Cibus, Inc. (CBUS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. We appreciate you making the time to be with us for Cibus' Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call and Webcast. With me on today's call are Peter Beetham, our Co-Founder, Interim Chief Executive Officer, President and COO, along with Greg Gocal, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that remarks made during this call and webcast — including those concerning future financial results, future operational goals, and industry prospects — are forward-looking and could be subject to various risks and uncertainties that might cause actual results to differ materially from what is described here. For a list of associated risks, please refer to Cibus' SEC filings. This conference call is being webcast. To help you in your analysis of our business, the webcast link, along with our press release and corporate presentation, can be found on the Investor Relations section of cibus.com. With that, I'll now hand the call over to Peter.

Appreciate that, Carlo, and hello everyone this afternoon. No matter how you slice it, Cibus had a landmark year in 2025. That's not because of any single headline — it's because a number of key pieces fell into place at once, and those pieces are charting the future direction of gene editing as an industry. Leading technology, real momentum in commercialization, operating scale, and favorable regulatory conditions — all arriving at the same moment. Today we count 7 rice customers, and those relationships add up to over $200 million in potential annual royalty opportunities. In our sustainable ingredients business, we collected our very first customer payment. And the U.K. government selected us to serve as a technology partner on its farming innovation program. And in a pivotal development, the EU at last achieved political agreement on legislation for new genomic techniques — an area we've been contributing to for many years. Gene editing isn't an experiment anymore; in our view, it's the future of innovation across farming, food, and agriculture. Cibus has long been positioned ahead of this innovation curve, and we've transformed into a commercially-driven enterprise with a strong technology engine. What makes this particular moment so exciting is where our technological readiness meets a shift in how seed companies, we believe, are approaching gene editing. For years, speed and scale stood in the way. Seed companies showed interest, but the technology lacked enough predictability to integrate into their breeding programs. The way we approach things has shifted because of our push to simplify operations and make trait development something you can schedule and count on. A client's elite germplasm can come in, we make one targeted edit, and it goes back out in a window of 12 to 15 months. That kind of improvement means we're now seeing a real turning point. What seed companies are after isn't just a single trait anymore — they want tighter, more embedded partnerships with what we've built. When we describe Cibus as an extension of the breeding work our customers do, this is exactly the kind of thing we have in mind, and it's a logical next step. Their top-tier genetics come to us, we do the editing work, and what returns is better material, delivered on a schedule they can depend on — one that lets them plan commercially and coordinate in ways that line up more effectively with how they improve seeds and grow their market position. More and more, our discussions with prospective customers center on ongoing genomic editing relationships — not merely a single trait in a single crop, but the prospect of broader engagement across their whole portfolio, with Cibus acting as a gene editing engine for their plant breeding capabilities. This brings to light opportunities beyond traditional trait licensing, especially in high-growth markets such as India, Asia, and Latin America, where we see potential for what I've called outsourced gene editing — partners tapping our editing capabilities on a continuing basis. While we investigate these possible relationships, we're keeping our core licensing and royalty framework in place around the edits we create. The edits are the product. Cibus edits the genome within elite genetics, and those edits carry royalties. Whether a partner approaches us seeking just one trait or a full editing program, the worth we generate lies in the edits themselves, and we hold onto that worth via our intellectual property and licensing structure. That's the way we plan to construct dependable recurring cash flow that fuels long-term shareholder value. So whether the topic is trade licensing, editing services, or a mix of the two, all paths arrive at the same payoffs and yearly stream of royalties on the edits Cibus makes. Let's move on to the Rice program now. It continues to be what drives our revenue in the near term, and it's the best example of that core trade business model I just walked through. Remember, we have 7 rice customers across the U.S. and Latin America, and together they add up to a remarkable $200 million in possible annual royalties from our herbicide tolerant traits. The important thing is we're still on schedule to first enter the Latin American market in 2027, then potentially expand into the U.S. in 2028, and reach India and Asia around 2030. The development with Interoc was probably the biggest one. Back in January, we put together a nonbinding LOI that laid out a framework for commercializing herbicide tolerant rice in major Latin American markets, with signings in Ecuador and Colombia set for 2027, plus expansion into Peru, Central America and the Caribbean. Some edited material has been sent back to Interoc so they can handle registration work. An import permit just came through, which lets us send their elite rice genetics back with 2 herbicide tolerant traits, and we anticipate moving negotiations forward toward a definitive commercial agreement in late 2026. Beyond that, during the past year we showed meaningful progress in Rice, especially across Latin America. Remember, this is a market where sophisticated weed control options were not traditionally available, and there's significant appetite for our products. Through our collaboration with CIAT, also known as FLAR, an organization involved with the Latin American fund for irrigated rice and part of the hybrid rice consortium for Latin America, we can reach rice growers throughout the region via a partner that has introduced varieties in 17 countries. We've also, as noted before, entered into agreements with Semillano and Semilla del Huila, both prominent Colombian seed businesses, and we've finished delivering rice lines carrying our HT3 trait to a U.S. customer we already work with. In addition to the partners we already have — among them RTDC, our herbicide collaborator of long standing — we're working toward an initial entry into Brazil, which ranks among Latin America's most important rice-growing regions, and possibly Argentina too, which would open up meaningful extra acreage potential. Over in India, our ongoing collaboration with ag buyer, AgVaya and RTDC focuses on cultivating ties with seed companies in a country where roughly 120 million acres are devoted to rice. Greg made a recent trip to India, where he sat down with quite a few top seed companies and also the former Minister of Agriculture. That market has considerable unmet need. In certain places, growers are harvesting two rice crops within 12 months, and India's regulators have shown they accept gene editing — you can see that from the country's first planting of gene-edited rice that happened recently. That puts India in position to be a top market down the road. Our early aim is a commercial rollout in India at roughly 2030, and we'll share updates as things move forward. On the development front, we're broadening our trade portfolio for rice as well. After positive 2024 results from field trials on stacked gene-edited herbicide tolerant traits, during March 2025 we widened the effort to bring in further trade stacking so weak management for crop protection covers more ground. Zooming out, across barely more than 12 months, we've assembled a rice program reaching 3 continents and aimed at the globe's key rice-producing geographies. That path came about since our technologies give seed companies an ability they've lacked until now: time-bound predictable trait development inside their elite germplasm. It deserves stressing, because it sits at the core of the value proposition Cibus brings to its customers. One more strong illustration of this trade portfolio model in action comes from our work with John Innes Center focused on nutrient-use efficiency. Under this paid initiative, we're applying our technology platforms to their flagship crop, and there's real potential to extend that approach across every crop we work with. The framework changes, but the result stays the same: top-tier germplasm combined with Cibus tech, Cibus edits, and Cibus royalty streams. Turning to sustainable ingredients now. Through our biofragrance effort, we're taking our trait development know-how and using it in yeast fermentation to produce low-carbon, sustainable fragrance components for a major global consumer packaged goods company.

