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DATE

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. ET

Call participants

  • Chief Executive Officer — Maher Masoud
  • Chief Financial Officer — Douglas J. Swirsky
  • Chief Commercial Officer — Sean Menargas

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Risks

  • Management highlighted a $4 million headwind in core revenue for 2026 due to SPL program discontinuations and the largest customer reducing processing assembly and lease purchases.
  • Six SPL clinical programs were lost in 2025, and their associated annualized revenue will not recur, contributing to ongoing revenue headwinds.
  • CEO Maher Masoud acknowledged, "the business was impacted by program consolidation and rationalization across some of our SPL customers, which included a 15% decline in purchases and leases from our largest customer reorganizing manufacturing and managing inventory."
  • Revenue guidance for 2026 assumes no improvement in industry demand; any uptick would be upside rather than baseline expectation.

Takeaways

  • Total revenue -- $33 million for 2025, down 15% from $38.6 million in 2024, driven by declines in both core and SPL program-related revenue.
  • Core revenue -- $29.6 million in 2025, representing a 9% decrease from $32.5 million in 2024.
  • SPL program-related revenue -- $3.4 million for 2025, compared to $6.1 million in 2024, comprising $2.3 million in milestone payments and $1.2 million in royalties.
  • Q4 2025 revenue -- $7.3 million, a 16% decline from the prior year's $8.7 million.
  • Instrument installed base -- 857 at year-end, compared to 760 at the end of 2024.
  • SecurDx revenue -- $1.1 million in 2025, reflecting initial assay services and license contributions after the acquisition.
  • Core revenue diversification -- SPL customers contributed 47% of core business revenue in 2025, down from 55% in 2024.
  • Operating expenses -- $9.0 million for Q4 2025, a significant reduction from $19.3 million in Q4 2024, helped by restructuring and cost efficiency actions.
  • Gross margin -- 78% in Q4 2025 versus 74% in Q4 2024; non-GAAP adjusted gross margin was 78% against 84% in the prior-year quarter.
  • Cash position -- $155.6 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments at year-end, with no debt.
  • Projected cash at end of 2026 -- At least $136 million, reflecting a material reduction in cash burn of over $16 million following 2025 restructuring.
  • 2026 revenue guidance -- Total revenue expected between $30 million and $32 million, including $25 million to $27 million of core revenue, and $5 million from SPL program-related activities.
  • Revenue headwinds -- Approximately $4 million in core revenue lost due to SPL program discontinuations and a major customer reorganizing manufacturing and inventory; about half of this headwind comes from processing assembly (PA) revenue and half from leases.
  • Pivotal clinical programs -- Five SPL clinical programs are anticipated to enter pivotal studies over the next 18 months, with milestone potential exceeding $110 million; 12 ongoing clinical programs are spread across 11 SPL partners.
  • SPL portfolio dynamics -- Six SPL clinical programs were discontinued in 2025; 10 new SPLs signed in the last 24 months, bringing the total to 31 agreements as of year-end, including four new SPLs in 2025.
  • DTX launch -- Xpert DTX, a 96-well modular electroporation system for discovery and research, launched in February with early sales in both the U.S. and Asia-Pacific; management expects meaningful revenue contributions from DTX to begin in the second half of 2026 and expand in future years.
  • First commercial therapy supported -- MaxCyte platform supports Casgevy, which produced $116 million in revenue for Vertex in 2025; 64 patients received infusions during the year with anticipated ramp in 2026.
  • SecurDx guidance -- Management expects significant year-over-year growth in 2026 for SecurDx assay services and licenses.
  • 2026 royalty revenue -- Approximately $2 million of the $5 million SPL program-related revenue guidance tied to expected royalties from a commercial-stage customer as their therapy ramps over the year.
  • Operating expense control -- CEO Maher Masoud said, "We have reduced annual cash burn by over $16 million and have put MaxCyte on a dramatically different spending trajectory than what was planned in the prior operating model. This is the direct result of the restructuring and cost-efficiency actions we took in 2025."
  • CFO transition -- Parmeet Ahuja will join as Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Douglas J. Swirsky, effective March 30, 2026.

Summary

MaxCyte (MXCT 2.23%) presented fiscal year 2025 results marked by a double-digit revenue decline and a clearly articulated transition period, underscored by significant cost reductions and a repositioning around innovation and clinical pipeline expansion. Management expects lower total revenue in 2026, driven by non-recurring headwinds from discontinued SPL programs and customer manufacturing rationalization, while emphasizing stabilization in customer activity and the buildup of new SPL engagements. Elevated clinical milestone and royalty opportunities remain, including a $110 million total milestone pipeline and an expected approximately $2 million in 2026 commercial-stage royalty revenue. Cash resources remained robust with no debt, supporting ongoing product development initiatives such as the newly launched Xpert DTX and growth plans for the integrated SecurDx franchise.

