MaxCyte, Inc. ($MXCT)

Good day, everyone, and welcome to MaxCyte's Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. Now I'll turn the call over to Eric Abdel with Investor Relations. Please proceed.

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; Doug Swirsky, Chief Financial Officer; and Sean Menarguez, Senior Director of Business Development. Earlier today, MaxCyte released financial results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year ended December 31, 2025. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before we begin, I need to read the following statement. Statements or comments made during this call may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Any statements contained in this call that relate to expectations or predictions of future events, results or performance are forward-looking statements. 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. And with that, I will turn the call over to Maher.

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining MaxCyte's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. 2025 presented a challenging operating environment, that was also a year of meaningful progress for MaxCyte. We continue to sign new strategic platform licenses, SPL, as we call them, and support customers in advancing drugs with the clinic. We acquired SeQure DX and successfully integrated the business into MaxCyte. We made meaningful changes to rightsize spending and strategically improve our operations. And most recently, we launched a new product into ExPERT DTx that will allow us to work with developers earlier in research and filament discovery. Let me start by reviewing our financial results. Consistent with the preliminary financials we announced in January, MaxCyte reported $33 million of total revenue for the full year, which included $29.6 million of core revenue and $3.4 million of strategic Platform License Program related revenue. We grew our instrument installed base to 857, up from 760 at the end of 2024. Doug will discuss fourth quarter and full year performance in greater detail. The MaxCyte's results were within the range of expectations that we'd update you with in August. As previously discussed, the business was impacted by program consolidation and rationalization across some of our SPL customers, which included a 15% decline in purchases and leases from our largest customer, reorganized manufacturing and managing inventory. Now let me give you a little more detail on the launch of our new ExPERT DTx which I mentioned earlier, and I'm very excited to discuss. Even as we face headwinds in 2025, our focus remains on innovation and leading the market with groundbreaking platforms. In February, we announced the launch of ExPERT DTx, a modular 96-well electroporation platform designed for research and drug discovery applications. We are very excited about what this product represents for MaxCyte. The DTx enables [indiscernible] to transfect primary cells and cell lines across, up to 96 samples in a single 3-minute run, with consistent well to well performance that effectively eliminates transfection as an experimental variable. It is one of the most cost-effective 96-well electroporation solutions on the market with detachable 8-well strips that can be processed with unique parameters giving researchers the flexibility to test different cell and cargo combinations in parallel while reducing waste. This software is also differentiated. The ETF designer allows users to design experiments remotely and upload workflows when the system is available, maximizing instrument pipeline. That is a real practical advantage for [indiscernible] running multiple back-to-back experiments. What makes the DTx strategic important is its full compatibility with the rest of the ExPERT platform. A researcher can optimize the process on the DTx and discovery and transfer directly to MaxCyte's larger scale to electroporation instruments, the STx or GTx for scale [indiscernible] CGMP compliant manufacturing with our reoptimization that has a powerful value proposition, which allows us to engage with customers at the very early stage of the workflow and provide a seamless path from discovery through to the clinic and commercialization, all on a single platform, which is an epitome of a therapeutic platform. We built this product around our customers' needs, and we believe it will be added to both instrument and processing assembly PA's revenue in 2026 and beyond as well as allow us to grow our SPL customers. We have built years with [indiscernible] know-how and expertise into DTx, and I am confident we launched a product that will allow researchers to seamlessly progress from discovery to the clinic on to our GMP ExPERT platform. Turning to our guidance. As we enter 2026, the challenges that impacted growth in 2025 will have an impact on the first half of 2026. For our 2020 guidance, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $30 million to $32 million, consisting of $25 million to $27 million of core revenue and $5 million of SPL program-related revenue. Given the timing of purchases and leases, we expect Q1 to be our lightest quarter for core revenue with the back half weighted year. Included in our guidance is the impact of the recent notice received from an SPL customer terminating their license for reasons unrelated to our platform's performance, along with approximately $4 million in core revenue headwind from Select SPL customers, which began to impact our revenue in the second half of 2025, which I will provide further detail on. We continue to believe that the headwinds facing our business are a result of the conservation of capital by buying [indiscernible] in the [indiscernible] cell type of space, rationalization of customer programs and ex-vivo cell therapy and inventory management at our largest customer, which we expect to stabilize in the second half of 2026 and growth from that new base. There has been no fundamental change in the demand for our technology and the differentiation of our technology competitively. While these short-term headwinds influenced our revenues last year and the first half of this year, we are more excited than ever of our SPL programs and the business model, which is seeing multiple programs progressing deep into the clinic and much closer potential commercialization. As I mentioned, embedded within the core revenue guidance, we expect revenue from SPL customers, including our largest customer to be a $4 million headwind relative to 2025. This is about half from processing assemblies and half from leases and a result of 2 factors. First, our largest customer reorganized our supply chain in 2025, impacting inventory management of PAs. Additionally, in 2025, due to manufacturing site reorganization there was a reduction in leases midyear. So the full year lease revenue for this customer has a difficult comparison to last year. Following in-depth compensations with this customer, we expect both PAs and leases will stabilize during the first half of 2026. Second, other SPL customers rationalize programs in 2025. On a net basis, we lost 6 SPL clinical programs during the year. The annualized revenue from the discontinued programs, including leases and PAs will not recur in 2026, reflecting the headwind mentioned earlier. The 12 clinical programs we currently support are across 11 SPL partners, highlighting continued investment on the lead asset. This rationalization is part of our business model as we expect a certain