Seer Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Seer EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.30
• Consensus EPS: -$0.30
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Seer Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $2.79 million
• Expected Revenue: $3.60 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$807.00 thousand
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Seer Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/13/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Seer (NASDAQ:SEER) is a life sciences technology company that develops tools for large-scale protein analysis, or proteomics. Its platform is designed to help researchers study the proteins present in biological samples, supporting applications in drug discovery, biomarker research, translational research and the development of precision medicine.

The company’s principal offering is the Proteograph Product Suite, which uses proprietary nanoparticle technology to provide broad and rapid access to the proteome. The suite includes consumable nanoparticle kits, automation equipment and software intended to streamline sample processing, protein profiling and data analysis for research laboratories.

Seer was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. The company serves pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic and research institutions, and other organizations involved in biomedical research. Its products are marketed for use in research applications and are not intended to diagnose or treat disease.

Seer Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Neutral Sentiment: Seer reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $16 million to $18 million, saying it still expects momentum to build through the year despite a soft first quarter and continued NIH funding pressure.
• Negative Sentiment: Q1 revenue fell to $2.8 million from $4.2 million a year ago, reflecting weak academic/government funding, heavier competitive pressure, and some disruption from a commercial leadership transition.
• Positive Sentiment: The company said its scientific validation continues to accelerate, with 84 peer-reviewed publications, preprints, and reviews now supporting the Proteograph platform, up sharply from 42 a year ago.
• Positive Sentiment: Seer highlighted major progress in population-scale studies, including the PRECISE-SG100K biobank program and other large cohorts, which management believes could help drive broader adoption and larger future revenue opportunities.
• Positive Sentiment: The company emphasized strong cost discipline, as operating expenses fell to $18.2 million from $22.8 million a year earlier, while it ended Q1 with $219.5 million in cash and investments and said it has enough liquidity to reach cash-flow breakeven.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to Seer First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance please signal the conference specialist or pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask question. To ask a question, you may press star then one on the touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please know this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Marissa Bych from Gilmartin Group. Please go ahead.

[Marissa Bych, Managing Director at Gilmartin Group]

Thank you. Earlier today, Seer released financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. If you have not received this news release or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor at seer.bio. In addition, during today's conference call, we will be referencing a slide presentation that can be accessed on the Events and Presentation section of Seer's Investor Relations website. Participating today from Seer is Omid Farokhzad, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board, and David Horn, Chief Financial Officer and President. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated.

[Marissa Bych, Managing Director at Gilmartin Group]

Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section titled Forward-Looking Statements in the press release Seer issued today. For a more complete list and description, please see the Risk Factor section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Seer disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast today. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Omid.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Thank you, Marissa, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. At Seer, we're making significant progress on our innovation roadmap, commercial position, and strategic objectives as we start the year. We have said that our progress may not be linear quarter to quarter, but my conviction in Seer, the impact of our technology, and the market we're building has never been stronger. Let me start by summarizing for you our vision and the progress we made in Q1, then focus on recent developments and our outlook going forward. Starting with our vision and the promise of our platform. We imagined and pioneered the first solution for standardized, robust, deep, unbiased proteomics at scale. We have been focused on the steps we need to take to advance our solution, both near and longer term. This quarter, we accomplished the following in pursuit of this vision.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We continue to expand our evidence base, doubling the body of independent publications, validating our platform year-over-year. We announced another biobank collaboration with Precision Health Research, Singapore and Thermo Fisher, further advancing our population scale studies effort. We appointed a new chief commercial officer to drive momentum in our sales organization. We successfully defended our patents with the recent PTAB verdict and remain committed to protecting our foundational technology. We evolved our Insight Grants program to engage pharma and biotech teams directly in the workflows where proteomics can have the most immediate impact. We continue to invest in product and technological innovation, including our next-generation detector and additional innovations in our scalable cloud-based software analytical suite while maintaining tight cost control.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Taken together, our accomplishments this quarter advance our mission of imagining and pioneering new ways to decode the biology of the proteome to improve human health. We maintain our leadership in and continue to build the market for deep unbiased proteomics, which ultimately drives value creation in the long run for our stakeholders. In terms of financial performance, our first quarter total revenue was $2.8 million, reflecting the ongoing depressed academic funding environment that has been pressuring customer budgets over the last several quarters, compounded by increased competitive activity from inferior product imitators in this space we have pioneered. The progress we made this quarter that I previously detailed and the underlying momentum in the business give us confidence for the rest of 2026.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Consequently, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $16 million-$18 million, representing approximately 3% growth at the midpoint over full year 2025. I will walk through our Q1 execution and how it advances our trajectory. Turning to slide three, peer-reviewed validation of our platform continues to build. There are now 84 peer-reviewed publications, preprints, and reviews validating the Proteograph Product Suite. This compares to three publications in 2022 at the time of our broad commercial launch, and 42 publications as of March 2025, only one year ago. We expect to see additional publications and a broadening impact as we look forward. This includes a growing impact through innovative companies like PrognomiQ, who just this week announced breakthrough results for the early detection of lung cancer in an ongoing real-world study of its novel blood test.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Leveraging the Proteograph for its proteomic biomarker discovery efforts, PrognomiQ launched ProVue Lung in November 2025 to support the early detection of lung cancer in high-risk individuals. Yesterday, PrognomiQ announced that in the first cohort of 78 high-risk adults, the ProVue Lung blood test accurately detected eight lung cancers. Notably, five of the eight cancers were provisionally categorized as stage one, and all cancers were confirmed via tissue biopsy. These early findings translate to a performance of 89% sensitivity to detect all stages of lung cancer at 54% specificity, including 83% sensitivity for stage 1 lung cancer. These results represent breakthrough performance for the early detection of lung cancer and could meaningfully enhance the current standard of care, which is a low-dose CT scan with a very low patient compliance rate.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We are very excited for what this means for the applicability of proteomics in early cancer detection. Turning to slide four, I want to highlight one paper in particular from this quarter. In January 2026, an article titled Cross-Ancestry Comparison of Aptamer and Antibody Protein Measures by Nicholas et al. was published in Nature Communications. This study demonstrated that a meaningful fraction of protein associations in large-scale affinity proteomics may be influenced by protein-altering genetic variants, particularly cross-genetically diverse populations. Importantly, the authors showed that ancestry-associated variants such as the inflammatory biomarker suPAR and Alzheimer's disease-linked PILRA protein could create discordant biological interpretation across platforms, with interpretations improving substantially after accounting for the underlying variant. The paper highlights the importance of variant-aware proteomics to properly understand the unique role different variants play in health and disease across populations.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

As biobank scale and multi-ancestry studies continue to expand globally, the ability to correctly interpret protein biology, including ancestry-specific variants, becomes a differentiator. The Proteograph provides the ability to perform this analysis. We believe this capability will become increasingly important as proteomics moves toward larger translational studies. This further supports our strategy of building a differentiated evidence base through high-impact peer-reviewed publication. Turning to slide five to discuss our population scale studies. As our technology has performed exceptionally well in the hands of our customers, we have become the trusted partner of choice in deep unbiased proteomics at scale. Without Seer, conventional mass spectrometry would be unable to provide the depth and scale that biobanks are looking for. Last year marked an inflection point as we initiated landmark population scale studies with Korea University and Discovery Life Sciences, followed by the NIH-funded multi-omic study.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We built on this success when we announced the PRECISE-SG100K population scale study last month. In collaboration with PRECISE and Thermo Fisher Scientific, the PRECISE team is generating deep, unbiased proteomics data for 10,000 participants, and we believe this study may eventually encompass 100,000 participants to generate one of the largest multi-omics data sets in the world. We believe the data from these biobank studies will drive broader adoption in the existing proteomics market. In the near term, Professor Lee from Korea University will be presenting initial data from a subset of his 20,000-patient cohort at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference in June. He will also be joined by Dr. Kang, who is training a foundation AI model using data from the cohort. Additionally, we expect the PRECISE team to share their data publicly at the HUPO World Congress in September.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

When PRECISE-SG100K data is made public, it will demonstrate what the Proteograph makes possible at the population scale, and we believe that is a pivotal inflection point to drive 100,000+ sample biobank studies, the types of which have historically been the inflection point for the flywheel to begin turning for our peers. We're having ongoing dialogues with potential partners globally, including academic institutions, national health initiatives, and leading research organizations, and the emerging data sets from Korea University and PRECISE will help advance these discussions. When it comes to robust, standardized, deep, unbiased proteomics at population scale, we believe the Proteograph is the only commercial solution that exists. We earn the trust of the scientific community by establishing a robust base of scientific validation. As a result, we expect revenue growth to increasingly reflect the true scale of the opportunity in front of us.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We have an update about our commercial organization that we're very excited about. We recently appointed Anthony Bazarko as our Chief Commercial Officer. I want to take a moment on the strategic importance of this hire. We are at a pivotal moment in our growth journey. Our science is validated, the biobank mandates are coming in, seminal data readouts are on the horizon. What we need now is the commercial leadership to go from the massive opportunity in front of us with the same conviction and rigor that has defined our work to date. We believe Anthony is that leader. Anthony brings two decades of commercial leadership across life sciences, diagnostics, and biotechnology with a demonstrated track record of scaling go-to-market organizations.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

