Nautilus Biotechnology Q2 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Nautilus is shifting most R&D resources to proteoform applications following strong customer interest, while reducing the Broadscale team by about half. The Broadscale program is now unlikely to reach general availability by 2027, with no revised timeline provided.
• The company expects multiple proteoform assays to advance, including AKT1 oncology and tau assays targeting general availability in mid-2027, with roughly 20 assays planned by mid-2028. A beta Voyager instrument is expected this year, with pre-orders in early 2027 and shipments in mid-2027.
• Nautilus reported its first quarterly revenue of $0.2 million and a net loss of $14.5 million, while ending the quarter with $129.2 million in cash and investments. Management expects its financial plan to fund operations into Q1 2028 but anticipates raising debt and/or equity capital by mid-2027.

Nautilus Biotechnology NASDAQ: NAUT said it is shifting a significant share of its research and development resources toward proteoform applications, citing customer interest and a delay in its Broadscale broad-proteome program.

Chief Executive Officer Sujal Patel said the company’s platform has developed faster for proteoform analysis than it initially anticipated. Proteoform assays are designed to measure specific molecular states of proteins, including isoform composition and modification patterns. Nautilus said customer feedback has indicated that this level of resolution is a differentiated and commercially relevant capability.

“We’re putting the bulk of our resources behind Proteoforms because that’s where we can deliver unique value today,” Patel said. The company will retain a focused Broadscale team, but said the reprioritization will slow that program’s development pace.

Broadscale Timeline Moves Beyond 2027

Nautilus said second-quarter testing showed that changes to its assay configuration did not sufficiently improve probe-candidate performance to support general availability of Broadscale in 2027 at the company’s target specifications. The company did not provide a revised availability date.

Chief Scientist Parag Mallick said remaining work on Broadscale centers on increasing diversity in the probe library through affinity maturation, improving the machine-learning layer with additional platform data, and stabilizing the assay architecture to detect true-positive binding events more reliably.

“The underlying science is sound,” Mallick said, while noting that some development efforts carry lead times of several quarters.

Under the new allocation, Nautilus is effectively tripling the number of employees focused on proteoform development while cutting the Broadscale team by about half, according to Chief Financial Officer Anna Mowry. Application-specific R&D is now expected to be weighted about two-thirds toward proteoforms and one-third toward Broadscale. Work on platform capabilities shared by both applications is unchanged.

Proteoform Portfolio and Commercial Roadmap

The company’s tau proteoform assay remains in early access, with general availability of consumable kits expected in mid-2027. Nautilus expects its AKT1 oncology proteoform assay to enter early access in late 2026 and reach general availability in mid-2027.

Nautilus also said a second oncology assay is in development for anticipated mid-2027 general availability, while a third oncology assay and additional kits are expected to reach general availability in late 2027. The company is prioritizing targets in neuroscience, oncology, immunology and cardiology, and said it anticipates roughly 20 proteoform assays by the middle of 2028.

Mallick said AKT1, EGFR and p53 each met the company’s reproducibility and accuracy criteria and moved into development. AKT1 is furthest along and is expected to be the first oncology assay to market. The company said it selected the target because of its role in cell-growth and survival signaling, as well as the existing market for AKT-targeted therapies.

Nautilus also plans to reduce required sample input by roughly 100-fold in early 2027 and expects to enable cerebrospinal fluid samples for its tau assay in 2028. Patel said broader sample-type support, particularly in oncology, could expand the addressable services opportunity.

The company expects to place a beta Voyager instrument this year, open the platform for pre-orders in early 2027 and begin shipments in mid-2027. Mowry said platform revenue is expected to begin with those shipments, timed to align with the planned proteoform consumables releases.

During the question-and-answer session, Patel said the company continues to target an instrument price of roughly $1 million, subject to final pricing ahead of pre-orders. He said assay-kit pricing could vary by target but is expected to be roughly a few thousand dollars per sample.

First Reported Revenue and Financial Position

Nautilus reported its first revenue in the second quarter, totaling $0.2 million. Most of the revenue came from development work funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for an alpha-synuclein proteoforms assay, with the remainder from a first early-access service project.

The company maintained full-year revenue guidance of approximately $0.5 million. Mowry said near-term revenue is expected to be driven primarily by grant funding and early-access services rather than instrument sales or meaningful margins.

• Total operating expenses were $15.9 million, down about 7% from the prior-year period.
• R&D expense was $9.6 million, down about 8% year over year.
• Selling, general and administrative expense was $6.3 million, down about 6%.
• Net loss was $14.5 million, or $0.11 per share, compared with a loss of $15 million, or $0.12 per share, a year earlier.
• Cash equivalents and investments totaled $129.2 million at June 30, down from $143.4 million at the end of the first quarter.

Mowry said the company now expects full-year operating expenses to increase by less than 10% from the prior year, below its previous guidance. Nautilus expects its current financial plan to support operations into the first quarter of 2028.

However, the company expects some fundraising between now and mid-2027 to support proteoform expansion and broader market development. Mowry said Nautilus is considering a combination of debt and equity financing, but added that management does not view the company as being under immediate pressure to raise capital.

About Nautilus Biotechnology (NASDAQ:NAUT)

Nautilus Biotechnology is a life sciences company developing a next-generation proteomics platform that aims to provide high-resolution, single-molecule protein analysis. Its core technology combines proprietary microfluidics, advanced optics and custom reagents to capture and identify thousands of proteins simultaneously, offering researchers detailed insights into cellular processes and disease biology. The company’s platform is designed to improve sensitivity, reproducibility and throughput compared with traditional mass spectrometry approaches.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Nautilus Biotechnology serves pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions and research organizations seeking to accelerate drug discovery and biomarker research.

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