MaxCyte Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: MaxCyte reiterated its 2026 revenue guidance of $30 million–$32 million, with low single-digit year-over-year growth expected in the second half as instrument placements recover and prior inventory and partner-program headwinds subside.
  • Positive Sentiment: The new enterprise-level Genentech partnership provides access to MaxCyte’s ExPERT GTx, electroporation, and SeQure technologies across multiple programs and development stages, potentially creating recurring license, platform-use, instrument, consumables, and milestone revenue.
  • Positive Sentiment: Commercial momentum for Vertex’s CASGEVY continued, with approximately $76 million in second-quarter sales and more than 100 patient treatment initiations; MaxCyte’s SPL-related revenue rose to $0.8 million from $0.3 million a year earlier.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management reported broad stabilization in instrument and processing-assembly demand, early traction for the DTx platform, and expects instrument revenue to be the primary growth driver in the second half; it also sees potential commercial launches from five partner programs over the next few years, mainly in 2027.
  • Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter revenue declined 15% year over year to $7.3 million, while core revenue fell 21%; gross margin also decreased to 77% from 82% and is expected to remain in the mid-70% range as instrument revenue represents a larger mix.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
MaxCyte Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Eric Abdel of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Eric Abdel
Eric Abdel
Investor Relations Representative at MaxCyte

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's conference call. Joining me on the call from MaxCyte, we have Maher Masoud, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parmeet Ahuja, Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Margheret, Senior Director of Business Development. Earlier today, MaxCyte released financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Eric Abdel
Eric Abdel
Investor Relations Representative at MaxCyte

A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I need to read the following statement. Statement or comments made during this call may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities laws. Any statements contained in this call, other than statements of historical fact, including those that relate to expectations or predictions of future events, results or performance, are forward-looking statements.

Eric Abdel
Eric Abdel
Investor Relations Representative at MaxCyte

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, which are discussed in detail in our SEC filings. Except as required by applicable law, the company has no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. With that, I will turn the call over to Maher.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining MaxCyte's second quarter 2026 earnings call. MaxCyte reported $7.3 million of total revenue in the second quarter, including $6.5 million of core revenue and $0.8 million of SPL program-related revenue, which consists of milestones and royalties. Results were ahead of our expectations and consistent with the framework we laid out coming into the year.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

As expected, we entered 2026 facing several headwinds, including inventory drawdown by our largest customer and headwinds resulting from the discontinuation of a few partner clinical programs last year. Despite those challenges, our objective was clear: stabilize revenue in the first half and return to growth in the second half.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Our first half results reflects the stabilization, where both our Q1 and Q2 revenues were ahead of our expectations. We remain confident in our ability to achieve our goal of returning to growth in the back half of the year.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We achieved sequential revenue growth in Q2 compared to Q1, primarily driven by instrument placements across our portfolio, including our recently launched GTx platform. We also continue to see GTx placement across biotech and academic customers, reflecting ongoing program advancement.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Processing assembly revenue remained stable sequentially, supported by our SPL portfolio. The second quarter reflected disciplined execution against our operating plan, resulting in improved first half financial results. We delivered a meaningful reduction in net loss year-over-year despite the revenue headwinds we faced heading into 2026. We expect to build on that progress as we execute against our plan and return to revenue growth.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Furthermore, we have continued to invest in R&D priorities that expand our platform and strengthen our long-term growth opportunities. Investments in ExPERT GTx, SeQure, and newer strategic collaborations are designed to broaden how we engage with customers, from early discovery through clinical development and commercial manufacturing, while further diversifying MaxCyte's revenue streams over time.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Additionally, I want to highlight a significant milestone for the company as we recently announced our multi-platform technology license partnership with Genentech, which we believe reflects the growing recognition of MaxCyte's technology across the ecosystem, from early research all the way through commercial manufacturing.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Under the agreement, MaxCyte provides Genentech with access to our ExPERT GTx platform and additional platform technologies, including our electroporation and analytical assessment capabilities across research, clinical development, and manufacturing workflows.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