number of biotech programs to discontinue, but we are consistently signing new SPLs and supporting later-stage [indiscernible] programs, which will eventually be commercialized in [indiscernible] our platform. In the last 24 months, we signed 10 new SPLs and are now supporting more later-stage programs than ever. Also embedded within our core revenue guidance, we expect revenue growth from non-SPL customers, which is inclusive of growth from security apps. With regards to SPL-program revenue, as I shared, we have guided to $5 million in 2026. Note, we received a 7-figure milestone payment from a clinical customer and began dosing patients in a pivotal study in the first quarter. The balance of the SPL program-related guidance includes approximately $2 million of expected royalty revenue from our commercial stage customer as the therapy ramps throughout the year. Despite these near-term headwinds, we are very encouraged by the medium-term opportunity for 5 [indiscernible] programs to enter pivotal studies over the next 18 months and potentially receive commercial approval in 2027 or 2028. As I mentioned, one of these 5 programs began dosing patients in its pivotal study in the first quarter of 2026, triggering the milestone payment I referenced earlier. These programs include [indiscernible] from CRISPR therapeutics for B-cells malignancies WU-CAR-T 007 from Wugen for hematologic malignancies, [indiscernible] from Imugene for hematologic malignancies and 2 programs from undisclosed SPL partners. I believe up to 4 of these programs will be pivotal by the end of the year. Outside the Wave 2 programs I just covered, there are another 7 active [indiscernible] programs in earlier stages of development that continue to pursue FDA beyond 2028 and can represent meaningful core revenue and SPL program-related revenue for MaxCyte overtime. Across these programs, the total lost on opportunity exceeds $110 million. Today, we have received over $30 million in total milestone payments from [indiscernible] customers, highlighting the strength of our portfolio-based program-driven business model. We have 31 SPL agreements, including 4 new SPLs in 2025. 11 SPL customers we work with have current clinical and commercial programs, while another 8 are active or on preclinical development, most of which we believe will become clinical SPL customers. However, 12 of the SPL agreements are with biotechs that are no longer active, having exited [indiscernible] XB ex-vivo or cease operations. The 12 that [indiscernible] as part of our business model, as we don't expect the [indiscernible] we signed to result in a commercial program. There is a meaningful revenue opportunity for newer SPL customers advancing toward and entering the clinic. As I mentioned earlier, despite significant consolidation in 2025, SPL customers continue to advance assets on our platform, including after 6 programs in late-stage preclinical development expected to enter the clinic within the next 6 to 18 months. This reflects continued expansion of our SPL portfolio beyond our current later-stage programs. Today, we support one commercial therapy Casgevy and we remain very encouraged by the opportunity for the drug to continue to scale with both Vertex and CRISPR recently reiterating Casgevy multibillion dollar potential. During Vertex's most recent earnings call, they reported $116 million in Casgevy revenue for 2025, including $54 million in the fourth quarter. Vertex noted their 147 patients with sickle cell disease or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, globally had their first cell collections in 2025 and 64 patients received Casgevy infusions with very those occurring in the fourth quarter. The momentum in patient collections is notable, and Vertex has indicated they expect a meaningful Casgevy ramp into 2026 versus 2025. Despite the possibility of short-term quarter-to-quarter variability as the drug scales, we are optimistic about where this therapy is headed and truly believe in this transforming potential for patients around the world. To wrap up on the SPL portfolio, while any individual program carries risk, the multiple shots on goal we have across the same indications and across many different indications, gives us a high probability of generating meaningful core revenue of regulatory milestones and commercial revenues over time. We are now seeing the growth in commercial world to start to materialize in our revenue line. This reflects the strength of our innovative business model, and we expect this trend to continue in the coming years as additional therapies are commercialized by our SPL customers. That conviction is what drives the decisions we make about how to operate this business. Moving to SeQure DX, I believe 2026 is the where the SeQure opportunity starts to become more visible. We spent 2025 integrating the business, building the commercial pipeline and working with early customers. The regulatory environment continues to evolve in our favor. Our target risk assessment is becoming an increasingly [indiscernible] FDA and other global regulatory agencies when reviewing gene edited therapies. Our 3 assays, screening, nomination and confirmation, serve both ex vivo and in vivo developers, which means secures addressable market extends well beyond our legacy electroporation customer base. We acquired relatively a new startup with an emerging and leading technology. Despite 2025 coming in lower than expectations, we expect year-over-year growth for SeQure assay services and licenses in 2026. I remain very optimistic about SeQure's commercial potential and expect to be a growing contributor to revenue in the years ahead. I want to underscore that we are entering 2026 with a fundamentally different cost structure than in prior years. While we are still investing in [indiscernible] new products like ExPERT DTx, we have reduced annual cash burn by over $16 million and have put MaxCyte dramatically different spending trajectory that was planned in the prior operating model. This is the direct result of the restructuring and cost efficiencies actions we took in 2025. We do not expect [indiscernible] to meaningfully grow our operating expenses for the year, and we see a clear path of reducing cash burn further as revenue grows growth returns. We have a strong and healthy balance sheet, which allows us flexibility in capital allocation and investment decisions. Finally, as previously announced, Parmeet Ahuja will be joining MaxCyte as Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Doug Swirsky effective March 30. Parmeet brings more than 2 decades of finance leadership experience at Agilent Technologies, a global life sciences tools company. [indiscernible] a number of senior roles spanning financial planning and analysis, operational finance, internal audit and enterprise financial services. In particular, he led [indiscernible] FP&A for Aligent's global operations and supply chain organization, and earlier headed internal audit in SOX working directly with the Board's Audit Committee on risk and controls. Parmeet also most recently led Agilent's Investor Relations function. Giving him direct experience [indiscernible] investment community, we are excited about that [indiscernible] operational finance and governance experience as we continue to scale the company and strengthen our financial infrastructure. I want to thank Doug for his contributions to MaxCyte. And I will now turn the call over to Doug to discuss our financial results. Doug?

