Oxford Nanopore Technologies H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
September 2, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: We delivered broad‐based H1 revenue of £105.6 million, up 28% on a constant currency basis and ahead of expectations across all geographies and product lines.
  • Positive Sentiment: Adjusted EBITDA loss improved by 22% year-on-year and sequentially, driven by gross profit growth and disciplined cost control, with adjusted EBITDA breakeven targeted for 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Excluding a one-off £3.3 million inventory charge, underlying gross margin would have been 61%, supporting the reaffirmed full-year target of approximately 59% gross margin.
  • Positive Sentiment: Applied markets now account for 32% of revenues, with clinical up 53% and industrial up 27%, reflecting strong adoption in rare disease, oncology, synthetic biology and biopharma QC.
  • Positive Sentiment: Adoption of the new CAPEX-first pricing model and operational efficiency measures reduced cash burn, leaving net cash of £337 million and setting the stage for cash-flow breakeven in 2028.
  • Negative Sentiment: Despite resilience in many regions, the U.S. research market remains under pressure from federal funding uncertainty and export controls in China continue to pose headwinds.
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Earnings Conference Call
Oxford Nanopore Technologies H1 2025
00:00 / 00:00
Operator

Good morning and welcome to our 2025 interim results presentation. I'm Gordon Sanghera, Chief Exec of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Nick Keher. Today, we'll be walking you through both our financial performance and the strategic progress we've made, and how that is building real momentum in the business. We're pleased with our performance in the first half, both financially and strategically. What I'd like to do now is focus on the four key messages we want you to take away from today's presentation. Firstly, we delivered strong broad-based revenue of GBP 105.6 million. This is ahead of expectations. This is 28% growth on a constant currency basis, which is 25.6% on a reported basis. In addition, we made significant progress on our path to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA loss improved both year-on-year and sequentially, driven by increased gross profits and disciplined control of the cost base.

Operator

We also made good strategic progress in applied markets, providing momentum to deliver our 2025 targets, which are revenue growth of 20%-23% on a constant currency basis and a gross margin of approximately 59%. We're on track to deliver our medium targets, including adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027. Now let's look at some of the data on the next slide to understand how Oxford Nanopore Technologies has been performing in H1. We delivered strong first-half performance with broad-based growth across all geographies, end markets, and product types. This was driven by growing customer demand and adoption of our revised pricing model, underlying the resilience and diversity of the group customer base. By product type, 74% of our revenues come from consumables, which grew 25% year-on-year. Devices and services revenue growth was also strong, up 29%.

Operator

By region, Asia-Pac led with 38% constant currency growth, closely followed by EMEA at 33%, while AMR grew at 17% despite ongoing uncertainty in the U.S. research funding environment. We also delivered strong growth across all end markets. Importantly, we continue to diversify our revenues beyond research with applied markets now making up 32% of our business, driven by exceptional growth in the clinical space in H1. We continue to focus on three key pillars to guide execution of our strategy: first, commercial execution; second, innovation; and third, operational excellence. Starting with commercial execution. In the research market, we delivered 22% growth, a particularly strong performance in EMEA and Asia-Pac. Our large research and national programs continue to advance. For example, NIHR BioResource is now sequencing over 300 genomes per week, and UK Biobank completed its pilot phase before entering the production phase later this year.

Operator

PRECISE Program in Singapore was completed, delivering 10,200 Oxford Nanopore genomes on schedule. Genomics England's Cancer 2.0 program concluded, demonstrating the value of our technology in structural variation and epigenetic analysis. More broadly, adoption continues to expand across translational research and population scale projects, methylation analysis, as well as RNA and single-cell analysis. In clinical, we delivered particularly strong growth, up 53% in the period, driven by broader adoption in rare disease and oncology, particularly in the U.S. For example, in the U.S., St. Jude's Children's Hospital, in collaboration with Chapel Hill, published new pediatric leukemia data showing improvements in detection, cost, and turnaround time, highlighting the value of our technology's unique combination of benefits in the clinical market. In Poland, the Mary Curie Oncology Centre adopted Oxford Nanopore Technologies for genome analysis and methylation-based tumor profiling, aiming to replace short-read sequencing to access richer diagnostic insights.

Operator

In rare disease, the European Long-Read Innovation Network advanced delivery of its 10,000 genome program over three years, working to a transition from short-read sequencing to Oxford Nanopore's platform, based on improved diagnostic yield and ability to access native methylation data. In applied industrial markets, we delivered growth of 27%, with increasing demand in synthetic biology and industrial applications. Plasmidsaurus continued to perform strongly, expanding into new applications like RNA and [adenine-associated] virus, which is a critical vector in gene therapy development. They also expanded beyond the U.S. into Asia-Pac and EMEA. Biopharma growth was 19%. We saw growing adoption of our technology for biomanufacturing and production QC workflows, and a major biopharma customer implemented our technology, which now supports QC processes across seven of their production sites.