The partnership is structured to support multiple programs and to enable Genentech's ex vivo cell engineering activities from early discovery through cGMP manufacturing. I want to be clear about why I believe this agreement is so important for MaxCyte. It is an evolution in how we partner with the largest players in our industry.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Rather than licensing our technology on a single program basis, we have established an enterprise-level relationship with Genentech that supports multiple cell therapy programs under a single framework. We believe this structure reflects how large pharmaceutical organizations increasingly want to deploy enabling technologies as enterprise-wide platforms that support multiple programs.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We expect this trend will allow MaxCyte to participate more broadly across the development life cycle of a customer's portfolio, not just one product at a time. The result is multiple platforms being used across a portfolio of programs rather than just for one program.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We structured the partnership with Genentech with the goal of creating long-term value for MaxCyte while shifting a greater proportion of that value earlier in the customer life cycle. We expect that will mean greater revenue capture during research and clinical development across many of our platforms, durable recurring license and platform access revenue complemented by milestone-based opportunities, and continued demand for our instruments, processing assemblies, and analytical technologies.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

The agreement also provides participation in commercial manufacturing through annual licensing and platform utilization. While the structure differs from a traditional SPL, we believe the risk-adjusted economics are more favorable on a partnership level given the enterprise portfolio-based relationship across the entire development life cycle.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

This enterprise-based model monetizes multiple revenue streams across the customer relationship while reducing our dependence on the outcome of any single clinical program. This agreement structure complements our SPL model. It does not replace it.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We believe SPLs remain the right commercial solution for many of our biotech customers who are developing individual therapeutic programs, and we expect to continue signing SPLs going forward. Over the past several years, we have consistently maintained strong royalty-based economics across our SPL partnerships, and our current pipeline gives us confidence in our ability to continue doing so, reflecting the value of our offering to cell and gene therapy developers.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Our existing SPL agreements continue under the contractual terms, including acquired entity provisions where applicable. Our pipeline continues to support attractive royalty-based SPL opportunities, and we expect both commercial models to coexist, each serving different customer needs. Beyond our relationship with Genentech, we believe this partnership establishes a commercial framework that can be applied with other large pharmaceutical organizations over time.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

It helps validate the breadth and strength of MaxCyte's technology portfolio, expand our addressable market within large pharma, and demonstrate our ability to engage a leading global biopharmaceutical company at an enterprise level. Overall, I am very excited by what this partnership represents for MaxCyte and about the opportunities it creates for the future.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

On the instrument side, ExPERT DTx adoption continues to build with encouraging early traction across discovery and early optimization workflows in both ex vivo and in vivo cell and gene therapy. As I've discussed on prior calls, the DTx is fully compatible with the rest of our ExPERT platform, which give customers who adopt the instrument in discovery a seamless path to scale on our STx and GTx instruments for cGMP manufacturing, and ultimately into a partnership agreement. We expect DTx adoption to build through the balance of 2026 and into next year.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We also continue to see steady progress with SeQure in the quarter. The regulatory environment continues to evolve in our favor, and we continue to expect year-over-year growth for SeQure assay services and licenses in 2026. We firmly believe that SeQure assays will become part of the industry standard for off-target risk assessment and gene editing.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Turning to SPL program-related revenue, we recognized $0.8 million in the second quarter, which was comprised of nearly all royalties. Vertex reported approximately $76 million of CASGEVY revenue for the second quarter of 2026, reflecting approximately 75% sequential growth versus Q1 2026 and 150% year-over-year growth. On its earnings call, Vertex noted that more CASGEVY infusions were completed in the first half of 2026 than in all of 2025.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Additionally, Vertex also indicated that more than 100 patients initiated their treatment journey for CASGEVY during the second quarter, which marked the third consecutive quarter with more than 100 patient initiations. They also noted that regulatory submissions for CASGEVY are now complete in Saudi Arabia and the U.K. in the 5-11 age group, and they are seeing continued strong uptake in the U.K., Italy, and Middle East.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Overall, we remain very encouraged by CASGEVY's continued commercial trajectory, and we truly believe in its long-term transformative potential for patients. Turning to our customers, we have 30 total licensed partnerships, which includes 29 SPL partners and our recently announced multi-platform enterprise partnership with Genentech. We continue to see encouraging progression across our partner pipeline, with multiple clinical stage programs moving towards late-stage development.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Importantly, we have five partner programs with the potential to begin commercial launches in the next couple of years, including as early as next year. While any individual program carries clinical or commercial risk, we believe the breadth and diversification of our multiple shots on goal give us a high probability of generating meaningful core revenue, regulatory milestones, and commercial royalties over time.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Our SPL portfolio remains a key driver of long-term value, as is evident by the growing commercial royalty revenue and the advancement of a significant number of SPL programs through the clinic. Looking to the second half of the year, we remain confident in our return to revenue growth. We expect growth to be driven primarily by instrument placements, supported by stable license revenue and processing assembly demand from our SPL partners, including our recently announced partnership.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