We wrapped up pilot runs before commercial launch in Q3 2025 for two biofragrance items, done alongside a partner over several years, and those demonstrated we were technically ready to produce at commercial scale; in Q4, that turned into our first payments. The global fragrance sector is valued at over $65 billion, and in our view this is just the beginning; we're pursuing an expanded, broader agreement with this partner, with commercial-scale manufacturing targeted for later this year. The timing hinges on when we and our partner lock in the final product formulations. Should these natural biofragrance collaborations reach full commercialization, we estimate they could bring Cibus between $20 million and $40 million in royalties each year. We're thrilled that we think we can go after more fragrance products by leveraging that same yeast-based system. Moving past biofragrances, we keep pushing forward with the crop-based lauric oil initiative funded by our partner, which sits within the larger set of programs. The biofragrance effort acts as a key commercial link while our rice royalty income grows, and it shows how adaptable our platform is. That same call and gene editing technology being used to build herbicide tolerance into rice could also generate value within the consumer products sector; now on the regulatory side. Within this convergence of favorable circumstances, we've witnessed quite encouraging shifts regarding how gene editing is regulated across major markets globally. Cibus has taken a measured approach, since we recognized that the pace of this industry hinges on regulatory systems worldwide. A political agreement on legislation covering new genomic techniques was achieved by the EU in December, marking a pivotal turning point. Roughly 100 million acres of untapped potential sit in Europe, as GMO technologies faced decades of restrictions there. Late April is when the European Parliament's plenary session should take place, and that's the upcoming major milestone we're monitoring with great attention. This follows the U.K. Precision Bred Organisms framework, which became effective last November. In January we made our initial PBO submissions, and then in February we got picked for a consortium funded by Defra that will apply our RTDS technologies to Light Leaf Spot resistance in oilseed rape. Getting selected by a national government to serve as a technology partner amounts to strong, independent validation. Momentum keeps building throughout the Americas. For the first time, California gave the green light for planting gene-edited rice. Ecuador verified that our traits match those produced through conventional breeding, and now USDA-APHIS has issued 17 positive determinations to us. Only last week, Peru likewise affirmed that gene-edited products will be treated as similar to conventional rice varieties; this kind of regulatory harmonization is speeding up commercial discussions around the world. Having shared that positive update, I'll now hand things over to Greg, who will walk us through what's happening with our opportunity pipeline, including its characteristics and programs. Greg?

