Hi, welcome to the Canaccord Genuity Group Conference. I'm Kyle Mikson. I cover life science, solutions, and diagnostics for Canaccord. Really pleased to welcome you to this fireside chat with Quanterix. The company offers a really ultra-sensitive protein measurement platform based on digital ELISA. With us from the company, we have Masoud Toloue, CEO, and Vandana Sriram, CFO. Thanks, guys, for joining us today. Masoud and Vandana, maybe just start on the 2025 guidance update. You know, you expect a meaningful decline in the core business, the Quanterix business. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how we expect the Akoya side to do as well. If you could just start there, that'd be great, based on what happened in the second quarter, basically. Yeah, I can start off, Kyle, and maybe Vandana, you can provide some additional details on the guide. For the quarter, we were happy to, despite macro pressure and academic and biopharma funding, we had a solid consumables business, about a $100 million pro-pharma business. If you look at the first half of last year and the first half of this year, it's been pretty resilient. We're happy with that performance and we continue to invest into assays and consumables. The accelerator lab services business, the vitality of that business, it continues to be strong. We had actually more trials this quarter than we did in the quarter prior in 2024. Smaller projects based on biopharma spending. Diagnostics revenues, which, as you know, we're very focused on, tripled, still a small number, but great green shoots. Maybe just to give some color on end markets, as we had gone into the second quarter, we had expected academic revenues to be down about 20% - 30%. That played out largely as we expected. We were down about 18% on academic. The pharma drop was a little bit deeper, mainly because of accelerator lab services, where we didn't have a repeat of some of the large projects from last year. Recall that last year we grew about 44% in accelerator lab services. As we look to our guide for the second half, we believe that we've bottomed out a lot of these risks and incorporated all of that into the Simoa guide. On the spatial side, the spatial business has actually done pretty well in terms of being fairly resilient on the instruments and consumables side. For consumables, they actually had the largest ever quarter in the second quarter. For them, really, the year-over-year variance is driven by the timing of their CDx program. Last year, they had several milestones that hit in the second half, which we're not expecting to repeat. That's kind of how we balanced out the guidance. We believe we've pressure-tested it in light of the environment. If the environment were to change or if things were to get better, that would certainly be upside to the guide. Okay. On the accelerator side, maybe start like when you had the initial guidance, I think it was like, you know, over $140 million. You know, how did you think about accelerator back then compared to the Q1 update where you, you know, you brought down the guide further, but you know, I think it was like, you know, $120 million - $130 million in revenue. Now it's even, you know, lower. I feel like that is the key kind of variable that's, you know, shifting quite a bit. That was down 60% year- over- year. It's $4 million in revenue in the quarter. I think we had, like, you know, more than double that. I feel like you were kind of communicating that a lot of that accelerator revenue is going to be in the second half of the year. Again, what's going on with that business, given it was such a nice, like safe flight kind of a thing, like in the past. Yeah, as Vandana mentioned, accelerator lab services was excellent. Had an excellent performance last year, you know, 40% year-on-year growth. A lot of phase II, phase III trials. You know, we support almost every single Alzheimer's, you know, therapy company in the market. I think this year, while that helped us in prior years, we're facing some pressure. The number of trials that we have are greater, and we're getting a lot more new customers, but the project sizes are a lot smaller. You know, the retrospective samples that we typically burn within a quarter, I think some of that surprised us in terms of size of projects and some shrinking of budget. We continue to believe that, you know, for as long as there are going to be neuro projects and neuro trials, of which there are a lot, the vitality, the number of new customers, the number of projects that we're getting, they're seeing is still positive. Can continue to drive growth in the future. Okay. On the biopharma side, just in general, why, you know, just taking a step back, why was that so much, you know, less favorable than you kind of anticipated? Yeah, a large part of the biopharma basically came into accelerator lab services. A large part of that, most of that decline is in accelerator lab services. On the consumable side, you know, we had a little bit of lumpiness. If you recall last quarter, the first quarter, we actually had record consumables. When you put the two together, consumables are down only 4% on a year-over-year basis. It kind of balances out. There's a piece of pharma in that consumables number as well. That was down this quarter, but somewhat balanced on a year-to-date basis. Okay. On the Akoya business, $30 million in the second half of the year, that's $60 million annualized. They did like $82 million or so last year in total revenue. Is there, I mean, that's a pretty big year-over-year