  • The SPL customer base is actively being renewed, with 10 new signings in the past 24 months, maintaining forward momentum in late-stage clinical collaborations.
  • Xpert DTX received early uptake from both existing and new customers, with the potential to expand MaxCyte's footprint into earlier-stage cell therapy and research workflows.
  • Within its business model, management signaled ongoing attrition among biotech SPL partners but highlighted that most continuing SPL agreements either already support clinical programs or are expected to reach that stage.
  • Management broke out royalty revenue guidance separately for the first time, signaling improved visibility and growing recurring revenue streams beyond milestone payments.
  • Cash burn declined by over $16 million in 2025, and further reductions are targeted as revenue returns to growth, leading to a projected $136 million minimum in cash and investments at the end of 2026.
  • The CFO transition positions financial leadership for further public company governance and investor relations sophistication.

Industry glossary

  • SPL (Strategic Platform License): Contractual agreement granting cell therapy customers the right to use MaxCyte's platform for specified research, clinical, and commercial programs, typically including milestone and royalty provisions.
  • Processing assembly (PA): Disposable, single-use system components required for cell electroporation operations on MaxCyte's instruments, contributing a recurring revenue stream.
  • DTX (Xpert DTX): Newly introduced 96-well electroporation platform designed to facilitate early-stage research and discovery, fully compatible with MaxCyte's cGMP manufacturing instruments.
  • SecurDx: MaxCyte's acquired business providing specialized assay services and licenses for off-target gene-editing risk assessment, targeting both ex vivo and in vivo therapy developers.
  • Casgevy: First FDA-approved, commercial-stage gene-edited (CRISPR-based) cell therapy, supported by MaxCyte's platform and commercialized by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Maher Masoud: Thank you, Erik. Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining MaxCyte, Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. 2025 presented a challenging operating environment; it was also a year of meaningful progress for MaxCyte, Inc. We continue to sign new strategic platform licenses, SPLs as we call them, and support customers in advancing drugs to the clinic. We acquired SecurDx and successfully integrated the business into MaxCyte, Inc. We made meaningful changes to right-size spending and strategically improved our operations. And most recently, we launched a new product, the Xpert DTX, that will allow us to work with developers earlier in research and development discovery. Let me start by reviewing our financial results.

Consistent with the preliminary financials we announced in January, MaxCyte, Inc. reported $33 million of total revenue for the full year, which included $29.6 million of core revenue and $3.4 million of strategic platform license program-related revenue. We grew our instrument installed base to 857, up from 760 at the end of 2024. Doug will discuss fourth quarter and full year performance in greater detail. MaxCyte, Inc.'s results were within the range of expectations that we had updated you with in August. As previously discussed, the business was impacted by program consolidation and rationalization across some of our SPL customers, which included a 15% decline in purchases and leases from our largest customer reorganizing manufacturing and managing inventory.

Now let me give you a little more detail on the launch of our new Xpert DTX, which I mentioned earlier, and I am very excited to discuss. Even as we faced headwinds in 2025, our focus remained on innovation and leading the market with groundbreaking platforms. In February, we announced the launch of Xpert DTX, a modular 96-well electroporation platform designed for research and drug discovery applications. We are very excited about what this product represents for MaxCyte, Inc. The DTX enables labs to transfect primary cells and cell lines across up to 96 samples in a single three-minute run, with consistent well-to-well performance that effectively eliminates transfection as an experimental variable.

It is one of the most cost-effective 96-well electroporation solutions on the market, with detachable eight-well strips that can be processed with unique parameters, giving researchers the flexibility to test different cell and cargo combinations in parallel while reducing waste. The software is also differentiated. DTX Designer allows users to design experiments remotely and upload workflows when the system is available, maximizing instrument pipeline. That is a real practical advantage for labs running multiple back-to-back experiments. What makes the DTX strategically important is its full compatibility with the rest of the Xpert platform.

A researcher can optimize a process on the DTX in discovery and transfer it directly to MaxCyte, Inc.'s larger-scale electroporation—the ATx or GTx—for scale-up into cGMP-compliant manufacturing without reoptimization. That is a powerful value proposition which allows us to engage with customers at the very earliest stage of the workflow and provide a seamless path from discovery through to the clinic and commercialization, all on a single platform, which is the epitome of a therapeutic platform. We built this product around our customers' needs, and we believe it will be additive to both instrument and processing assembly (PAs) revenue in 2026 and beyond, as well as allow us to grow our SPL customers.