Thank you, Maher. Total revenue for the full year was $33 million compared to $38.6 million in 2024, representing a 15% decline. Total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $7.3 million compared to $8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, representing a 16% decline. The decline in total revenue was driven by decreases in both core revenue and SPL program-related revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we reported core revenue of $6.8 million compared to $8.6 million in the comparable prior year quarter, representing a decrease of 22%. Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $1.8 million compared to $1.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. License revenue was $2 million compared to $2.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, and PA revenue was $2.3 million compared to $4.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year of 2025, we reported core revenue of $29.6 million compared to $32.5 million in 2024, representing a decrease of 9%. Within core revenue, instrument revenue was $6.8 million compared to $7.1 million in 2024. License revenue was $8.9 million compared to $10.3 million in 2024 and PA revenue was $11.9 million compared to $14 million in 2024. These declines were partially offset by $0.8 million of assay service revenue from the acquisition of SeQure DX and a modest increase in other service revenue. Total revenue for SeQure was $1.1 million in 2025, including assay services and licenses. Of note, 47% of our core business revenue was derived from SPL customers in 2025, which compares to 55% in 2024. The year-over-year decrease reflects the impact of program exits and reduced purchasing activity from our large commercial stage partner. SPL Program-related revenue was $0.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $0.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, SPL program-related revenue was $3.4 million as compared to $6.1 million in 2024. As it relates to SPL program-related revenue for 2025 and million was from milestone payments and $1.2 million was from royalties. Moving down the P&L. Gross margin was 78% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to 74% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Excluding inventory provisions and SPL program-related revenue, non-GAAP adjusted gross margin was 78% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to non-GAAP adjusted gross margin of 84% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2025 were $16.9 million compared to $19.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, part of these savings is attributable to the cost initiatives we took in 2025, which began to materialize in Q4 of 2025. Excluding a noncash goodwill impairment of $3.6 million in the fourth quarter operating expenses decreased more substantially from the prior year quarter. The overall decrease in operating expenses was primarily driven by the restructuring and cost efficiency actions we took in 2025. We ended 2025 with combined total cash and cash equivalents and investments of $155.6 million and no debt. Our very strong balance sheet positions us well moving forward, providing us with flexibility to continue to invest strategically for our business, customers and shareholders. Finally, we anticipate at least $136 million in cash equivalents and investments at the end of 2026, this represents a significant reduction in cash burn from prior years as a result of the restructuring and cost efficiency actions we took in 2025. Let me close my remarks by saying it's been a privilege to serve as MaxCyte's CFO, and I know that the company is in good hands with Maher and the rest of the team, including Parmeet. Now I'll turn the call back over to Maher.