Operator

With the pipeline of activity we see from H2 onwards and our sharper focus on priority end markets, we're confident that this market will deliver substantial growth over the long term. Finally, we expanded our partner ecosystem. In April, we announced our new strategic clinical collaboration with Cepheid to combine their GeneXpert system with the Nanopore platform for infectious disease analysis, a workflow designed to help hospitals and clinical labs to test for infectious diseases more quickly and efficiently. Our second priority is our commitment to innovation, which remains central to our strategy for growth. In the first half of the year, we focused on advancing our regulated product pipeline to drive growth in applied markets, simplifying end-to-end workflows, improving product performance, and extending our multi-omic capabilities. For example, we showed early data at London Calling, combining increased enzyme speed with new flow cell buffers, enhancing our output by 70%.

Operator

This will significantly increase output and reduce the price of a human genome. This upgrade moves to beta testing in the second half of this year. We've also invested in software simplicity and expanded our end-to-end workflows to support broader use of the technology. In direct RNA sequencing, we launched a new [POP] multiplexing kit that allows up to 24 RNA samples per flow cell. This supports a growing number of biopharma applications beyond RNA vaccine quality control, including in drug discovery and sterility testing. We continue to make good progress on our proteomics platform, progressing our closed early access program for protein ID and barcoding. We adjusted our regulated product roadmap to focus on GridION V2, which will include R10 and RNA chemistries for broader adoption with clinical and biopharma customers. We also expect to complete CE/IVD submission for GridION in Europe by the end of 2025.

Operator

Our third priority is our commitment to operational excellence. In the first half of 2025, we made continued operational advances to support our long-term growth. We strengthened our manufacturing capabilities, optimized logistics, and improved the customer experience. A notable milestone was the fit-out of our global fulfillment center, the Spectrum Center, in Abingdon, bringing together flow cell recycling, logistics, and device manufacturing all under one roof. We also introduced next-generation flow cell lines and optimized processes for stability and scalability, and strengthened our QA processes to be compliant to ISO 13485 to support our regulated product lines. To further improve the customer journey, we completed the discovery phase of our Salesforce transformation project and established a new customer experience center of excellence.

Operator

We also delivered an operational efficiency program that reduced our workforce by around 5%, and we're on track to reduce planned non-headcount related spend by a further 5% this year. Importantly, this capital is being redirected to our high-priority growth areas. Together, these improvements mark a step change in Oxford Nanopore's operational strength and scalability. In summary, we've demonstrated strong execution against our strategic pillars in the first half, delivering robust growth in what remains a challenging backdrop, underpinned by the unique benefits of our technology. Continued delivery against these three pillars will be critical to sustaining long-term growth and expanding our share across both research and applied markets. This year marks 20 years since the company was founded and 10 years of market validation, and we're also refining our commercial strategy to focus on the highest priority end markets and applications.

Operator

I'll come back to that at the end of today's presentation, and we'll provide a fuller update in Q4. With strong foundations in place and real momentum across the business, let me now hand over to Nick to take you through the financial performance.

Operator

Thank you, Gordon. For those that don't know me, my name is Nick Keher, and I am the CFO of Oxford Nanopore. There are three key takeaways I want to leave you with from the financials today. First, we are delivering revenue growth that is significantly ahead of the markets we operate in, and we believe this growth is sustainable for the long term. Second, we are making strong progress on our pathway to breakeven with a 22% improvement in adjusted EBITDA loss, supported by our internal fiscal discipline. Third, we've made a meaningful improvement in our cash profile, reducing our cash burn, driven by adoption of our new pricing model. On the numbers themselves, we're pleased to report a strong first-half performance. Revenues were up 25.6% on a reported basis and 28% on a constant currency basis, ahead of our full-year guidance.

Operator

On the graphs on the right-hand side, you can see this growth has come from all regions, which is particularly encouraging given the well-documented challenges in the U.S. market. By product range, the PromethION range continues to be the key driver of growth, particularly across the larger devices, where flow cell utilization increased by 61% in the period, alongside increasing device placements. On the MinION range, we are starting to see a stabilization, and we anticipate future growth here as adoption broadens in the biopharma market. Gross margin remains solid at 58.2%, driven by adoption of the new pricing model, though this was offset by a one-off charge taken in the first half against inventory related to devices. We also demonstrated good cost control in the period, with adjusted operating expenses up just 1% year-on-year.

Operator

Combined with strong gross profit growth, this delivered a meaningful improvement in adjusted EBITDA loss, down to GBP 48.3 million, demonstrating our commitment to achieving adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027. Finally, we finished the period with GBP 337 million of net cash, leaving us well capitalized to deliver on our stated goals and on track to reaching cash flow breakeven in 2028, with ample resources to hand. Turning to the next slide on the pricing model, before we dive into the financials in further detail, I want to take a moment to recap the pricing model changes we implemented early this year. In February, we updated our pricing model, moving to a CapEx-first approach for the larger devices with compute and removing the project pack options that effectively place devices with customers for free with a preset volume of flow cells.