The continued rollout of ExPERT DTx and a healthy commercial funnel across both new and existing customers. On the processing assembly side, a significant portion of the inventory drawdown from our largest customer is now behind us. We expect stable processing assembly demand as the SPL-related program headwinds we experienced in the first half also have largely subsided.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Taken together, these factors give us strong confidence in our outlook for 2026. To close, I am pleased with the execution of our team in the second quarter. The Genentech partnership agreement represents a meaningful step forward in how we engage with our customers and reinforces the growing role our platform plays across the cell and gene therapy ecosystem.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We are proud of our accomplishments and our positioning for long-term growth, and plan to continue to invest in the business with financial and commercial discipline as we execute in the second half of 2026 and beyond. I will now turn the call over to Parmeet. Parmeet?

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Thank you, Maher. Total revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was $7.3 million, compared to $8.5 million in the second quarter of 2025, representing a 15% decrease. We reported core revenue of $6.5 million compared to $8.2 million in the comparable prior year quarter, representing a 21% decrease. Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $1.8 million compared to $2.1 million in the second quarter of 2025.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

License revenue was $1.8 million compared to $2.6 million in the second quarter of 2025, and processing assembly or PA revenue was $2.3 million compared to $3.1 million. Core revenue in the second quarter was primarily impacted by lower license revenue due to discontinued partner programs, the timing of instrument placements, and a difficult year-over-year comparison driven by PA purchases in the second quarter of 2025 that were accelerated by tariff-related dynamics.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Excluding these one-time tariff-driven purchases, PA revenue was relatively flat year-over-year, reflecting a stabilization in activity across our customer base. SeQure saw continued positive year-over-year momentum in the quarter, with total revenue of $0.5 million, which includes both license and services revenue. SPL program-related revenue in the second quarter was $0.8 million, consisting almost entirely of royalty revenue, compared to $0.3 million of SPL program-related revenue in the second quarter of 2025.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

The year-over-year increase reflects continued growth in royalty revenue as CASGEVY adoption and commercial sales continue to build. Moving down the P&L, gross margin was 77% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to 82% in the second quarter of 2025. Excluding inventory provisions and SPL program-related revenue, non-GAAP adjusted gross margin was 77% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to non-GAAP adjusted gross margin of 83% in the second quarter of 2025.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Gross margin for the quarter was primarily impacted by product mix, driven by a higher proportion of instrument revenue, which carries lower gross margins than our licenses. Looking forward, as discussed on last quarter's call, we expect these trends to continue in the back half of the year, with gross margins in the mid-70s.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Total operating expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were $15.8 million, compared to $21.2 million in the second quarter of 2025, a decrease of approximately $5 million or 25%. We continue to remain disciplined in managing our cost structure. The reduction in operating expenses reflects the full run rate benefit of the restructuring and cost efficiency actions we took in 2025, which are now being realized across the P&L.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Looking forward, we do not expect operating expenses to grow meaningfully from these current levels, even though we continue to make investments in product development, which we believe will contribute to our continued return to growth. As revenue growth returns in the second half of the year, we expect the combination of discipline, cost management, and revenue growth to further reduce cash burn. We ended the second quarter with combined total cash equivalents, and investments of $141.9 million and no debt.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Last quarter, we announced the board's authorization of a $10 million share repurchase program. As previously indicated, we intend to execute the majority of the program before year-end. Since the authorization, we have repurchased approximately $5.5 million of MaxCyte stock as of today. Our balance sheet is well-positioned moving forward, enabling us to continue to invest strategically in our business. Continuing to our 2026 guidance.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