He most recently served as President and CEO of Biologos, overseeing its acquisition by Ampersand Capital Partners, and prior to that, he was the CCO of Specific Diagnostics, which was acquired by bioMérieux. He understands what it takes to translate scientific credibility into commercial momentum, and he's joining at the moment when that translation matters most. I'm confident that his leadership will be transformative for how we engage customers, pursue biobank partnerships, and capture the market opportunity we have spent years building toward. Spending a moment on our intellectual property. The success and power of our technology have also fueled imitators to enter the markets. We have a robust patent portfolio, and we plan to defend our core technology that underpins the automated deep unbiased proteomics at scale that empowers our customers.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

In March, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board upheld 23 of 29 claims in one of our nanoparticle protein enrichment patents, serving as an example of the strength of the portfolio of more than 250 patents and patent applications, including 84 issued patents that we have built to date. Earlier this morning, we announced that we have filed a patent infringement suit against Nanomics Biotechnology. These asserted patents protect Seer's intellectual property in the field of nanoparticle protein enrichment. Brigham and Women's Hospital is joining this lawsuit as well. We believe in preserving the integrity of our products and the trust that researchers place in us. Products that we believe are technologically inferior do not just threaten our leadership position, but they also risk undermining our broader goal of eliminating the obstacles to mainstream proteomic adoption and unlocking the full complexity of the proteome for human health.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We have made enormous investments to date. We will vigorously defend what we have built. Protecting our intellectual property is, in my view, protecting the future of proteomics. Turning to slide six to discuss changes to our Seer Insight Grants program. In Q1, we evolved the program into a more targeted initiative with 2 distinct tracks. The first is a translational research track, continuing the work that has consistently generated strong scientific returns and high-impact publication. The second is a new biopharma development track designed to engage pharma and biotech teams directly in the workflows where proteomics can have the most immediate impact, such as mechanism of action studies, resistance biology, and biomarker strategy.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

By providing streamlined access to the Proteograph platform alongside integrated mass spectrometry and bioinformatic support, the program lowers the barrier to entry for new customers while generating the kind of high-quality data that drives publications, deepens engagement, and builds long-term relationships. We have also expanded the program's geographic reach this year with a deliberate focus on segments where the Proteograph remains under-penetrated. We see this as an important catalyst for biopharma adoption. Finally, turning to slide seven to discuss innovation. Innovation is core to who we are at Seer and how we will extend our leadership. I remain focused on maintaining a responsible but robust innovation effort, including the continuous build-out of our technology's capabilities as we seek to establish our leadership position as the preferred proteomic data platform for AI-driven biology.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We are making concentrated high-conviction investment in the next generation of our platform while maintaining cost discipline. The progress is meaningful across every layer of the stack. On assay, to solve the bottleneck of upstream workflow, we introduced the SP200 and Proteograph ONE assay, which made large-scale studies, including biobanks, possible for the first time. We have additional panels in development designed for more focused applications, expanding the menu and utility of the Proteograph for the broader range of research. Our next-generation detector, which we have been developing for four years, is designed to bring deep unbiased proteomics to a much wider audience beyond existing mass spectrometry users and into the broader multi-omics community. We are working to enter the era of what I call next-generation proteomics, where a robust, standardized, and easy-to-use proteomic detector can be used broadly and cost-effectively by a range of scientists.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We anticipate a data showcase later this year. I look forward to sharing more as that milestone approaches. On software and analytics, we're continuing to expand the capabilities of our Proteograph Analysis Suite, which allows researchers to interact with large-scale proteomic data intuitively and dynamically. Most recently, we launched an update to PAS, which allows users to interface with a chat box and notebooks for easy, rapid, and stable data analysis, and we anticipate additional features to be launched later this year. In addition, we recently filed a preprint article on bioRxiv titled "Radiant DIA, a fast, sensitive, and accurate search engine for quantitative proteomics." As the scale of proteomic studies continues to grow, in large part credited to the innovations we have made at Seer, the analytical infrastructure has to keep pace to be able to scale with the increasing amount and complexity of the data being generated.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Existing tools like DIA-NN were not built for that volume and struggle to scale, which creates a real constraint on throughput, cost, and accessibility. Radiant DIA is a faster, more sensitive, and more cost-effective solution for rapid and scalable proteomic data analysis. It is purpose-built for the large cohort and biopharma workflows that are increasingly defining how our customers use the platform. We will have an oral presentation discussing Radiant DIA at the upcoming ASMS Conference, and we look forward to sharing additional details at that time. Before I turn the call over to David, I want to take a moment to highlight our continued commitment to cost discipline.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

