Q-linea AB (publ) (QLINEA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Q-linea Q2 Report 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Stuart Gander; and CFO, Christer Samuelsson. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Q-linea's Q2 report. This is Stuart Gander speaking here as CEO. And I have with me Christer Samuelsson, my CFO. Just a quick friendly reminder that today's presentation will contain some forward-leading statements. So I'll take this as read and understood. So I'll do a few things today. I want to spend some time giving a commercial update and, related to that, summarize some of the feedback we've been getting from customers, the various conversations at conferences and on the ground. Then I'll do a summary of where we stand against our 2025 ambition as we're now at the halfway point. And I'll hand it over to Christer to provide a more detailed financial update before going into Q&A. So briefly, the TLDR on this presentation for today, really 4 points I want to make sure that you take home today. So number one, our Q2 placements of ASTar instruments were on plan. We made 5 additional ASTar contracted placements. We have a growing pipeline of commercial evaluations that will feed into Q3 and Q4 going forward, we'll provide more details on that to come. Number two, our second half commercial outlook looks very strong based on this pipeline, and we have increased visibility on the cycle times and the likely contracts that we're looking into for the back end of this year. Number three, we have some additional clinical evidence presented at various conferences in Q2, and the customer engagement in the market is really reinforcing the core value proposition of the ASTar instruments. And we're seeing that real-life experience is matching sort of the text on the box, so to speak, and the customers are getting the value in the clinic. And number four, strong year-on-year financial improvement. Our cost-saving program continues to be robust with reduced OpEx. The financing process was completed this quarter, we're very pleased with that and we have a solid outlook now with the installed base growing for revenue growth through the back part of this year. So just a reminder for those who are new to Q-linea and this space. So our flagship product, the ASTar, is a rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing diagnostic instrument aimed at improving the outcomes for sepsis patients. We are the first and leading fully-automated random access a rapid AST platform in the market. It requires very little hands-on time in the lab with a very intuitive interface and a load-and-go, walk-away system that always delivers a result in 6 hours. And that is compared to the current standard of care, which can be 48 to 72 hours and, thus, has marked improvement on patient outcomes. It also saves money for health care systems and reduced clinical effort across the hospital. So how have we been doing? We're very pleased to provide the update here that in Q2, we continued on the momentum generated in Q1. So we now have 14 total contracted instruments that are either installed or will soon be installed and going live, 5 of these systems in -- sorry, in Italy, we have 8 systems overall, they're active, and some of those contracted in Q2 here will go live in Q3. We're also very much looking forward to the first U.S. system going live in July. So we've spoken with our customer, and we expect a stocking agreement and the regular recurring orders from that to be coming throughout the back half of this year. And then we see really across the network now some consumable orders that came in just after the bell, first week or so of July for the EMEA region were strong and related to the instruments that are going live from the Q1 and Q2 orders that we've been able to get now installed in the labs, and we're seeing the expected pull-through coming there. There are also some instances here of increased volumes on a same-site basis as some of our customers are now getting familiar with the clinical reports generated and they're starting to expand their usage in their networks. So stepping back a little bit and reflecting on how we see the market developing, sort of a classic picture of the technology adoption curve here. But I think very interesting to observe that Italy is overall at the forefront of the global market development. And now with the total number of instruments that we see contract in Italy to us and an acknowledging that there are additional systems that our competitors have installed in labs, we're very encouraged to note that Italy is now well into this early adopter phase. And we would see, coming off the back end of this year and going into next year, that we'll be getting into that sort of early majority of the bulk adoption of the market in Italy. And I think that's a good bellwether for other markets. We're looking to, for example, the U.S. and other leading markets in the EU to follow soon. So speaking of the U.S., I had a chance to be with the team at ASM Microbe Conference in Los Angeles in June. Overall, the conference despite some concerns about the situation in Los Angeles at the time, was very well attended. And this is perhaps the leading microbiology conference in North America with all of the major decision makers. As expected, rapid AST was once again