We have built years of electroporation know-how and expertise into DTX, and I am confident we launched a product that will allow researchers to seamlessly progress from discovery to the clinic onto our GMP Xpert platform. Turning to our guidance. As we enter 2026, the challenges that impacted growth in 2025 will have an impact on 2026. For our 2026 guidance, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $30 million to $32 million, consisting of $25 million to $27 million of core revenue, and $5 million of SPL program-related revenue. Given the timing of purchases and leases, we expect Q1 to be our lightest quarter for core revenue with a back-half weighted year.

Included in our guidance is the impact of a recent notice received from an SPL customer terminating their license for reasons unrelated to our platform's performance, along with approximately $4 million in core revenue headwind from select SPL customers, which began to impact our revenue in 2025, which I will provide further detail. We continue to believe that the headwinds facing our business are a result of the conservation of capital by biotechs in the cell therapy space, rationalization of customer programs in ex vivo cell therapy, and inventory management at our largest customer, which we expect to stabilize in 2026 and grow from that new base.

There has been no fundamental change in the demand for our technology and the differentiation of our technology competitively. While these short-term headwinds influenced our revenues last year and the first half of this year, we are more excited than ever about our SPL programs and the business model, which is seeing multiple programs progressing deep into the clinic and much closer to potential commercialization. As I mentioned, embedded within the core revenue guidance, we expect revenue from SPL customers, including our largest customer, to be a $4 million headwind relative to 2025. This is about half from processing assemblies and half from leases, a result of two factors.

First, our largest customer reorganized our supply chain in 2025, impacting inventory management of PAs. Additionally, in 2025, due to manufacturing site reorganization, there was a reduction in leases midyear, so the full-year lease revenue for this customer has a difficult comparison to last year. Following in-depth conversations with this customer, we expect both PAs and leases will stabilize during 2026. Second, other SPL customers rationalized programs in 2025. On a net basis, we lost six SPL clinical programs during the year. The annualized revenue from the discontinued programs, including leases and PAs, will not recur in 2026, reflecting the headwind mentioned earlier.

Twelve clinical programs we currently support are across 11 SPL partners, highlighting continued investment on the lead asset. This rationalization is part of our business model as we expect a certain number of biotech programs to discontinue, but we are consistently signing new SPLs and supporting later-stage clinical programs which will eventually be commercialized utilizing our platform. In the last 24 months, we signed 10 new SPLs and are now supporting more later-stage programs than ever. Also embedded within our core revenue guidance, we expect revenue growth for our non-SPL customers, which is inclusive of growth from SecurDx. With regards to SPL program-related revenue, as I shared, we are guiding to $5 million in 2026.

Note, we received a seven-figure milestone payment from a clinical customer that began dosing patients in a pivotal study in the first quarter. The balance of the SPL program-related revenue guidance includes approximately $2 million of expected royalty revenue from our commercial-stage customer as the therapy ramps throughout the year. Despite these near-term headwinds, we are very encouraged by the medium-term opportunity: five clinical programs to enter pivotal studies over the next 18 months and potentially receive commercial approval in 2027 or 2028. As I mentioned, one of these five programs began dosing patients at its pivotal study in 2026, triggering the milestone payment I referenced earlier.

These programs include Zuga Cell from CRISPR Therapeutics, for B cell malignancies; WuCAR T-007 from WuGen, for hematologic malignancies; AsiaCell from Imogene, for hematologic malignancies; and two programs from undisclosed SPL partners. I believe up to four of these programs will be pivotal by the end of the year. Outside the Wave 2 programs I just covered, there are another seven active clinical programs in earlier stages of development that continue to pursue FDA approval beyond 2028 and can represent meaningful core revenue and SPL program-related revenue for MaxCyte, Inc. over time. Across these programs, the total milestone opportunity exceeds $110 million.

Today, we have received over $30 million in total milestone payments from our SPL customers, highlighting the strength of our portfolio-based, program-driven business model. We have 31 SPL agreements, including four new SPLs in 2025. Eleven SPL customers we work with have current clinical and commercial programs, while another eight are active in preclinical development, most of which we believe will become clinical SPL customers. However, 12 of the SPL agreements are with biotechs that are no longer active, having exited ex vivo or ceased operations. The twelfth are no longer active as part of our business model, as we do not expect the SPLs we signed to result in a commercial program.

