Earnings Call Transcript - WGS 2026-11-09

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GeneDX third quarter 2026 earnings conference call at this time. All participants are now listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, we'll open up for questions. To ask a question during your session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's call has been recorded. I would now like to hand it over to our first speaker, Sabrina Dunbar. Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Sabrina Dunbar, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today. On the call, we have Katherine Stuhlund, Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Feely, Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Gardner, President. Earlier today, GNDX released financial results for the third quarter, ended September 30th, 2026. Before we begin, please take note of our cautionary statement. We may make forward-looking statements on today's call, including about our business plans, 2026 guidance, and outlook. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect our view as of today, November 9th, and we are under no obligation to update. When discussing our results, we refer to non-GAAP measures, which exclude certain items from reported results. Please refer to our third quarter 2026 earnings release and slides available at ir.gndx.com for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and additional information regarding our results. Additionally, please refer to our most recent annual and quarterly filings with the SEC for a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Catherine.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Thanks, Sabrina, and good afternoon, everyone. Our Q3 results reflect profitable execution in a growing market. As we first shared in May, we've organized our business around three key imperatives, and in Q3, we made concerted progress on each of them. First and foremost, optimizing unit economics. Second, growing utilization. And third, delivering leading products at unmatched scale, all while managing capital responsibly. Today, I'll discuss the highlights of our quarter. Mark will provide a deeper dive on our RCM and commercial initiatives. And Kevin will walk us through the financials. In the third quarter, we reported $123.1 million in total revenue, expanded adjusted gross margin to 72%, generated adjusted net income of $8.6 million, and resulted over 32,100 exome and genome tests. In Q2, we shared that RCM was our number one priority, and we're pleased with the progress we saw here. Our average reimbursement rate increased approximately 5% sequentially, reflecting both improved genome collections and mix shift into our exome line. As we prioritize profitable growth, we're raising gross margin and net income guidance and reaffirming our full year total revenue guidance. To that end, in Q3, we aligned genome testing workflows to collect more payer-required documentation before testing begins in the lab. We evaluated the potential effects on ARR, volume, and total revenue, and deliberately prioritized a more sustainable path to payment, leading to a sequential step up in ARR. As we implement these processes and educate clinicians on payer requirements, we're adjusting We're increasing our volume expectations to give these workflows more time to mature. As a market leader, we're building a better model, one that prioritizes profitable growth, thus enabling us to reinvest into our patients, our products, and our operations in a self-sustaining way. Part of that model is working closely with payers and governments to ensure equitable, sustainable access to whole exome and genome testing. To support those efforts, I'm excited to welcome Nicole Masson as Chief Patient Access Officer. Nicole was a pivotal force in transforming the market access strategy during her time at Exact Sciences, and as part of our team, she will advance our payer partnerships, build upon our government relations efforts, and help translate positive coverage policies into timely access for children who need testing. Demand is strong. We saw growth across all markets in Q3 as clinicians continue to choose GNDX for our reliability, quality, and customer experience. This quarter, we made genomic testing easier to adopt with new ordering features, simplified reports, and post-test guides. These enhancements, together with expanded EHR capabilities, support broader adoption of exome and genome across care settings. We also advanced product innovation in a quarter. We continue to believe genome sequencing will become the standard for diagnosing heritable disease, and our ambition is clear to consistently deliver the number one genome I'm on the market. We recently announced the inclusion of long-range sequencing as part of our genome portfolio, and we expect to continue rolling out new technologies over the coming quarters. Our underlying data asset, GeneDxInfinity, underpins many of our competitive advantages in the exome and genome testing markets, but its value also extends beyond our core diagnostics Our biopharma and data business grew for the second consecutive quarter with Mirren Pharmaceuticals and Barron Therapeutics joining our portfolio of sponsored testing partners. In tandem, we're seeing increasing interest from AI and technology players in how our data can advance drug discovery and precision medicine. This is our long-term value proposition coming to life. As we diagnose more patients, we improve our interpretation capabilities, turn diagnoses into therapeutic breakthroughs, and unlock new avenues for growth and patient impact. With that, I'll pass the call over to Mark.