front and center. There were more than a dozen posters presented on various aspects of rapid AST and its benefit for patients in the clinic. And we were very proud that Q-linea was behind 7 of those posters, including 5 of which that were written and presented by ASTar users in the U.S. So that's a voice of customer being presented to other users of these systems. There were a couple of other themes from ASM that we noted. There were several discussions and really seem strong pleas from leaders in the field to be aware that existing systems do have limitations. So the current standard of care doesn't always provide the robustness of answer that is needed in this day and age. And a reminder to users to, for example, update their break point, something that ASTar is particularly well designed to support with. So these are, I guess, further indications that clinicians are getting increasingly aware of the needs vis-a-vis their current standard of care and the clinical gaps and looking to solutions to resolve those. And we see that in the conversations on the ground. So Q2 was in general a good quarter in the U.S. We did complete a couple of commercial evaluations that we'll expect to close second half of this year. And we were able to initiate 5 more commercial evaluations during the quarter and have not received POs yet, but have been communicated from existing customers that we contracted earlier in the year that they plan to install more instruments into their network. So those will hopefully go in also at the back end of next year. And really, at ASM, we saw sort of a turbo-charged dialogue with more than 100 customers now engaged on this with us, able to see the instrument life there at our booth. And from that, we booked a number of evaluations on site that will get set up for Q3 and Q4, again, more dependent on the customers' time line than ours. We're ready to go. We have in parallel here, 5-plus by now contract discussions ongoing in the U.S. Again, we hope to close these during the coming months and before the end of the year to fulfill our commitment and ambition for placed instruments in the U.S. And the EMEA side continue to go strong. The word of mouth also spreading in Europe. Italy, as I mentioned, is very solidly in the lead. We are looking towards the July decision for the Tuscan ESTAR tender. That will be a sizable one. We believe we're well positioned on that. We also have good visibility now on a number of other tenders, and we've had several walk-in customers already in Italy, basically those coming directly to us that don't need an evaluation and are looking to move straight into contracting. So those processes should go materially faster and we hope to close several of those through the back part of this year. We see that ASTar has really a sustained strong win rate across the board in all markets, but especially in larger labs with the volumes where the automation behind the ASTar really comes to shine and where we are truly unique. So ASTar is designed to serve a range of labs but really is unparalleled in a high-volume situation. Our distribution markets are, I would say, closer to the U.S. in terms of development, that is, building that pipeline and working some of the first placements and reference customers in the various markets through the system. We do have processes now ongoing in multiple markets. So I'm hopeful we'll put a few more flags on the map at the back -- second half of this year. There's a sizable evaluation ongoing now in France that will be the bellwether for that major market. We're also pleased to have opened up in the DACH region with Austria taking the lead. We aim to complete the first evaluation shortly. And again, that will be a very strong reference site for a number of other institutions that are looking at rapid AST. Our partner in the Gulf countries continues to be actively engaging with that market. We're still awaiting regulatory clearance in a couple of markets, including the key Saudi market, which is sizable. They've already lined up a number of users who are very keen to get into valuation as soon as we have that regulatory approval, and we've already engaged with the market with a customer in Abu Dhabi. That should also complete shortly and by all reporting is going very well. So again, more flags on the map hopefully even in this quarter. Maybe another thing to highlight. Now that users are getting familiarity here, they're starting to encourage their peers. We were excited that a customer in Italy helped to facilitate a multi-institution workshop for best practices in rapid AST and engaged a number of institutions and interested lab managers with the ASTar they've already installed. So this is the type of activity we love to see, where customers help customers engage and support and adopt. And that was really the theme from the publications that I mentioned that we've come out with recently. So we're very proud with the quality and the research credentials of the partners we've engaged with on both sides of the Atlantic. On the U.S. side, as I mentioned, 7 publications now out and presented at ASM conference, networks like Baylor Scott & White, sizable hospital groups with dozens of hospitals, also some of the leading academic institutions, PennState, George Washington, for example. And we've engaged very closely with Memorial