Maxcyte, Inc. Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MaxCyte First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *1 then 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to your speaker host, Eric Abdel of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's conference call. Joining me on the call for MaxCyte, we have Maher Masoud, President and Chief Executive Officer; Parmeet Ahuja, Chief Financial Officer; and Sean Menargas, Senior Director of Business Development. Earlier today, MaxCyte released financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I need to read the following statement. Statements or comments made during this call may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Any statement contained in this call that relates to expectations or predictions of future events, results, or performance are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, which are discussed in detail in our SEC filings. Except as required by applicable law, the company has no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. And with that, I will turn the call over to Maher.

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining MaxCyte's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I would like to start by providing a brief overview of our financial performance in the first quarter. MaxCyte reported $9.7 million of total revenue, including $6.2 million of core revenue and $3.4 million of SPL program-related revenue, which consists of milestones and royalties. These revenue results met our expectations. As discussed on last quarter's call, 2026 is a difficult year-over-year comparison given two factors: discontinued SPL programs resulted in GTX clinical leases that did not renew, and inventory management by our largest customer. Elevated SPL program turnover was generally part of a broader rationalization in ex-vivo cell and gene therapy, which has largely normalized as we exited 2025, with SPL partners increasingly focused on their lead programs. While the cell and gene therapy ecosystem remains challenged for earlier-stage clinical programs, the environment is not worsening from what was a challenging funding backdrop in 2020. Within the ex-vivo market, the number of companies financed remains stable, and we continue to see pockets of capital directed towards high-quality later-stage programs, including Vial, Allogene, and Vertex, building on activity from Beam, Adicet, Wugen, and Anocca last year. Against this backdrop, we are placing instruments across all stages of the development lifecycle, and increasing our pipeline of future SPL partners. Given our qualified instrument funnel, easier comps, and contribution from our new ExPERT DTX product, we expect core revenue growth in 2026. MaxCyte reported $3.4 million from SPL milestones and royalties in Q1 2026. This included $3.0 million of milestones driven by a clinical customer who began dosing patients in a registrational study in the first quarter. We are encouraged by the progress of this program, as well as the four additional programs that are expected to enter registrational trials in the next 18 months. We also recognized $400 thousand in royalty revenue during the first quarter. Vertex reported approximately $43 million in CASGEVY revenue for 2026. On their earnings call, Vertex noted that more than 500 patients have initiated the CASGEVY treatment journey with hundreds globally having completed cell collection, highlighting strong patient flow across the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. Patients continue to advance from referral to cell collection and ultimately infusion, reinforcing the therapy's multibillion-dollar commercial potential. Vertex also highlighted recent regulatory progress, including the submission of a supplemental BLA for CASGEVY in patients aged 5 to 11 with sickle cell disease or beta thalassemia. This filing has been granted a Commissioner's priority review voucher by the FDA, underscoring the significance of expanding access to younger patient populations. Overall, we remain encouraged by the continued growth in patient cell collections and infusions as Vertex scales CASGEVY commercially, with Vertex noting secured reimbursements, continued ATC network expansion, and a growing number of patients progressing through each stage of the treatment journey. We remain confident in CASGEVY's long-term trajectory and transformative potential for patients around the globe. Following these first quarter results, we are reiterating our core revenue and SPL milestone and royalty revenue guidance for the full year 2026, which Parmeet will elaborate on. Turning to our SPL portfolio: we updated slide 3 in the SPL deck on the IR website, which now reflects 29 SPL partners. We do not see any changes in the number of SPL partners or the number of clinical programs supported since our last update in March. However, we did remove Catamaran Bio and Walking Fish Therapeutics from our list of SPL partners as both companies previously ceased operations. Among these 29 SPL partners, 30-plus programs are both in clinical and preclinical development, supporting diversified revenue streams across the medium and long term. Of these, there are five clinical programs with the potential for commercial launches in 2027 and beyond, including four that could begin registrational studies over the next 18 months, and one that dosed patients in a registrational study in the first quarter. These include zeren-cel from CRISPR Therapeutics for B-cell malignancies, Wu-CAR-T-007 from Wugen for hematologic malignancies, aza-cel from Imugene for hematologic malignancies, and two programs from undisclosed SPL partners. Across our 12 SPL programs currently in the clinic, the total future pre-commercial milestone opportunity is approximately $100 million. While any individual program carries clinical and commercial risk, the multiple shots on goal we have across the same indications and across many different indications give us a high probability of generating meaningful core revenue, regulatory milestones, and commercial royalties over time. Speaking of MaxCyte's leadership in the gene-editing field, the first CRISPR-Cas9 approved therapy was on the MaxCyte platform, and we believe the first base editing and prime editing approved therapies will be on the MaxCyte platform as well. On the product side, the commercial launch of ExPERT DTX is progressing well. Early traction is very encouraging, with adoption in discovery and early optimization workflows across ex-vivo and in-vivo cell and gene therapy, as well as protein screening for biologics development. We are seeing initial pipeline build with leading academic centers, biotech, and large pharma. The DTX is fully compatible with the rest of our ExPERT platform, so as customers adopt the instrument in discovery, they will have a seamless path to scale up on our STX and GTX instruments for cGMP manufacturing, and ultimately into an SPL agreement. We expect ExPERT DTX adoption to build through the balance of 2026, with increased adoption in the second half of the year and into next year. Moving to SeQure: we are seeing steady progress as we build out the commercial engine of the business. We added new assay service agreements during the first quarter, with customer engagement across both ex-vivo and in-vivo developers, including several programs approaching IND-enabling stages where off-target characterization is most critical. We continue to believe that SeQure's assays will become part of the industry standard for off-target risk assessment and gene editing, and early success feedback has reinforced that. In mid-April, the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, or CBER, issued a draft guidance titled Safety Assessment of Genome Editing in Human Gene Therapy Products Using Next Generation Sequencing. The guidance is focused specifically on the use of next generation sequencing-based methods to evaluate off-target editing risks and provides ex-vivo and in-vivo developers with recommendations on sequencing strategies, sample selection, analysis parameters, and reporting, all of which are intended to support nonclinical data packages submitted with IND and BLA applications. We view this as a structural positive for SeQure, as sponsors are now expected to quantify editing outcomes with high sensitivity and utilize multiple complementary approaches. The guidance makes it clear that understanding editing outcomes is foundational to development. Overall, we believe the investments we are making across the portfolio, such as the DTX and SeQure, have substantial commercial potential over time and are diversifying MaxCyte's revenue streams. To close, we entered 2026 with a fundamentally different spending profile than in prior years. The full benefit of the 2025 restructuring and cost-efficiency actions is now flowing through our P&L, and the year-over-year reduction in operating expenses is clearly visible in our results. We do not expect the company to grow operating expenses from here, and we see a clear path to reducing cash burn further as revenue growth returns. Before wrapping up, today we announced the Board's authorization of a $10 million share repurchase program. The decision to authorize a share repurchase underscores the Board and management's confidence in MaxCyte's long-term value, strategic investments, and business prospects as well as the strength of our balance sheet. I want to take a step back and highlight the reason for this repurchase program at this time. Over the last two years, we have taken steps to dramatically strengthen our financial position, acquire and build new products, and are now supporting multiple clinical programs that could be approved in the next 18 to 24 months. We have never been better positioned to grow with our end market. While we continue to invest in the execution of our business and expand our product portfolio, such execution will always be done with financial and commercial discipline. As such, we believe our shares represent a compelling investment opportunity and we intend to execute the majority of our share repurchase program before year-end. I will now turn the call over to Parmeet, who joins us today for his first earnings call as MaxCyte's Chief Financial Officer. Parmeet?