decline. Is that just because of the milestones, like you said, for the CDx program or? Yeah, they did about $35 million in the first half. At the current guide, they're at about $65 million. About $10 million of the drop is just the CDx business, and the rest of it, call it about $5 million, 7% or 8% is macro related. That's fine. That sounds good. If you think about Akoya, transitioning to leading this new spatial business going forward, what's the initial month or so been like when it's been fully a part of Quanterix? Maybe talk about who's leading it and when you're in the room, in these meetings for spatial, what makes you excited? What do you see for the future in terms of the vision of the acquisition? Yeah, so Akoya, if you look at the entire spatial market and you say, hey, who was the most translational? There's only one company. It's Akoya. It's extremely clear. Akoya had done an incredible job of taking markers that were identified in discovery and moving them to pharma, CROs, and eventually also the clinic. We were very excited about that. Quanterix's philosophy has always been, you know, take translational and markers, move them into the clinic. That philosophy resonates between the two companies. Our goal here is to create one company, one leadership team, one commercial team, one operating line, where we're able to make and manufacture the single, you know, single units of assays, under one roof. The goal is to continue to build assays, invest into assay development, get consumables running over a 2,400 instrument install base, expand the technology, the systems between Akoya, what we have in the Simoa, and invest in diagnostics. Okay. When you think about the spatial market, what drove you on trends there? It was thought it was being more attractive a few years ago. Is it still, what is it going to be like with growth? How is it going to be a big growth driver for you going forward? Yeah, for as long as these biomarkers are important, understanding how they're spatially resolved in tissue is going to be critical. Right now, Kyle, as we talk to some of the early revenue synergy customers, customers that day in, day out use some of our neurology, we presented some of the spatial technology coming from Akoya. There's a lot of excitement. We talked to one group that has over 1,000 brain samples, has matching blood pairs. We're able to actually identify and understand how Tau tangles work, how amyloid works, how are they spatially resolved over a period of time. We think that's going to be an early synergy between the two companies and super exciting. In the oncology space, there's a growing area of biomarker research where people are looking at these new markers in tissue, leaking into blood, where we can identify, measure them in Simoa, and there'll be a lot of synergy opportunity there, identification of markers that could be important in liquid biopsy. We think it's still incredibly important. The position in the translational side is key for us, because we both want to move things into the clinic. I think we have a good, good perspective there on moving the space forward. All right. On the synergies, I think you're targeting $85 million by the end of next year, like annualized run-rate synergies. That's a pretty big number. What gives you confidence that you can get to that point, implement and realize those synergies, and still grow on the top line for this larger, again, like a larger revenue base? Yeah, so, you know, we've implemented 75% of them already, on a run-rate basis. By 2026, we'll have completed all $85 million. The goal is growth, right? We're a life science tools company that's moving things into the clinic. We're going to continue to invest in R&D this year. R&D is 30% of our total revenues, and that's our key North Star, you know, customer continuity, customer synergies, and growth focus and investment. We're actually investing more as a percent of the company than Quanterix has for a long time in R&D. We're excited. At the end of the day, you know, we have one footprint, one commercial team, one leadership team, single G&A, and this is about efficiency and becoming nimble and organized, and we have a lot of confidence in doing this. I would say we had a running start. We understood the technology really well. We saw it in our customers' hands. We did a lot of work before the acquisition closed. Okay. You have the cash flow break-even target for 2026. Does that assumption, like, that assumes the macro stays the same or gets better? Can you just talk about that a bit? Yeah, we've basically stress-tested that scenario, assuming that the macro remains largely the same. If you think about it, Akoya on a standalone basis used about $15 million - $17 million of cash in the first half. Take out the interest component of that, that's about $25 million - $30 million on the Akoya side. We, without any cost actions, would probably have used about $58 million of cash. Put those two together, and then when you take out $85 million of synergies, that's what gets you to that cash flow break-even. Even under the current revenue construct, we're comfortable that we would get to that cash flow break-even number based on the synergies. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. All right. That sounds good. Now, moving to how are you using cash, the R&D, like you were just saying, Masoud. Talk about the Simoa ONE. The launch is upcoming. You also have the kits that are for, like, third-party flow set timers. How is, you know, just again, like give us an update on that kind of rollout in that launch. Yeah, we're super excited. We're increasing the sensitivity of the platform by an order of magnitude, increasing the plexity of the system, and making it really easy to use. If you sort of step back, Kyle, and you said, hey, in diagnostics, there are two things that are absolutely going to be needed in a future generation of tests, what would those two be? I would say, and I think you would get consensus agreement, better sensitivity for early detection of disease, and you would get higher multiplex, right? Not 50 or 100, more on the order of 5 or 10. With Simoa ONE, we're really providing a platform that will serve as the future biomarker generator for liquid biopsy testing as we move forward, both in neurology but also in oncology. Simoa ONE, day one, will have an immunology menu and a growing oncology menu that will help elucidate additional markers and help improve sensitivity of what we think will be an immunology and oncology-based liquid biopsy testing. Does the Simoa ONE have some clinical, like, use cases, or is it just for the research on immunology and, I guess, oncology? It will start in immunology and oncology, but we're already working with a handful of important oncology markers that we'll be working using with our collaborators as we're trying to incorporate protein into different types of genomic tests to improve sensitivity of those existing tests. Yeah, okay. It is a solid generator, solid base point for identification of new markers. Having the tissue knowledge upstream of that is critically important. I mean, we're already finding with some of our collaborations ubiquitous markers that were in tissue that were never in blood, secreted into blood at ultra low levels. The ability to measure that with our current technology, or even better, Simoa ONE, is going to be important as we see more multi-omics-based, liquid biopsy-based testing. Okay, but when you think about like tangibly how that feedback from Simoa ONE comes closer to the P&L, maybe like in 2026, how is it more of like these proof statements of like it proves out that the technology can be used for these biomarkers, or is it going to be like a real revenue contributor for the, you know, over time? It's going to be, it'll be a new platform. It'll be a next-gen platform. We are excited about its contribution on the top line. We plan on launching a platform with reagents flowing through that platform by the end of the year. We've also said on our prior call that, you know, in an environment that is CapEx constrained, we decided that in 2026, we'd be opening up some of the Simoa reagents to a much larger flow cytometer install base. We sort of have the walled garden option and the open garden option. With the ability to take the reagents and go to, you know, 20 x our install base, we're basically enabling a lot of research, a lot of academia, the ability to get ultra sensitivity without having to purchase an instrument. All right, great. Alzheimer's disease diagnostics, it's obviously a big portion of the long-term kind of thesis on Quanterix. You have LucentAD Complete. That's probably a five-marker test. It's performing pretty well. That's what your go-to-market, I would think, you want to go to FDA with that. You're expecting reimbursement relatively soon, maybe a price point of like triple digits, like almost $900. That all sounds good. What are the next steps with LucentAD Complete, basically? Just go step by step and how low risk, high risk, these milestones kind of are. Yeah, so first, clinical utility is super important. I mean, if you look at the last five or ten years, you kind of step back and you say, well, you know, we're at an incredible time where there's now two new Alzheimer's therapies on the market and people want to be tested and want to get tested for the disease, either have family history or are exhibiting symptoms. There's actually, for the first time, something that you can do about it. These are, when I say first-gen therapies, we expect second and third gen to be coming online. While this is happening, it's a unique moment in time, really important that we get solid diagnostics to the market. LucentAD Complete is a big step ahead of just a single marker test. It provides not only just the ability to triage, but you can actually diagnose someone with a high level of confidence and be able to potentially in the future do differential diagnosis, look at tau staging, and we have a lot of other plans that we're going to do with the five-marker test. Through five or six clinical utility studies, we intend to increase the usability, the value of the test for payers. We have a Medicare recommendation coming up by the end of the year. That's going to be important to get the test reimbursed. We're going to be spending a lot of effort commercializing the test and getting it into our partners' hands. Okay, on the test, again, five markers or so. I mean, are you done kind of adding markers to it, or do you think like the more the merrier when it comes to neurology biomarkers? Yeah, you know, we are a leader in this space, Kyle. We thankfully have an incredibly strong R&D group. We have incredibly strong KOLs and pharma partners that we work with on a regular basis that are always coming to us with unique markers and bringing them and trying to understand how those markers can better differentiate disease. As we bring those in, we launch them as our UL products. They're always candidates for, can this additional marker provide value as a measure for monitoring? Can it differentiate disease? Can