Mark Gardner, Other

Thank you, Catherine. Good afternoon, everyone. Our remarks today will focus on collections and commercial execution. A genetic test that ends the diagnostic odyssey has real value, and we are intent on getting paid for the value we deliver. Sadly, it has been a common practice of the lab services industry to perform testing in as frictionless a way as possible, to grow volume without regard for whether a test will be paid for or not. We are committed to defending this value for the long term. Our commitments to our patients, clinicians, and shareholders are too important to perpetuate these volume-at-all-cost tactics, particularly because we're in the early stages of penetrating this growing market. The opportunity I saw when I joined GNDX remains clear. We have strong demand and differentiated clinical capabilities. Now, we must match those strengths with more consistent operational execution. to convert unexplained symptoms into orders more consistently, move orders into actionable reports more efficiently, and turn reports into reimbursement more effectively. We've started a multi-year revenue cycle transformation. We're in the early stages, but we improved all three of the key metrics that we shared last quarter. Kevin will walk through those details in a moment. But we expect most improvements to impact 2027 and beyond as we continue to tackle our list of RCM initiatives and progress towards collection rates in line with industry norms. We deeply interrogated the root causes of our exome and genome denials, and we found that 62% of them were administrative and procedural in nature. These are addressable with time, effort, and execution. This is where our team is dedicating most of our immediate efforts. The remaining 38% relate to subjective clinical necessity disputes or to patients who are not covered by payer policies, and we'll address this group over time. One of the most impactful actions we can take to improve our collection rate is to collect better documentation up front. As Catherine shared, in Q3, we align genome testing workflows to collect more payer-required documentation before testing begins in the lab. Collecting documentation up front can extend the time between accession and the start of testing, as indicated by accessions growing 28%, while reported volume grew 25% in the quarter. That friction resulted in higher rates of order cancellations, downgrades, and delayed starts. While that creates a near-term headwind to reported volume, we believe that this is the right approach to support durable revenue growth and expect these requirements to become easier for clinicians to navigate as we implement additional AI and technology tools into our RCM processes. Next, let me speak to how our commercial strategy is enabling us to keep driving demand across core and emerging call points. Our core markets of geneticists and pediatric neurologists delivered strong growth in the quarter, primarily through increased productivity per clinician. We remain the market leader in these segments and we continue to invest significantly in product development, key opinion leader collaborations, and electronic medical record connectivity to deepen our relationships with these customers. In our emerging markets, we are seeing our commercial investments from early in the year come to fruition. Importantly, a general pediatrician segment is poised to drive greater unit volume growth in 2027 than all other segments. The GenBeats team entered the field in February and followed two quarters of ramp-up. They're already paying for themselves. Clinicians are placing repeat orders and sharing positive feedback on our enhanced customer ordering experience, and both of these give us confidence moving forward. Lastly, I want to go deeper on something Catherine already referenced, which is the value of GNDX Infinity for building durable competitive differentiation. Many rare pediatric diseases are caused by de novo variants, which arise in the child and are not inherited from either parent. These variants are often seen in only a handful of patients worldwide, and they rarely appear in published literature. The only way to interpret them is with experience, and GDX has sequenced more of these variants than anyone else by an order of magnitude. As we add technologies like long-read sequencing to our portfolio, we can both measure more variants but also expertly match one patient's genetic and clinical profile with another's, thus confirming a genetic diagnosis. That matching exercise is unique. It is cumulative, and it compounds over time. I'll now pass it to Kevin to walk through our financial results.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Thanks, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. Third quarter, 2026, total revenues were $123.1 million, inclusive of $110.4 million of exome genome revenues, which is up $10 million sequentially. The sequential growth is the right frame for evaluating our trajectory with continued growth and financial improvement. Adjusted gross margin expanded from 69% in Q1 to 70% in Q2 and 72% in Q3. An adjusted net income improved from an $8.2 million loss in Q1 to near breakeven in Q2 to $8.6 million this quarter. Two consecutive quarters of improvement with more to come. Our blended average reimbursement rate in the third quarter was $3,436, up 5% from $3,258 in the second quarter. We're guiding to another step up in Q4, and we believe the trajectory continues from there as our revenue cycle work matures. Last quarter, we shared key metrics across mix, coverage, and collection rate to track our ARR progress. Prior to walking through those, I'll just note that underlying like-for-like contract rates were relatively unchanged during the quarter. First on mix, within the portfolio, 92% of volume was outpatient insurance-based, with Medicaid, our largest payer segment, at 48%. Genome was 26% of outpatient insurance-based volume, down from 32% in Q2. This was purposeful mix management in the near term. While genome now carries a higher collection rate percentage, the average contracted rate and average reimbursement rate for exome is higher. So a shift between the two impacts our blended ARR. To be