am very encouraged by the record we had in both on the revenue front as well as the progress we saw in gross margin expansion. I'm also encouraged by the alignment we have across executive team to focus on gross margin expansion is a key priority, not just as a business priority, but even in our Paper Performance goals. So in terms of where we were in Q1, really the biggest driver for the gross margin expansion was the some of the large orders we had in NGS, particularly, I guess, calendar year end, we saw a big step up in those orders.

Speaker 3

And we're seeing that. And if you look at our guidance, you can see that we're going to see that pull back a bit in Q2 and that drove some of the expansion or the most of the expansion in the Q1 numbers. You had also asked how we're thinking about the full year guide. And look, I am confident in the business performance and we raised the guidance on both the revenue and the gross margin side. But I also recognize I've been in the role now for less than a month.

Speaker 3

I don't want to get over my skis with overly aggressive guidance. So Yes, there's some conservatism in there, but we have included the effects that we're seeing already today on the expansion from sort of symbio and Express Genes as well as the factory of the future now being fully operational.

Speaker 6

Okay, great. That's helpful. Sorry, if I can just sneak one more in. I know you haven't done the full launch of Express Change yet, but

Speaker 2

Could you tell us what

Speaker 6

the average premium you guys are getting? I know Emily threw out a range of 20% to 200%, but I'm just wondering if

Speaker 2

you could give us sense

Speaker 6

of the average you're getting right now? Thank

Speaker 2

you. Yes. So we're not able to give A range, as a reminder, the bank pricing is strongly based on the capacity in the fab at the time on that day. So we get a lot of benefits beyond that. But The one thing that you can check is that that pricing Daily is public, right?

Speaker 2

It's on the website. And so anybody can look at what is the pricing right now, again based on the capacity. Okay. Thank you. Thank

Operator

you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question and congratulations on a nice print here. Maybe my first one here is on guidance, you guys beat revenues by $3,000,000 The annual was raised by $3,000,000 And it looks like more of that came from NGS, but also Symbio is raised. I'm just curious, The beat was just carried through and why despite comps getting easier, perhaps we should see a more

Speaker 3

Great, great question and I'm happy to give a bit more color on it. In terms of where we are right now, we had a great quarter. So I think I mentioned that in the previous question that we do expect that NGS pullback particularly in Q2. And I think when you look at the early phases of the synbio Express Gene, it is going positively, but it's really early days. And again, me being brand new in the chair, I didn't want to get ahead of my skis on that in the full year guide.

Speaker 3

We'll keep you posted on progress as the year continues on both fronts. But, yes, there is I feel pretty good that the full year guide is raised both on the top end and the margin side.

Speaker 7

Fantastic. And then my follow-up is on the gross margin guidance here. When I look at The sequential ramp, what is the primary driver from the Q1 to the Q2 step down of 39% and I think the annual guidance implies your back half needs to again step back to 41% from 2Q. Is there anything specific that's going on in 2Q? Maybe just walk us through the cadence?

Speaker 3

No, no, it's a great question. And so it's really more of a fact in Q1, we got A pretty substantial sequential lift from the higher NGS mix. We are actually expecting that to pull back slightly in Q2 as the mix shifts more towards SymBio. And so we'll see that, but I think as the year progresses and we see more of the customers switching to full quarter of Express Jeans and the NGS business continue to expand, we feel pretty confident in the back half guide as well.

Speaker 7

Fantastic. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Luke Sergott with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Great. Good morning, everybody. Can you I want to start talking about first on the increase in the OpEx spend. I know that you've always talked about growing that slower than your revenue growth, but just the incremental step up Through here throughout the year like where is that investment going and is it just to feel more commercialization on the Express Genes, just give us some color?

Speaker 3

I'm happy to step in on that one. And actually, it's in the G and A line specifically. It's not driving the incremental demand. This is on infrastructure, particularly around some of our IT and financial capabilities, as we're really focused on building out those capabilities right now. So we've made some choices around how we're going to invest in that to scale not only for the current year, but future years to come as well.

Speaker 8

Okay. It's helpful. And then you talked about like some of the early learnings from the elasticity that from the dynamic pricing, talk about any trends that you're seeing there from types of orders or customers or and how that's kind of pacing out And where the dynamic pricing is really starting to contribute to the margin if it's going to create any lumpiness or anything throughout the year?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That's a great question. So we have been now that we have a good number of data sets, we've been deeply looking into the price sensitivity response curve.