Thank you, Doug. It's per [indiscernible] as our CFO as well. I want to thank everyone at MaxCyte for their hard work and dedication in 2025. I look forward to executing on our plan in 2026. With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] It comes from the line of Dan Arias with Stifel.

Maher, I got to say I really don't understand the trajectory of the business right now. Pretty much all of the commentary coming out of life sciences companies points to biopharma getting better this year and not worse. Our data points and others seem to suggest the same. When you look at the industry data that's out there on the emerging modality space, cell therapy trial activity seems to be increasing pretty significantly, trial totals are way up. And so I appreciate the idea that there's some hangover from a tough '25, but why is the core business expected to decline more this year than it did last year? Are you losing share somewhere? Because if not, then it really kind of suggests that there's something else going on that we don't really fully understand. And then ultimately, the question becomes, how do you grow this business again?

Yes. I mean thanks for that, Dan. Look, I appreciate the question and kind of the head scratcher from you. Really, the headwinds we're facing is $4 million. And it comes down to -- it's not a distribution of our business in any way. It's not a change in the fund in [indiscernible] any way. We have about $4 million headwind that we faced from the customers that were lost last year that's affecting our revenues this year and most of it in the first half of the year. So that comes, as I mentioned, it comes pretty much half-half. Half of the leases that we lost from those SPL customers that will not recur this year. And the other half really is from processing assemblies, a lot of it being from our largest customer that went through management -- and inventory management of their current PAs that they have on stock where they're drawing down from those PAs. And the other half was just from -- midyear, we lost some licenses for that largest customer, where they -- we optimize our manufacturing footprint to go from a few manufacturing sites to a little bit less than that. And that's affected our revenues for 2026. This is not a case of capital spending in the market that's affecting us I think we saw that more so in early '25. That's not the case here. I really believe that this is just short-term headwinds. And in terms of where we see the rest of the year and going to '27, '28, look, if you take a step back, we believe -- I believe we're going to be supporting roughly 4 pivotal stage programs this year and then 5 in the next 12 months. We have another one behind it as well coming in right now that potentially to come pitas a second wave there. That bodes extremely well for 2027 and 2028. We also have the launch of the expert DTx as I mentioned, we're seeing a lot of good traction. We launched it less than a month ago. We're seeing a lot of good traction with customers and potential customers. We believe will be a growth driver for us in the second half and in future years. In addition to that, we're seeing the ramp of cash JV. I mean, as I mentioned, we expect to ramp throughout the year. That that's the only commercial product we're supporting now, but we expect to support many others, especially because right now, as I mentioned, we are supporting more later-stage programs than ever before then. So this bodes very well for us going to the end of the year and in 2017 and '28. We're continuing to sign new SPLs. We feel confident we continue to sign new SPLs. I feel very good about this Dan.