We are reiterating our 2026 outlook and expect total revenue to be in the range of $30 million-$32 million, consisting of $25 million-$27 million of core revenue and $5 million of SPL milestones and royalties. For the back half of 2026, we expect low single-digit year-over-year revenue growth. On the quarterly cadence, we expect usual seasonality, with Q4 being slightly higher than Q3, driven by typical year-end budget flush dynamics.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

For SPL milestones and royalties guidance, we expect $3 million of revenue for milestones and $2 million of royalty revenues, with $3 million of milestone revenue already received in Q1. Lastly, we anticipate ending 2026 with at least $130.5 million in cash equivalents, and investments, excluding any further capital deployed towards our repurchase program. Now I'll turn the call back over to Maher.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Thank you, Parmeet, and thank you to everyone at MaxCyte for their hard work and dedication each and every day to move our company and mission forward. I look forward to updating you on our next quarterly call. With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator for the Q&A. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes on the line of Julie Simmonds of Panmure Liberum. Your line is now open.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Thank you very much. Thanks for taking the question. So a couple of questions. Firstly, on the step-up in instrument revenue, which is slightly higher than I was looking for. I was just wondering whether you could give any sort of indication as to where that is coming from, particularly in terms of your instrument portfolio.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Secondly, just on the guidance on the non-core business revenue. That looks a little bit low to me given what you have already received in milestones and also the run rate that Vertex is demonstrating currently. Any reasons why you have not changed that yet?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Sure. Let me take the first one, Julie, and then Parmeet, if you want to take the second part of the question. On the instrument side, Julie, it was across the board. We saw it in research, process development, and clinical as well. So there is not any one particular. It is a product mix. We saw some early traction with DTx, continued traction in the clinical, the GTx, and STx for process development.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

So really it is a mix. We feel good where we are in the year and where we are guided for the year in terms of instrument revenue as well. So it is within our expectations, a little bit higher than our expectations actually. We feel good exactly it is going to the year that it would be around here. Parmeet, did you want to take the second part?

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Yeah. Julie, you pointed to our non-core revenue guidance. Of the $2 million royalty, we recognized $1.2 million through first half, $0.4 million in Q1 and $0.8 million in Q2. As you pointed out, CASGEVY beat market expectations this quarter, and we are starting to see real traction, which supports the remaining royalty.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

As we have discussed before, there can be quarter-to-quarter variability as CASGEVY ramps consistent with what Vertex Pharmaceuticals has communicated on their earnings call. Fundamentally, we are excited about the continued progress with CASGEVY, with significant growth sequentially and year-over-year. As commercial sales continue to build, we will start to see the royalty revenue truly materialize in our P&L.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Can I add something there as well, Parmeet?

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Yeah.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Julie, obviously Vertex Pharmaceuticals commented on their call. They have now had three consecutive quarters of 100 patient initiations. More patients infused so far in the first half than all of last year. We just do not want to comment on our partners and Vertex Pharmaceuticals' program. That is for them. We are very excited about what we are seeing. I will leave it there.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Okay. Thank you.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Okay.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Jeff, back to you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes on the line of Hannah Raiford of Stephens Inc. Your line is now open.