Thank you, Maher. I am pleased to be joining you today for my first earnings call as MaxCyte's Chief Financial Officer. Total revenue in Q1 2026 was $9.7 million compared to $10.4 million in Q1 2025, representing a 7% decrease. The decrease in total revenue was driven by a decline in core revenue, partially offset by growth in SPL program-related revenue. We reported core revenue of $6.2 million compared to $8.2 million in the comparable prior year quarter, representing a 25% decrease. Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $1.3 million compared to $1.4 million in Q1 2025; license revenue was $2.1 million compared to $2.5 million; and processing and assembly, or PA, revenue was $2.3 million compared to $3.9 million. As we expected in our guidance, core revenue was adversely impacted by inventory management at our largest SPL customer as well as discontinued SPL programs. For the first quarter, 44% of core revenue was generated from SPL partners compared to 57% in Q1 2025, which reflects the headwinds we experienced in the quarter related to SPL core revenue. As Maher discussed, we are positive on the momentum and continued growth we are seeing in SeQure, with total revenue of $600 thousand in the first quarter, which includes both license and services revenue. SPL program-related revenue in the first quarter was $3.4 million, including a regulatory milestone tied to a clinical customer that began dosing patients in a registrational study during the quarter, which Maher referenced. This compares to $2.1 million of SPL program-related revenue in Q1 2025. Moving down the P&L: gross margin was 84% in Q1 2026 compared to 86% in Q1 2025. Excluding inventory provisions and SPL program-related revenue, non-GAAP adjusted gross margin was 78% in Q1 2026 compared to 83% in Q1 2025. Total operating expenses for Q1 2026 were $14.3 million compared to $21.2 million in Q1 2025, a decrease of approximately $7 million. This reduction reflects the restructuring and cost efficiency actions we took in 2025, which are now being realized across the P&L. We are entering 2026 with a fundamentally different cost structure than in prior years and we do not expect to meaningfully grow operating expenses from this level. We ended the first quarter with combined total cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $147.7 million and no debt. Our strong balance sheet positions us well moving forward, providing flexibility to continue to invest strategically for our business, our customers, and our shareholders. Today, we disclosed that MaxCyte's Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $10 million. Under the program, the company may repurchase shares through open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions, block trades, or other means, subject to applicable securities laws. Continuing to our 2026 guidance: we are reiterating our 2026 outlook and 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 milestones and royalties. As Maher highlighted on last quarter's call, we expect core revenue, which excludes milestones and royalties, to be weighted towards the second half of the year. For the second quarter, we expect core revenue to be in line with the first quarter, reflecting the mix and timing of the business. In our guidance related to SPL milestones and royalties, we indicated that we expect $3 million of revenue from milestones and $2 million of royalty revenues. Given the $3 million milestone revenue recognized in Q1, we are not forecasting any additional milestones in 2026 and the balance of the guidance is from commercial royalties. Lastly, we continue to anticipate ending 2026 with at least $136 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments, excluding capital deployed towards our repurchase program. Now I will turn the call back over to Maher.