There is meaningful revenue opportunity from newer SPL customers advancing toward entering the clinic. As I mentioned earlier, despite significant consolidation in 2025, SPL customers continue to advance assets on our platform, including up to six programs in late-stage preclinical development expected to enter the clinic within the next six to 18 months. This reflects continued expansion of our SPL portfolio beyond our current later-stage programs. Today, we support one commercial therapy, Casgevy, and we remain very encouraged by the opportunity for the drug to continue to scale, with both Vertex and CRISPR recently reiterating Casgevy's multibillion-dollar potential. During Vertex's most recent earnings call, they reported $116 million in Casgevy revenue for 2025, including $54 million in the fourth quarter.

Vertex noted that 147 patients with sickle cell disease or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia globally had their first cell collections in 2025, and 64 patients received Casgevy infusions, with 30 of those occurring in the fourth quarter. The momentum in patient collections is notable, and Vertex has indicated they expect a meaningful Casgevy ramp in 2026 versus 2025. Despite the possibility of short-term quarter-to-quarter variability as the drug scales, we are optimistic about where this therapy is headed and truly believe in its transformative potential for patients around the world.

To wrap up on the SPL portfolio, while any individual program carries risk, the multiple shots on goal we have across the same indications and across many different indications gives us a high probability of generating meaningful core revenue with regulatory milestones and commercial revenues over time. We are now seeing the growth in commercial royalties starting to materialize in our revenue. This reflects the strength of our innovative business model, and we expect this trend to continue in the coming years as additional therapies are commercialized by our SPL customers. That conviction is what drives the decisions we make about how to operate this business.

Moving to SecurDx, I believe 2026 is the year where the SecurDx opportunity starts to become more visible. We spent 2025 integrating the business, building the commercial pipeline, and working with early customers. The regulatory environment continues to evolve in our favor. Off-target risk assessment is becoming increasingly important to the FDA and other global regulatory agencies when reviewing gene-edited therapy. Our three assays—screening, nomination, and confirmation—serve both ex vivo and in vivo developers, which means SecurDx's addressable market extends well beyond our legacy electroporation customer base. We acquired a relatively new start-up with an emerging and leading technology. Despite 2025 coming in lower than expectations, we expect year-over-year growth for SecurDx assay services and licenses in 2026.

I remain very optimistic about SecurDx's commercial potential and expect to see it as a growing contributor to revenue in the years ahead. Underscore that we are entering 2026 with a fundamentally different cost structure than in prior years. While we are still investing at a rate that allows us to launch new products like Xpert DTX, we have reduced annual cash burn by over $16 million and have put MaxCyte, Inc. on a dramatically different spending trajectory than what was planned in the prior operating model. This is the direct result of the restructuring and cost-efficiency actions we took in 2025.

We do not expect to meaningfully grow our operating expenses from here, and we see a clear path to reducing cash burn further as revenue growth returns. We have a strong and healthy balance sheet, which allows us flexibility in capital allocation and investment decisions. Finally, as previously announced, Parmeet Ahuja will be joining MaxCyte, Inc. as Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Doug Sworsky, effective March 30. Parmeet brings more than two decades of finance leadership experience at Agilent Technologies, a global life sciences tools company. Over his career there, he held a number of senior roles spanning financial planning and analysis, operational finance, internal audit, and enterprise financial services.

In particular, he led FP&A for Agilent's global operations and supply chain organization and earlier headed control, audit, and SOX, working directly with the board's audit committee on risk and controls. Parmeet also most recently led Agilent's investor relations function, giving him direct experience communicating with the investment community. We are excited about the breadth of his operational finance and governance experience as we continue to scale the company and strengthen our financial infrastructure. I want to thank Doug for his contributions to MaxCyte, Inc., and will now turn the call over to Doug to discuss our financial results. Doug?

Douglas J. Swirsky: Thank you, Maher. Total revenue for the full year was $33 million compared to $38.6 million in 2024, representing a 15% decline. Total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $7.3 million compared to $8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, representing a 16% decline. The decline in total revenue was driven by decreases in both core revenue and SPL program-related revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported core revenue of $6.8 million compared to $8.6 million in the comparable prior-year quarter, representing a decrease of 22%.

Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $1.8 million compared to $1.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, license revenue was $2.0 million compared to $2.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, and PA revenue was $2.3 million compared to $4.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year 2025, we reported core revenue of $29.6 million compared to $32.5 million in 2024, representing a decrease of 9%. Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $6.8 million compared to $7.1 million in 2024, license revenue was $8.9 million compared to $10.3 million in 2024, and PA revenue was $11.9 million compared to $14.0 million in 2024.

These declines were partially offset by $0.8 million of assay service revenue from the acquisition of SecurDx and a modest increase in other service revenue. Total revenue for SecurDx was $1.1 million in 2025, including assay services and licenses. Of note, 47% of our core business revenue was derived from SPL customers in 2025, which compares to 55% in 2024. The year-over-year decrease reflects the impact of program exits and reduced purchasing activity from our large commercial-stage partner. SPL program-related revenue was $0.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $0.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, SPL program-related revenue was $3.4 million as compared to $6.1 million in 2024.

As it relates to SPL program-related revenue for 2025, $2.3 million was from milestone payments, and $1.2 million was from royalties. Moving down the P&L, gross margin was 78% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to 74% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Excluding inventory provisions and SPL program-related revenue, non-GAAP adjusted gross margin was 78% in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to non-GAAP adjusted gross margin of 84% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2025 were $9.0 million compared to $19.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Part of these savings is attributable to the cost initiatives we took in 2025, which began to materialize in 2025.

Excluding a non-cash goodwill impairment of $3.6 million in the fourth quarter, operating expenses decreased more substantially from the prior-year quarter. The overall decrease in operating expenses was primarily driven by the restructuring and cost-efficiency actions we took in 2025. We ended 2025 with combined total cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $155.6 million and no debt. Our very strong balance sheet positions us well moving forward, providing us with flexibility to continue to invest strategically for our business, customers, and shareholders. Finally, we anticipate at least $136 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments at the end of 2026.

This represents a significant reduction in cash burn from prior years, a result of the restructuring and cost-efficiency actions we took in 2025. Let me close my remarks by saying it has been a privilege to serve as MaxCyte, Inc.'s CFO. I know that the company is in good hands with Maher and the rest of the team, including Parmeet. I will now turn the call back over to Maher.

Maher Masoud: Thank you, Doug. It has been from the Shabby who is our CFO as well. I want to thank everyone in MaxCyte, Inc. for their hard work and dedication in 2025. I look forward to executing on our plan in 2026. With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator for the Q&A. Operator? Thank you so much. And as a reminder,

Operator: To ask a question, simply press *11 to get in the queue and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw yourself, press *11 again. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Dan Arias with Stifel. Please proceed.

Dan Arias: Hi, guys. Thanks for the questions. Mehera, I have to say I really do not like the trajectory of the business right now. Pretty much all the commentary coming out of life sciences companies points to biopharma getting better this year and not worse. Our data points and others seem to suggest the same. When you look at the industry data that is out there on the emerging modality space, cell therapy trial activity seems to be increasing pretty significantly. Trial totals are way up. And so I appreciate the idea that there is some hangover from a tough 2025. But why is the core business expected to decline more this year than it did last year?

Are you losing share somewhere? Because if not, then it really suggests that there is something else going on that we do not really fully understand. And then ultimately, the question becomes, how do you grow this business again?

Maher Masoud: Yeah. I mean, thanks for that, Dan. Look, I appreciate the question and the head scratch would be really the headwinds we are facing is $4 million, and it comes down to it is not a deterioration of our business in any way. It is not changing the fundamentals of our business in any way. We have about a $4 million headwind that we face from the customers that we lost last year. That is affecting our revenues this year, and most of it in the first half of the year.

So that comes, as I mentioned, it comes pretty much half and half—half from the leases that we lost from those SPL customers that will not recur this year, and the other half really is from processing assemblies, a lot of it being from our largest customer that went through, you know, management and inventory management of their current PAs that they have on stock where they are drawing down from those PAs. And all they have is just from, you know, midyear, we lost some licenses for that largest customer where they reoptimized their manufacturing footprint to go from a, you know, from, you know, a few manufacturing sites to a little bit less than that.

And that has affected our revenues for 2026. This is not a case of capital spending in the market that is affecting us. I think we saw that more so in early 2025. That is not the case here. I really believe that this is just, you know, short-term headwinds. And in terms of where we see the rest of the year and going 2027–2028, then, look, if you take a step back, we believe, I believe, we are going to be supporting roughly four, you know, pivotal stage programs this year and then five in the next 12 months.