Operator

This change was designed to improve simplicity and transparency for customers whilst maintaining accessibility and affordability. So far, the move has been positive and ahead of expectations in terms of the financial benefits. On revenues, we saw a tailwind in H1, though this was moderated somewhat by device volumes being marginally lower to flat. This likely reflects the timing of the change as we missed the majority of our customers' budget cycles, meaning some customers didn't have the budget available for CapEx purchases versus the project pack option. As we move into 2026, with our customers now planning against the new pricing model, we expect this to reverse accordingly, particularly in EMEA and AMR. On gross margin, we believe most of the improvement in H1 was driven by the new pricing model.

Operator

We believe this benefit is sustainable and could strengthen further in H2 as the proportion of CapEx sales grow. Finally, on cash, this is where the changes had the biggest impact so far. We no longer carry the cost of placing devices with customers as part of project pack, as customers now buy the devices outright. We expect to see further improvements to our cash flow as the number of assets at customers reduces and as margins increase accordingly. Turning to gross margin, we delivered 58.2% in the period. That's just below our 59% target and slightly down on the prior year of 58.8%. We see this as temporary in nature only. The 58.2% reflects significant underlying improvement driven by the adoption of our new pricing model and continued margin improvements on our PromethION flow cell line.

Operator

These benefits more than offset continuous FX and mix headwinds, which we expect to continue to H2 and see as underlying movements to our margin mix overall. In the period, we also took a GBP 3.3 million one-off charge related to excess and obsolete inventory. Excluding that charge, gross margin would have been 61%, comfortably above our 59% guide for the full year. When we look at this underlying picture and factor in the expected weighting of revenues in H2, we remain confident in delivering our full-year gross margin target of 59%. Turning to the next slide on pathway to breakeven. With our outperformance on revenue and absolute gross profit growth, I am pleased to report that we translated this into operating leverage, delivering a meaningful 22% improvement in adjusted EBITDA loss versus the prior year and a 14% improvement versus H2 2024.

Operator

The key drivers were the strong gross profit growth we've already discussed, combined with internal fiscal discipline. At the start of the year, we announced and delivered a reduction in go forward spend split evenly between headcount and non-headcount costs. This has allowed us to reallocate capital into higher growth activities. As we look forward, we continue to see the same levers at work: the combination of revenue growth, gross margin expansion, and disciplined cost control, supporting our path to adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027. Now turning to cash, today's results show the improving profile of our business, driven by the adoption of our new pricing model. We delivered an GBP 11 million improvement in operating cash before working capital versus the prior year, despite a GBP 5.2 million cash charge related to internal restructuring.

Operator

Working capital outflow was GBP 6.2 million, largely reflecting bonus payments in the first half, otherwise showing a solid improvement overall. On assets at customers, which represents the historic cost of us placing devices with customers as part of project packs, we saw a notable benefit from increasing adoption of the new model. Outflows fell to GBP 5.5 million, down from GBP 14.4 million last year, and we expect further improvement in H2 as more customers shift to outright CapEx purchases. With an improving loss profile, successful adoption of the new pricing model, and further progress to come on inventory levels, we believe we can continue to make significant improvements to our cash profile. With GBP 337 million in cash, cash equivalents, and liquid investments, we are well capitalized to deliver on our stated goals.

Operator

Turning to full-year guidance, we are reiterating all of the measures set out at the start of the year, despite the uncertainty still present in our end markets. Capital spending continues to be constrained, particularly in the U.S. research market, where federal funding pressures, including NIH, remain a challenge. In China, end user controls also continue to be a headwind. Even with these pressures, demand for our differentiated platform remains strong across both the research and applied end markets. That gives us confidence to maintain our full-year revenue guidance of 20%-23% constant currency growth, which is meaningfully above our peers. We continue to expect a 45%, 55% weighting in revenue, with H2 revenue growth lower than H1, given the stronger comparative period last year.

Operator

On gross margin, while we came in marginally below our full-year target in H1, we are reaffirming a full-year target of 59%, supported by the strong underlying momentum in H1 and the weighting of revenues to H2. On adjusted OpEx, we continue to guide to 3%-4% growth for the full year, which remains at the low end of our medium-term guide. This does imply a step up in costs in H2 versus H1, as we continue to invest in the business for future growth. Overall, we believe this performance will lead to a further improvement in adjusted EBITDA loss versus 2024, keeping us on track for adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027. Turning to the final slide and just a recap. First of all, in H1, we delivered top-line results ahead of both our end markets and our full-year guidance, demonstrating strong demand for our technology.

Operator

We believe this technology is capable of addressing a market of $20 billion-$25 billion in total, with $13 billion-$14 billion within just our high-priority target segments. Gordon will talk more about this shortly. Second, we are making good progress on our pathway to adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027. Third, we've made a meaningful improvement to our cash profile, which we believe is sustainable and with the potential for further upside through working capital management. With that, let me hand back to Gordon to take you through the final slides.