Does the industry -- does the outlook for core revenues assume that the industry demand dynamic improves over the course of the year? Or would that be upside to what you have baked in today? In other words, is your 4Q outlook at the industry level, similar to what you have today, axing out the individual customer dynamics that you referenced there.

No, I think the -- so that would be upside what we have right now. So this is not a case where we're waiting for Anita come back for us to meet our core revenue guidance -- that will all be outside from here, Dan. I mean I feel very good where we are to meet the current guidance with the current situation we're in right now. If there's further industry demand that's upside from where we're guiding to this year.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

And Doug, it's been a pleasure working with you and best of luck in your future endeavors. Maybe first up, could you talk -- I realize that you just launched it last month, given that this was built, the DTx that it was built with the customer in mind, I assume that you had been working with them or at least they had maybe trial that or kicked the tires a little bit. What does that pipeline look like? And how quickly do you think you could see that start to trickle into the revenues?

Yes. I mean, so we see it tripping into revenues in the second half. Any time we launching new product, we need about a quarter or 2 quarters to really build up the pipeline for that product. That's any product we launch. But it's already in the hands of multiple data users and has been in the hands of multiple beta users when we launched this product, we did it the right way. We actually listened to our customer needs. We did -- we went through the typical NPI process where we're extending the user criteria the customer criteria and the application criteria and we built it with that in mind. So we see this trickling starting in the second half, but we all start seeing right now some DTSs being sold right now in the first quarter before it's even over -- so it's obviously starting to make traction there as well net, but we see significant traction happening in the second half and then in future years as well. I feel very good where it is. I mean, it really is a platform that allows us to go from -- no one has this. You can actually go from discovery all the way CGMP with the same protocols. That is a true therapeutic platform that none of our competition has.

Got it. And then maybe just a reminder, given that you've got 4 partners that could be going into pivotal studies this year. How do you account for or how do you factor that into your guidance? What kind of a haircut do you take on those -- the potential for those milestones?

Yes. Thanks, Matt. So obviously, we already received one milestone a side in Q1 this year. You can hear it city saying there might be at least one more, we anticipate 4 more one other customer is currently in pivotal about to those patients that were resulted in other most as well. So they're very at least looking at 2 of those 4. It's more of a timing issue, right? If the remaining 2 don't come in this year, that's just because those milestones happen in the first quarter or very early part of next year. But that's how you would hear cutting it. The very least will be 2 of those 4, but potential for 4 this year.

One moment for our next question. That comes from Matt Larew with William Blair.

This is Jacob on for Matt. I just wanted to touch on the SPL cadence. I don't know if you mentioned on the call or I didn't hear if you did, but typically guide 3 to 5 per year, and you typically have signed or at least announced one by the end of the first quarter. I think the last timing was in October of 2025 and biotech funding trends and kind of like the whole market environment has really been improving since then, been pretty good. So just curious on your visibility confidence into the cadence of SPL signings throughout 2026 and maybe what you're expecting for this year in perpetuity.