clear, the goal is not to minimize genome utilization. It is to find the right product fit for the right circumstance. As future product enhancements launch, we expect genome mix to rise again concurrently with our ability to improve unit economics. Notably, genome cost per test has come down 43% from last year, and that's a downward trajectory expected to continue. That said, genome COGS is still significantly higher than that of exome, and Mark's team has further validated our path to reduce genome cost per test by at least a few hundred dollars over the next several quarters. Two levers give us conviction here. The first, reagents, which is the gap between genome and exome. At this point, it makes up more than half of all COGS. Sequencing economics continue to improve across the industry, and as our volumes scale, we expect to capture materially lower website input costs. Second, applying AI and ML to various dry site steps remains one of the most significant and largely untapped efficiency opportunities in this business. We're making real progress here, but expect it to be a more meaningful contributor to cost reduction in 2027 and beyond. Second, payer coverage has stayed relatively flat this quarter, with positive exome policies in place for 98% of commercial lives and positive genome coverage in place for 88%. Carillon expanded policy to approximately 56 million lives in June, and coverage expansion is beginning to show early signs of improved collections. Medicaid covers Exome in 37 states and Genome in 25, up from 23 states in Q2. Uplift impact in the near term from any policy change is gradual as payers often, and sometimes intentionally, are slow to operationalize changes. But improved coverage is an important foundational catalyst for 2027 and beyond. Approximately 82 percent of our outpatient genome volume was submitted to payers with an active positive coverage policy, up from 67 percent last quarter, primarily a reflection of commercial plans following Carillon. As Mark described, where we see clear line-of-sight to improve performance is in matching to payer-by-payer specific criteria to benefit from the enhanced coverage. Finally, our underlying outpatient genome collection rate was 36% in Q3, up 400 basis points from 32% last quarter. We attribute that improvement to the nascent RCM workflows we put in place. What is most encouraging is that this improvement has happened without the AI-enabled, payer-specific transformation we have planned, which is still being developed and implemented. The exome collection rate is approximately 32%, slapped with Q2. Genome is our primary focus today, given its place in our future and the overall strength of exome's margin profile. Exome will be the next phase of our RCM work, and every point of improvement there supports faster growth. What makes all three of these levers scalable is the AI and technology transformation underway in our RCM stack. The transformation is progressing well with strong leadership now in place. Think of Q2 as interrogating RCM processes with third-party experts, Q3 as new leaders validating the plan and designing the future architecture, and Q4 and early 2027 as implementation and pull-through. Now, turning to guidance. As we prioritize profitable growth, we're raising full-year adjusted gross margin guidance to approximately 71% and adjusted net income guidance to at least $12 million, and reaffirming full-year revenue guidance of $475 million to $490 million. We expect revenue within that range, but at the low end. We're adjusting full-year exome and genome volume to at least 28%, and as a result, exome and genome revenue growth to at least 17%. For the fourth quarter, we expect ARR to improve to approximately $3,500 a test, adjusted gross margin of at least 71%, adjusted net income of approximately $12 million, total revenue of at least $135 million, and exome and genome revenue of $121 million on result volume of 34,500 tests. While we're not providing fiscal 2027 guidance on this call, I'll address PAMA and put our exposure into context. Approximately 85% of total revenue is insurance-based. Within our insurance-based business, a little more than half of our contracts are tied to a percentage of the Clinical Lab Fee Schedule, or CLFS. Those rates move with CLFS and carry direct PAMA exposure. A little less than half has separately negotiated discrete fee schedules that are insulated from PAMA. Those contracts typically renew in a one-to-three-year cycle, and we have good visibility into their stability. So with approximately 45% of our revenue subject to PAMA, we expect a mid-single-digit headwind to total 2027 revenue. I'll underscore that improving revenue cycle collections and reducing COGS remain substantially larger opportunities for the business. The RCM tailwind in 2027 can more than offset PAMA in the year ahead, and improving collection rates and mixed management mean that year-over-year ARR and revenue comparisons become progressively more favorable as we move through 2027. The business is performing better each quarter in revenue, margins, net income, and in the leading indicators that drive those results. And we expect that trajectory to continue. Aside from Q1's typical seasonality, a similar stacking of sequential revenue on top of today's base is expected in 2027, particularly as improved collections converge revenue and volume growth rates in 2027 and beyond. And with that, I'll turn you back to Catherine.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Thank you, Kevin. Every day, families are waiting for answers that already exist in their DNA. Our responsibility is to make those answers accessible to everyone who needs them while building a scalable, profitable business that can make an impact for generations to come. Our third quarter results reinforce that we are delivering on both. Thank you to our customers, our team members, and our shareholders for helping us realize our mission. And with that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please remember yourself to one question, one follow-up. Please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. Our first question will come to the line of Dan Brennan from TDK. Your line is opening.