Thank you, Peter. My comments will stay centered on the pivotal technical achievements underpinning our priority programs as well as the wider pipeline of opportunities. From the laboratory perspective, I would contribute a bit of context regarding the scientific findings that propel us forward; with rice, during 2025, we achieved a tenfold gain in editing efficiency as measured by regenerated edited plants. We have fine-tuned the reagents, the cell culture media, how we deliver material, and the regeneration steps. And we keep extending those limits through strategic deployment of AI and machine learning to find the correct targets more quickly, forecast exact editing results with higher certainty, and cycle those insights into every subsequent campaign. Paired with our semi-automated processes and robotic support, the trait machine workflow is growing quicker, more scalable, and more efficient. That is what allows us to pursue the broader kinds of partnerships Peter mentioned. The throughput and consistency needed to act as our partners' continuous editing capability. Now, regarding our opportunity pipeline. I want to call out the substantial technical advances we made during 2025 across programs that are each open for partnership and carry meaningful future value. Beginning with our canola traits. Our second-generation herbicide tolerant trait, HT2, produced favorable field trial outcomes in North America during the past year, verifying both acceptable herbicide resistance and yield comparable to the unedited parent. It matters to recall that HT2 charts the course for creating not just that specific chemistry, but any chemistry within this family, and it is a trait capable of being stacked alongside other herbicide-resistant systems; for Sclerotinia resistance, bioassays on plants carrying 2 of our modes of action keep showing enhanced resistance, and our work with Biographica leveraging their AI platform has uncovered several fresh potential gene editing targets. Our RTDS platform provides the precision needed to pursue multiple modes of action against the same disease. That is something conventional methods genuinely cannot accomplish at the pace we work; and it bears noting that both HT2 and Sclerotinia resistance hold multi-crop, multi-geography potential. In the U.K., we finished our second year of field trials for Pod Shatter Reduction in Winter Oilseed Rape, demonstrating encouraging results across several customers' germplasm. With the PBO legislation now in force, our gene-edited material can now be grown alongside conventional germplasm and we have filed our first PBO submission. The Defra-funded Light Leaf Spot consortium represents enormous validation of our technology's capacity to target resistance against another major disease in Winter Oilseed Rape. 12 industry and academic partners with Cibus chosen as the gene editing technology partner. What makes this technically thrilling is that we are deploying our RTDS platform to build durable disease resistance, a tougher challenge than herbicide tolerance, and one showing the growing sophistication of what our gene netting system is able to deliver; on nutrient use efficiency, we are continuing our funded collaboration with the John Innes Center on a breakthrough trait that could generate significant commercial opportunities throughout our entire crop portfolio. Turning to the worldwide problem of fertilizer efficiency: typically, just about one-third of what's spread on a field can actually be taken up by the crops. That's a complicated biological system, and fixing it calls for precise, targeted edits — precisely the sort of challenge our platform was built to address. On the wheat side, as we shared back in 2024, we managed to regenerate plants from single cells in a wheat cultivar. Getting regeneration to work from a single cell is the doorway to bringing our complete RTDS-editing toolkit into a new crop. Once that's achieved, every part of trait development for that crop becomes possible. That in turn creates room for more partner-funded work in one of the most widely grown crops on the planet. And with the European regulatory picture coming into focus, interest is picking up. In much the same way, on soybean, early in 2025 the company reached editing rates high enough to allow broader development of its soybean platform, alongside programs funded and/or supported by partners. Here's the main takeaway I'd like you to have. Our RTDS platform is delivering results across a number of crops and traits of rising complexity. Each of these pipeline programs can be partnered on. Taken together, they offer considerable optionality to the business. Our technical base, paired with an evolving regulatory environment, puts us in a strong position to move high-value traits forward via partnerships while keeping sharp focus on executing against our top-priority revenue drivers. With that, I'll pass things to Carlo for the financial update. Carlo?