Speaker 2

So looking at on the access what is the capacity of the day and What is the premium of the day? And on the y axis, what is the percentage of customers that have that chose To purchase Express and we actually see What you will expect as a response curve. So at very low of a high percentage of Premium, you see a saturation and then you see kind of a linear response in between. So It's an incredible view into the price that our customers have. And we also are able to see by geography and by Industry types, so for instance, biopharma versus academia, what kind of price sensitivity they have.

Speaker 2

So Obviously, we are working to refine our model over time. But yes, it's quite encouraging to see That the outcome is what you would expect and then we'll be from there.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Larew with William Blair. Your line is

Speaker 9

open. Hi, good morning. First question here is for Adam and just Going back to Luke's question on the SG and A investments you referenced sort of on the IT and financial capability side. Are these What you view as kind of the only set of meaningful investments, Adam, that need to be made? Or are there multiple layers over the course of a couple of years, and sort of within that context, how do these investments or future investments affect the goal to get to adjusted EBITDA breakeven on the core business by the end of fiscal 2024?

Speaker 3

No, Matt, I think the great question. And I think the a couple of comments here. In terms of the focus of the business and the priorities, it's very clear to me and it's been clear for and hopefully in our commentary as well that The priority is around revenue growth, margin expansion and that cash management. So we're never in a place where we need to go back to the markets for an equity raise in the future. And so that path to profitability is very much a key part of everything we're doing and how I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 3

I haven't provided the exact timing, and I'm not giving guidance on when we'll get to profitability, but I am saying that confidence and we won't be coming back to the markets. In terms of the investments, again, I'm going to lean on the fact that it is week 3. I'm still getting my bearings and I think about it pretty carefully right now is, I don't want to make any major changes in investment strategy and that's not what we're looking to do here. I want to make sure you continue to see progress. And if you think about areas like supply chain, for example, where the teams are laser focused on driving out costs throughout the system, supplier consolidation, insourcing, Invest drop, inventory optimization, all of these things are getting easier as we continue to scale and we gain leverage so that the focus and momentum is on that.

Speaker 3

I want to make sure we're balancing that any investment with those savings over time. So my goal is very much still to keep a tamp on and the expansion of the SG and A investment by making sure we're pacing any incremental investments with the savings we're driving in other areas of the business. Hopefully that provides clarity.

Speaker 9

Yes, that's helpful. And then Emily, you referenced some potential new products being launched next week. And so the question would be, you obviously have quite a bit of knowledge about what purchasers of DNA want and increasingly sort of what they're willing to pay for. As you think about moving into areas like RNA synthesis, maybe not to express RNA, what do you know about what RNA customers might value differently than DNA customers. How are you sort of assessing sort of the key attributes of what those products would need to look like relative to DNA?

Speaker 9

And maybe if you could extend that to even things like proteins, IgG, etcetera?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you, Matt. So I spend a lot of time with customers and I think there are 2 Primary questions and then a bunch of secondary ones. The primary questions with customer are always When and how much? It's always when will I get it and how much will it cost?

Speaker 2

And then after that, there's a number of secondary questions around quality and support packaging. And so there are some product features that you need to have, for instance, Kuwaiti in order to be in business. But assuming that those are met, It's always about speed and cost. And that fits really well with the Twist brand that we are making. We've always been really good at cost and that comes from the silicon chip that gives us an advantage.

Speaker 2

By using less regions, we're able to have a lower cost base than our competitors. So we've always been really good on the cost side. Historically, I will say up until late 2022, we're not Great on speed. We are probably on par with others. But now that we've made the investment, PE is really becoming the 2nd strength that we have And we'll keep leveraging that brand.

Speaker 2

So when you think Twist, it's very high quality product, very great customer experience, We can customize any packaging, delivery schedule that you want. And that's all great. But most importantly, it's going to be fast. It's going to be a great price to enable your science. You're going to get more shots on goal.

Speaker 2

And that means that we'll get all your budget because you'll choose us exclusively.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Catherine Schulte with Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks for the questions. Maybe first on NGS. I guess what's driving the sequential decline in your 2nd quarter guidance? Are there any one timers in the Q1? I think you mentioned some large orders.

Speaker 10

So is there just any way to quantify those?

