管理層發言
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quantum-Si Incorporated First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call and Business Update. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 then 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 then 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Risa Lindsay. Risa, go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier today, Quantum-Si Incorporated released financial results for the first quarter ended 03/31/2026. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Joining me today are Jeffrey Alan Hawkins, our President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Jeffry R. Keyes, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will be making certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section entitled Forward-Looking Statements of our press release. For a more complete list and description of risk factors, please see the company's filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the live broadcast date today, 05/07/2026. Except as required by law, the company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. During this call, we will also be referring to certain financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release filed earlier today. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeffrey Alan Hawkins.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. On today's call, we will provide a business update and review our operating results for 2026. After that, we will open the call for questions. As we communicated on our last earnings call, we expect that 2026 will be a transition year with revenue primarily driven by consumable utilization from our installed base, some new placements of Platinum, very modest new capital sales, and a laser focus on Proteus development, preparing the market for a strong commercial launch by 2026. As such, our three corporate priorities for 2026 are as follows: to deliver Proteus with the capabilities customers need, to prepare the market for Proteus launch, and to preserve our financial strength. Our first priority is to deliver Proteus with the capabilities customers need. We made significant progress with the Proteus development program during 2026. The results of this progress were highlighted in our recent announcement regarding the successful completion of sequencing on fully integrated Proteus instruments.
The achievement of a milestone of this complexity is a significant de-risking event for any new platform development program. To accomplish this result, we had instruments and software that automatically performed all the steps in the sequencing process from reagent preparation to sample loading through to sequencing and data capture and analysis. We also had developmental sequencing reagents, kinetic arrays, and associated surface chemistry that enabled single molecule loading and sequencing with the detection of 17 amino acids. While there is more work to do to get to the commercial launch, it is clear that the Proteus platform is a fundamentally superior technology compared to Platinum. Beyond automation and throughput, which customers will certainly value, the core technology in Proteus consistently delivers higher proteome coverage. At its core, Proteus has a better signal-to-noise ratio and can reliably detect much shorter pulses of recognizers, which translates into detecting more amino acids per peptide and longer average peptide read lengths.
In terms of recognizer development, we recently reported that our internal developmental sequencing kit was able to detect 17 amino acids. Not only have we increased the number of unique amino acids detected from 15 in December 2025 to 17 in just four months, but we have also made improvements that increased detection frequency across all the amino acids we detect. Our recent progress in this area and the pace of improvement we are seeing provide us with high confidence that we are well on our way to delivering Proteus by 2026 with the detection of 18 amino acids, demonstrating detection of all 20 amino acids during 2026, and, in turn, delivering a sequencing kit in 2027 that detects all 20 amino acids. Finally, I want to provide an update on our progress toward enabling post-translational modification capabilities on Proteus. For background, depending on the PTM, customers today have two choices: affinity-based methods, which are limited to a specific site or specific protein of interest, or mass spectrometry, which requires complex sample preparation procedures and access to sophisticated bioinformatics personnel to collect, filter, and analyze the data using a variety of software tools that are required to provide site-resolved profiles.
This is true for a well-studied PTM like phosphorylation. When you move into other PTMs like methylation, acetylation, or citrullination, the options are even more limited, with the available analysis tools often being lab-developed versus commercially available. During our November 2025 investor and analyst day, we provided insight into three different ways that our technology can detect PTMs. One of those ways is via kinetic signatures. In short, using the rich set of data that each recognizer generates as the sequencing reaction moves through each amino acid in the peptide, the software can automatically determine if a PTM is present or not, which PTM it is, and at which specific amino acid site. The primary advantage to this method is that the sequencing chemistry is universal, and the PTM detection is accomplished using automated analysis algorithms. This is in stark contrast to affinity-based methods, which require site-specific PTM reagents and, in some cases, those reagents are protein-specific as well.
Given the extremely large amount of data we expect to generate in a Proteus sequencing run, and leveraging the power of advanced AI tools, the potential to develop PTM capabilities using kinetic signatures and continuously expand those capabilities over time is immense. This is why we are laser focused on this approach, and I am pleased to report that we are making great progress in this area and expect to have more specific updates to share in the near future. Our second corporate priority is to prepare the market for Proteus launch. In preparation for commercial launch of Proteus, we are focusing our commercial and scientific affairs teams on three main strategic initiatives: demonstrating the value of our single molecule protein sequencing technology, expanding awareness of Proteus across geographies and end market segments, and identifying and developing a funnel of potential Proteus customers to ensure successful commercial adoption upon launch.