Dan Brennan, Analyst — TDK

Great. Thank you. Maybe to start off, Kevin, I think you mentioned at the end of the call, thinking about 2027, you thought about sequential volume growth this year as a good proxy. Can you just unpack that a little bit? So your fourth quarter guide is 7% off, Q3 was 4% off, and we can calculate the first step. But just walk us through how you're thinking about at this early stage what the volume outlook looks like for 2027.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, look, on 2027, our long-term market opportunity and view of our place in it remain unchanged. You know, on today's call, I'm not going to lay out all of the components of 2027 until we have a fuller picture following Q4, but I think I laid out overall we expect a positive trajectory to end this year and enter into 2027.

Dan Brennan, Analyst — TDK

Okay. And then maybe just on all the RCM initiatives, you know, Catherine, I know you mentioned in the prepared remarks how part of the reason for the volume guide down was maybe these policies you're putting in place to get paid more. So how do we put in place maybe that aspect of volumes decelerating a bit while you've fixed this payment rate? But as we look ahead, how long does it take to fix that to see what volumes could be? I guess there's a question. Is there a way to toggle that a little bit? You know, I guess would be my first question. And then, you know, maybe the second question would be, you mentioned pediatric volumes next year could be bigger than the entire, all the other segments. Maybe can you unpack that comment a little bit as well? Thank you.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Certainly. Thanks, Dan. I'll kick it off and then invite Mark to comment further. First, just to reiterate, demand was strong. So, you know, we saw 28 percent volume growth. So, samples coming in the door, strong. We continue to see really, really good response from all of the customer segments that we're operating in today while we implement the RCM transformation. So, you know, I think we're feeling very confident about the state of demand, and, you know, while we are in a growing market today, Today, we're confident that we're going to continue to be the market leader of a much bigger market, which is what we're talking about in terms of the GenPEDS opportunity that we first entered into earlier this year.

Mark Gardner, Other

Yeah, just to add on to that, with regard to like the 28% versus 25, I think that that's somewhat of a kind of a temporary issue in that. You know, we're asking people to do some more paperwork up front. That, in turn, elongates the total time between an order and when we actually issue a report. That's a few days, and that basically represents the majority of that delta between 28 and 25. And then with regard to Gen P's, perhaps just to clarify that, we don't think it's going to be larger than all other segments combined, but we think that of the segments that we have, it will represent the largest single segment of those. So, it's very robust, and as we said, it's already paid for itself. So, we feel like it's a very high contribution margin. It's a great channel for us.

Dan Brennan, Analyst — TDK

Great. Okay. Thank you. I'll get back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come from the line of David Westenberg from Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

David Westenberg, Analyst — Piper Sandler

Hey, thank you for taking the question. Actually, I wanted to follow on to some of that question around documentation. Can you give us a flavor of what kind of percentage or some sort of magnitude on how much volume you might have lost because of documentation that you're now requiring prior to?

Mark Gardner, Other

Well, I don't think that we've lost the volume as much as we've delayed the volume by a few days. And so that, you know, if you just extend the total time it takes from when somebody expresses the desire to order to when they actually get a report. That actually represents the majority of that. So we don't think that the volume is actually lost. There are occasions when sometimes somebody will cancel the order because they say, well, I'd rather, you know, get exactly what I was looking for and I don't want to fill out the paperwork. We would argue that in many cases that's not necessarily great volume because we're unlikely to actually get paid for it.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

And one way to quantify that, Dave, is to look at the metric we introduced around accession growth, which grew 28 percent year over year this quarter, you know, representative of demand outpacing throughput in that regard.

