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Quanterix Corp (QTRX) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

The Motley Fool·11/09/2026 18:13:20
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DATE

Mon, Nov. 9, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Investor Relations - Mary Conway
  • President and Chief Executive Officer - Everett Cunningham
  • Chief Financial Officer - Jason Faessler

TAKEAWAYS

  • Total Revenue -- $35.0 million, representing a sequential increase of 6.3% but a decrease of 13.1% versus the prior year.
  • Sequential Revenue Growth -- 6.3%, driven by improvements across all product categories and technology platforms.
  • Year-over-Year Revenue Decline -- 13.1%, reflecting a decrease from $40.2 million reported in the third quarter of 2025.
  • Pro-Forma Revenue Decline -- 8.6%, when excluding $2.4 million from a terminated diagnostic program and including $600,000 in pre-acquisition revenue from Akoya.
  • GAAP Gross Margin -- 38.6%, representing a decrease of 90 basis points compared to the prior year.
  • Non-GAAP Gross Margin -- 47.4%, an improvement of 150 basis points driven by Akoya acquisition synergies and cost optimization efforts.
  • Net Loss -- $21.6 million, an improvement of 35.6% compared to the net loss recorded in the prior year.
  • Adjusted EBITDA Loss -- $12.2 million, a decline of 2.4% compared to the third quarter of 2025.
  • Cash and Marketable Securities -- $80.7 million, available as of the end of the third quarter.
  • Quarterly Cash Usage -- $16.2 million, reflecting spending requirements and the timing of working capital movements.
  • FY 2026 Revenue Guidance -- $142 million to $146 million, narrowed from previous expectations.
  • FY 2026 Non-GAAP Gross Margin Guidance -- 48% to 50%, representing the outlook for the full year.
  • FY 2026 Year-End Cash Guidance -- Approximately $70 million, with management noting a plan to finish the year with no debt.
  • LucentAD Test Volume -- More than doubled sequentially, supported by new commercial partnerships and growing clinical adoption.
  • Florida Medicaid Reimbursement Rate -- $484 per test, finalized for blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease like LucentAD Complete.
  • Accelerator Lab Book-to-Bill -- Approaching 2x for the second consecutive quarter, indicating a turnaround in service demand.
  • Accelerator Lab Revenue -- $2.9 million, representing a key component of the company's service and other revenue.
  • Diagnostic Partners Revenue -- $1.2 million, declining year over year as fewer instrument placements in the lab enablement model have preceded the generation of recurring testing revenue.
  • Non-GAAP Operating Expenses -- $35.4 million, a sequential increase of $3.7 million primarily due to the timing of compensation payments.
  • Spatial Consumables Revenue -- Reached a near-record level, representing the second-highest level in company history.
  • Americas Region Revenue Growth -- High teens percentage sequentially, reflecting improved commercial execution and discipline.
  • Diagnostics Team Headcount -- Approximately 20 people, dedicated to scaling the diagnostics platform for anticipated growth in 2027.

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RISKS

  • Faessler reported that the pharmaceutical end market experienced a sequential decline due to softness in the EMEA region.
  • Cunningham warned that achieving the fourth quarter targets would require daily effort and disciplined execution, stating that the company must work diligently to meet its performance goals.

SUMMARY

Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ:QTRX) reported sequential revenue growth of 6.3% for the third quarter of 2026, though total revenue remained 13.1% lower than the same period in the prior year. Management stated that the results indicate an initial phase of restoring growth through organizational restructuring and the appointment of new leadership in the commercial and medical departments. The company reported a near-record level of spatial consumables and a doubling of diagnostic test volumes for its Alzheimer's disease platform. Management indicated that commercial execution is being prioritized through a product-focused approach and expanded clinical reference lab partnerships. The company maintained its target for achieving cash flow breakeven in 2027 while narrowing its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $142 million to $146 million.