To demonstrate the value of single molecule protein sequencing, our scientific affairs team has been working with customers using our first-generation Platinum instrument and commercially available kits to generate data and release the results via posters at industry conferences and manuscripts via preprint and peer-reviewed publications. Since the start of 2026, we have had a total of three customer manuscripts released via preprint or peer review, five posters presented at industry conferences, and a customer podium presentation during US HUPO. The data released this year show a wide range of applications, from rapid pathogen and toxin detection to clinical proteomics to detection of post-translational modifications in translational research. Importantly, the data released this year also span multiple end market segments, including academic research, clinical, biopharma, and government.
We believe that these sets of customer data and other studies in the pipeline will continue to demonstrate that the potential opportunity for our technology extends well beyond the basic research markets that we operate in today. This is important since customers in biopharma, translational research, and clinical testing typically have higher consumable utilization rates and repeat order patterns compared to basic research customers. Turning now to our work on expanding awareness of Proteus across geographies and end markets: In April, we announced the beginning of the Proteus roadshow series. These events are designed to educate the market on the value of our proprietary single molecule protein sequencing technology and the Proteus instrument and projected capabilities. The individual roadshow events can take the shape of one of two types of formats. First, in institutions where we have an existing customer, we work with them to bring together as many of their colleagues as possible to expand the institutional awareness of our technology.
Expanding institutional awareness can benefit our existing user by creating more demand for inclusion of our technology in ongoing research studies, and it also aids us in building a large community of interested users for Proteus, increasing the number of potential avenues to pursue for funding the purchase of the instrument in the future. The second type of event is tailored to locations where we do not have an existing customer. In these locations, we focus on a centrally located venue, and our outreach focuses on engaging potential users from as many unique institutions in the surrounding area as possible. While we have just started the roadshow series, the early data are encouraging. At one recent event, we had 25 people register or attend, but on the day of the event, we had 35 people in attendance. All the attendees were researchers who currently use or want to begin to incorporate proteomic technologies into their research.
Importantly, these 35 attendees invested nearly two hours of their time to learn about our technology, the Proteus system, and to discuss potential applications with members of our commercial and scientific affairs team. We expect to continue with roadshows throughout the year, and we will provide more updates on specific cities and associated event metrics as the program progresses. Finally, in addition to supporting our existing Platinum users, our sales team is focused on identifying and developing a funnel of potential Proteus customers to ensure successful commercial adoption upon launch. Our team has been assigned quantitative goals for each quarter, and we are pleased with the current progress we are seeing. As part of this process, we recently announced that we had completed sequencing of our first customer samples on the Proteus prototype. In this first instance, the customer is an existing Platinum user, and they were interested in seeing how much better the data would be with Proteus.
While there were many exciting takeaways from the data, two that resonated the strongest with the customer were the increase in the number of amino acids detected and the increase in the average read length on Proteus compared to Platinum. When combined, improvements in these two attributes provide the customer with significantly more sequence-level information about each of their proteins of interest. The positive response from this customer confirms our belief that offering the ability for customers to send in samples for evaluation could be a valuable tool to deepen engagement and advance the customer through the buying process prior to Proteus commercial launch. We are working closely with our manufacturing partners to increase the number of Proteus instruments available within our R&D labs, and once complete, we expect to be able to offer sample evaluations more broadly to prospective customers.
Our third priority is to preserve our financial strength. We believe that the data we will generate over the coming months will continue to demonstrate that Proteus is not only a new architecture with greater throughput and automation, but also a significant leap forward in terms of sequencing performance and application breadth. We continue to believe that Proteus will be the long-term driver of commercial adoption, revenue growth, and our path to profitability. We remain committed to continuing to operate with a high level of fiscal discipline while ensuring the core strategic initiatives are appropriately funded to deliver Proteus on time and with the capabilities customers are asking for. I will now turn the call over to Jeffry R. Keyes to review our financial results.
Thanks, Jeff. I will now walk through our operating results for 2026. Revenue in 2026 was $258 thousand, consisting of revenue from our Platinum line of instruments, consumable kits, and related services. Gross profit was $74 thousand, resulting in a gross margin of 29%. Gross margin in the quarter was primarily driven by revenue mix with a higher proportion of consumables relative to hardware. As we have discussed and guided for 2026, we expect revenue in the near term to reflect the anticipated launch of Proteus as some customers time purchasing decisions closer to the availability of our new platform. Turning to expenses, GAAP total operating expenses for 2026 were $24.1 million compared to $25.6 million in 2025. Adjusted operating expenses were $21.4 million compared to $22.9 million in the prior-year quarter. Year over year, we funded R&D at a slightly higher level to support Proteus development while maintaining discipline in total overall adjusted operating expenses.