Sloan Kettering, a leading cancer center. Antimicrobial resistance in cancer patients is a very critical clinical topic, and we're very excited with the evidence that's emerging there for using rapid AST to help cancer patients. And of course, Quest Diagnostics, also a major national reference lab in the U.S. presented data on ASTar performance and suggest that this also will lend itself well in those reference lab environments. So this is the kind of type of customer own experience that is great to be getting out there. This speaks volumes to other users. And we see that now on the back of conversations that are coming out with customers after these publications. So I'd say -- building on that theme of working our way through the adoption curve, that the market starts to mature a little bit here, right? There are some systems that really fit for purpose and are seeing traction in the market. And I think we see that with the ASTar and one of our leading competitors there with traction across the board both sides of the Atlantic. BioMerieux's REVEAL system, also they're able to bundle that with other bioMerieux products in the microbiology lab. They're the leader in the space. So we see them very frequently across all of our key markets. And then we have a selection of what I would call regional rapid AST specialists that typically have focused commercial efforts in specific markets. Some of those instruments designed more for the smaller hospitals, for example. And some markets, notably Eastern Europe and Italy are showing some progress for them as well. And then there are some cases also where, for various reasons, the technical choices made in terms of the engineering, it doesn't always fit all of the lab needs. And we see that reflects now in customer choices through some of these commercial competitive processes. And there have been a couple of pieces of news lately with systems that are now sort of pausing for reframing their strategy and seeking new funding to -- for a bit of a restart. And I think that just underscores that at the end of the day, this is about getting a solution that fits the customer needs. And I won't go into this slide in detail, but I wanted to have it in here for reference because we've now had dozens, if not hundreds by now, conversations with decision makers in the field. And the criteria for this are quite consistent, right? Obviously, you need to be able to access the market with approval, so that's step one. But after that, it is really about the clinical relevance of the system and the system usability. And ASTar very clearly checks all the boxes, so to speak, right? And that enables us to perform very well, whether it's in the tender or a sort of private purchasing process, for a wide range of customers and lab needs. So there's a lot of flexibility built into that, and we see that in the win rates now coming through. So just a reminder before I close out with progress to date. So we are looking to establish ourselves as a leader of what we see to be $600 million and $900 million market, really focused initially on the critical patients in blood stream infection. There are other critical infections as well that will eventually start making their way on to rapid AST systems. And we see that adoption happening at various speeds in the market, as I mentioned. But if Italy is a sign of things to come, then we're well on track for a market in this size range with ASTar in the lead. And just a quick recap, put this up at the beginning of the year as our ambition for 2025. We see sustained progress. We're happy to put a couple of checkmarks in there. Our first walk-in customers have been signed. So these are ones that come to us rather than needing to be quoted for months, sometimes even longer. And our first direct to validation, as I mentioned, so a customer going in without the evaluation. This is important because cycle time is the main factor in terms of the pace at which we can convert the pipeline into an installed base, and these are major drivers of reducing cycle time. I spoke to the clinical progress. So lots of those papers we know presented at all the major conferences. There's a couple more coming through the back end of the year that we'll continue to get new insights out to the users. And we're also very pleased on the funding financial side. Christer will recap that, but thanks for everyone who participated in both parts of the rights issue process this year. We're now in a good position financially. And we continue to work on our operational excellence towards cost of goods. We should have some announcements shortly on that. And we've maintained our commitment to have OpEx less than SEK 15 million. So we've got good cost control. So on that note, maybe I'll pass it over to Christer. But just before then, as you may have seen in our press release, we're very pleased to welcome on board two new Board members. So Johan Bygge takes over as Chair from Erika. So big thanks to Erika for her leadership since 2018. And I'm very excited to have Johan's experience on the team. Similarly, Sebastian also joins from Oresund. We're very happy that Oresund has re-upped their commitments and is highly engaged in the success of Q-linea going forward. So the team is well set up to take us into the next step. So with that, Christer, I will hand it over to you.