Operator

Thanks, Nick. Our success and the continued outperformance against our peer group is underpinned by the unique benefits our platform delivers: richer insights, rapid results, and accessibility at scale. Large cohort programs are showing the biological value of the novel information only our technology can access. Translational labs are deploying Oxford Nanopore with speed and additional information on mission-critical. Because our platform is accessible and affordable, it opens up broader deployment across healthcare systems worldwide. This combination: richer insights, rapid results, and accessibility is what enables us to sustain growth in the broader market. Today, we are a company with strong technology and operational foundations, well positioned for the next 20 years of growth. In the last 12 months, we've delivered more than GBP 200 million in revenue. This is supported by a team of over 1,300 employees serving customers in more than 125 countries.

Operator

Our technology has been cited in over 18,000 publications and is backed by a portfolio of more than 2,500 patents. We've achieved a five-year revenue CAGR of more than 30%, underscoring the scalability of the business model and the global demand for our highly differentiated [technology platform]. This year is a major milestone for Oxford Nanopore, 20 years since the company was founded. Over that time, we've gone from idea to working method, prototype to product, innovating, making, and delivering what many thought was impossible. We've continuously iterated performance, making breakthroughs in chemistry and machine learning that have driven single molecule accuracy from 85% at launch to over 99% today, and there's more to come. More importantly, our data provides comprehensive native DNA coverage, reaching all parts of the genome with added multi-omic insights that are powering both discovery research and growth in applied markets.

Operator

The next 20 years hold immense potential for us. As part of our evolution, we are refining our commercial strategy. As we've discussed before, the total addressable markets relevant to Oxford Nanopore are well over $150 billion. Within that, we see substantial serviceable addressable markets of approximately $20 billion-$25 billion, spanning both the existing sequencing supplier market and non-sequencing molecular markets. This market can be broken into 47 segments across four domains: clinical, research, biomanufacturing QC, and other specialized areas. Oxford Nanopore's platform is uniquely differentiated by comprehensive data outputs, rapid turnaround, and accessibility across diverse settings. These strengths allow us to disrupt established approaches. Within this $20 billion-$25 billion serviceable addressable market, we have identified $13 billion-$14 billion of higher priority segments where our differentiation creates the strongest value for customers and the greatest opportunity to capture share, either directly or through partnerships.

Operator

Our commercial strategy is focused on executing against these higher priority segments to maximize long-term growth and value creation. To summarize, H1 2025 was a strong half. We delivered broad-based revenue growth of 28% on a constant currency basis, underpinned by the differentiated strengths of our technology. We improved adjusted EBITDA year-on-year and sequentially, showing real progress on our path to profitability. Looking ahead, we are reaffirming our 2025 guidance: revenue growth of 20%-23% at constant currency, gross margin of 59%, and adjusted OpEx growth of around 3%-4%. Beyond 2025, we are confident in our long-term trajectory. With a clear commercial strategy focused on high-priority segments and a robust innovation roadmap, we are on track to deliver our medium targets, including adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2027.

Operator

With strong foundations in place, a unique and disruptive platform, and growing momentum across both research and applied markets, we're excited about the opportunities ahead. Finally, I would like to finish by saying it's been the privilege of my career to co-found and lead Oxford Nanopore through this journey. As I announced earlier this month, I will step down as CEO at the end of next year, after 21 years in the role. With strong foundations we built together, I believe that will be the right moment to hand over to a new leader. Until then, I remain absolutely fully focused on executing our strategy and driving the business to profitability. With that, I will now invite the operator to open the line for Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please signal it by pressing *1 on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time and fairness to everyone, we kindly ask the analysts to limit themselves to one question initially and then return to the questions queue again for any further follow-up. Once again, that is *1 for your questions today. Our first question comes from Veronica Dubajova from Citi. Please go ahead.

Operator

Hi, good morning, Gordon, Nick, and Charlie. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe we can start with gross margin. I'm just curious, obviously, given the underlying improvement you've demonstrated in the first half of the year, if you could talk through, one, how you think about the back half of the year and also your ability to hit that low 60% margin, maybe ahead of the schedule that you have communicated. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Absolutely. Thank you, Veronica. On the gross margin, clearly for the first half, 58.2% with a GBP 3.3 million headwind taken from the inventory write-down. At that, we would have been broadly 61%, which kind of exemplifies the strength of the business and also the underlying improvements that we delivered in the first half overall. I think that's really important because when we look at the gross margin x the write-down, that is a true look forward, a see-through for where our margin is kind of trending towards. Clearly, FX and product and customer mix are kind of outside of our control, and we anticipate them to be headwinds in the second half. Within those underlying improvements, the majority has been driven by the pricing model changes and the adoption of CapEx by customers, which is sustainable. The margin absolutely is a sustainable piece of that.

Operator

For roughly a third of it, it is from the PromethION flow cell improvements, particularly on gross margin there because of the recycling. We've only really started the journey here. Actually, we see improvements as likely continuing, not just into the second half, but into 2027. For the second half of the year, we think that kind of x one-off is a true see-through to where our margin should be. This gives us some headroom for anything from an FX and further product and customer mix headwinds in the second half. Hopefully for investors, this gives a bit of confidence that as we look to that 2027 timeline, we can achieve a greater than 62% gross margin, particularly as the PromethION flow cell improvements continue.