David Westenberg, Analyst — Piper Sandler

Perfect. Thanks. And I'm at an airport, so I'm just trying to – I can't ask my question as much as well as I'd like. In terms of the new market initiatives, you know, newborns, pediatrics, different kinds of conditions, what are performing better than your expectation, and what are some of those that are performing maybe a little bit under the expectation? And one thing to hit on is from a couple quarters ago, but how's tri-testing going this quarter, or how did it go? Thank you.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

So I'll lead it off and then invite Mark and Kevin as well. So growth across all of the markets is going overall the way that we had hoped. You know, I think we placed a big bet with GenPeds this year, and we're really pleased, as Mark just said, to see how much productivity there is there. Again, these families go on a five-year diagnostic odyssey. Being able to catch them earlier is not only better for clinical outcomes for these kids, but it's a better health economic story. So I think overall, we're really pleased with the demand that we're seeing across these different channels and the fact that all of these channels represent large and growing markets for us to continue to lead the way to develop.

Mark Gardner, Other

And I would simply comment that, you know, there are different levels of market maturity by each of those segments. Obviously, there have been a number of champions and pioneers in the NICU space, but even there, you know, only about 5% of kids in that space are sequenced today. We think that that could be much higher. So for each of these, there's an element of how much market development is really required, and I would say that we're actually pleased with all of them. There's different levers for each. But I think they're all actually in line with expectations.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

And Dave, just to follow on the comment around trios, we've seen trios relatively flat quarter over quarter in terms of mix, and have seen that rate of trios capturing mom and dad as comparators reverting back to historic norms following earlier in the year as we launch I mentioned the new markets. A level of acumen building and education around the importance of that with physicians and with families, but we've seen that level out this past quarter.

David Westenberg, Analyst — Piper Sandler

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. The next question comes flying out of Tycho Peterson from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Tycho Peterson, Analyst — Jefferies

Hey, thanks. Maybe it's a question on visibility. Just thinking that you gave guidance in August, I'm wondering kind of just on the volume side, understand all the revenue cycle initiatives here, but what's changed materially, I guess, in the last couple months from your perspective as you've gotten in there and looked a little bit deeper?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, thanks, Tycho. I mean, recall in the prepared remarks, Q2 really diagnosing the fix with some third-party experts, and it was just this third quarter here that we filled out the ranks with some new leadership across revenue cycle access, market access, and finance, and they've really validated the plan that we had in place. And these are some folks with proven track records effectuating a multi-year revenue cycle transformation at much larger companies and larger scale. And so good to see them reaffirm that plan. And with that, as we discussed, we're seeing demand outpace throughput because of some of the pre-analytical controls around documentation. And that's led us to refine the volume outlook. But in terms of demand signals, Meeting expectations throughout the year. We've just got to move those through the process more effectively and efficiently moving forward.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

I would just add, you know, if we've As we zoom out and look at 2026, we're kind of undergoing several transformations at once. One, we invested heavily in the commercial expansion and entering new markets. Two, we're introducing new products this year. And then three, we have the revenue cycle management transformation that we've now introduced mid-year. So we're learning a lot as we're continuing to drive the company forward, and we're putting a premium on paid volume as the goal rather than volume at all costs, because we know that it offers us a lot of important leverage to be able to have a self-sustaining business.

Tycho Peterson, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, that's helpful. And then I guess, Kevin, is the message on PAMA, I appreciate you quantifying it, mid-single-digit headwind, is the message you're trying to convey that you'll be able to offset? I just didn't quite understand how you were trying to position that.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, expect the improvements in collection rate to the revenue cycle work to offset or more than offset the effects of PAMA. And then later on, of course, growth on top of that. With a return in 2027 to see the revenue growth rate converge much closer to what we'd expect as a continued high volume growth rate. So, yeah, hopefully the color we gave appropriately contextualizes. The PAM exposure is a subset of a subset of the business.

Tycho Peterson, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, that's helpful. And last one, just how are you thinking about long read, just sizing that opportunity and how material that could be?

Mark Gardner, Other

It's like, I'll take that. Look, we think that Long Read's an important addition to ending the diagnostic odyssey for so many of these families, and so we're excited that we're going to be launching that this year. You know, we just launched an early access program, and we're working with key opinion leaders on really developing the right criteria for when to deploy this technology.

Operator

Okay, thanks. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Next question will come to the line of Bill Bonello from Craig Halem. Your line is open.