Dividend and interest income was $1.9 million in 2026 compared to $2.5 million in the prior-year quarter. The year-over-year decrease reflects lower interest rates and changes in invested balances. As of 03/31/2026, we had $190.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable securities. As we presented on our last call, our outlook for 2026 includes total revenue of approximately $1 million, adjusted operating expenses of $98 million or less, and total cash usage of $93 million or less. 2026 is a delivery transition year as we prepare the anticipated launch of Proteus, and we are making intentional choices that prioritize long-term platform adoption over near-term revenue maximization. This includes embedding upgrade paths in certain Platinum Pro unit sales in 2026, which has a near-term revenue impact, as well as expected timing shifts as customers plan for Proteus availability.
With our development progress, Proteus roadshow events, and continued education of channel partners worldwide, we are seeing strong interest in Proteus, which is influencing customer purchasing timelines. Our operating expense guidance and cash remain on track and reflect the activities required to complete development and support a successful commercial launch of Proteus. Our expected cash usage also includes modest inventory build and commercial readiness efforts ahead of the launch. With over $190 million in cash and investments at March 31, we continue to believe we have cash to support operations into 2028, approximately a year and a half after our estimated Proteus launch date. After the Proteus launch, we expect meaningful operating expense leverage over time as launch-related development spend rolls off. Because we are utilizing key external partners for certain development-related activities, we anticipate the ability to ratchet down R&D spend post-launch.
This gives us flexibility to reduce total operating expenses and extend our cash runway while retaining the option to selectively redeploy resources into high-return commercialization initiatives as we scale. Finally, management and the board remain aligned with shareholders. Insider ownership remains meaningful, and recent Form 4 activity by management continues to reflect routine tax-related mechanics associated with equity compensation vesting, with no management team members selling shares outside of plan-mandated sales to cover required tax withholdings. In addition, it is important to note that two of our board members collectively purchased 600 thousand shares during the quarter in the open market. With that, we are happy to take your questions.
分析師問答
We will now open the call for questions. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 then 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 then 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the roster. Our first question comes from Scott Robert Henry with AGP. Scott, go ahead with your question.
Good afternoon. The first kind of bigger-picture question: as customers are starting to use Proteus and they are seeing more amino acids and longer read length, can you talk a little bit about what that means to the customer experience? I know you mentioned more information, but is it also better information, faster information, new applications? I am just trying to get an idea a little bit more about the customer experience with Proteus versus Platinum. Thanks.
Thanks, Scott, for that question. We can break it down into three different application buckets. One bucket could be: I have a sample, and I want to identify the proteins that are present in that sample. Another bucket would be post-translational modifications. A third application area would be variants—an engineering approach where I want to see if there are variants of the target protein I am trying to make. Getting more amino acids and longer read lengths means you get more content per protein. If you are in the protein identification area, it means you can handle a more complex mixture of proteins. You will have more unique information to determine the variety of proteins present. When you look at post-translational modifications or variants in proteins, more amino acid coverage and longer read lengths give you the ability to detect more of those events. Those events may be spread out along the length of a peptide; they are not always at the beginning of a peptide. These improvements provide a much higher level of fidelity and capability for applications like PTMs or variants. That is a way to think about what these fundamental sequencing capabilities mean to a customer in terms of the applications they are doing.
Okay, great. Thank you for that color. And somewhat related—and this relies a little bit on your perception and perhaps some of the earlier customer feedback you have gotten—how could you anticipate customers' volume when one switches from Platinum to Proteus, because you have all these added benefits? Could it double volume? Could it 4x volume? I realize this is a bit of guesswork, but I just want to get your thoughts on that.
That is the right question, and it is a little hard to predict right now. At a 10,000-foot level, within the Platinum customers, Proteus will bring a broader set of applications, which we expect will increase utilization in many more research studies. So within that Platinum base, Proteus should see more volume than Platinum sees. Exactly how much—factor of two or larger—is hard to predict until we get machines in the field and running. The other aspect is those labs and market segments we have not been able to access with Platinum at all. We think focus on PTMs and protein variants will open up many new customers. Today we have no Platinum presence in those customers, so that represents a new addressable market and the ability to farm accounts across many researchers in one institute and drive volume into our machine.
Okay, great. Thank you for that feedback. Final question: between now and launch—you have about six months—are there any gating factors technologically, or is it mostly production and building of inventory between now and then?