Operator

Excellent. Maybe just to touch upon that quickly, the improvement that you saw in the first half, would you expect the second half improvement to be similar or better, given that a lot of these initiatives were not fully loaded in the first half of the year? I'll hop back into the queue. Thanks.

Operator

Yeah, I wouldn't want people factoring in too much aggression into the second half gross margin if that's possible. That's why we're keeping with the 59% guide for the full year. If we look at the FAS, the pricing model adoption only increased as the months went on into the first half of the year, into June, from when we launched it in February. We should get a full half benefit in the second half from that kind of adoption. On the PromethION flow cell recycling, like I say, we've only really just started the journey. Should we continue to see improvements in gross margin as we look forward? We're already into the second half of the year. There are going to be times when it doesn't hit the mark that we need to because of the mix of products that we have out there.

Operator

On an underlying basis, and all things being equal, we should see that be delivered. What I'm trying to set up here for happy people as well is that belief that we can improve from that 59% this year to over 62% in 2027, with the improvements, particularly on the PromethION flow cell continuing.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question now comes from Charles Weston from RBC. Please go ahead.

Operator

Thanks for taking the question and congratulations, Gordon, on the tenure of your career at Oxford Nanopore. My question is on the 30% or more than 30% CAGR from 2024 to 2027, because that includes 20%-23% growth in 2024. You don't need to be a mathematical genius to mean that you need higher than 30% growth in 2026 and 2027. How dependent is that acceleration on a recovery in the academic markets in your mind? Is this catch-up effect affected evenly in 2026 and 2027, or is it more back-end weighted? Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Charles. You're absolutely right. It does include the guidance for this year. As we looked and set the model expectations over a year ago now, when we were reviewing that, we always assumed that research would actually be a low-growth market for us. The reason for that being it's just difficult to predict, particularly when we look at the larger one-off contracts that you can win in terms of those pop-gen style contracts. The growth is really dependent, like weighted towards the applied markets, in particular growing quicker in clinical, applied, and biopharma markets. When we look at each one of those today and how we've delivered, clinical has actually had a very strong first half of the year. We see lots of opportunity for further expansion into the clinical markets.

Operator

As we improve our throughput on the PromethION flow cell, we see more business able to come through to us. Even from where we are today, we're seeing real good adoption in a place like rare disease and oncology. We've got, and as we've got detailed, but like when we look at the $13 billion-$14 billion of high-priority segments, the vast majority, you know, a big chunk of it actually, sorry, not vast, but the big chunk of it is in that clinical space where we have lots of white space for us to go into. Also within biopharma and within the applied space, we have large market opportunities where the technology is well suited to, and we believe we can win.

Operator

It's about lining up those priorities now in the right order, building the right segment strategies that go alongside them, the paths for our product, and then executing on it to how we deliver an enhanced growth rate in 2026 and 2027. Being specific, it was never weighted towards a recovery in the research market.

Operator

Thank you. Does that sort of accelerate through 2026 and 2027 or sort of step up in 2026?

Operator

I think because we're going to have an easier comp, we'd expect a bit of more of a 2026 than into 2027. It'll always be a bit lumpy given the kind of comps that we're playing against and the value of the devices we're putting out.

Operator

Thank you. We're now moving to a question from Kyle Mikson from Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Operator

Morning. Thanks for the questions. Nick, you kind of talked about this a little bit, but the devices and the service revenue grew at a, you know, healthy, faster rate than consumables revenue. Just again, could you kind of contextualize, walk through how much of that device growth was from the pricing model changes given, you know, amid this offsetting decline in volumes? I'm wondering if you could, you know, do you feel protected against continued volume declines as the pricing benefit rolls off? Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Good question. On volumes overall, we've got to look by product line. Within the MinION range, essentially broadly flat, GridION was a little bit down. PromethION, the larger devices, was a little bit down as well, but that's because of the comps we're playing against. First half of last year, we placed a lot of devices out with the likes of PRECISE. We know we have these kind of false comps. I'd also say, in terms of volume perspective, those devices will be coming back to us post the end of the contract now. When we look at the revenue growth that was delivered in the first half, pricing was a big benefit for the devices' revenue growth that you saw with the volumes being slightly down, but marginally.

Operator

However, there's an important piece here, which is we only went live with the communications to customers in January on the new pricing model changes, and they only went active and live in February. We continue to honor any existing PO or order that was in from a customer or even tender that related to the old project pack style. Quite consistent feedback we've had, particularly across EMEA and AMR, is that the customers weren't ready for this from their own budgeting perspective. We know that customers didn't have the necessary budget available to factor in for adopting the CapEx-first pricing model approach. They're going to be ready as we go into 2026 and 2027 now.

Operator

It's really difficult to unpick completely, but we do think we've actually had a bit of a headwind there from a volume perspective and edge revenue perspective from the fact that the customers' budget models or budgets weren't completely set against how the new pricing model was rolled out. Now everybody's aware of it. We don't think that'll be a headwind anymore.

Operator

That was great to answer that. Gordon, quick one for you congrats on the tenure at Nanopore, you know, great job. I want to probe on the refined commercial strategy a bit. I know there's going to be an update in the 4Q. Is that going to involve discontinuing any devices or releasing new devices, or is that purely a sales and marketing change?