  • CEO Cunningham noted that the reorganization of the sales team into product-focused groups is intended to allow specialists to focus on specific market segments.
  • The company reported that its Accelerator Lab reached a book-to-bill ratio of approximately 2x for the second consecutive quarter, indicating a turnaround in service demand.
  • CFO Faessler stated, "The cost reductions associated with the Akoya acquisition and strategic road map realignment earlier this year allowed us to reallocate capital to drive sustained growth."
  • Management reported that Florida's Medicaid administrator approved coverage for blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease for four million residents at a reimbursement rate of $484 per test.
  • The company confirmed it remains on track for a 2027 submission of its HD-X platform as an in vitro diagnostic following engagement with a third-party contract manufacturer.
  • Management indicated that new regulatory approvals in China for neurology biomarker testing kits will advance global access to its Simoa-powered diagnostic capabilities.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • 510(k): A premarket submission made to the FDA to demonstrate that a medical device is safe and effective by being substantially equivalent to a legally marketed device.
  • Accelerator Lab: Quanterix's contract research service providing sample analysis and assay development for pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers.
  • HD-X instrument: An automated system designed for highly sensitive multiplex protein detection.
  • IVD: In vitro diagnostic, referring to medical tests performed on samples such as blood or tissue taken from the human body.
  • LucentAD Complete: A blood-based diagnostic test that measures five biomarkers associated with Alzheimer's disease pathology.
  • PhenoCode: A molecular barcoding kit used for spatial protein analysis and tissue imaging.
  • Simoa: Single Molecule Array, a digital immunoassay technology designed to detect and quantify proteins at extremely low concentrations.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Quanterix Corporation Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Mary Conway, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mary Conway: Thank you and good morning. With me on today's call are Everett Cunningham, Quanterix's President and CEO; and Jason Faessler, Quanterix's Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available on the Investors section of our website. During today's presentation, we will make forward-looking statements covered under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions as of today, November 9, 2026. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. To supplement our financial statements presented on a GAAP basis, we have provided certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are used to evaluate our operating performance in a manner that allows for meaningful period-to-period comparison and analysis of trends in our business and our competitors. We believe that such measures are important in comparing current results with other periods' results and assessing our operating performance within our industry.

Non-GAAP financial information presented herein should be considered in conjunction with and not as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures set forth in the presentation posted to our website and in the earnings release issued today. Finally, any percentage changes we discuss will be on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Everett Cunningham. Everett?

Everett Cunningham: Thanks, Mary, and good morning, everybody. I'm happy to share that we exceeded our expectations for top line performance in the third quarter with sequential revenue growth of 6.3% and an improvement across the business. These results reflect the hard work of our entire team. Our solid Q3 results are an important early proof point in our path to restoring growth and there's more. As shown on Slide 3, our commercial teams performed better across the board despite continued market softness with strong sequential growth across all product categories and technology platforms. The Americas region posted the strongest improvement with high teens percentage growth.

Spatial consumables were at a near record level demonstrating that our instrument installed base is being utilized. We're pleased with these first elements of recovery at Quanterix, which are reversing the revenue decline from trend from last year. Our Accelerator Lab grew bookings for the second consecutive quarter at a book-to-bill approaching 2x and the new dedicated sales team is focused on building long-term relationships, including through our custom assay development services. We expanded the SIMOA menu with more neurology biomarkers and our spatial content innovation engine released new spatial assays for our PhenoCycler. We doubled the number of LucentAD tests sold in Q3 from the prior quarter as commercial partnerships are driving demand.

New partnerships, that I'll discuss later today, position us to extend that growth. Now with the foundation of these efforts, we now possess several critical catalysts for accelerating growth for Quanterix. These include the complete build-out of our senior leadership team includes Dr. Yuri Fesko as our first Chief Medical Officer. Yuri's deep experience with large diagnostics companies in clinical and regulatory areas is already benefiting teams across the company with relevant and timely expertise. Jim Gute joined Quanterix in mid-August as our Chief Commercial Officer, bringing proven leadership to help drive improved execution in our commercial organization with rigor, discipline and accountability.

Our diagnostics team added important sales and marketing talent to the team, ready to leverage more opportunities for diagnostics revenue growth. Their efforts are supported by impactful insurance coverage that is growing. We are pleased with the decision by Florida's Medicaid administrator, as I'll discuss shortly, to approve coverage of blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease like LucentAD Complete for 4 million Florida residents eligible for Medicaid as of November 1. Innovation is emerging as a strategic lever for both SIMOA and spatial teams. Between recent assay and menu option launches and upcoming plant expansions, we're addressing real customer needs to drive greater use of our instrument installed base as we've already seen with our Q3 consumable growth.