I think of it this way: the invention or big technological breakthrough phase has happened and is behind us. We know the technology works and that we are getting performance from the fundamental components, whether consumable, instrument, or sequencing reagents. The next six months are a mix of manufacturing transfer and bring-up, plus standard hardware and instrument engineering and systems integration—driving up reliability and success rates, and ensuring we hit target specifications such as amino acid coverage, precision, reliability, and mean time between failures. I would classify these activities as systems engineering and execution-related development. They are technical, but do not require additional innovation breakthroughs. The invention phase is behind us; it is now operational and executional work.
Great. Thank you for taking the questions.
Thanks, Scott.
Our next question comes from Michael King with Rodman & Renshaw. Michael, go ahead with your question.
Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the question. A couple of quick ones. I am trying to understand how you have lower operating expense in the quarter—$24.1 million versus $25.6 million in the same period last year—but you say you funded research and development at a higher run rate year on year. So how does that math work?
Hey, Michael. From an overall R&D standpoint, it can be a little lumpy from quarter to quarter as we deploy with third-party partners that help on certain aspects of related activities. That is why I said this year compared to last year we were spending at a slightly higher level in R&D, but we were spending in SG&A at a slightly lower level based on other activities that we have pulled back and streamlined as part of our overall operating expense optimization to ensure runway going forward. So R&D can be lumpy from quarter to quarter, but overall we expect to spend within the guidelines I mentioned earlier.
I see. Okay, thanks for clarifying that. The next question is, are you ramping—I know you use a third-party manufacturer—but are you ramping their production in advance of shipments, or will that not happen until later in the year? Or does that just happen as a function of incoming orders? Maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Right now the focus is ramping the delivery of instruments that we are using for R&D purposes. That is the main focus—building out that base of instruments. Some of the build that is happening will ultimately support early access customers in the summer as we continue development. Building inventory for the launch is something we will start to look at as we move through the year and pace it to the funnel and any preorders that may come in at the back end of the year. Think right now of more of an internal scale-up to expand development activities and support early access sites in the summer. Inventory build for sales is something planned for later in the year.
Okay, thanks for clarifying that. And then I am curious about the roadshow activity. How many cities, how many sites do you expect to hit? And are you thinking about bringing your existing customers or potential customers into your headquarters to train them up so that once the installation is completed, they can immediately start doing their sequencing at scale instead of having to climb the learning curve?
We put out a press release a couple of weeks ago about the first few cities targeted for roadshows and are continuing to scale that up. We will provide press releases around new cities. We have focused most heavily in the U.S. market so far but are locking in dates in Europe. We see roadshows as valuable because they allow deeper engagement; whereas a typical sales call yields a relatively short amount of time, roadshows provide roughly two hours on average to educate and interact with researchers. Regarding training, the roadshow is more educational rather than hands-on. As we increase our internal fleet of instruments, we will have customers send samples to us for evaluation so they receive data and can evaluate it. When we launch, some customers will have done that prework and will be working through budgeting to purchase the machine. We are comfortable with customer training; we've done it for Platinum. Proteus, with automation, should be easier to train on than today. The key is enabling sample evaluation access early so customers get data in their hands.
Amazing. And then one final quick question. What does the early access site selection process look like, and how many sites do you expect to have active by the end of the summer? Can you give us a range or point estimate?
The process is designed to span market segments. We want some academic institutes because they will publish and do the early access work. We are also evaluating the potential to include one or more early access sites in commercial environments, such as biopharma or antibody production, to gain experience in that segment. We recognize that commercial settings often limit publishing. We are thinking about demonstrating capabilities, covering multiple segments, and geographies. We have not set an exact number, but we plan to have a reasonable number of these—at least a handful—over the course of the summer and into the fall, spanning geographies and end markets. Do not expect us to do 10; a handful is more likely.
Super. Thanks so much for taking the questions.
Thank you, Michael.
Our next question comes from Charles Wallace with H.C. Wainwright. Charles, go ahead with your question.
Hi. This is Charles on for RK. Thanks for taking my question. You called out that any Platinum Pro unit sold in 2026 is going to have an embedded credit towards Proteus. Have you sold any Platinum Pro units, and do you have some of these credits stacked up at this point?
Not every Platinum Pro sale has to include that credit. It is available to customers if they want that protection. When a new machine is coming, customers sometimes want a credit because they are unsure how long the prior machine will be supported or how things will evolve. That credit is available upon request. Some machines sold now were budgeted many months ago and quotes may have gone out before this credit program existed, so they might not include the credit. At this point we are not breaking out which capital sales have had the credit. As we go through the year and see metrics of the funnel, perhaps we will provide more color. A credit is a protection for the customer; they still have the option to buy Proteus or not. We do not want to overstate future demand based solely on whether someone asked for a credit.