Hannah Raiford
Hannah Raiford
Analyst at Stephens Inc

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. It's good to see instrument demand kind of stabilize, and it sounds like that was pretty much across the board. Are you still seeing any pockets of hesitancy around CapEx, or do you feel like that headwind is kind of behind you?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Parmeet, let me take that.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Yeah.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We see stabilization both on the instrument side and on the processing assembly side as well, PAs. We feel the headwinds that we had last year are behind us. We do not see any more pockets of headwind demands in any way. We feel good. This is a return back to stability and get back to growth in the second half, and it is exactly where we are.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

This is a good quarter for us. We have a good year ahead of us. It is exactly what we expect. We are seeing the funding exactly what we expect it going to the year. Stability there, it has come back, and we are growing from there. We are seeing across the board, if you look at our revenue beat, it was both on the SPL and non-SPL side as well. A very good quarter for us. We do not see any pockets of headwinds ahead.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Yeah. Maybe to build on that a little bit, Maher, as we look ahead, Hannah, in our funnel, we are continuing to expect instrument revenue to be a primary driver. Much like this quarter, across both academic and industry, with a healthy distribution across the instrument portfolio. We certainly have had a recently announced partnership with Genentech that will play a role in the second half, as well as the continued rollout of the DTx.

Hannah Raiford
Hannah Raiford
Analyst at Stephens Inc

Awesome. Thank you. As it relates to that Genentech partnership, can we expect to see more of those coming up? How does this kind of change your strategy going forward? Could you just talk about what we can expect there?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Absolutely. Great question, Hannah. The strategy is twofold. The SPLs are still a big driver of the future growth of this company. We now have two ways of working with industry. One with biotechs through the SPLs and through enterprise-level multi-partnership agreements with Genentech and other large pharma and large biotech. It allows us to really now get into large pharma, which we have never done before.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We are able to monetize, on a risk-adjusted basis, programs here on a multi-program basis, not just one program. We feel good where we are. We have a good funnel for the SPLs, for the rest of the year going to next year as well. We now have an ability to, and a model that works very well with large pharma, which we will look to continue to negotiate with other large pharmas. This is a complementary basis.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

It's not one or the other. This really shows the power of our platform. This is a case where with Genentech specifically, we're supporting them with two of their clinical allo programs now, as well as their preclinical research program. So it's a multi-platform agreement. It shows the power and strength of our platform. I keep reiterating that we are best in class.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

The investments we've made as well with the DTx, where we now are the only company that has something that can take you from research all the way to commercial without needing any further scale-up. No one can do that. That's us. So we feel very good where we are. The SPLs are our future. These multi-partnership agreements are our future as well. We believe in the space. The cell therapy space has stabilized.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We feel the future of the cell therapy space, and we're diversifying our revenues now throughout cell therapy. It's not just smaller biotechs. It's biotechs, large biotechs, large pharma, multiple ways through analytical capabilities as well with the SeQure acquisition, which was part of the Genentech partnership as well. So we feel very good about this, Hannah.

Hannah Raiford
Hannah Raiford
Analyst at Stephens Inc

All right. Thanks for the color. I'll leave it there.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Absolutely. Thank you, Hannah.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes on the line of Matt Larew of Greyhound Capital. Your line is now open.

Matt Larew
Analyst at Greyhound Capital

Good afternoon and congratulations on the progress made during the quarter. I am curious, regarding the Genentech agreement, how have the discussions with some of your other larger SPL customers changed, if at all?

Matt Larew
Analyst at Greyhound Capital

As you go into that next round of discussions with those that maybe were in the pipeline, how do you decide who the better fit is as far as for SPL versus the multi-platform agreement? Is it purely based on size? Is it the number of targets that the customer is looking at? Any color there would be helpful.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Yeah, very good question. Let me take the first part. It hasn't changed the tenure of the conversation with any of the current SPL future partners in the funnel. All of those, for the most part, are those biotech companies. The Genentech deal is a multi-platform deal, right? It's across the entire spectrum of the electroporation side as well as the analytical SeQure side.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

That's the color with Genentech that we would pursue with other larger biotechs or with large pharma as well. It also allows us, with the Genentech deal, we're able to monetize the value much further up in the relationship. That's something that, obviously, with the baby biotechs, that's not a flavor for them, right? That's more of the Genentechs and those type of companies.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

In essence, I say it again, Matt, we have a model now for both our SPL biotech companies as well as the Genentech, other large pharma, and we're pursuing those. We're speaking with other large pharma as well. We'll continue to do so. They take time to transpire.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Even with the SPLs, these are negotiations sometimes and discussions and working with them early can take 18 months to develop plus, and that's part of our model, but we now have a way to work with what we always said, the large pharma model. Not concerned in any way that's going to change any of our current discussions. If there are any changes, it's always in a good way.