We have, you know, another seven behind it as well coming in right now that potentially can become pivotal as a second wave there. That bodes extremely well for 2027 and 2028. We also have the launch of the Xpert DTX, as I mentioned. We are seeing a lot of good traction. We launched it less than a month ago. We are seeing a lot of good traction with customers and potential customers. We believe it will be a growth driver for us in the second half and in future years. In addition to that, we are seeing the ramp of Casgevy. I mean, as I mentioned, we expect it to ramp throughout the year.

That is the only commercial product we are supporting now, but we expect for many others, especially because right now, as I mentioned, we are supporting more later-stage programs than ever before, Dan. So this bodes very well for us going to the end of the year in 2027 and 2028. We are continuing to sign new SPLs. We feel confident we continue to sign new SPLs. I feel very good about this, Dan.

Dan Arias: Does the outlook for core revenues assume that the industry demand dynamic improves over the course of the year? Or would that be upside to what you have baked in today? In other words, is your 4Q outlook at the industry level similar to what you have today, axing out the individual customer dynamic that you referenced there?

Maher Masoud: No. I think that would be upside to what we have right now. So this is not a case where we are waiting for an industry to come back for us to meet our core revenue guidance. That will all be upside from here, Dan. I mean, I feel very good where we are. I mean, the current guidance with the current situation we are in right now, if there is further industry demand, that is upside from where we are guiding to this year.

Dan Arias: Okay. Thank you.

Maher Masoud: Yeah. Thank you, Dan.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed.

Matt Hewitt: Good afternoon. And, Doug, it has been a pleasure working with you and best of luck in your future endeavors. Maybe first up, could you talk—I realize you just launched it last month—but given that this was built, the DTX that is, was built with the customer in mind, I assume that you had been working with them or at least they had maybe trialed it or kicked the tires a little bit. What does that pipeline look like, and how quickly do you think you could see that start to trickle into the revenues?

Maher Masoud: Yeah. I mean, so we see it trickling into revenues in the second half. Anytime we launch a new product, we need about a quarter or two quarters to really build up the pipeline for that product. That is any product you launch. But it is already in the hands of multiple beta users. It has been in the hands of multiple beta users. When we launched this product, we did it the right way—actually listened to our customer needs. We went through the typical NPD&I process where we understand the user criteria, the customer criteria, the application criteria, and we built it with that in mind.

So we see the trickling starting in the second half, but we also are seeing right now, you know, some DTXs being sold right now in the first quarter before it is even over. So it is obviously starting to make traction there as well, Matt. But we see significant traction happening in the second half and then in future years as well. I feel very good where it is. I mean, it really is a platform that allows us to go from—no one has this—you can actually go from discovery all the way to cGMP with the same protocols. That is a true therapeutic platform that none of our competition has.

Matt Hewitt: Got it. And then maybe just a reminder, given that you have four partners that could be going into pivotal studies this year, how do you account for or how do you factor that into your guidance? What kind of a haircut do you take on the potential for those milestones? Thank you.

Douglas J. Swirsky: Yeah. Thanks, Maher. So, I mean, obviously, we already received one milestone, a seven-figure milestone, in Q1 this year. You can haircut it by saying there might be at least one more, but we anticipate four more.

Maher Masoud: One other customer is currently in pivotal, about to dose patients. That will result in another milestone as well. So at the very least, looking at two of those four. It is more of a timing issue, right? If the remaining two do not come in this year, that is just because those milestones happen in the first quarter or very early part of next year. But that is how you would haircut it. The very least will be two of those four, but potential for four this year.

Matt Hewitt: Got it. Thanks. Understood. Thank you.

Maher Masoud: Absolutely. Thank you, Matt.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. That comes from Matt Larew with William Blair. Please proceed.

Jacob (for Matthew Richard Larew): Hi. This is Jacob on for Matt. Thanks for taking the questions here. I just want to touch on the SPL cadence. I do not know if you mentioned on the call or I did not hear if you did, but typically, you guide to three to five per year, and you typically have signed or at least announced one by the end of the first quarter. I think the last signing was in October 2025, and biotech funding trends and the whole market environment has really been improving since then—been pretty good. So just curious on your visibility, confidence into the cadence of SPL signings throughout 2026 and maybe what you are expecting for this year and in perpetuity?

Maher Masoud: Yeah. You know, we have guided three to five in the past. I mean, that is a number where, you know, on average, that is something we sign on any given year. You know, we feel good about signing at least that three this year as well, and that three to five frames with, you know, three some years; we have more than that, some years have less than that. You know, we foresee that we will sign the first one—I have Sean Menargas here with me and I will put pressure on him—you know, probably in the very early part of the second half of the year, possibly even before that. But I feel very good where we are.