Speaker 2

Maybe I'll jump in. So as you as one of the Report one of the number we report is the percentage of revenue in NGS that comes from top 10 customers. And As you can see, it is a very meaningful number. And so when you have a number of big customers, It can be a little bit lumpy quarter over quarter. Year over year, it's fine, but quarter over quarter, it can be lumpy.

Speaker 2

As you remember, Q1 of last year was kind of the opposite situation where some Big customers had a delayed taking shipment. And so The solution for us is, let's go find more lumps, right? So we are going to we are pushing on adding more and more of those top accounts and over time since we smooth over. So we have great confidence for our view for the year. And at the same time, we are there to serve our customers.

Speaker 2

And If some of those customers want shipment early or later, we always accommodate their needs to make sure that Customer satisfaction is as high as possible.

Speaker 10

Okay. And then maybe on CapEx, there was a pretty decent step down versus your prior on a percentage basis. Can you just talk through what projects are either being pushed out or just where those savings are coming from?

Speaker 3

This is Adam. I'm happy to take that one, Emily. And if I look at it, just as we went through after 1 quarter budget, we were seeing some favorable visibility in that. We haven't stopped through the projects we were initially starting. It's just purely a reality of As you refine the numbers, we're seeing a lower need for CapEx.

Speaker 3

I think the key message here is Wilsonville came online really fully for the first time in Q1 of this fiscal year. So even the depreciation for that, we still have small step up as we get into Q2 on that. But we're really excited about the capacity that brings. And I'm sure there will be minor things to continue to expand the capabilities and efficiency of the site, but we're really focused on optimizing where we are this year.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Puneet Souda with Leerink Partners. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Sorry if I missed that. This is Puneet from Leerink. First question maybe for Adam. I mean your orders increased by almost $6,500,000 sequentially, But your guide is only up by the beat. Maybe just could you talk a little bit about where these orders are coming from sort of in terms of customer type NGS and bio, maybe just talk to us about that.

Speaker 5

And then, the level of conservatism you have that you talked about, maybe Adam, just help us understand The level of conservatism that you have versus the step down that we're seeing in NGS in the second half? And then I have a follow-up for Emily.

Speaker 3

No, Puneet. I'm happy to help provide additional color and thank you for Question. I mean, if I look at the first part of it, there's always going to be a dynamic as I'm learning this business that orders don't always translate in the same period to revenue. There's a natural delay, particularly on both large NGS customers who put in large POs for multi period as well as we have on the biopharm side customers who have multi period POs over many quarters. So typically the revenue in over the next 3 to 6 months after we get the order.

Speaker 3

From that perspective, I don't expect all the Q1 orders to turn into revenue in Q2, But I do expect them to convert as we progress throughout the year and potentially even in the 25% given some of the nature of the type of orders. In terms of where we are and then what's driving the guide, I will be really clear. I have a lot of confidence in the progress we're seeing. I mean, you don't come out of a record quarter in revenue without confidence. I see the team firing on all cylinders, whether it be from the expressed genes in synbio or beyond the progress we're making on the NGS front with new customers.

Speaker 3

So I'm very confident in the guide we're giving, but I'm also and I said it before, It's early days for me, so I don't want to get over my skis in any element of it. So hopefully that clarifies.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sung Ji Nam with Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Hi, thank you and congrats on the quarter. Just one question. On the NGS segment, Great to see obviously continued strength there, especially from the top customers. But as you look at the sales funnel, just kind of curious, Is it pretty much the usual suspects? Or are you seeing kind of more new diversified customer leads, especially with the product launches like RNA Seq?

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you. Great question. So definitely that has been The focus of our new product introduction, we launched RNA Seq Last summer, the purpose is to expand into the research market. You'll see at AGBT next week that we'll have products focused On strengthening our position in liquid biopsy, Burgess Law, we are Very interested in converting the microarray market to NGS and That has not gone as fast as we've wanted.

Speaker 2

And so there'll be more product introduction squarely focused on Ongoing after that market with really best in class tools. So I would expect in terms of market expansion Continuation of our efforts around academia and AgBio. I think those are 2 additional growth opportunity for us in addition to, I think, the great performance we've been having in liquid biopsy in MRD. So over time, right now, a lot of our success in NGS is Riding the or enabling, I'll say, the liquid bulbs market, but I'm quite We are quite focused on expanding towards the markets such as ag bio and academia.