Matt Larew
Analyst at Greyhound Capital

Got it. Then maybe shifting gears, you noted an uptick or at least some improvement in academic a couple times in your prepared remarks. I am just curious what you are seeing there. Obviously, the funding environment from an academic perspective, my sense, remains pretty challenging. So the fact that you are seeing some improvement there, I think bodes well, and I am just curious your expectations over the remainder of the year for that market segment. Thanks.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Yeah, absolutely. So on the academic side, we are seeing traction there. A lot of it is also related to these are academic that are taking clinical trials. So these are pursuing clinical trials. So these are cGMP-based academic partners that we are working with, and we are seeing that traction. We have always said that. That is what is going to see the future biotechs, the future SPLs.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

So we have made a conscious decision to go, when we talked about going earlier in research, going earlier with the researchers. That is part of what we meant, and that is what we are seeing, and it is not a surprise to us.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

It was actually part of our execution plan going into this year. Let us go after, let us diversify our revenue model. And that is one of the ways. So that is what you are seeing there, Matt. It is really a way for us to capture the future SPLs.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

I will say it, we always said it before, the only platform anybody should be using for cell therapy is a MaxCyte platform. So we get in there early in the academic for these clinical trials that eventually will become future industry-sponsored companies and trials. They should be working with us, and that is what we are doing.

Matt Larew
Analyst at Greyhound Capital

Great. Thank you.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Absolutely. Thank you, Matt.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Massaro of BTIG. Your line is now open.

Analyst at BTIG

Hey, this is Megan on for Mark. Thank you guys for taking our questions.

Analyst at BTIG

You touched on it a bit earlier, but with the $141.9 million in cash and investments on the balance sheet, what are you seeing in your inorganic deal pipeline?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

In our inorganic deal pipe. Ask that question one more time. I want to make sure we're clear what you're asking. I mean, Megan.

Analyst at BTIG

Of course. Just really with all the cash and investments on the balance sheet, what you're looking or what you're seeing in the deal pipeline.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Oh, you mean in the M&A deal pipeline. Let me tell you how we look at our cash balance sheet. We have three ways of looking at this. We always invest in the organic growth of this company. That was a DTx. That's the continuing investments we're now in SeQure as well, building out their assays. That's first and foremost.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We obviously always look for selective programs out there or potential transactions out there, but again, very, very selective. At the end of the day, we're always looking to return back value to our shareholders. That $141 that you're seeing there, that's what we did. That was evident by the buyback that was approved by the board earlier this year, whereas Parmeet mentioned earlier, we've already purchased $5.5 million worth in the buyback.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

But it is an investment in MaxCyte first and foremost, being very selective and returning capital and really shareholder value back to our investors.

Analyst at BTIG

Awesome. Thank you for the color there.

Analyst at BTIG

Just curious if you've seen any changes in the competitive environment over the past year.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Good question. We have not seen changes in the competitive environment. In fact, with the recent transaction that we announced right now, we displaced a competitor in the clinic. We're still the best-in-class platform. We're continuing to invest in the products themselves and our ExPERT platform. It's not just the ExPERT DTx that you're seeing. We continue to create application workflows that are proprietary to MaxCyte.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

These application workflows themselves are new product launches. These are things that we have that other companies do not have. We have a field-based scientific team. We have a scientific team internally. We know cell therapy better than any other company out there. So it's our platform, it's our scientists. We're not seeing any new competition, and we're displacing the competition both in academia and in industry now. So we feel very good where we are.

Analyst at BTIG

Great. Thanks again for the questions.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Arias of Stifel. Your line is now open.