Spatial's content innovation engine is targeting exciting new areas, including one surrounding the hallmarks of cancer that I'll describe further. Now this is a great start and we plan to actively build upon it. Now turning to Slide 4. Let's review our organizational priorities, the strategies driving our progress. The first element, and I've said this since I started back in January, is bringing a laser focus to improving our commercial execution. I just mentioned the discipline and rigor that Jim Gute is deploying within our commercial organization.

Our return to a product-based approach allows our sales team to bring their optimal skills and decades of market focus to each customer, whether that be in spatial, SIMOA or our Accelerator Lab or diagnostics. Second, we're prioritizing the key areas in our strategic road map to accelerate growth. That means strengthening our position in ultrasensitive protein detection, which we're accomplishing through concrete steps like launching new assays and menu options as I noted. Addressing customer needs effectively is critical to our growth in a competitive marketplace along with advancing the in vitro diagnostics readiness of our HD-X platform that we expect will expand distribution opportunities for us.

Third, we plan to leverage our diagnostics business where the dedicated team is working hard under Jeff Albrecht's leadership to scale for growth by continuing to expand commercial partnerships and build networks and clinical credibility. This is a critically important initiative for our company. Quanterix is a recognized leader in ultrasensitive protein detection with differentiated capabilities across blood-based biomarkers and spatial tissue analysis. These technologies enabled by their sensitivity, reproducibility and high throughput performance create significant near-term opportunities in diagnostics as health care increasingly prioritizes early detection and intervention.

Now let me share some Q3 updates from our product teams in both SIMOA and spatial areas on Slides 5, 6 and 7 where we show how we're addressing customer needs more directly and delivering innovation that will help speed up, expand and improve their research efforts. On our SIMOA platform, we expanded our assay menu offering in Q3 by launching ApoE4 prototyping and IL-18 kits, enabling steady and important increase of new biomarkers for new research in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. ApoE4 variants have been linked to risk of Alzheimer's disease and serious side effects associated with anti-amyloid therapies.

The SIMOA ApoE4 prototyping assay allows researchers to distinguish between noncarriers, heterozygotes and homozygotes that are linked to an individual's risk status. The SIMOA IL-18 assay fills an emerging need to better understand the role of neuroinflammation in the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease and has a broader application in inflammation and oncology. Importantly, our work on the planned submission of our 510(k) application for our HD-X instrument as an in vitro diagnostic remains on track with our third-party contract manufacturer fully engaged as we plan to execute towards our goal of a 2027 submission.

Lastly, new regulatory approvals will advance access to neurology biomarker testing in China based upon our HD-X and SR-X instruments and testing kits for core biomarkers. Innovita Biological Technology Company, a leading Chinese diagnostics company, is broadening access to blood biomarker testing in China as part of our strategy to bring our SIMOA powered diagnostic capabilities to large markets worldwide by working with strong regional commercial partners. In September at the European Society for Spatial Biology meeting, we showcased significant progress in our spatial content innovation engine with the PhenoCode 2.0 Molecular Barcoding Kit now in full commercial release, enabling researchers to barcode virtually any antibody in applications spanning immuno-oncology, neuroscience and other areas.

Two other panels will ship early in 2027: one, the TIME panel, providing a broader view of the tumor immune microenvironment; and the other, a high-plex antibody drug conjugate or ADC panel that enables co-measurement of ADC target expression alongside tumor immune contexture within a single tissue section addressing demand for combination biology readouts. Our Accelerator Lab is accepting requests for custom ADC panel development, widening access to its ADC combination biology fully managed service for biopharma and translational teams. On Slide 7, we illustrate how the hallmarks of cancer framework shown on the right is helping us build out and expand our spatial oncology panel offering, including some recent new product launches that I mentioned.

We see an excellent opportunity to continue to expand our offerings covering more elements of the hallmarks of cancer, which are a fundamental way of understanding cancer, and further increase our spatial consumable growth as we did in Q3. These new offerings and approaches underline our highly regarded scientific innovation and respond directly to customers' needs in the clinic and lab. We're excited about our new panels and technological advances and we intend to maintain this pace to sustain our market leadership. Traction in diagnostics business continues to build, setting a sound foundation for the strong growth that we anticipate in 2027.

We're making impressive progress, establishing new meaningful collaborations, pushing forward on reimbursement and positioning Quanterix to achieve our goal next year. Highlights as shown on Slides 8 and 9 included: LucentAD tests more than doubled sequentially as we transform our diagnostics business into a larger profitable element of Quanterix's profile. We're expanding across different end customers and areas within diagnostics. We've signed new commercial partnerships with 2 key clinical reference labs; Sherman Abrams in the New York/New Jersey Tri-state area and TruPath in Mississippi spanning over 14 states across the United States.

