Nautilus Biotechnology NASDAQ: NAUT reported third-quarter revenue of $200,000 as it continued its transition toward commercialization of its Voyager proteomics platform, with management reaffirming plans to begin taking platform pre-orders in early 2027 and start instrument shipments in mid-2027.
The company’s revenue during the quarter ended Sept. 30 consisted of grant funding for development of an alpha-synuclein proteoform assay supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and service revenue from its Early Access Program. Chief Financial Officer Anna Mowry said Nautilus expects fourth-quarter revenue to rise sequentially, excluding potential contributions from its newly announced ARPA-H-funded SEEDS program, and now expects full-year 2026 revenue to exceed its prior outlook of approximately $500,000.
Focus on proteoform analysis
Chief Executive Officer Sujal Patel said Nautilus has concentrated its resources on proteoforms, or the distinct functional forms a protein can take as a result of splicing, sequence variation and post-production modifications. The company’s Voyager platform uses its Iterative Mapping method to analyze intact individual protein molecules rather than breaking proteins into peptides or measuring average abundance through a single epitope.
Patel said the approach is intended to provide information about which modifications occur together on the same protein molecule, potentially offering insights into disease mechanisms, drug development and precision medicine. He cited AKT1 in cancer signaling and tau in Alzheimer’s disease as examples where protein quantity alone may not distinguish functional states.
“We are making functional biology measurable,” Patel said. He added that Nautilus believes highly reproducible proteoform data could be useful for training artificial-intelligence models designed to study biology.
The company said it has effectively tripled the personnel and resources dedicated to proteoform development and is targeting development of 20 proteoform assays by the middle of 2028.
Assay development and research partnerships
At the HUPO World Congress, Nautilus presented initial data for proteoform assays targeting AKT1, EGFR and P53. Patel said the assays showed median coefficients of variation of 8.8% for AKT1, 3.6% for EGFR and 6.6% for P53, all below the company’s target of 10%. He compared those results with a 5.5% median coefficient of variation reported for Nautilus’ more mature tau assay.
Nautilus said its tau proteoform research was published in Nature Methods during the third quarter. In the study’s small cohort, analysis of tau proteoforms distinguished people with Alzheimer’s disease from cognitively normal individuals, according to Patel. The company said the clearest signal involved tau molecules with up to four phosphorylations on the same molecule.
The company also joined the SEEDS Consortium, a program funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, for up to $51.7 million. Nautilus expects to receive up to $6 million over four years to apply Voyager to tau in Alzheimer’s disease and EWS-FLI1 in Ewing sarcoma. Management said the work will include tissue samples, model systems and biofluids, as well as development of an EWS-FLI1 biomarker assay and further platform optimization.
Revenue from the SEEDS program will be recognized as work is completed during the four-year period, Patel said.
Commercial timeline and customer activity
Nautilus expects to bring its AKT1 assay into Early Access late in 2026. It plans to announce the commercial launch of Voyager and begin accepting pre-orders in early 2027, followed by instrument shipments and general availability of tau and AKT1 assay kits in mid-2027. Management also expects a second oncology assay to be generally available at that time, while a third oncology assay and four to five other assays are expected to be in or near Early Access.
The company remains on track to place its first beta unit by the end of 2026. Patel said the beta placement is intended to demonstrate that the final instrument is reliable and capable of supporting the planned commercial launch.
Nautilus also expects to reduce sample-input requirements by approximately 100-fold before general availability of its consumable kits in mid-2027. Management said the improvement could enable analysis of low-abundance proteins in biofluids such as blood.
Patel said the company’s commercial team currently consists of Amber Faust, head of worldwide sales, and two sales representatives hired earlier this year. Most of the current sales pipeline is related to tau, though commercial activity around AKT1 is beginning. The company expects to expand its commercial organization in 2027.
Chief Scientist Parag Mallick said early tau users are pursuing applications in fundamental biology, disease biology and biomarker discovery. He said collaborators have used the platform to identify differences in tau proteoforms across disease models and brain regions, as well as to explore mixed neurodegenerative pathologies.
Expenses, cash position and financing consideration
Total operating expenses were $16.9 million in the third quarter, up about 10% from $15.5 million a year earlier. Research and development expense increased 6% to $10.2 million, while selling, general and administrative expense rose 15% to $6.8 million.
Nautilus recorded a net loss of $15.6 million, or $0.12 per share, compared with a loss of $13.6 million, or $0.11 per share, in the prior-year period.
The company ended the quarter with $114.3 million in cash equivalents and investments, down from $129.2 million at the end of the second quarter. Mowry said the company used approximately $14.9 million in cash during the quarter and expects its existing financial plan to support operations into the first quarter of 2028.
Management said it is evaluating the possibility of raising funds between now and mid-2027 to expand its assay portfolio, extend platform capabilities and build its commercial team. Mowry said any capital spending related to launch preparation is expected to be targeted and not material to cash burn.
About Nautilus Biotechnology (NASDAQ:NAUT)
Nautilus Biotechnology, Inc is a biotechnology company developing technologies for large-scale protein analysis, also known as proteomics. Its goal is to enable researchers to identify and quantify proteins more comprehensively, helping advance drug discovery, biological research and the development of precision medicine.
The company's principal offering is the Nautilus Proteome Analysis Platform, an integrated system that combines specialized instrumentation, consumables and software.
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