Dan Arias
Dan Arias
Analyst at Stifel

Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks for the questions. Maher, you kind of alluded to it with the instrument commentary, but can you just maybe expand a little bit on the overall environment? Some of the comments that have been made across the space have just been suggestive of some improvement in biotech spending. Would you sign on for seeing that yourselves? And what is the overall feel on just the state of affairs when it comes to spending and pipeline management overall?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Yeah. Good question, Dan. The information you see out there and what we're seeing out there in terms of return back to biotech funding, it's a bit different than the industry we're in. So it's more outside of cell therapy. We're seeing more of a stabilization in cell therapy. It's not a return back to your 2020, 2021 years. That's not the case. But that's exactly what we expect to go into the year, and that's what we're operating within.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

That's why we're not expecting to come back to those 2020, 2021 years. We're actually diversifying our revenue model. We are launching new products. We're finding ways now to work with large pharma we've never done before. We're actually leaning into the cell therapy space. We don't need it to come back to those 2020, 2021 to get back to the growth that we're getting back to.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

It's not quite the same as what you are seeing out there in terms of funding for the bioprocessing or bioproduction market. It's not as robust as that, but we do not need it to be. We know exactly where it is. We are not seeing headwind anymore. It's stabilized. It has not gone back to some of the numbers you are seeing for the other spaces, but we knew that going into the year, and we feel good about this year and even going to next year.

Dan Arias
Dan Arias
Analyst at Stifel

Okay. Maybe just as a follow-up, the inventory work down at the large account that you talked about, I think your largest customer, you said, has that run its course, or is that a factor for the back half, too?

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

No, it has. It's launched to run its course. That's why we feel good. We said going into this year, there was a headwind that we would have in the first half. It's behind us now. It will not have any effect going into the second half. Parmeet, anything to elaborate there?

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

No, I think you answered that well.

Dan Arias
Dan Arias
Analyst at Stifel

Okay. Super. Thank you.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brendan Smith of TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Brendan Smith
Brendan Smith
Analyst at TD Cowen

Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys, and congrats on the quarter. Maybe just a quick follow-up to one of the previous questions on kind of broader momentum within cell therapy. We have heard from a few other tool guys this quarter that cell and gene therapy is maybe still lagging a bit behind other modalities, though to your point, I think things seem to have stabilized and maybe moving back in the right direction.

Brendan Smith
Brendan Smith
Analyst at TD Cowen

So I guess, do you expect a material acceleration in some of these programs in the second half of this year and maybe demand with it, or is that something we should maybe expect to be a little bit more 2027 weighted? Just kind of curious how you are seeing that funnel at this point.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Very good question, Brendan. That is more into 2027. We have the five programs. The beauty of our business model is that we sign these SPLs, and these programs progress into the clinic. So these 14 clinical programs we have now, we still expect five that are moving into pivotal.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

One has already moved into pivotal. It was actually part of what we reported in Q1 as well. That is more into 2027, where we expect them to potentially even have an approved product in 2027 resulting from these five late-stage programs. So it is more, I wouldn't say back half-weighted, it is more going into 2027, where we see the impact of that.

Brendan Smith
Brendan Smith
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Then I guess maybe more broadly, I just wanted to ask, in terms of SPLs, potential new deal signings, we have seen some pretty convincing signs that some ex-U.S. markets are leaning maybe even more aggressively into cell therapy, I think especially in APAC. I guess, is that something MaxCyte could potentially capitalize on? Are there any kind of caveats or considerations to an SPL with some of those kinds of partners? Just any incremental color on how you guys are thinking about that, too. Thanks.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Yeah, great question, Brendan. That's something we began to look into a few years ago, and we knew where the space was going. We saw the investments in Asia Pacific, specifically in China, and we've created a presence there, and we're seeing some growth there. Granted, from a smaller base, but we're seeing healthy growth there. We continue to invest in Asia Pacific, specifically China, Japan, Korea, even India and Australia.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

We're investing there, and that's exactly right. We're seeing a lot of programs being initiated there with the hopes of then making it to the U.S. or to Europe, and we're working with those companies. We're beginning to build that infrastructure there. We have a sales team, an FAS team in Asia Pac. We have a general manager that's overseeing Asia Pacific for us as well. We're very cognizant of that, and we have a model for that.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

The same way we have a model with large pharma, the same way we have a model now with academia, we have a model where we're working with them in the clinic over there that will then transpire into future SPLs and partnerships when they broaden their horizons to the U.S. and to Europe.