Operator

What was the question in there, Kyle?

Operator

Yeah, just the refined commercial strategy.

Operator

Oh, sorry.

Operator

That you're going to provide in the fourth quarter, yeah.

Operator

Yeah. I think as we talked at Capital Markets a couple of years ago, we were transitioning, and a significant chunk of our growth trajectory will be coming from applied markets. We're going through a process right now where we are matching up the products we have, the opportunities that sit in front of us. We talked about the $14 billion-$15 billion opportunity. The good news is there's a lot of things we can do. Trying to piece through to pick the low-hanging fruit that kind of matches and aligns with the platforms we have, that's part one. Part two is then thinking about the medium term, about what the future platforms look like. It's really bringing all of that together in a more comprehensive medium to long-term growth trajectory that takes us through and beyond EBITDA breakeven in 2027.

Operator

There will be new platforms, but the first order of business is where can we get maximum value from the ones that we've established in the market.

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. From Berenberg, we now have Sam England with our next question. Please go ahead. Please ensure you're not muted locally. Your line is open.

Operator

Hi, guys. Hopefully, you can hear me now. Just on U.S. research, is it fair to say the business held up a bit better than expected in the first half? In the release, you suggested you might be a bit less impacted in that market than peers, given the lower price point and accessibility for your platform. Is that something you're actually seeing on the ground or hearing from customers at the moment? Does it mean you're taking some share in a softer U.S. market? I suppose more broadly, how much conservatism is now baked into the guide on the research side of the business, given the softness you're seeing?

Operator

Thank you, Sam. On the first question, this is exactly one of the things we've seen when we've looked through the detail and the data in our AMR region. I just got a snippet that's quite interesting. I think it is anyway. The average order size in the Americas is actually essentially half what we saw in AMR in the first half of this year. That is kind of speaking to the accessible nature of the technology. I know that there's maybe some perception here about the move to the CapEx-first pricing model, for instance, is going to have an impact on our ability to be accessible. If you look at the range of products we have against the competitors out there, we are by far the most accessible technology for the customers.

Operator

In this kind of environment where there's a bit more constraint on budgets, I think we may well have been able to kind of be an option for customers as well, for them to be able to access and get going still. Perhaps we've got a bit more of a defensive moat around our business from the fact that we are accessible there. I think that's fair. In terms of conservatism, we are being prudent with the guide. We set this out at the beginning of the year that we were going to be prudent in what we were saying for 2025, given the headwinds and the uncertainty in particular that we saw in the Americas space around the research funding environment, but also because of the export control restrictions we were seeing in China and kind of slipped us up for it, I guess for that to say.

Operator

We didn't want that to be the case again. We're setting a guide we believe is prudent and that we can achieve. As we look into the second half of this year, we believe that it's the right thing to kind of keep that prudence because the risks still remain. With the uncertainty in the U.S. market, it didn't really feel like it was the right time to change tack there. We just kind of keep going with the strategy we have and aim to outperform again.

Operator

Great, thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Up next, we have a question from Kane Slutzkin from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Operator

Morning, morning all. Just on biopharma, I was just thinking on that growth there and having a sort of step change there. How should we be thinking about that sort of growth or that step change in the growth there, which obviously could be quite significant when considering the timing elements for a lot of that, you know, when contracts are announced, et cetera? Just thinking about how we should think about that sort of step change in biopharma. Thanks.

Operator

In terms of the application space, you can talk about the financial side Nick. The application space is very exciting for us. We have a unique value proposition, and it does revolve around affordable, accessible, distributed. For example, in vaccine manufacture for mRNA, direct RNA analysis, and then in cell and gene therapy as well, we have a unique value prop across the whole spectrum. There is real excitement around the evaluations. In terms of when biopharma wants to make announcements, that's really in their hands. We are, and we remain, very excited about this space because we do believe we have a very unique value proposition in biopharma.

Operator

Just on the step change piece, through this refined commercial strategy as well, it's quite pleasing to see where biopharma came up in terms of the size of the market opportunity, but also the fact that we believe we can go and access this as well and quickly. The technology, the developments we have to do, there are some things that we need to do still, but we can only broaden out the size of the opportunity and enhance the speed at which we grow into it. For the here and now, Kane, and how we're thinking about it, we have got a large number of large clients essentially that are evaluating the technology, and we are hoping to move from that evaluation phase into QC manufacturing directly.

Operator

As I think we've said at the July training update, we have had some that have actually made that change already, both in Europe and in the U.S. We haven't been able to communicate that as widely as we'd like at the moment, but we are hoping to in due course. I think when we talk about the caliber of customers that are doing this, we think it'll help people realize that, breadcrumb for people about the growth rates that are going to come thereafter from it. There's also a piece here which is just lower small numbers. It's the smallest segment for us today. As single contracts, multiple contracts come through in their single million dollars of value each, we think these will build. Because of the recurring nature of them, it provides a real intrinsic value to the company as well.