I mean, we are still the only company that can assign these licenses, and there is a good reason for it. What we provide is a differentiator. What we provide is really a platform that allows companies to go into clinical and commercial and scale and have a therapeutic that has the best chance of going through clinical development. We have done it with Casgevy. We have signed 31 of these agreements. We signed four last year. I feel very good this year we will continue to sign more, and do the same in the foreseeable future. And the DTX also adds to that.

As I mentioned earlier, the DTX begins to seed that aspect of future SPL partners and customers for us. So I feel very good where we are. I mean, the timing of the Q1—we had not signed one—that is just a matter of timing of when we are working with our customers in the research process, not in any way indicative of a reason why we have not signed one, if that makes sense. I mean, I am going to turn it over to Sean. Is there anything that you have to add in terms of that, where you see the signing? I am putting pressure on you here, but you feel comfortable with this year as well.

Sean Menargas: Yeah. Thanks, Maher, and thanks for the question, Jacob. And I do strongly believe it becomes a timing aspect as well. So just to frame your preference, these aspects turn into our research customers, turn into our SPL customers from there, and these can take 12–18 months depending on their development stage. So it becomes a timing aspect as well. But we do have—in the last 24 months—signed 10 SPL partners. Almost all of them are in the clinic or at least even approaching clinic from there. So looking to continue to add that always through this year.

Jacob (for Matthew Richard Larew): Got it. Thanks. And I did just want to quickly go back to the launch of the DTX platform. You have covered it in pretty good detail so far. It sounds like feedback, traction, early contributions have all been really well. But is there any way you could quantify what you are expecting in the back half, or is it more just kind of a slow trickle and really expect material contributions in 2027.

Maher Masoud: Yeah. I mean, you know, I will update throughout the year. You know, I do not think—we are—it is too early in the process. It has been a month since we launched it. And it will probably be more than a trickle from the second half. That is where you begin to see meaningful revenues in the second half and a lot more so in 2027. You know? But I will update throughout the year. Again, we are seeing very good traction at the beta sites. We are seeing good traction even outside the U.S. You know, we have seen sales in Asia-Pac as well from this. It is something that we truly believe differentiates us from any other platform.

There are similar 96-well discovery platforms out there, but none that can optimize the cGMP system like this one can, and none that can do it on a well-to-well basis with the same consistency, and really none that can do it where we have built into this our 20-plus years of electroporation know-how into this platform to make it streamlined for customers. So I feel very, very good about this, Jake. Very good.

Jacob (for Matthew Richard Larew): Great to hear. Thanks, guys.

Maher Masoud: Absolutely.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Massaro with BTIG. Please proceed.

Vivian (for Mark Massaro): Yes. This is Vivian on for Mark. Thanks for taking the questions. I just had two cleanups on the 2026 guide. Just what is baked in as far as SecurDx contribution? And then I also think you have called out royalty contribution for the first time in the guide. So just could you speak to your level of visibility and confidence in that, just given it is from a partner therapy? Thanks.

Maher Masoud: Yeah. So on SecurDx, obviously, you know, we do not break it out in terms of guidance, other than the fact we see material growth year over year for SecurDx in 2026 versus 2025—significant growth there from what we had last year. Obviously, last year's revenue for SecurDx was a bit disappointing, but it was part of our integration. We bought an early start-up. We are still integrating it, and we are still ensuring that we are building up the processes there, really building up the platform there. So we see meaningful growth this year, and that is part of our guide. In terms of the royalties, we finally broke out the royalty revenue there.

I mentioned earlier we expect approximately $2 million of revenue from commercial royalty, and that will ramp up throughout the year as that product ramps itself. And we feel fairly good about that. I mean, that is based on forecasts we have seen with that product from public forecasts as well as what we are seeing so far, you know, early this quarter. But we expect that ramp over the year to happen, and we will do that continuing from here on out. We will continue to guide for milestones and royalty on a separate line as well.

Vivian (for Mark Massaro): Okay. Perfect.

Vivian (for Mark Massaro): Yeah. And then I just had one follow-up, kind of higher level. I think you have previously mentioned the dynamic that customers are opting for in vivo therapies over ex vivo. So could you discuss how you are seeing an opportunity for more complex edits longer term and maybe over what time frame would you expect that customer appetite to sort of transition to ex vivo edits?

Maher Masoud: So explain a bit more. I mean, obviously, we are seeing—we have been imagining—we have seen this for years now. We are seeing the complexity of editing increase over the years, right? This is no longer the single base CAR-T therapy. We are now seeing edits of five, six therapies. But I guess, what are you alluding to? I just want to make sure I answered your question correctly.