Both partnerships will soon be operational and we're delighted about the caliber of opportunities that we're going to pursue together, broadening the reach of our existing collaborations with other commercial partners. We're actively discussing more clinical reference lab partnerships, including with key international collaborators, fulfilling our goal to expand globally in targeted markets with strong regional commercial partners. We're also pleased to share progress emanating from Florida House Bill 885, which directed the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration to cover blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease like LucentAD Complete when medical necessity criteria are met as of November 1 of this year. Reimbursement rates were finalized at $480 per test and coverage is effective retroactive to July 2026.

Now given Florida's significant addressable population, including over 4 million residents eligible for Medicaid, this is an important step forward likely to be enacted in other states as part of the national movement supporting blood-based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease. We've seen continued progress with clinical utility studies involving our 5 biomarker tests, LucentAD Complete. While we await publication of completed studies by 3 major health organizations, we've heard that some researchers are encouraging clinicians at their centers to consider utilizing LucentAD Complete test for Alzheimer's disease assessments of patients. We're excited about this progress and we're looking forward to the publication of these studies soon. Our diagnostics team was built smartly and efficiently.

That team now numbers approximately 20 people. To enhance their efforts, we welcomed Dr. Yuri Fesko as Chief Medical Officer last quarter as I mentioned. Yuri's deep experience in clinical and regulatory affairs and diagnostics offers clear value to our teams, advancing Quanterix's initiatives. Productive discussions with the FDA regarding our 5 biomarker tests for Alzheimer's disease pathology has continued. While we cannot predict FDA timing, we remain confident that the test provides the most clinically important information with the lowest indeterminate reading of any in vitro diagnostic test that is currently on the market for Alzheimer's disease assessment and we're not stopping at Alzheimer's.

We intend to build a total neurological brain health diagnostic assessment portfolio as we identify more critical biomarkers that can transform the diagnosis of diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's as well as traumatic brain injuries. We're looking forward to sharing more about these opportunities as we address a rapidly growing space with highly competitive assets and efficient market approaches. In conclusion, I want to recognize our team's solid performance in exceeding top line revenue expectations in the third quarter, the first signal of restoring growth back to Quanterix. We're grateful for the effort across the board, especially in our refocused commercial organization.

We see clear data points supporting our outlook for the remainder of 2026 and positioning us for growth continuing in '27. The initial impact of our new commercial leadership team and the refreshed focus of our selling teams are becoming apparent and the enthusiasm, the discipline and energy in these teams are exciting. Our diagnostics business is readying its platform to scale and support our expansion, especially the expansion of LucentAD Complete testing in 2027. We're carefully managing our financial resources as our leadership team drives to leverage opportunities and we appreciate the support of our investors along this journey. Now I'll turn the call over to Jason Faessler, our Chief Financial Officer. Jason?

Jason Faessler: Thanks, Everett. I'm pleased to join you today to discuss Quanterix's third quarter financial results and our outlook for the rest of the year. Starting on Slide 11. On the top line we generated sequential growth better than we had forecasted last quarter with total revenue of $35 million, up 6.3% from Q2 although 13.1% below Q3 2025's reported $40.2 million. On a pro forma basis when we exclude $2.4 million from our Q3 '25 revenue from a terminated diagnostic development program and include Akoya pre-acquisition revenue of $0.6 million, the Q3 2026 year-over-year decline is only 8.6%. Quanterix significantly slowed our revenue decline this past quarter.

As Everett noted, this positive performance does not reflect the full impact of the new leadership and reprioritization in the commercial organization, which only began midway through Q3. We saw improvements across the board with consumables showing the greatest increase reflecting leverage from our strong installed base of instruments. Our consumable revenue growth was led by our spatial business, which hit its second highest level ever in Q3. We intend to sustain this momentum as we close out this year and move into 2027 knowing that the commercial organization transition with its new priorities, rigor and discipline will take time for full impact.