Brendan Smith
Brendan Smith
Analyst at TD Cowen

Got it. Sounds good. Appreciate your color, guys. Thanks.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Absolutely. Thank you, Brendan.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Julie Simmonds of Panmure Liberum. Your line is now open.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Thank you very much. Just another quick question following up on the instruments. I was just wondering, now you've got multiple different instrument types in the market, is there a big variation in the processing assembly revenue that comes from each of those? Or there's an expectation that DTx, because it will be doing more, you're selling more at lower price consumables. I'm just trying to see if there's a mixed effect that we might see there.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Let me take that, and then Parmeet, if you want to add to that. The DTx has a higher pull-through of processing assembly revenue. That's in early research, both used for cell therapy and in vivo gene editing as well. We expect a higher pull-through on the DTx PAs.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Obviously, the processing assemblies for your clinical, your GTx, that begins to ramp as these programs go further into the clinic, and especially when they go commercial. It's a mix. So you have from early research with DTx, a high pull-through. You have the ATx and STx that has their pull-through, not quite as high as what the DTx would be, but obviously, they're at a higher price point as well when you're doing process optimization going through the clinic.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Your cGMP PAs, obviously, we can see right now from our largest customer, have a significant and meaningful revenue for us. As we begin to see more of these SPLs go through late stages, we're seeing right now, our model is proving itself.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

As we see more programs get approved, which we believe we'll have at least one next year, and potentially one next year, you're going to see more revenue growth from those PAs on the clinical side as well. So it's a mix. High pull-through early, and then you have much higher cost PAs that have a high ramp as programs go to pivotal and then to commercial.

Parmeet Ahuja
Parmeet Ahuja
CFO at MaxCyte

Yeah. Just to maybe build on that, it's different price structure, obviously, right? The idea with the GTx is to get in early on the research side of things. We will have higher PA pull-through, but obviously, as Maher indicated, there are price differences there as programs then scale up further to clinical and further.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Okay. Thank you. Just on the SPLs, I gather there's sort of still a pipeline of ones that you're discussing. You've historically talked about sort of three to five a year. Does that still seem reasonable? Sort of parking Genentech slightly because it's a slightly different offering.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

It is. In terms of licenses, we still, three to five, as I think I mentioned on the last quarterly call. We sometimes will sign more than five, as we've done a few years ago. Sometimes we'll sign less than three. But overall, three to five, looking at the funnel, is a healthy number. We still feel confident we can sign one to two even in the back half of the year.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

That includes Genentech. So we feel good where we are in terms of all the licenses that we're signing. It's more the timing of where we are in the negotiations with the biotechs or even large pharma. Some years we might have more than five, some years more than three, but on average, you're going to have that three to five over the years.

Julie Simmonds
Analyst at Panmure Liberum

Lovely. Thank you.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Thank you, Julie.

Operator

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I will now turn it back to Maher Masoud, CEO, for closing remarks.

Maher Masoud
Maher Masoud
President and CEO at MaxCyte

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us again. Look forward to speaking to you on the next quarterly call.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Eric Abdel
      Eric Abdel
      Investor Relations Representative
    • Maher Masoud
      Maher Masoud
      President and CEO
    • Parmeet Ahuja
      Parmeet Ahuja
      CFO
Analysts
    • Julie Simmonds
      Analyst at Panmure Liberum
    • Hannah Raiford
      Analyst at Stephens Inc
    • Matt Larew
      Analyst at Greyhound Capital
    • Analyst at BTIG
    • Dan Arias
      Analyst at Stifel
    • Brendan Smith
      Analyst at TD Cowen