Thanks, Greg. Turning to our fourth quarter numbers: cash and cash equivalents stood at $9.9 million on December 31, 2025. Then in January 2026, a public offering brought in $22.3 million in gross proceeds. That raise adds considerable runway and backs the continued progress of our Rice program along with our sustainable ingredients efforts as we push toward near-term revenue milestones. After factoring in cost saving initiatives already put in place, including the ones from last week, and setting aside any potential future financing transactions Cibus is pursuing, we believe current cash and cash equivalents will carry planned operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements through a late third quarter of 2026. Notably, our sharper focus is helping extend that runway too, and we're glad to have cut operating expenses by roughly $10 million across R&D and SG&A for the full year of 2025. Now to our operating results for the fourth quarter. Research and development expense came in at $9.4 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, versus $12.4 million in the year ago period. That $3 million drop stems mainly from cost reduction initiatives we've rolled out under our streamlined operational focus. Selling, general and administrative expense was $5.1 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, versus $6.8 million in the year ago period. That $1.7 million decrease also stems mainly from cost reduction initiatives. Royalty liability interest expense related to parties was $9.4 million for the quarter versus $8.2 million in the year ago period. That $1.2 million increase comes from recognition of interest expense on the royalty liability. Nonoperating income net was nominal for the quarter versus income of $0.4 million in the year ago period. That decline was driven by the fair value adjustment of the company's liability classified common warrants. Net loss was $31.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, versus $25.8 million in the year ago period. During 2025, we finished consolidating operations from our Oberlin facility into our San Diego headquarters and wound down operations at our Roseville, Minnesota facility. Those moves, together with workforce reductions, show tangible progress toward our goal of bringing annual net cash usage down to approximately $30 million or less in 2026; this disciplined approach to capital allocation, paired with the January raise, extends our cash runway while positioning us to capture the significant biofragrance revenue opportunity ahead, and meaningful commercial expansion from rice traits expected beginning in 2027. With that financial overview, let me hand it back to Peter for closing remarks.

Thank you, Carlo, and Greg. To wrap up, I'd like to frame where we stand at the end of this year. In precision gene editing, Cibus has served as the steady, dependable player. Our technologies were developed in-house, with processes designed to scale and move quickly. We've worked alongside numerous regulators worldwide, offering technical input. We've cultivated a customer relationship, and at this point those efforts are paying off in compounding ways. For 2026, execution and momentum are everything. Here's where our attention sits. In rice, we're broadening customer ties throughout the Americas and India, moving closer to a final commercial deal with Interoc, and holding talks that might unlock Brazil and Argentina. Later in 2026, we anticipate sharing field trial data out of Latin America, plus updates on chemistry registrations that back our 2027 commercial launch goals; in sustainable ingredients, we're locking in our broadened partnership, aiming at production at commercial scale, and I think we'll soon be able to share further specifics about this program; this represents an actual revenue stream that keeps growing, and it showcases how wide and varied the potential of our platform truly is; regarding regulatory, the EU plenary vote anticipated for late April stands as one of the upcoming big catalysts. That sense of clarity is already reigniting dialogue with partners in Europe and generating fresh possibilities. And on a wider level, I'm enthusiastic about how our commercial model is evolving. The notion that we're delivering herbicide-tolerant rice to a crop feeding billions of people is thrilling not just for shareholders, but for the future of global agriculture. I still view Cibus as a coiled spring, and I take great pride in guiding this team through what I'm confident will be a year of transformation. Operator, let's begin taking questions.

Nice work on the momentum. First off, I'd like to ask regarding the EU NGT framework. I realize this has been a very long time coming. But does this shift how the company thinks about CapEx for the canola WOSR program going forward at all? I understand that's a crop that's likely larger in Europe than in the Americas.

Matt, thank you very much for that question. The regulatory movement in the EU is truly a watershed moment; historically it served as the global regulatory gold standard for a great deal of plant breeding work — that was GMO. But at this point, we're unlocking the entire gene editing space. And basically, we're becoming global, which is fantastic. You can see — the reason I'm enthusiastic about this is that it has taken quite a while. And that's been part of our frustration, yet it genuinely creates opportunities. To illustrate, Europe represents 100 million acres of greenfield opportunity. Never before have they had traits via genetics with novel traits. So this chance is now available. And as you mentioned, Winter Oilseed Rape is one of the main crops there; and for us at Cibus, we've been building a platform and a production system in Winter Oilseed Rape that is extremely efficient. And this ties to what I said during the earlier remarks — when things align the way they have for us, suddenly we find ourselves in a position where EU regulation is a fit. We have a production system; we can accomplish it in a time bound and predictable manner. And we can reduce years from timelines in plant breeding programs. So what we're observing is genuinely a great deal of interest from the major seed companies across Europe, but that also unlocks the rest of the world. And with that, I'll pass it to Greg since I'm certain he has a few additional comments.