The progress we made this quarter, expanding our evidence base, winning landmark biobank mandates, strengthening our IP, appointing transformative commercial leadership, and continuing to push boundaries of what our platform can do, was all achieved while reducing total operating expenses from $22.8 million in Q1 of 2025 to $18.2 million this quarter. That reflects a deliberate and deeply held conviction that building a great company means being as disciplined with capital as we are with ambitions with science. We are at an inflection point, we are building the commercial, technological, and financial infrastructure to meet this moment. With that, I will turn the call over to David.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Thanks, Omid. Turning to slide eight. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $2.8 million, compared to $4.2 million in the first quarter of 2025. The decrease in revenue was due to lower product and service revenue from continuing macroeconomic headwinds in academic and government funding, increased competitive activity from imitation products, and a leadership transition as we brought on a new Chief Commercial Officer. Product revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $2.1 million and consisted of sales of Proteograph instruments and consumable kits. Service revenue was $0.6 million for the first quarter of 2026, including related party revenue of $0.1 million and primarily consisted of revenue related to STAC projects.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

We continue to see steady customer interest in running projects through STAC, which we view as an important leading indicator of future instrument placements. In addition, customers continue to appreciate the flexibility of assessing our technology through our SIP program. Of total instrument shipments in the first quarter, 40% were previous STAC customers and 20% were through our SIP program. Other revenue was $0.1 million for the first quarter of 2026 and consisted of lease and shipping revenue. Total gross profit was approximately $1 million for the first quarter of 2026, representing a gross margin of 35% compared to 49% in the first quarter of 2025. The decline in gross margin was due to lower absorption of fixed period costs in the first quarter of 2026 versus the first quarter of 2025.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

We continue to expect variability in our gross margin on a quarter-by-quarter basis as a proportion of instrument consumable and service revenue fluctuates. At scale, we continue to believe our long-term gross margins will be in the range of 70%-75%. Total operating expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $18.2 million, including $2.1 million of stock-based compensation, compared to $22.8 million, including $4.5 million of stock-based compensation in the first quarter of 2025. Research and development expenses were $8.8 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared to $11.4 million in the first quarter of 2025. The decrease in R&D expenses are a result of lower employee compensation expense, including stock-based compensation and professional services costs.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Selling general and administrative expenses were $9.4 million in the first quarter of 2026, compared to $11.4 million in the first quarter of 2025. The decrease in SG&A expenses is due to lower employee compensation expense, including stock-based compensation. We incurred additional legal and other professional service expenses in the first quarter and anticipate they will continue into the second quarter. Net loss for the first quarter of 2026 was $16.8 million compared to $19.9 million in the first quarter of 2025.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Free cash flow, defined as net cash used in operating activities of approximately $15.4 million, less net purchases of property and equipment of approximately $270,000 in the quarter, was approximately negative $15.7 million. Our opportunistic share repurchase in the quarter reflect our continued belief that there is a significant dislocation in our share price. In the first quarter, we purchased approximately 1.5 million Class A common shares at an average price of $1.78 per share. As of March 31st, we have repurchased approximately 13.2 million Class A Common Shares at a VWAP of $1.86 per share, utilizing approximately $24.5 million of our $25 million share repurchase program authorized in May 2024. As a result, we have reduced our net total common shares outstanding by approximately 15%.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

As a reminder, in February 2026, the board of directors authorized a new repurchase program of up to $25 million. We ended the quarter with approximately $219.5 million in cash equivalents and investments. We believe that with our current cash on hand, we have sufficient capital to reach cash flow breakeven. Turning to slide nine in our outlook for the full year. Despite a softer first quarter, we continue to see positive developments and progress as a business and are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $16 million-$18 million, representing approximately 3% growth at the midpoint over full year 2025. As a reminder, that guidance reflects our ongoing expectation that the challenging NIH funding environment would persist through 2026, impacting customer behavior.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