Bill Bonello, Analyst — Craig-Hallum

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I'm maybe just trying to come at some of these things a little bit different, I guess. What I'm trying to figure out here is, as you've done all this revenue cycle management work, have you sort of discovered or do you believe that there's a portion of the orders that you were getting that, you know, no matter how well you, you know, filled out the... The claim or followed up on denials, they just weren't reimbursable. In other words, the breadth of ordering had sort of expanded beyond the coverage policy, because it feels like some of the improvement in ASP that we're seeing is simply that you're not billing. For some of the tests that you, you know, in the past would have billed for, but collected zero on. So help me kind of connect there.

Mark Gardner, Other

I mean, I would just say that to the point of the 62% versus 38, we think the 62 is just execution. That's the stuff where it's like we fill out the paperwork right, we're going to get paid. The 38, we're not giving up on because in a lot of cases we feel like, hey, these patients should have been sequenced, but, you know, maybe the policies don't indicate that they fit the particular payer's definition of medical necessity at this point, or maybe they have no coverage whatsoever. So, we do feel like there's a certain percentage of folks that we've been running the tests on where, no matter how well we administratively do it, that we were not actually going to get reimbursed for it, and we're committed to finding ways to make it so that those patients are served. We think that's a justice issue, and we should continue to work that, but the majority of the opportunity is still mostly administrative in its nature.

Bill Bonello, Analyst — Craig-Hallum

Okay, and then maybe just as my one follow-up, what, if you look at the difference between the, The requisitions or accessions, whatever you want to call them that came in, and the volume you performed, what percent of the volume that came in as demand do you think you'll ultimately perform? Is that 3% differential? You talked about it being a time delay, but, I mean, how should we think that all of that, all of those tests will eventually be performed? And if so, don't we sort of catch up somewhere on the volume?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, substantially all. But that 3% delta is – Significantly higher than how we've ever operated before, now introducing, you know, effectively some process to go slow to eventually move fast down the road. And so, yeah, would expect them ultimately to pull through. Won't happen in one quarter per se, but over time as we effectuate the revenue cycle work, which includes speeding up the process to move through those pre-analytical procedures and collect documentation more electronically. We'll see that differential compress over time and eventually get back to a stable situation where they're matched to each other.

Bill Bonello, Analyst — Craig-Hallum

So you anticipate submitting claims for most of the differential?

Keith Hinton, Analyst — Freedom Capital Markets

Yes. Okay, thanks.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Next question off the line of Mark Massaro from BTIG. Your line is open.

Mark Massaro, Analyst — BTIG

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. The ASPs came in above our expectations this quarter. I'm wondering if you could speak to any impact. That you might have realized from either Medi-Cal or Carillon. And if not, can you just give us a sense for when you think those could kick in, if they're more of a 2027 impact? Thank you.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah. If you look at the jump in just one quarter from 32% to 36% collected on genome, a portion of that was attributable to plans looking to Carolon's policy. So we are seeing some good signals there. I would not call the improvement fully baked at this point. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we often see payers fairly slow to operationalize payer policy changes. So, yes, in the third quarter, some of that 4% uplift is attributable to Carillon, a much smaller portion to Medi-Cal, who I'd say at this point still remains a fairly arduous process to submit and be paid for, and so still working through some of the operational rigor in that regard, leaving it really to 2027 at this point as an expectation for that to kick in.

Mark Massaro, Analyst — BTIG

Okay, that's great. And then I'd be curious, I understand that the volume shortfall was likely a function of the seeking more documentation up front. However, you know, this is a competitive marketplace, and I'm, you know, other players in the space are starting, you know, with a genome first and long read type strategy. So it's just curious if you saw any competitive impact and how you're thinking about that going forward.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Yeah, so this quarter, we haven't seen a particular change in competitive behavior. You know, we're seeing all the same headlines that investors are seeing, and while there's a lot of noise there, we're still firmly the leader in this market. You know, I think what we continue to battle is that the status quo, the standard of care today is the lack of utilization of testing, it's delaying a diagnosis, it's referring patients over many years, and it's changing that behavior that, frankly, is the most important lever for us as a company. We've proven that it's an attractive market. We actually think competition is going to help us change that status quo. So, you know, our leadership today is Growing in a growing number of markets, but we have our eyes set on a much larger market. Competition actually helps us unlock that much larger opportunity, and we intend to be the market leader of a much larger patient opportunity.