Operator

Right. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Up next, we have Zain Ebrahim from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Operator

Morning. Thanks for taking my question. My question is on APAC, and you know, you saw very strong growth in the first half of this year, 38%. Just thinking about the second half in 2026, how we should think about that in the context of China, it sounds like you're assuming further tightening of export control restrictions. Just your latest thinking there, and also with the completion of the PRECISE Singapore contract, what do you see as the key drivers of continued strong growth in APAC? Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Zain. Yes, we had a very good first half indeed. In the second half, we don't see it as being quite as strong, essentially as what we saw in the first half, again, because of that kind of comp piece that we're playing against. However, we are quite encouraged by what we're seeing, not just in Singapore ex-PRECISE, but also in places like Australia as well, and even in China. Part of the piece here is the adoption in the applied market space where, against conventional legacy technologies for things as simple as in synthetic biology, we're seeing a lot of opportunity where that's coming of age. In the clinical space, particularly in the rare disease area, in the markets in APAC, we're seeing uptake and people in evaluation phases now moving to scaling, which essentially is giving us confidence as we look forward as well.

Operator

For the second half, still anticipate good growth, perhaps not as strong as what we delivered in the first half. We won't get drawn into 2026 just yet, and clearly we'll talk about that more when we get to the end of the year. We've got all the building blocks for what we need to see, which is essentially growth into those non-research, non-lumpy business points, which is, I think, where you're getting to as well in the more stable applied and clinical areas.

Operator

Great, thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. From Barclays, we now have Jon Unwin with our next question. Please go ahead.

Operator

Good morning, everyone. I have two questions, but they're both on the pricing model. The first question is, are you able to quantify what revenue growth would have been in the first half if you hadn't changed the pricing model, i.e., what was the benefit from the pricing change? The second question is, under the old model where you placed a device that had a volume of contracts, how long were those contracts typically? What I'm trying to understand is if any revenue pull forward you see from changing the pricing model will be a net benefit in the mid-term revenue guidance range period, or whether actually it'll come out in the wash because the contracts are typically one to two years. Just trying to understand that. Thank you.

Operator

Yeah, I'll take the second part first if I can, actually. It depends on the device type. If we're looking at the larger devices, say the P24s, the Grids, then essentially we got around nine months visibility from when we took the order for the shipments of flow cells to go through. The vast majority is washing through now, actually. All that did was essentially underpin the flow cells delivery dates that went alongside those. Do we expect this to be a net benefit and a pull forward? As we talked to, we actually did catch some customers out in terms of the timing of this switch and their budget availability, particularly as we look into the second half of the year until we get into the new year. I think it's going to come through in the wash, essentially. We don't anticipate that much.

Operator

In terms of quantifying it overall, the gross margin is probably the fairest place to look. We believe it was roughly 2/3 of the benefit that we saw in the year. Why aren't we being more specific on this is because of the complexity that goes into it, the fact that we did see this marginal volume impact because of the timing for customers and their budgets, the fact that we have seen a pricing benefit on device in particular, but the wash-through, as you called it as well, from revenues out of the prior year in deferred revenue terms, all of these things that are coming through in the wash, I think, don't allow us to give you a firm number on it. In the gross margin where we can evaluate it cleaner, we estimate it's around 2/3 of the benefit overall.

Operator

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We now move on to a question from Andrew Whitney from InvesTech. Please go ahead.

Operator

Morning, Nick, Gordon, Charlie. Thanks a lot for taking the question. Just a quick one. On refinement of commercial strategy, that looks really interesting. I know Kyle's asked about it earlier in the call. Just looking at your lower, medium, and higher priority segments, is that broadly how you thought it would play out when you set your midterm guidance a while back? I mean, you've done a bit of incremental work now. Has that changed any of your thinking about how the midterm can play out and what the opportunities are after the midterm guidance? I'm just curious on your relative confidence on the longer-term opportunity. Any thoughts?

Operator

Sure. What we said at Capital Markets Day was that we felt that there was going to be the underlying growth from the research markets, and that continues and is good and strong, represents 68% of our revenue. The remaining 32% is from the applied markets, and that's where the growth really is. That's where the growth drivers are coming from. That's what we said. What I stated clearly at Capital Markets Day was we will definitely get the mix wrong. When we look at what we said there, about a third is what we projected now, and we're at 32%.

Operator

What we're doing with this strategic review is rather than kind of sitting back and seeing what customers are driving in, which is great and important because that really tells us where the markets are going to be hottest and where our unique value proposition is, we're blending that with the TAMs and the SAMs and leading to that $14 billion opportunity, which then allows us to really be targeted. I would say the outlook in the next couple of years, what we have got in our pie chart for growth in the applied markets, I think we'll be far closer to what we actually hit. It was probably part of the natural evolution. We needed the market to sort of tell us where to go through sticky applications. In terms of industrial, biopharma, and clinical, they remain a constant.

Operator

The mix now, we think we've got a much stronger, we've got our arms around where that takes us next. That's why we feel confident about the medium-term outlook and the growth trajectory we need to hit EBITDA breakeven.

Operator

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We now move on to a question from Julie Simmons from Panmure Liberum. Please go ahead. Please ensure you're not muted locally. Your line is open now.