Thank you, Stuart. I'll take care of the financial section of this presentation and I will cover -- apart from the financial highlights on this page, I will also deep dive a little bit on the OpEx side and also tell you a little bit more about the capital raise just concluded in the first half year and the reverse share split to come and will end the presentation with the financing situation and the financing going forward. Right. Look, starting with the revenues. I mean, they were a little bit lower in Q2 than in Q1, but we see them coming. And the revenues will be based on the installed base, and that is building right now. So we see increased revenues going forward from Q3 and onwards. That's how it is. But I think we should also be aware of the business model we have, and we have 3 distinct parts, you can say. We either sell the instrument as a capital sale, and then the top line grows quite a lot or we have the leases of the instrument -- on the instruments or we have reagent rental contracts. And depending on the -- how they distribute in the quarter in this part of our journey, it can have some impact on the top line. But overall, we are on the right path. The installed base is growing and the recurring income will come. And as you see, the net sales for the half year is already bigger than previous year, and we see that will grow over the year. OpEx, I will show you later on, is in good control. We have good focus on this one. We are conscious about our spending. That's how it is. And I will continue on the next page on that one. And financing, the capital raise was concluded, SEK 250 million gross net equity raised. And then looking at the liquidity after repaying a loan, a bridge loan and also after netting a loan to shares in the raise, we received SEK 150 million after that. We see the development. It's in line with our financial plan to break even during 2027. We stated that in Q1, and we still state that in Q2. Moving on to the OpEx development. As Stuart said, we have -- it's a robust OpEx level we have now. It's gone down as we have said several times before, and we will continue to watch this, and we see no risk for this going up. So we will keep it around the SEK 14 million or SEK 14-plus million a month. That's where it is. And you can see this in the graph here. So -- and you can also see that the number of employees have gone down quite a lot, and we are now at just a little bit below the 90. Moving on to the capital raise and the last part of the capital raise, which was linked to the warrants or use of warrants, and it was concluded in May. And it was really positive to see that the total subscription was above 90%. It ended at 91.5% and the gross proceeds before cost, transaction cost was SEK 59.5 million. And then after the transaction cost, we ended up with SEK 57.5 million, which was what we actually anticipated or planned for, which is really positive with this high subscription rate, really positive. Now as you saw yesterday, there was a press release sent out on the reverse share split that will come. And this is just for info and to explain what will happen as you have seen in the press release. But the last day of trading of the -- you can call it old shares, the old share ISIN code will be tomorrow on Friday. And the new shares with the new ISIN code, the first day of that trade will be on Monday, July 14. And then automatically, there will be this extra share based on your number of shares you own on Friday, the 11th will be added to your account automatically. It will be added at the latest July 16, can be either added before that on July 15. But please keep -- have a look at that, so you see that you get the share, but that is handled automatically. So you don't need to do anything about that one. Going to the last slide, looking at the financing situation of Q-linea starting with where we end up in Q2, where we had SEK 82.7 million cash at hand. And then obviously, looking ahead, what we are doing and have done for some time is looking for additional sources of financing, where non-dilutive financing is very high up on our agenda, and we are pursuing several tracks here with grants from EU and other places. There is also hybrid financing from EU and other places that could be a loan that can be converted later on. So we are working with that as well. And obviously, when we grow, we need working capital. So we are talking with banks on the working capital financing. And then finally, of course, gross profit, when we grow our business, this will increase. When volume increases, this will be higher, and we also have a scale-up plan internally that will increase the gross profit over time. The use of funds, as we see it now, as I said, OpEx, we will spend SEK 14 million to SEK 15 million a month. The working capital usage now will be fairly low, but it will increase towards the end of the year as we need to buy and invest more in the goods we will sell. So there are lead times here. And that's why also we are pursuing the financing discussions on working capital. The Board of Directors, they -- based on this, they have a very positive view on our chance of financing Q-linea until we reach breakeven. The prospects are good, they say. And that concludes the financing part. Stuart, will you take on here?