Okay, that makes sense. For the early access program, you mentioned maybe a handful of units, and then you also said you are building a fleet of internal units. How large of an internal fleet are you targeting, and how long does it take typically for an instrument to be built and be fully ready?
We do not have an exact public number for the internal fleet. Think of the internal fleet as supporting instrument engineering, integration, software, reagent development, and quality control testing. Those groups all need access, and our strategy is to continue building and maximize utilization. If utilization hits capacity, we will continue building. We do not want to be throttled in our ability to push testing and development volume through internal machines. Regarding build timelines, it is early to put a specific lead time on instrument build. There are a small number of long-lead parts, which we procure and hold in inventory. The assembly process is about labor and process optimization. We are not experiencing issues with machines arriving and functioning properly at our facilities. We are not operating at perfect efficiency yet, but we know how to optimize and expect to do so in advance of any commercial ramp. Because we use external partners for instrument manufacturing, they have capacity and people and can flex up or down as forecast requires. As long as we maintain long-lead parts in inventory, the ability to flex is efficient with external partners.
Great. Makes sense, and thank you for all the color.
Our next question comes from Kyle Mikson with Canaccord Genuity. Kyle, go ahead with your question. Charlotte Mauer is on for Kyle.
Hi. This is Charlotte Mauer on for Kyle. Thank you so much for taking our questions. To start, could you elaborate a little bit more on the recent successful sequencing run on Proteus and how the performance compared to your expectations? What were some of the most notable improvements, and were there any specific challenges that need to be addressed before moving forward?
Thanks, Charlotte. Answering backwards to forwards: we did not experience challenges in testing those samples; the runs were successful. We ran the samples on both Platinum and Proteus for a same-time comparison. These samples are proteins the customer previously worked with on Platinum. The customer focused on identifying proteins and developing tools for de novo detection of amino acids, so they cared about coverage and read length. Proteus produced much more output due to a higher number of features on the chip compared to Platinum. We are detecting 17 amino acids now and detection frequency across amino acids has increased. For read length, the customer saw Proteus read lengths about double what they see on Platinum. As noted earlier, more content, longer reads, and more complete information help exploratory algorithm work and basic performance in identifying and subtyping proteins, which was evident in this customer comparison.
Thanks for that additional color. I also had some questions about the roadshow. It sounds like there has been some strong early interest, but could you dive a little deeper into any relevant feedback or interest that you have received from customers at this point about Proteus, key highlights or takeaways, and any feedback on pricing?
Early interest aligns with expectations: customers are excited about PTM analysis. PTM work is difficult outside of phosphorylation even on high-end mass spec equipment, so PTM capability is a strong draw. In the roadshow format where we go to institutions with an existing Platinum, we see core labs plus many other researchers—translational and basic biology—who have an interest and studies in mind. That institutional momentum can help when seeking capital funding across departments. On pricing, we have announced Proteus price at $425,000. We have not received pushback. People view it as attractive compared to high-end mass spectrometers that can exceed $1 million. We have not yet provided people with enough information to require immediate purchase decisions; early feedback is that the price is reasonable for the capabilities. We will gather more nuanced feedback as more data are released and as customers get sample evaluations.
Great, thank you. And one last question: looking ahead to expectations for 2027 and some of your capital deployment, you mentioned utilizing key external partners for certain development-related activities. Where in the process do you expect to use these partners the most, and how should we think about this reduction in capital deployment relative to your 2026 levels given a full year of spending on commercialization efforts for Proteus?
We are using partners today across consumable development, the optical system inside Proteus, and instrument development. Some partners will shift into manufacturing roles next year and support inventory building. I will pass to Jeff for additional color on how we think about OpEx after launch.
Regarding operating expense into 2027, we will need some partners to help stabilize the program shortly after launch, which is typical for a new development project. After that, because we use a significant number of partners, we expect to be able to reduce R&D spend specifically. We can either bank that savings or redeploy it. We will look for opportunities between R&D and other activities to reduce total operating expenses and will gauge that relative to Proteus uptake in 2027. External partner R&D spend is the first obvious step to reduce spend, followed by other items as appropriate.
Consistent with this year, as we approach 2027 we will be more quantitative about guidance for adjusted OpEx and cash use. It is early to provide specifics now, but you can gather from our comments that we plan to rotate those development dollars off R&D, potentially redeploy some into commercial initiatives, and bank the majority of savings where appropriate.
Awesome. Thank you so much for all the time.
Thank you.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Jeffrey Alan Hawkins for closing remarks.
Thank you for attending our call today. We look forward to providing additional business updates on our next earnings call.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.