Thank you, Parmeet. I would like to thank everyone at MaxCyte for their dedication to our mission and execution in the first quarter. I look forward to updating you all on our next quarter call. With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator for the Q&A. Operator?

Thank you. And wait for your name to be announced. In the consideration of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. First question coming from the line of Julie Simmonds with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you very much and congratulations on a stronger quarter than expected. Couple of questions. Firstly, on the SPL revenue guidance, clearly you are not looking for any more milestones or you are not guiding to any more milestones for the remainder of the year. Given the number of active programs that are ongoing, plus where a lot of the later-stage programs are, it feels unlikely that you are going to get no milestones at all in Q2 to Q4. Are you just being particularly cautious with this at this time frame and maybe changing your view of how milestones come in?

Yeah. Good question, Julie. Good to hear from you as always. Let me take this one and then I'll ask Sean to add anything if needed. This is more an indication of the way the agreements are structured. The way milestones are contractually structured is often based on dosing timing in pivotal trials, not necessarily on the initiation of a pivotal trial. So while it is possible we could get another milestone in the back half of the year, the way these agreements are structured, there's a good chance milestones will fall into the first part of next year. It all depends on the dosing regimen and timing for the trial itself, not necessarily the initiation of a pivotal or registrational trial. Does that make sense, Julie?

That does indeed. Thank you. And then just on the cadence of license agreements during the year, because again I think obviously license revenue was down versus last year and I'm trying to get a feel for whether you are expecting license fees to remain fairly similar through the year or whether because of where your SPLs are and the potential of signing new SPLs they might be fairly flat for the year. Are you being conservative with your expectations given the pipeline?

Absolutely. So in terms of cadence of new license partnerships, as I mentioned last time, we feel comfortable guiding three to five new SPL partnerships per year. Some years will have more than five, some years could have fewer than three. Over the past few years we have signed 15 SPL partners, and we still feel very good about signing at least three this year. They simply have not happened yet; that's the nature of the negotiations and the work with potential partners. Often we work with customers 18 to 24 months before they actually sign an agreement. We are currently working with several potential partners in the funnel and the pipeline and we feel good that we will sign at least three this year, even if the cadence of signing may extend into the second half.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Brendan Smith with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. I wanted to follow up for any incremental color on SeQure as it stands. Based on initial feedback to date, how much contribution to revenue growth over the next 12 to 24 months are you expecting to come from SeQure? And as a follow-up, I know you mentioned for the buybacks most of it will come through in calendar 2026, but anything to call out on the cadence between Q2 to Q4—fairly steady, or any considerations there for our models? Thanks.