Sure. Thank you, Christer. We are complete on the presentation. So with that, I'll turn it over to the Q&A. Any questions?

[Operator Instructions]

It's Johan from Redeye. Johan Unnerus. Can you hear me?

We do. Thank you, Johan. Go ahead.

Excellent. Yes. Well, congratulations on progress on several important parts. Of course, the sales is still rather limited. You point to an improving and growing pipeline, both of evaluations and leads. You also mentioned that you have a high win rate, especially among larger labs. Is it something -- is it possible to give a flavor of the leads and the evaluation pipeline? Is that a mix of larger and medium size? Or does it tend to be larger labs already at that stage?

Great question. So I'll try to answer a couple of points. So in terms of the size, yes, I mean, we tilt towards the larger ones in the pipeline because that's also where we focused our energies at this stage. Not surprising, the larger labs in each market tend also to be the key leaders in their respective markets as well. And obviously, we're interested in securing those volumes first and foremost. So the pipeline skews towards larger ones. In general, the win rate is strong across the board. We -- if it's a very small lab and the volumes won't be sufficient, we tend not to spend a lot of time there. So the pipeline contains customers that are all high-interest, solid ASTar prospects.

Very good. And also even in the sort of -- when you do actually win, the next stage of the work is sort of ahead of you in terms of securing a timely installation and clinical start. You mentioned that you're also making progress in improvements on that side, presumably in terms of efficiency and time. Can you add a bit flavor on this progress and what you see in front of you?

Yes, absolutely. So you're spot on. After the evaluation, there's a couple of stages of the process. So the next one after eval is typically contracting or completing the tender review process. And then we go into installation once we have a PO and we deliver the solution. And we're working to reduce both of these time frames. So the contracting process is typically on the customer side, not a lot we can do about that one. But as we go through more of these and it becomes more standard and customers are familiar with rapid AST and what they're getting, they are themselves moving faster, which is going [ great ]. I mentioned a couple of the direct validation customers. They typically come with a much better idea of what they want and are ready to move through quickly. That said, the larger institutions, especially in the U.S., very large networks, often with dozens of hospitals, they do have a lot of stakeholders to coordinate and they want to make the right decision out of the gate, right? And they plan for this to be multiyear, if not decade, commitments. So they do their homework upfront, which is good, and that just takes time, right? And we see that in the U.S. where we are working through, as I mentioned, at least 5 contracting processes with sizable institutions. And we do see that once they get it, as I mentioned, with one of our contracted customers, they are starting to order more systems behind that already. So just as we expect. But the complexity of those systems mean it does take time upfront. The next phase on the installation, there, we have more to do. Obviously, the customer needs to prepare the space in the lab and book the time with their team for training, so that can require some lead time. But beyond that, it's largely working with us to get it set up. There are -- the key component there is the lab information system installation and integration there. We do expect that the first installations we make, we need to field test the interfaces there. Obviously, we've designed the system to plug into a wide range of lab information systems. But it's the first time you go live in the real-life setting, you need to check all that, make sure the drivers are in place. And the first customers, inclusive in the U.S., we do need to do a little bit more work here as we adapt for the permutations of those LIS systems and their latest versions and so on. But that's a one-off effort. So once we get those done, it will go faster for the subsequent customers. It should go very quickly for the next installations in the same customer, but even a new customer, it will get easier and easier. So again, I would look to Italy as our guide there because it is the more progressed market. We are seeing each phase of the cycle contracting. And I think as I said a couple of quarters ago, typically in diagnostics, the cycle time is 12 to 15 months. We've had a longer cycle time initially with some processes stretching out well beyond that. But now the latest processes that are starting are beginning to fall within that expected range. So I find that to be encouraging.

Interesting. Yes. And yes, one question is also relating to Italy where you made a lot of progress and you seem to have some interesting opportunities ahead of you, perhaps already in July. What to expect from Italy beyond that? Is there a risk that you start to sort of level out? Or is there still a lot of work to do in Italy?