Vivian (for Mark Massaro): Yeah. I just mean that you have talked about it being a headwind in the past that customers are opting for in vivo therapy. So, just how do you see the longer-term opportunity for customer appetite in ex vivo edits.

Maher Masoud: Yeah. No. No. Yeah. I see what you are getting. So, actually, I mean, we are still a huge believer in the actual cell therapy space. In fact, we are seeing that start to return as well. You know, it is—and people, obviously, as you know, we have had some headwinds there. But we are seeing it—you know, if you look at our programs, we have allogeneic programs. We have autologous programs. All progressing. The SPLs that we are signing right now are cell therapy programs, some of which are even coming back where at one point they were not in the clinic and now they are coming back to the clinic.

I am a huge believer in the cell therapy space. I think as these therapies become far more complex, as you were seeing, it lends itself to cell therapy, especially cell therapy electroporation. And you can control the safety, you control the dose, and the science is catching up. On top of that, our platforms are built for that. I mean, that is exactly what it is. So we are seeing that come back. That is what makes me feel very good about going into the second half of the year. It makes me feel even better about 2027 and 2028.

That complexity lends itself to our business, and it lends itself to what we have built over the last decade. And we are seeing that traction start to come back to cell therapy.

Vivian (for Mark Massaro): Okay. Perfect. Thanks for taking the questions.

Maher Masoud: Excellent.

Operator: Our next question is from Matt Etoge with Stephens. Please proceed.

Matt Etoge: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe to follow up on Dan and Jacob's questions. We have seen funding pick up in the space in general. So I just want to get your sense of what you are hearing from customers in terms of macro environment, what you are seeing in terms of demand, how should we think about the recent funding backdrop flowing through potential demand throughout FY '26?

Maher Masoud: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So, you know, obviously, as I mentioned, this is not so much anymore a demand issue or customer funding issue. This is about, you know, just the headwinds we saw, and that is what affects us in Q1. This is more of a second-half weighted guide that we are giving in that core revenue of $25 million to $27 million. I mean, look, we are sitting here right now. We are about one week away from quarter end. You know, this is not official guidance, but, you know, we look where we are on the core. We see that upticking into Q2 and then being more second-half weighted.

I feel comfortable that, you know, $6 million on the core is appropriate for Q1. And none of that is contingent upon an upside in capital spending or customer demand. That is just where we sit right now. So I feel extremely good where we are at the guide. I feel good where we are in Q1. You know, this is a case of just building back a new base from the SPL customers that we lost in 2025. We found a new base here. Our largest customer, we are optimizing, you know, the process assemblies, and they are drawing down from the inventory they have. We found a new base there.

I feel very good about the year as it transpires. I appreciate it. I will leave it there for now.

Maher Masoud: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And as a reminder, if you have a question, please press *11 to get in the queue. We have a question from Chad Wiatrowski with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

Chad Wiatrowski: Congrats, Doug. Look forward to seeing what your plans are going forward. Just one on the DTX. You have mentioned a few orders already flowing through here in the first quarter. When you are thinking about those couple of orders, but also the bolus more in the second half, are those mostly existing customers enjoying the convenience of that, or is this something that enables more newer customers? And how do you expect that mix to play out through the year?

Maher Masoud: Great question. I mean, obviously, the current customers are the ones that are going to be the easiest ones to convert over because they are going to enjoy the aspect of it. Those are the ones we are approaching. So that is a great question. But this is a mix of both. This is not just for current; it is also for new customers. It is actually even—because this is a 96-well discovery platform that can now allow you to transfect primary cells—this can be used for early discovery for the in vivo space as well.

So this is, in essence, a platform we have never had before, which we are targeting to our current customers now, but we are prospecting for future customers as well. And we are seeing that in the early placements. Actually, one of those early placements is a new customer. It is not a current customer. So it is a mix of both, but we are being very smart about it and ensuring that we work with our current customers because that is also where you learn about some of the things you maybe have to make improvements on anytime you launch a product. So, you know, I have said it earlier: innovations are hard.

We are going to continue to innovate this product. We are going to continue to launch new products in the coming years. So this is one of many to come.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. I will now pass it back to Maher Masoud for closing remarks.

Maher Masoud: Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. I feel very good about 2026—just as good as, if not better about the future years and what we are building here. I look forward to talking to all of you in the next few months on our next earnings call.

Operator: This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.