Brendan, did you want me to take the buyback cadence? Good to hear from you. I'm pleased with the Board authorization. We certainly believe, aligned with the Board, that there is a disconnect on value and that buying our shares provides a very compelling investment opportunity. We are looking to move fairly quickly on this and execute a majority of the share repurchase program by year-end. We're working with an external adviser to put us in the best position to succeed here; it will include a mix of open-market purchases and systematic activity.

And to address the SeQure question: revenues for SeQure were $600 thousand in Q1, and we're very pleased with the trajectory. That's a sizable year-over-year increase from Q1 of last year, and sequentially was up as well. We've spent the latter part of last year and the early part of this year building the commercial pipeline and working with customers to grow demand, and we're starting to see that now. The recent draft FDA guidance on genome editing safety is exactly why we acquired SeQure and underscores that sponsors are expected to quantify editing outcomes with high sensitivity and use multiple complementary approaches. This is a structural positive for SeQure, and we expect substantial year-over-year growth. In terms of cadence, services revenue behaves differently than instrument revenue—it's not CapEx driven—so timing can vary. We're hopeful this traction continues throughout the year, but we'll watch how it transpires before getting ahead of ourselves.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Dan Arias with Stifel. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maher, can you talk about the industry backdrop and then pair that with your own sales funnel? You said you don't expect things to get worse this year, which is good, but do you think new business and new activity can accelerate for you given what you are seeing out there?

Thanks, Dan. I'll take that. We saw elevated SPL program turnover last year as part of rationalization and that hurt us, especially in the first half of 2025. We think that turnover has largely normalized and many of our partners are increasingly prioritizing lead programs. Financing for earlier-stage companies remains challenging across the industry, particularly in ex-vivo, but we see stability and even pockets of capital for later-stage clinical programs. Right now we have 11 SPL partners with 12 clinical programs that are lead assets. Companies like Vial, Allogene, and Vertex are still garnering investor interest and raising needed funds for later-stage assets. So long story short: early-stage companies face a tough backdrop, but for later-stage clinical programs financing is available and activity is stable or improving, and we're working with more late-stage companies than ever before.

Helpful. Parmeet, I know you've been in the role a short time—any first impressions on what has the most room for increased forecast clarity, and what priorities will you focus on regarding quarterly cadence and visibility?

Dan, great to hear from you. I've been here about six weeks and the team has been very supportive during my transition. MaxCyte is a market-leading product with a strong field team. I've been reviewing forecast methodology and spending time with commercial leaders; I believe the company provided a prudent outlook for 2026. We'll continue to evolve our financial analytics and forecasting. For me, priorities include supporting commercial and product development initiatives and maintaining the disciplined cost structure established by Maher and the team after the changes made last year.

And our next question is coming from the line of Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just to go back to the SeQure ramp. Should we anticipate that kind of growth continuing for the remainder of this year, or do you anticipate a pause as you digest current customers and then another step up in the second half of this year into next year?

Good question, Matt. We expect significant year-over-year growth for SeQure. In terms of cadence between quarters, we want to be patient and see how it plays out through the year. It is a services business and timing can be different from equipment sales, but overall we feel very good about the path to substantial year-over-year growth. We'll watch the cadence as it transpires before updating guidance.

And then on gross margins, there was a step back this quarter with some inventory adjustments. Do you expect gross margin to recover as the year progresses given the anticipated ramp in revenues?

One of the challenges with gross margin this quarter was the issues with our SPL customer that we discussed, which had an impact. As we look through the year, Matt, we expect gross margins to trend in the mid-70s percent range. The first quarter benefited from a one-time item that flowed to the bottom line, but mid-70s is the way to think about gross margin going forward.

The next question is coming from the line of Matthew Larew with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. I wanted to follow up on the DTX. When you announced that launch last quarter, you had some early traction and some sales in Q1. Curious what reasonable expectations are over the next 12 to 18 months and what the mix of the funnel looks like—new customers versus existing customers. I think you referenced interest globally in the U.S. and APAC. A little more color on how that launch is going would be great.