While the challenging funding backdrop and the presence of imitators in the market creates continued uncertainty, we remain confident that instrument utilization and consumable pull-through will build throughout the year. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Omid for closing comments.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Thank you, David. Moving on to slide 10. The proteomics revolution is underway, and Seer is leading it. The independent researchers have now published 84 studies using our platform, doubling from a year ago. Population scale studies are underway in multiple countries. Our next generation detector will bring deep unbiased proteomics to the genomics and multi-omics scientific community, meaningfully expanding the end market for proteomics. When PRECISE and other biobanks begin to share the data later this year, we believe the strength of the flywheel will begin to turn in earnest. We're in the early stages of building something that will matter enormously, not just for Seer shareholders, but for human health. We are more committed than ever to our vision of enabling the generation of proteomics data at a scale and depth that was previously unimaginable. With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please limit to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Kyle Mikson with Canaccord Genuity.

[Kyle Mikson, Analyst at Canaccord]

Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. I want to start with David's last points there about the guidance, I guess. Basically, what could be confidence you can still meet the higher end of the guidance range? I think like on the last earnings update call, you mentioned a customer had delayed some instruments to maybe, you know, 2026 from 4Q. Maybe was there any, like, instrument pushouts in the first quarter that haven't committed to being completed later in 2026 or anything of that sort in services or the other segments?

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Yeah, Kyle, thanks for the question. It's David. Yeah, look, we do still feel confidence in the guidance and our confidence in the momentum that we're seeing starting to build, including the large scale opportunities like PRECISE and others, and just our visibility now in the second quarter around the conversations we're having or with both academics and the biobanks and the biopharmas. So that does give us, you know, conviction to continue to drive the business. The other thing to keep in mind is we did have a very good year of instrument shipments and installs last year.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

What we found over time is that, you know, it takes about nine to 12 months before we see customers reorder, given that they generally take a nice stocking order with their instrument purchase or with the loader. We're now coming up on that one year anniversary, and we have seen that trend start to kick in. We feel confident in the driving of the pull-through for those instruments that were installed last year. Finally, we've got Anthony Bazarko on board now, who has great experience, you know, really we expect him to continue to drive things.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

We do feel like it will be, kind of more second half than first half, but, we do still feel confident in being able to hit the guidance range.

[Operator]

Kyle, does that answer your question?

[Kyle Mikson, Analyst at Canaccord]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Thanks, David. Omid, had a question for you about you're referencing competitors and imitators, I think is what the word that was referenced. Just first, like, just dive into what that kind of means and how that's affecting, you know, the business and the progress and all that? Additionally, when you think about the population scale cohort programs, is that, you know, just truly on the unbiased side, or are you seeing kind of affinity-based competition as well?

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Kyle, thanks so much for that. Let me first comment on the competitors or the imitators of our products. First of all, I appreciate that what these imitators mean is that it's a strong validation of the market that we built, the technology platform that we built from scratch, you know, and the space that we really pioneered. I mean, obviously, having been doing this now for many years, we have a portfolio of 250 patent applications and 80+ that are now issued, including one that is now battle-tested through PTAB with the Bruker IPR process. We're now seeing an emergence of these copycat products.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

They have inferior performance, and their approach to the market is to basically just price these products significantly lower than Seer in order to compete. We filed a lawsuit, Kyle, because we wanna make sure that our customers are served appropriately. Customers, the most valuable commodity that they have is their samples. In the case of clinical samples, some can be priceless, but some can cost thousands of dollars. To use a sample with an inferior product that gives you data that is not appropriate really undermines not only that study, but more broadly, the confidence in the nanoparticle enrichment technology that Seer has developed. We are going to vigorously protect our IP against infringers.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

We started with Nanomics, because they were, you know, very clearly infringing in a very vocal and visible way, copying a lot of our marketing material and putting material out there that just frankly was not valid. We'll continue to monitor the space, and we'll continue to protect our product going forward. We've invested in building this platform. We've invested in creating this patent portfolio. For our customers' sake, we will also protect the integrity of what it stands for going forward. In terms of the biobanks, that's a very good example of valuable samples. Biobanks are very careful about the choice of a provider that they use to use their precious samples.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

The fact that Seer is being selected to do unbiased proteomics for these biobanks really is a reflection of the publications from experts like Josh Coon, Claudia Langenberg, Karsten Suhre, Nathan Basisty, I mean, many, many more. I mean, there's now 84+ publications, many in top journals that validates Seer. These biobanks are selecting Seer and the Proteograph because we have become the trusted partners to them. I am not actually aware of any biobank that would ever consider a product like Nanomics or one of the other ones like it that are the copycat imitators. The robustness by which Seer builds products stems from 20+ years of my life, in being in the nanoparticle application for medical uses.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

A lot of these companies literally have no expertise in this space, and they just copy our products. I'm not seeing that in, you know, impacting our biobank customers. My expectation is that our relationship with the biobanks will continue to grow, and I'll be able to announce more and more of those over time.