Yes. Thank you, Peter, and I appreciate the question, Matt. So only a few additional remarks. As you're aware, over the past 2 years we've been conducting field trials for Pod Shatter in the U.K. And we're observing that the trait performs excellently in customer material, with certain of those customers supplying the EU market and leveraging the U.K. regulatory framework to move that material forward more rapidly. Then the final item I'd point to is the light leaf spot collaboration, the Defra-funded consortium, in which we serve as a gene editing partner, though a lot of the seed companies taking part are ones that sit at the core of Europe.

Understood. Then, moving on, I'd like to ask whether you could walk us through what comes next on the road to commercialization for rice in Latin America, and what the milestones will look like that you'll report to the Street as that process draws nearer, once we're in late '26 and into '27?

Thanks, Matt. Let me set out the context of where we stand on our commercialization path, because this traces back to understanding that Cibus has managed to establish a process in rice within the elite genetics; and by elite genetics, I mean the genetics that truly sit at the cold phase of breeding programs. And so our partnerships, our 7 partnerships in the Americas, the 5 in Latin America, the genetics we're working on, and have worked on, are their best genetics, they're elite genetics; and so the initial step in that process is getting that material in and editing that material, and getting it back to them within 12 to 15 months' time frame. So we've already been able to do that. And we've made those edits in the elite genetics. And that is the first step in that path to commercialization; also earlier this year, we were really excited to work with Interoc, who has been a great partner for us. On a letter of intent with regards to the full commercialization of the first 2 traits, HT3 and HT1, starting out in Ecuador and Colombia. And so we reached agreement on that, and that is opening up the path to launch in 2027. So they will take on the road of chemical registration for those herbicide to over top of our traits in those countries; and then the material that we'll report on during the year is the progress on that chemical registration, and also the trait work that we're doing in their elite genetics and getting ready over the next winter to go into launch into 2027.

There are a few points I'd like to address. Could you provide some insight into what the trend line looks like for the overall acreage your technology reaches? Perhaps for '25 compared with '26 and then '27? Do you have any sort of approximate framework for that?

I appreciate that, Laurence. Let me return to what I was saying regarding Latin America. The crucial element, I believe, is that in the Americas we are aiming at 5 million to 7 million acres. And every one of the companies we work with adopts some share of those acres. So across the initial 3 years, we will observe that expansion and scaling up to those acreage figures with the 2 traits. That is what excites me — once you have established yourself in that market, it becomes the most sticky business anywhere, since they will keep bringing those elite materials into that marketplace and growing across those acres. As I stated during my remarks, that amounts to a potential exceeding $200 million per year for us. So getting there will require a couple of years of working through that process; and I believe that represents just the right acreage in Latin America and the U.S. as a starting point. Another thing we accomplished in 2025 was establishing a relationship with AgVaya, backed by RTDC, to examine the Indian market, which obviously is considerably larger, at 120 million acres. Royalties from India won't appear within the first 2 years; that will come nearer the close of the decade, in '29 and '30, when we begin to witness that momentum. So that unlocks, once more, potentially an additional $200 million in yearly royalties. So, Laurence, in answer to your question, I think it begins — once you enter that market, which is our objective in Latin America in '27, it genuinely accumulates across the first 3 or 4 years.

All right. Then, on the second point, I'd like your help with a few items regarding scale. To start, considering how far you've come over the past 2 years with the gene editing platform, if potential partners approach you offering gene edits as a service under EU rules, what's the sort of ceiling on throughput you could handle without a major bump in R&D spending or other investments?

That's the beauty of starting from scratch. Our team has excelled at marrying cell biology to automation, plus genotyping and automation as well; as a result, running through genetics at a good clip doesn't demand a massive crew. So there are genuine synergies there. And we're noticing that a single trial we ran, basically at Oberlin, delivered enormous returns, since it genuinely shifted our production approach toward something closer to manufacturing. The reason I bring that up, Laurence, is that this is what fuels scale and scalability. Then, on top of that, you layer in automation and the experience we now possess, you bring in AI, and we anticipate genuine efficiencies arriving within roughly the coming year. As we've shared across the past 6 months in particular, we've truly honed and simplified our business, and our chief priority has been creating a system capable of scaling to serve the editing services as those folks approach us; and the thrilling aspect of < > worldwide regulations loosening, watching firms bring us some genuinely excellent concepts. Greg brought up U.K. innovate. That's a strong illustration; we've likewise collaborated with John Innes Center on nutrient-use efficiency, which lets farmers apply fewer fertilizers; so some truly wonderful developments are on the way; but I'll pass it to Greg since he oversees much of the scale up.