Mark Massaro, Analyst — BTIG

Awesome. And just one last one. I was curious if you could give us any traction in the prenatal market or the NICU, what you're seeing there, any changes that perhaps you've made as you pursue those markets, and what your expectations are over the coming quarters in those markets.

Mark Gardner, Other

Well, both those markets are actually growing faster than the overall company, so they're both emerging markets and… We're growing at a nice, healthy rate. I would say that in the NICU, it's still mostly a question of programmatic execution. We see vast disparities in the level of the utilization of this testing from one hospital to another, and we're really focused on how do we document, you know, what's best practice and transfer that from one institution to another. In the prenatal space, you know, this is one where the guidelines kind of lag where we think the market's going to go, and so we're actively working on various forms of clinical evidence to improve the guidelines. There's still a lot of CMA testing being done as sort of the final frontier, and we think that there's dramatic improvements that can be made with exome and genome in that space. So, I think that as the guidelines... Get updated in the prenatal space. We think that that could be a very large market.

Mark Massaro, Analyst — BTIG

Fantastic. Thanks, guys, for the time.

Operator

And our next question from Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. If we carry forward the growth of 28% in volumes this year to next, that's where consensus is right now. Kevin, is that the right way to think about volume growth in the near term? Or has something changed your expectations as we close out 2026?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Look, our view of the market opportunity remains unchanged. I'll comment more on 2027 once we get to that point, but as I think you've heard us say on this call, we see no slowdown of demand itself and look forward to another year of high growth ahead.

Speaker 13

Okay. Separately for RCM, how has your progress looked in Medicare volume versus commercial volume? Is your collection a little bit better with Medicaid volumes or is your collection a little bit better with commercial? And Mark, you have done this before. Did you not expect the transient volume softness? If not, what is different about these product offerings?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Maybe I'll start and I'll let Mark chime in on the second part there. Look, the reality is Medicaid itself. A split story. Frankly, in those states that have picked up Medicaid coverage and have gotten to the point of routinely operationalizing longstanding policies, we're seeing a collection rate higher than we see across the commercial landscape. Pretty clear medical necessity and documentation requirements, and then when you follow them, none of what I'll call those trapdoor administrative denials that we often see at commercial plans. And so in the states that have enacted coverage, and once they get to a more mature spot, we're seeing a fairly robust collection rate. What brings down the overall denial rate in that population is just the states that have yet to enact coverage, and we're accepting samples in all 50 states.

Mark Gardner, Other

And with regard to the knowledge of what these policy changes would have in terms of volume, we were very purposeful in terms of how we were setting up our genome sequencing. To deliberately make it so that we were going to collect that paperwork. So that was a purposeful choice for us to drive up ARR in the quarter.

Speaker 13

But Mark, this was a purposeful choice even last quarter, right? That's why I'm a little bit surprised. Why are we noticing the volume softness only this quarter? This should have been a null, or am I missing something?

Mark Gardner, Other

I would say that this was the changes that we've made have been changes that we implemented really at the beginning of this quarter.

Speaker 13

I see. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come to the line of Keith Hinton from Freedom Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Keith Hinton, Analyst — Freedom Capital Markets

Great, thanks. Just two quick ones for me. Starting off with on the volume side of things, you mentioned some of the documentation headwinds, and I'm just curious if you're seeing that. In any particular therapeutic areas more so than the other? Are you seeing that more with, you know, the legacy geneticists and the neuros who have been doing this a long time? Or are you seeing it more with those with less experience and kind of is foundational still on track to do in the high 20s this year in terms of volume growth? And then I have a follow.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Yeah, thank you for that. So, demand was strong, as I said, across all segments. But, you know, specifically in the genetics area, that is where the impact is in terms of documentation because they are the ones who are more likely going to be ordering a genome. So, it is predominantly isolated to that customer segment.

Keith Hinton, Analyst — Freedom Capital Markets

Okay, so fair to assume that maybe we're running a little bit below that high 20s for foundational?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, I think that's fair to say. The other point that I'll make here is more important than clinician type, where we are seeing some divergence in that collection rate is in the way in which orders come through. And so today, the supermajority of our orders come in through our own physician portal. As you know, we're early in our days of implementing Epic Aura, and what we are seeing is improved document collection and therefore improved collection experience in the population of orders coming from electronic means, primarily Epic, and that spreads across all clinician types. And so we further integrate with more hospital systems, which is certainly part of our plan. We expect a natural benefit in collection rates and the overall user experience in collecting upfront documentation in that regard.