Yes. We guided 3 to 5 in the past. I mean that's a number where, on average, that's something we signed on any given year. we feel good about signing at least 3 this year as well in that 3 to 5, but some years, we're going to have more than that, so we just have less of that. we foresee that we'll sign the first one. I have Sean Menarguez here with me. I'm going to put pressure on him. Probably even in the very early second half of the year, possibly even before that. But I feel very good where we are. I mean we're still the only company that can sign these licenses and is a good reason for it. What we provide is differentiated, where we provide a really a platform that allows companies to go into clinical and commercial and scale and have a therapeutic that has the best chance of going through clinical development. And we've done it with cash. We've signed one of these agreements we signed 4 last year. I feel very good this year, we'll continue to sign war and do the same in the foreseeable future. And the DTx also adds for that. As to as I mentioned earlier, the DTx begins to see that aspect of future partners and customers for us. So I feel very good where we are. I mean the timing of the Q1, we had a sign one. That's just a matter of time, we have one we're working with our customers and the research process, not in any way indicative of resort, we have a signed one, if that makes sense. I mean, I'm going to turn it over to Sean. Sean do you think you have anything that you have to add in terms of that, where you see the signing of per pressure on the year, but you feel coater going to so this year as well.

Thanks, Maher, and thanks for the question, Jacob. And I do strongly believe it becomes a timing aspect as well. So just for a frame of reference, these as that turns into our research customers turning to our SPL customers from there at least can take 12, 18 months depending on their development stage. So it really becomes a timing aspect as well. But we do have the last 24 months, have signed in scale partners Almost all of them are in the clinic or at least even approaching clinic from there. So we look to continue to add that a lease through this year.

Got it. And I just want to quickly go back to the launch of the DTx platform. You've covered it in pretty good detail so far. It sounds like feedback traction early contributions all didn't really little, but is there any way you could quantify what you're expecting in the back half? Or is it more just kind of a slow trickle and really expect material contributions in 2027.

Yes. I mean I'll say throughout the year. I don't think it's -- it's too early in the past been a month since we launched it. It will probably be more than a trickle in the second half. That's where you begin to see meaningful revenue in the second half and a lot more so -- but I'll update throughout the year. Again, we're seeing very good traction at the beta sites. We're seeing good traction even outside the U.S. We've seen sales in Asia Pac as well from this. They really it's something that we truly believe differentiates us from any other platform. There are similar 96 well is here platforms out there, but None can optimize the CGMP system like this one can and none that can do it on a well-to-well basis with the same consistency and really none that can do it where it's -- where we've built into this our 20-plus years of electroporation know-how into this platform to make a streamline for customers. So I feel very, very good about this, very good.

Our next question comes from Mark Massaro with BTIG.

This is Vidyun on for Mark. I just had 2 cleanups on the '26 guide. Just what's baked in as far as secure contribution. And then I also think you've called out royalty contribution for the first time in the guide. So just could you speak to your level of visibility and confidence in that just given it's from a partner therapy.

Yes. So on secure, obviously, we don't break it up in terms of -- in the guidance other than the fact we see material growth year-over-year for secure in 2026 versus 2025, significant growth there from what we had last year. Obviously, last year's revenue for secure was a bit disappointing, but it was part of our integration secure. We bought an early startup. We're still integrating it in. We're still ensuring that we're building up the processes there, and we really don't have a platform there. So we see meaningful growth this year and that's part of our guide. In terms of the -- we finally broke out the royalty revenue there, I mentioned earlier, we expect approximately $2 million of revenue from commercial royalty. -- and that will ramp up throughout the year as that product ramps itself. And we feel fairly good about that. I mean that's based on forecasts we're seeing with that product from a public forecast as well as what we're seeing so far early this quarter. but we expect that to be over the ramp of the year to happen. And we'll do that continuing from here on now. We'll continue to guide for our milestones and royalty on a separate line as well.

Okay. Perfect. Yes. And then I just had one follow-up kind of higher level. I think you've previously mentioned the dynamic that customers are opting for in vivo therapies over ex vivo. So could you discuss how you're seeing opportunity for more complex edits longer term? And maybe over what time frame would you expect that customer appetite to sort of transition to ex vivo edits?