Yes. I assume you're referring to the ESTAR tender, right? It's a 9-lab tender in Tuscany. So that in itself is a sizable adoption of rapid AST. So we're very excited about that. And the Tuscan team has been a pioneer in this in general. We work with key stakeholders in that region for some time now. That will join the 8 instruments we've already got contracted. And we see in the back part of the year, it's hard sometimes to tell exactly how many instruments until the tenders are fully formalized. But there are more than a half dozen processes already that we have visibility on that like some of them will have multiple instruments. So that's just for the second half of this year, independent of the Tuscan ESTAR tender. So I expect the back part of Italy to look familiar to the first part and with the ESTAR being, let's say, upside to that, if that makes sense. And then as I tried to highlight with the graphic, that would still put Italy on the upward climb part of the adoption slope. So there's more to go after that. I didn't spend too much time on that graph, but I would see Italy being over the hump probably at the back part of '26, midway through '27, potentially, where we are well into the later adopters for Italy. So we've got 1 year, 1.5 year more of, I think, adoption growth still ahead of us. And then it will be about working with Italy on 2 things, so one, making sure that they are clinically utilizing the system to its fullest and the pull-through, making sure all available patients are receiving this test. And then adding further to the menu. So we've got exciting things in our pipeline for gram positive, for example, for non-blood isolate testing, et cetera, et cetera. So there's still lots of growth in Italy even once the installed base is established. So -- but right now, we're focused on getting the installed base. And then the other markets will follow, I think, a similar curve to Italy.

Yes, useful. And also, you're sort of making progress in the U.S. You have contribution from the UAE and I believe also some prospects in the U.K. markets. Those regions are more sort of in the earlier stage. What about the outlook on these regions? U.S. is, of course, very important long term.

Yes. Exactly. I'll conclude with the U.S. because it probably warrants a bit more time. So just you mentioned the U.K. and the GCC, UAE, Gulf area. So I would characterize both of those markets as being basically our first -- getting our reference customers in place. We do have an active U.K. user. We're encouraged by their increasing usage at that site as they train more of their physicians on this one. And we are working multiple opportunities here, and we're looking forward here to a couple, at least one close shortly and maybe a couple that will also serve as regional reference facilities. So I wouldn't say it's a catch-up model, but again, we saw the same effects in Italy where it takes a little while to get the first ones. Everyone is looking at that to see how it goes, confirming that the instruments do as they say. And then the ones that perform to expectations, I think, get the bulk of the benefit. I think based on some of my previous experience and conversations with our distributor, that the Gulf countries could go more quickly, tend to be fairly close markets, as in they know each other well. The hospitals look to adopting the winning solutions. And we're lining up customers to move quickly behind the regulatory clearance that we're expecting shortly in Saudi and Kuwait. And our Abu Dhabi facility should be a bellwether customer there that will be a strong reference customer. So hopefully, that will unlock a number of evaluations to come quickly afterwards. The U.S. is a huge market. There are many leaders in the field in terms of hospitals, labs, stakeholders that institutions look to. And we are engaging across the board. I gave an example of those where we published with. We're very proud of that slate of ASTar users. But it's a wide and disparate market that takes a lot of attention. So there, we've got more than 100 customers now in our pipeline, and we're focused on, let's say, the next dozen or so that should go live as we work them through contracting. And then we'll continue to expand out there. Our ambition is, as we've communicated, for 60 to 90 placements in 2026. That requires getting a lot of those contracts set up or even signed this year. So we have visibility on those in the U.S. and are working to make sure that we get them through the process.

Great. Yes. And also having a clinical sites sort of showing and spreading and evaluating best practice is presumably very important, as you mentioned. You pointed to Italy, one of the sites, perhaps several. Is this -- should we understand it like it's a rather country-specific or regional dynamics that these best practice sharing centers is sort of a country, regional phenomenon or dynamic? Or could it be that labs from other countries are going to Italy as well?