Keith Hinton, Analyst — Freedom Capital Markets

Great. Thanks. And then just lastly, in terms of thinking about next year and the Salesforce, you mentioned, you know, GenPeeds seems to be doing quite well. The Salesforce is already paying for itself. So I'm curious if you have expectations to add meaningfully to the Salesforce in 27, either in GenPeeds or in other areas.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

So, as we look back at 2026, one of our most important investments was in that commercial expansion. So, you know, I think we have, we're really pleased to see the productivity across all of the channels, but especially in a new channel this early. We think that that's very validating. We're continuing to learn, and now having Mark on board for a few months as we get into 2027 planning, we're going to look at commercial optimization to see how we continue to support growth in that market.

Mark Gardner, Other

Yeah, I think we're going to be adding some hits. I don't know that we're going to be making anywhere near the size of investment that we made this year, largely because, you know, this year we obviously had the changes in the AAP guidelines that preceded it. So, you know, without something as significant as that, I think we're going to make incremental changes based on their return on investment.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

And the other, I think, important investment that we've made is making the ordering experience and the test report and next steps. I'm much more user friendly for the non expert. And we think that that's going to continue to be a driver of volume customer acquisition. And we'll also ensure that we have the right documentation that we need to get paid. So the customer experience that we're building investments that we're making an epic or a moving forward, all ensure that we can continue to have strong commercial performance in these markets.

Keith Hinton, Analyst — Freedom Capital Markets

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Kyle Mixon from Canaccord Annuity. Your line is open.

Kyle Mixon, Analyst — Canaccord Annuity

Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. So, you know, the outpatient genome mix has declined quarter to quarter recently. I think it's at 26% now from 32 last quarter. I think it was like 40 earlier in the year. You're still committed to genome, though. I'm just curious, like, when do you try to increase the outpatient genome mix again? If that's just going to be tied to collection rate, what rate do you aim to kind of get back to emphasizing genome in that market and, like, maybe tone down the reflex testing?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Look, I think as genome mix begins to take share, we're confident we'll be in a position where collection rates for genome and COGS for genome, collection rates will be higher and COGS will be lower, and so a much stronger unit economic position in terms of genome once share begins to grow back. But as we said, our goal is not necessarily to maximize just for unit economics, but for the right fit in the clinic at the time. And we have a number of offerings across the exome reflex and genome portfolio, we think, to give physicians the right choice for the right patient. But we remain convicted that ultimately, as genome begins to pick up more share again next year, we'll be in a much stronger position at that point in terms of unit economics.

Kyle Mixon, Analyst — Canaccord Annuity

Okay, then it sounds like you're continuing to lower the cost per genome tests and then, you know, which is still pretty high relative to exome. So just confirm if the exome cogs have basically remained the same these past two quarters or years, and then on R&D, decline quarter for quarter, like kind of materially. I'm just curious if you're just trying to, you know, kind of like wind down some investment or something over there.

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Yeah, exome, maybe not fully optimized, but near it at this point. And as I said on the call, the biggest gap between the two products at this point is just the input cost in terms of reagents themselves. All to say that the dry side steps at near parity for us between exome and genome, and I'm not sure that all others could say the same. And so exome, yeah, relatively flat from Q2 to Q3, and even from a year ago, some slight declines, but nowhere near as steep as the 43% improvement in genome COGS that we've seen year over year. But we think we still have hundreds of dollars to take out of the genome COGS over time.

Kyle Mixon, Analyst — Canaccord Annuity

Perfect. Last one on 27. How do all these RCM efforts and the volume impact that you've seen so far kind of impact like your typical seasonality, especially earlier in the year?

Kevin Feeley, CFO

Look, we're stepping into a fourth quarter, which is typically seasonally strongest. As those that follow us know, typically Q1 of any year is the seasonal low point. We certainly would expect that, and we'll have more to update on the quarterly flows of 27 once we get to that point. But Q4 is seasonally stronger than Q3, which includes the summer months for families and physicians alike.

Operator

Thanks. Thank you. And this includes the question and answer session. I will now turn it back over to Catherine for closing remarks.

Katherine Stuhlund, CEO

Okay, great. Well, thank you, everyone. We appreciate all of the great questions today and look forward to catching up with you very soon. Have a good night.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.