I expect to expand a bit more. I mean, obviously, we're seeing, I mentioned, we've seen this for years now. We're seeing the complexity of adding increase over the years, right? This is one of the single base CAR-T therapy. We're not edits on 5, 6 seeing a therapies. So I guess, what are you alluding to, Vivian, I just want to make sure I answered your question correctly.

Yes. I guess mean that you've talked about it being a headwind in the past that customers are opting for in vivo therapy. So just how do you see the longer-term opportunity for customer appetite in actually..

I see what you're getting -- so actually, look, we are still a huge believer in the cell therapy space. In fact, we're seeing that start to return as well. in vivo obviously, as we've had some headwinds there. But what we're seeing is, if you look at our programs, we have allogenic programs and post programs, all progressing gestalt we're finding right now our cell-centric programs, some of which are even coming back where I won't point -- they were not in the clinic and now they're coming back to the clinic. I am a huge believer in cell therapy space. I think as these therapies become far more complex as we're seeing it lends itself to cell therapy, especially cell therapy electroporation. And you can control the safety, you control the dose and the size is catching up on topic of our platforms are built for that. That's exactly what is. So we're seeing that come back. That's what makes me feel very good about going into the second half of the year, makes me feel better about 27% in 2028. That complexity lends itself to our business and lenses we've built over the last decade. And we're seeing that traction start to come back to sell there.

Our next question is from Mac Etoch from Stephens.

Maybe to follow up on Dan and Jacob's questions. We have seen funding pick up the space in general. So I just want to get your sense of what you're hearing from customers in terms of macro environment, what you're seeing in terms of demand? And how should we think about the recent funding backdrop flowing through potential demand throughout FY '26.

Yes, yes, yes. Great question. So obviously, as I mentioned, this is not so much any more a demand issue or a customer funding issue. This is about the headwinds we saw in that affect us -- this is more of a second half weighted guide that we're giving in that core revenue of $25 million to $27 million. I mean, look, we're sitting here right now, we're about one week away from quarter end. This is not official guidance, but we look where we are on the core I feel comfortable that $6 million of the core is appropriate for Q1. We see that upticking into Q2 and then being more second half weighted. And none of that is contingent upon an upside in capital spending or customer demand. That's just what we say right now. So it's -- I feel extremely good where we are on the guide. I feel good where we are in -- this is a case of just building back a new base from what we [indiscernible] customers that we lost in '25. We found a new base here, largest customer, we're optimizing the prosti assemblies and they're drawing down from the inventory they have. We found a new base there. I feel very good about the year as it transpires.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Chad Wiatrowski with TD Cowen.

Congrats, Doug. Look forward to seeing what your plans are going forward. Just one on the DTx. You've mentioned sort of a few orders already flowing through here in the first quarter. When you're thinking about those couple of orders, but also the bolus more in the second half. Are those mostly existing customers enjoying the convenience of that? Or is this something that enables more newer customers? And how do you expect that mix to play out through the year?

Great question. I mean obviously, the current customers are the ones that are going to be the easiest ones to convert over because they're going to enjoy the aspect of them. Those are the ones we're approaching. So that's a great question. But this is a mix of both. This is not just for new customers, it's also employed it's not just for current customers. It's also for new customers. Actually, even because this is a 96-well discovery platform that can allow you to transfect primary cells. This can be used probably discovered for the in vivo space as well. So this is in essence a platform we've never had before, which we're targeting our current customers now, but we're prospecting for future customers as well. And we're seeing that there are the placements actually one of those placements is a new customer, it's not a current customer. So it's a mix of both, but we're being very smart about it and ensuring that we're working with our current customers because that's also what you learned about some of the things you may have to make improvements on any time you launch a product. So I've said it earlier, innovations are hard. We're going to continue to innovate this product. We're going to continue to launch new products in the coming years. So that this is one of them to come.

And this concludes our Q&A session, and I will pass it back to Maher Masoud for closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. I feel very good about 2026, just as good as if not better about the future years and what we're building here. And I look forward to talking to all of you in the next coming months on our next earnings call.

This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.