[Kyle Mikson, Analyst at Canaccord]

Right. Thanks, Omid, for that. Just really quick one to cap it off here on service revenues. I think it was, like, almost half of what the, kind of the quarterly run rate was. Obviously, there were some macro headwinds and challenges and all that. I would have thought that service was much more insulated than, you know, product revenue, and you have good STAC, which should have helped out, I guess, as well. If you just kinda, you know, elaborate a bit what happened on that line item in the quarter.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Yeah. The STAC is especially prone to some bigger projects, Kyle, and there simply wasn't a huge project in Q1. We did have a big project in Q4. Really, it's just a lumpiness of revenue. We're not worried about the interest or continued momentum there. We've got some interesting things in the pipeline there. It's really just a question of when customers can get us their samples and drive that. And a lot of times it takes a little longer than you expect, but really it's just a function of our service lab and the size of projects. We just didn't have a particularly big project in the first quarter.

[Kyle Mikson, Analyst at Canaccord]

Okay. All right. Makes sense. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question comes from Kyle Boucher with TD Cowen.

[Kyle Boucher, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to go back to sort of the sales side. Can you take a minute to discuss your order funnel and I guess what you're seeing from a customer perspective? I mean, where do you see more of the growth opportunity this year between, you know, bigger population scale studies and then maybe just smaller individual customers?

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Yeah. Thanks, Kyle. I think we continue to have good momentum with the biobanks. That's for sure. It's a question of just timing of those.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

You know, we don't have much in terms of additional biobank in for this year, although there may be some towards the back half of the year. I think it's really gonna you know, we see the opportunity with some of the larger, you know, projects from both biopharma as well as some academic projects that we're in discussions about. Really, that's just a function of they just tend to move a little bit faster. Obviously, the commercial folks move the fastest, and then you have the academics and then finally the biobank. I would see that's really what we see in terms of the breakdown is that in terms of the opportunities for the back half of the year.

[Kyle Boucher, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Got it. Maybe just on the instrument utilization trends. I know you ended last year with, I believe, 82 instruments installed. You just mentioned that it can take nine to 12 months for those newer placements to sort of reorder on the consumable side. I guess, can you discuss the trends you're seeing from a utilization perspective across, you know, your older installed base?

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Yeah. I mean, we're continuing to see, you know, those folks use the instruments in a regularly pretty consistent way, but also in a way that, you know, is project-driven, if you will, right? Folks generally will order when they have a new project, they'll run the project, they'll analyze the data, and then, you know, it'll be a minute before they repurchase. We continue to see, you know, some utilization. Obviously, utilization in the biopharma as a group is a little bit more consistent than academic 'cause they tend to have more projects, you know, consistent projects, and academics are a little lumpier.

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Again, I think it's really, we're excited to have that big cohort of customers coming online from 25, you know, when they hit their 12-month mark and really start to kind of drive things. Again, it's something that we expect to have an uptake in the back half of the year. Obviously, Q1 was down a little bit from a pull-through perspective, but, you know, installations, we did have some good number of installations in Q1 as well.

[Kyle Boucher, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Got it. Maybe if I can sneak one more quick one. Just on the margin side, you know, gross margin was a little weaker than we had modeled in the first quarter. I guess, going forward, just based on your guidance, would you expect that gross margin can creep back towards that sort of low 50s range like you saw last year as revenue, you know, sort of ramps?

[David Horn, CFO and President at Seer]

Thanks, Kyle. Yes, we certainly feel like that's the case. I tell you, the reason for the decline in gross margin was just, you know, the lower volume of kit and instruments. You know, we have, you know, with the lower volume and the lower revenue, that leads to lower absorption of our fixed costs, right, in the period. I think when you see revenue bounce back, you know, gross margins will bounce back as well. We still feel that, as you mentioned, kind of that's the right neighborhood in terms of where our gross margins should be.

[Kyle Boucher, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Got it. Thanks, guys.

[Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board at Seer]

Thanks, Kyle.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• David Horn, CFO and President
• Omid Farokhzad, CEO and Chair of the Board

Analysts

• Kyle Boucher, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Kyle Mikson, Analyst at Canaccord
• Marissa Bych, Managing Director at Gilmartin Group