Yes, to both. So there -- I mean this is a -- it's a medical field. Our customers are scientists and knowledge-based experts and engage with their peers actively across borders. That's what these conferences are about. So we are at all of the major global, regional and many of the national conferences or even subnational in the U.S., we go to the regional ones in the U.S. And that's where they connect to share clinical experience. And these posters are key there. That's why they go to those events, to see the latest in their field scientifically. And those scientific credentials are essential for establishing ourselves in the space. It's what they look to. And they look for their peers to present that data. It's one thing if we present data and other vendors in the space. But the real information is from labs, their own colleagues using it and seeing what happens for the patients as a result. And that's what we now see coming out. So that, let's say, that's globally applicable because those papers are read and can be utilized across markets. However, they are also aware that there are national idiosyncrasies, not just in the patient populations and resistance rates and so on, but also clinical guidelines. We are encouraged by some markets like Italy have updated their clinical guidance, similarly in the U.S., to recognize rapid AST as a new tool in the toolbox. And those clinical guidelines trigger a certain set of conversations because now it's sort of expected that clinicians and lab managers work towards those guidelines. The U.K. has made some progress as well in this regard, and we see different countries moving at different paces in terms of how they work rapid AST into the guidelines. So that's a national level engagement and impact. And then you have within a region, for example, Tuscany and so on, they work with each other and they tend to look at what the others next door are adopting. And we see that in the U.K. as well. So it's at that level that I think you see the most rapid effect, when 1 or 2 labs goes ahead, then the others start to say, let's take a look at this and get into it. That's where you get the walk-in customer effect.

And finally, on our side, the actual sales is obviously modest in Q2. And you point to the pipeline and the installations and that we should expect a step up already in Q3. What's -- could you give us a bit more insight into the transparency of the sales conversion towards the rest of the year?

Yes. So I'll start by recapping what we said before. So we plan for and see visibility on an overall fleet average of 1,000 tests per instrument. It's not unusual for it to start below a labs expected number as they may be directed towards a certain patient category first or 1 or 2 of their hospitals they're working with, if it's a multi-hospital network lab, and then they'll expand it. So some of that is already happening. So we will see increased tests per instrument. We -- full visibility on that yet, but hopefully we can give some of that soon in terms of the tests per site. And the reason for that is just to make sure we have enough months of usage to show stability here because it is bouncy. The orders from labs, when they install the instrument, they might order several kits at once. And then they are working through those and setting up their protocols and whatnot. It could take some time to go into routine use. And then some of them will just order monthly, some will order for a quarter at a time, and the timing of that doesn't align to our reporting quarters. So initially here it is going to be a little bouncy. I'm most interested in knowing what the customer patient testing volumes are rather than their month or quarter-specific orders, if that makes sense. And we are seeing now that systems being deployed are moving into routine use and are using it for now an increasingly predictable number of patients per month, which is very good. But I'm looking to come off the back end of the year with that 1,000 test per instrument average. I think through Q3, we'll see the reordering for our European systems that are now in routine use. And we've got indications already from our U.S. deployment here. I mentioned it going live. That will now start monthly recurring orders. So that will have some impact, and we expect those U.S. systems to come along behind that.

Okay. So perhaps it's a bit bouncy for the rest of '25 and then increasingly transparent and perhaps a clearer trend as you move further into the conversion dynamic?

Yes, I think that's right and fair. Christer hit it with his comments that we'll have some cases where customers buy a system. So for us, from a revenue perspective, that has a major impact. But it's those recurring consumables revenues that we're really looking at. So where possible, we try to give some transparency on that so you can see the consumables component, which I would guide to as being the key one for us to watch. And even there, there could be some, at least month to month, but even quarter-on-quarter, bounciness. Again, some of the customers are big. So if they make a stocking order in 1 month versus another month, it can have an effect. But we'll -- that's what I meant. We'll try to -- as we get more clarity on the actual usages and pull-through versus what's contracted or expected, we'll try to give you some transparency so you can resolve that.

[Operator Instructions]

Christer, do you see a question in queue? I'm not sure if we have any.

No. I don't see any written questions. No, not yet.

Okay. We'll give it a few more seconds here.

There are no more phone questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

All right. It looks like we're lighter on written questions this quarter than last one. But thank you all for attending, and wish everyone a good summer. And we very much look forward to sharing some more good news in a few months. So with that, we'll conclude.

Thank you.