Speaker 1

Thank you. We'll get back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rachel Battenstahl with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Good morning and thank you for taking the questions. So first off, I just want to ask on biopharma. You mentioned that you're in discussions for antibody out licensing. Can you spend a minute talking about that opportunity and how meaningful these licensing deals could potentially be? And also just what's the timeline in terms of when can we expect see any headlines related to those yields.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you. That's a good question. So for context, just as a quick reminder, The main effort of our biopharma business is to sell service where customers give us a target and we use our AI in vivo, in vitro tools to deliver a preclinical asset for them. So that's the main thrust of our effort.

Speaker 2

In the past, we also spent some internal R and D dollars to our own assays and we now have maybe a dozen of assets that we think are valuable. We've stopped spending Internal R and D dollars to advance them and now we're in discussion with partners to license them those out. As you know, biopharma licensing deals can be lengthy. And so and at the same time, I think the bottom line for me is we are not expanding significant cash to pursue those licensing deals. And those licensing deals are not in the forecast.

Speaker 2

So there will be nice upside when they happen.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you. And then just oh, yes, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 7

No,

Speaker 2

no, go ahead.

Speaker 1

Sorry, I thought one of you were saying something. Then just as my follow-up, you mentioned some of these cost to impact COGS over the next 18 months. So can you just walk us through the levers that you're pulling from that cost action perspective? And then how much of that is already contemplated within guidance right now the cost actions for the year? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. And so great question. So we're really taking advantage of The up leveling of the management team that we've done over the last few quarters. A great new SVP of ops, a great VP of Supply Chain. And now as a company that is growing in a market that is not, we have a nice profile with our suppliers, we have an opportunity to we also have a choice of insourcing Some of the products we have the opportunity to consolidate vendors and so We are really exercising our muscle with our suppliers to make sure that we get the best target costing over time to benefit our gross margin.

Speaker 2

In addition, when we launched our Xpress gene, we really turned over a lot of stones in our processes. And we've seen a lot of opportunities where we can swap out reagents, we can shorten our key steps and that has given us opportunities in the future To Oslo, lean on the processes that we have and tweak some of the reagents to take cost out. So that takes time to realize. But at the same time, we see the opportunity and We'll do the work to get the best gross margin outcome. And I'd say it's a natural evolution of our maturation as a company.

Speaker 2

The first step was always, let's have the best product possible. And we had a natural advantage with the silicon chip where we always had the cost advantage. But now that we have the best product out there, we can focus maybe a little bit less on new product introduction and a bit more on continuous process improvement to start taking cost out and get better and better at gross margins. So free that helps.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Puneet Souda with Leerink Partners. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thanks for that again, Emily. Just wanted to follow-up On a broader question around Express Genes, what's your expectation for a competitive response on Express Genes or these fast genes, I mean, it's a great strategy to manufacture it all at once and deliver it right away or later and modulate your pricing accordingly. But just thinking about the industry overall For oligos, how do you think about the sort of the competitive response would be from the competitors and the sort of the Sensibility you have to that competitive response. Appreciate that.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. No. Thank you. So the way I think Well, it is our competitors have been in business way longer than we have, right? And so They've really optimized all of their processes using the 96 well plate.

Speaker 2

And There's not much more they can do. What we have is really the advantage of the silicon chip That gives us a tremendous advantage. And then we've built the back end around it to make at scale, expressed gene. And so at this point, we're the only company that can make all of their gene fast. And I think it's going to be a very, very difficult It will be a very difficult task for our competitors to try to match it.

Speaker 2

So we'll see With the responses, but we are ready. We think we have an absolute Great, great product in terms of its great quality, its customer experience, speed and actually even great pricing. And so we provide tremendous value to our customers. And yes, we look forward, we'll see anybody on the playground, any site, any time.

Speaker 5

Indeed, a playground. Okay. Thanks, Emily.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Emily for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much. So in closing, we reported a record quarter And our product portfolio continues to resonate with our customers. We introduced the full Express Genes portfolio last week, and we have more product launches planned for the next week at AGBT. As we move forward, we will continue to focus on revenue growth, margin expansion and financial discipline to drive our path to profitability. We look forward to seeing some of you at LGBT or conferences in the March timeframe.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much.

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Earnings Conference Call
Trevena Q1 2024
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