it differentiate frontotemporal from Alzheimer's? We're just getting started. The five-marker test, I think, is a sign of an evolution of diagnostic tests. With more markers, you can do more and learn more. It's going to help the patient, physician, and it'll be of interest to payers. Right. You just said the update on 205, p-Tau 205 and 212. Does that have some clinical utility as well over time? Yeah, 205 and 212 are incredible progression markers. We just launched those at our AEIC, available on the Simoa platform. Super excited. They look at neurofibrillary tangles. You have to imagine if you put that into our LucentAD Complete test, you'd not only provide a diagnosis for the patient, but if you were positive on p-Tau 217 but had low 205, you would be at the very early stages of that disease. A good progression marker, and we think that there could be utility for that as we look at differential diagnosis and monitoring. Okay. When you think about the, you know, Akoya is bringing you closer to oncology, I would say they have a nice, you know, footprint there. Have you seen already like your kind of, you know, like a better stream, a better channel to speak to those kinds of customers and maybe those applications are going to make more sense for like Simoa ONE over time too, given maybe some of the biomarkers that you already have, you know, identified? Yeah, absolutely. Both ways. I was just in Toronto at our AIC meeting, talking to all of our customers, all our neuro customers about the neuro brain panel that Akoya has. Tons of excitement, huge interest in how does the biomarker relate to pathophysiology in the brain? You know, are there connections? Can we develop even better blood markers if we understand how these are spatially oriented? From that side, good progress. I think that's a very low-hanging fruit. On the other side, can the channel, can working with more oncologists generate additional markers in blood? I think early days says yes. We're working on a couple high-value candidates, markers that have always been in tissue and we're identifying they leak into blood and turning them into some more products and getting into the hands of some early researchers. Gotcha. Okay. That sounds good. You're launching a lot of new assays the past couple of years, the past two years or so. Big, big focus of the company. What's the kind of roadmap like going forward? Do you want to launch like, you know, X amount each year? How, I mean, is this important for the kind of revenue model to work basically? It's the most critical thing in the revenue model. We looked at Akoya, and you know, when we were thinking about the acquisition, Quanterix's platforms are some of the most high-throughput life science tools platforms in the market. You know, if you looked last year, each of the platforms in our accelerator lab would deliver over $1 million or so in consumables per system. Massive utility, high throughput. In that sort of situation, the goal is to develop as much rich and diverse menu as you can. We've been only doing it in neuro and just started to do it in immunology to get our existing, you know, over 1,000 instrument install base running and operating with exciting menu. That's been the focus. With the acquisition of Akoya, we now have a 2,400 instrument install base, a $100 million consumables pro-pharma group. We're weekly meeting on exciting menu that we can add on the Akoya systems and also on the Simoa systems. Many of them, as we've been talking about, synergistic between the two platforms. One challenge that Akoya had historically was the pull-through on their systems. Have you identified that is a little bit subpar? Are there ways to expand that, I guess, whether it's through some kind of a synergy effort or new products? Yeah, we love box salads, Kyle. I think you've heard me say that before. We are extremely focused on new menu and adding new menu, new markers, and providing it so that it's easy for a customer to use. Just because we're in the translational space, that's what people want. They want everything packaged together. They don't want to make their own salad. They want to buy a box salad. That's one thing that we do really well. I think that, you know, we're learning that they have a great R&D team, a lot of really talented individuals on both sides. Our number one focus in the company is increased throughput of those platforms. The capabilities are already there. They don't need an instrument change. It's all about developing great content. I think we have a plan on that path to achieve it. Okay. Finally, for 2026, it feels like investors are not truly appreciating the vision of the merger, maybe even the cash flow target and the synergies. How are you going to surprise people next year in 2026, if it basically disproves people are wrong? Yeah, we're telling everybody what we'll do. I think it's sort of like, you look into 2026 and, you know, we will achieve our cash flow break-even number. We'll have a balance sheet that's north of $100 million with a great business, 2,400 instruments, $100 million consumable, high margin, recurring revenue model, with significant investments in diagnostics, with things that are, you know, on their way to becoming strong successes in the clinical market. I think the proof is in the pudding, but we're on our way to achieving it. We have a high level of confidence, with a talented team, to get there. Awesome. Okay. Thanks, Masoud. Thanks, Vandana. Good to have you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Kyle. Great. Thanks, Kyle.