Great question. The DTX is meeting our expectations in the cell therapy space and is being adopted for discovery and early optimization workflows in both ex-vivo and in-vivo CGT, and for protein screening in biologics development. The funnel is building well. We anticipate sales increasing in the second half of the year as we scale the campaign and reach more customers. We're also seeing traction in academic accounts that we previously had limited access to, and early interest from big pharma in protein screening. That was an encouraging development. Overall, we expect significant growth into the second half of 2026 and into 2027, though we will continue to learn and refine our commercial approach as the launch progresses.

And then a higher-level question: the SPL portfolio has evolved with more solid tumor preclinical work. You referenced portfolio changes and confidence in signing at least three more SPLs this year. Curious on the state of the union—what trends you are seeing in SPL interest and how clinical development trends translate to continued confidence in the platform and future growth for SPL partners.

Good question. The reason we're confident in our current partners and future growth is that later-stage clinical programs are progressing through the clinic and we're seeing real clinical progress and data from several partners. The milestone we recognized this quarter came from a partner with strong clinical results. We have partners like Wugen, CRISPR Therapeutics, and Imugene progressing toward pivotal and registrational studies. We're seeing interest in both autologous and allogeneic programs—especially allogeneic CAR-T, which may be among the first allogeneic CAR-Ts to reach registrational trials. The science is maturing and later-stage assets are attracting financing. While the overall market isn't what it was in 2021–2022, the quality of programs moving forward is high, and we remain confident in signing three to five SPLs per year for the foreseeable future.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mark Massaro with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. First one for Parmeet: it looks like G&A expense came in materially lower, about $4 million down sequentially and over $2 million below our forecast, which looks like good cost discipline. Is that $6 million or so a reasonable G&A run rate going forward? Any changes in headcount we should be aware of? I recognize the restructuring last year, but how are you thinking about spending for the rest of the year?

Good to hear from you, Mark. Broadly speaking, the reduction in OpEx and G&A is starting to materialize and you are seeing that in our P&L. The tough decisions made last year are now reflected fully. Looking at where we ended up with OpEx in Q1, I think it is a fair run rate with, at most, low single-digit sequential growth in coming quarters to support targeted investments such as commercial expansion in APAC and additional GTX launch activities. For the year, we expect OpEx to be around $60 million, which is a significant reduction from around $79 million to $80 million last year, reflecting the actions the team took.

That is helpful. Back to the DTX: should we expect pull-through in the second half in the form of capital purchases or leases of the system? Or are early placements more evaluative such that the revenue may or may not materialize? I'm trying to figure how much to expect in the back half this year.

Mark, it's a tough question because the timing of instrument purchases can vary. The DTX is sold as a capital instrument; it's not licensed. We saw initial sales in Q1 and feel good about that. We expect meaningful contribution in the second half, and even more meaningful contribution into 2027. As we learn from the launch, we may invest more in commercial activities for the DTX. The DTX also opens opportunities in bioprocessing and protein screening for biologics that could contribute meaningfully in 2027 and 2028. For now, we feel good about Q1 and the potential for the second half, but we'll continue to execute commercially and provide updates as we progress.

Thank you. The next question is coming from the line of Hannah Hefley with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Following up on DTX: you mentioned there is still a learning curve. How much visibility do you have into the H2 pickup and is that included in guidance or would that be upside?

I'll take that and then ask Sean to comment on the portfolio trends. The DTX expectation for a second-half pickup is included in our guidance. This was part of our guidance rationale discussed last quarter—that we expect the DTX to contribute more in the second half. We are taking a measured approach to execution as we learn the market and scale our commercial efforts. It's included in guidance, and as we get further traction we will update on future calls.

Thanks, Hannah. From an autologous versus allogeneic standpoint, the split remains around 50/50 across different cell types. The market is predominantly T cells, which is reflected in our portfolio. We're seeing advancement of allogeneic CAR-T programs into potential registrational trials, and different novel gene editing platforms continue to advance with regulatory support. That summarizes the current state of the SPL portfolio.

I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Maher Masoud for any closing comments.

Yes. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I want to thank all of our employees as well as our shareholders. We look forward to speaking to everyone again on our next earnings call in a few months.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.