Operator

Thank you. Thanks for taking the question. Just wondering in terms of the change in the sort of strategy as far as the regulated products are concerned and the focus on the GridION Q, which seems to have pushed back the PromethION a little bit, where the thinking is behind that, please.

Operator

I don't think it's a change. I think we're just reacting to the market. There's some strong biopharma and clinical Q-Line we want to get out there, so we're just getting ahead of that curve and demand. That doesn't change the strategy on Q-Line PromethION, and that's still on the deck and still being worked on.

Operator

Are there any applications that it sort of pushes out because it'll be slightly later?

Operator

I think it's fair to say we are looking forward to kind of getting the Prom Q out there as being a helper and enabler, essentially, particularly for that clinical space. The reason why the Grid Q is essentially kind of ensuring that is out there and is developed as it needs to be is immediately really that biopharma piece in particular, as Gordon's kind of alluded to. Getting specific on applications, the truth is we're actually seeing adoption in the clinical market on Prom for the RUO version anyway. This isn't being a blocker to that. I think once we get the Q-Line out there, it actually catalyzes it exactly. The next pieces that will catalyze even further growth will be things like the throughput on the flow cell, where we know customers will give us even more business, essentially, as soon as we can get that throughput higher.

Operator

We know what we've got to work on. I think part of this refinement of commercial strategy is clearly leading to kind of the prioritization of activity internally and what we need to do. Your question's absolutely valid. I don't think we're going to go on specific indications as such, but just know that we're still seeing that growth in clinical, even on the RUO version of Prom.

Operator

Lovely. Helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Up next from Peel Hunt, we have Miles Dixon. Please go ahead.

Operator

Good morning. Thank you for taking the question. My question is also on the commercial strategy and the adoption of the CapEx-first pricing model. Clearly, that's going a bit ahead of what you expected. I was wondering, for those customers that have moved over to that pricing model, is it too early for you to be able to see what the trends are for demands on the run rate of flow cells versus the preset number? Does that differ by clinical and applied versus research customers? Thank you.

Operator

Yeah, valid question. In terms of the CapEx versus non-CapEx customers, we already had that largely because of distributors. One of the reasons why we felt confident about moving over as well is because all of our sales through distributors, so the majority of in APAC sales, if you like, were already CapEx related anyway. We already did have some of those trends. The more interesting trends, though, are actually the ones you talked to latterly, which is about the end market ones, where actually we can see the customer trends, say, on research, it ebbs and flows more than we would like. Whereas when you look at the trends for, say, a biopharma, an applied customer, and a clinical customer, they kind of get to a level and build instead. We do look at that. We do monitor that.

Operator

In terms of what will happen in the EMEA and AMR for those customers who are going to now be buying a device CapEx rather than leasing it, this is also something that we're looking forward to seeing because there is a school of thought that now a customer is paying for the box, that they're going to be using it more often rather than having it placed for free. They've made a commitment instead.

Operator

Got it. Thank you, Nick.

Operator

Thank you. We now take a follow-up question from Charles Weston from RBC. Please go ahead.

Operator

Thanks. What should we be expecting from reacceleration of the MinION franchise? Does that come from MinIONs or GridIONs? What's the timeline of the rollout of that higher throughput chemistry, please?

Operator

We've said on doing the second one first, our higher throughput chemistries will be, we talked about it at London Calling, showing that 70% increase in output. We're going to beta testing now and a H2. We will be doing it, releasing it in a controlled manner. It's a new enzyme and a new buffer system. The platforms we have are really good, and we're really mindful of we're not just going to force releases out, you know, breakneck speed because we don't need to anymore because of the maturity of the platform. We'll release in certain markets over the first half, second half of this year, and moving into next year in a controlled manner. With regard to MinION, the company has a commitment to affordable, accessible, distributed.

Operator

How that strategically fits in as we evolve the platform over the next couple of years, particularly in the medium to long term, that'll all be part of the strategic planning and the process. What we do see in front of us are opportunities, as you would imagine, with our high throughput PromethION. Getting the balance right is critical and part of this strategic plan that we're moving forward.

Operator

Just to add to that as well, I mean specifically the growth of the, you know, the growth of the MinION range, yes, it'll be the Grid Q as the kind of key piece on it. Particularly as we kind of go into that biopharma space where we can already see the kind of the level of demand coming through the pipeline for that device and that product, that will be the part that kind of re-energizes it. As Gordon's alluded to as well, as part of the refinement of commercial strategy, completely, there will be segments that essentially fit very well with things like the MinION where we know how we'll know better how to target.

Operator

Yeah, thank you both.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session. I'd like to hand the call back over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Operator

I think I just wanted to thank everybody this morning. We have great momentum. We're very excited about what's happening. Just to reassure everybody, I am here for the next 16 months, and I'm really excited about what's in front of us, including the transition, working with the board to find my successor. We are well positioned. We have a lot of momentum, and we're really looking forward to updating you on the exciting opportunities that we can see in Q4 on the applied market space and our 2026 targets. Thank you all for your time this morning.

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