Due to additional demands on our cash in the quarter from spending and timing of working capital movements, cash usage was $16.2 million in the quarter. We ended Q3 with a cash balance of approximately $80.7 million. We intend to carefully balance plans for growth against their cost and cash preservation is an important goal for all of us. Moving to Slide 12. I will cover our product, region and end market performance mostly on a quarter-over-quarter and a pro forma basis. Q3 '25 was the first quarter of our Akoya acquisition and thus sequential comparisons are more meaningful. Looking at Q3 2026 revenue performance by region.

Our Americas commercial execution improved nicely at high teens percentage growth quarter-over-quarter while EMEA was down sequentially reflecting seasonally lower revenue. APAC sales were roughly flat versus Q2 '26. We see varied performance across end markets and regions. Our pharma end market was down slightly quarter-over-quarter on EMEA softness while our U.S. spatial consumable demand was a highlight for our academic end market, which was up double-digit percentage. Importantly, our growth is accelerating even without a significant recovery in academic markets worldwide. So we believe that we are well positioned for the end market recovery. In Q3, SIMOA revenue increased slightly on a sequential basis driven by instrument placements.

As previously mentioned, our spatial revenue grew sequentially by a double-digit percent driven by our near record level of consumable revenue. Our Accelerator Lab business saw sequential growth in bookings with a second consecutive quarter of book-to-bill approaching 2x, another early turnaround sign for our business. Accelerator Lab service revenue was flat sequentially excluding revenue in Q3 '25 from a terminated diagnostic development program. Revenue from Diagnostic partners was $1.2 million, down year-over-year for Q3 '26 and also year-to-date. This decline reflects fewer instrument placements from our lab enablement model, which is not yet offset by our recurring revenue from our lab testing model. As we said, diagnostic lab test volume doubled last quarter as we add more partners.

Our ability to serve the market through both instrument placements and lab services reflect a differentiated commercial model that we believe represents a unique competitive advantage and a source of long-term strength. Moving to the P&L on Slide 13. GAAP gross profit and margin for the third quarter was $13.5 million or 38.6%. Non-GAAP gross profit was $16.6 million, a 10% decrease from Q3 2025 and non-GAAP gross margin was 47.4%, an improvement of 150 basis points. The year-over-year improvement in gross margin was largely driven by Akoya acquisition synergies and cost optimization despite lower volume. Operating expenses for the third quarter of 2026 were $36 million, an improvement of $27.2 million from Q3 2025.

Non-GAAP operating expenses were $35.4 million in Q3, down $2.8 million from $38.2 million in Q3 2025 reflecting a disciplined approach to planned expenditures in revenue-facing areas in this year's third quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q3 2026 increased $3.7 million sequentially. About half of this reflected a onetime impact from the timing of compensation. The cost reductions associated with the Akoya acquisition and strategic road map realignment earlier this year allowed us to reallocate capital to drive sustained growth. We prioritized revenue-facing areas of investment, including building out the dedicated commercial diagnostics team and ensuring sufficient infrastructure to scale that business for faster growth we anticipate in 2027 and beyond.

Our net loss for the third quarter of '26 was $21.6 million, an $11.9 million improvement versus Q3 2025. Our adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was a loss of $12.2 million, an increase in loss of $0.3 million year-over-year on lower volume somewhat offset by lower operating expenses. I will now turn to our guidance for 2026 on Slide 14. As Everett noted, we view our third quarter revenue performance as a first step in restoring growth. Based upon that performance and our outlook for further improvement in Q4, we are narrowing our expectations to approximately $142 million to $146 million in total revenue in 2026.

We continue to expect non-GAAP gross margins in the range of 48% to 50% for the full year and we now expect to end 2026 with cash of approximately $70 million and no debt. Finally, we expect the significant commercial organization actions beginning in the third quarter will start to drive increased revenue in the fourth quarter of 2026, but more materially in 2027 and beyond. Quanterix is committed to achieving profitability and generating cash over the medium term while balancing investments for growth. We're excited about the opportunities ahead and the entire team is committed to achieving the high level of growth Quanterix is capable of. I will now turn it back to Everett for closing remarks.

Everett Cunningham: Thanks, Jason. Quanterix's third quarter showed meaningful progress demonstrating the first step of restoring growth back to our company. We strengthened our leadership team and built momentum across our business, positioning us well for the rest of the year and beyond. Now while it's too early to see the full results from the actions that we took back in August to improve our commercial performance, we're confident that the discipline and rigor they bring will provide a strong uplift to results going forward. The leadership team is working well together, relying on strengths and expertise from each area and that in itself is a catalyst for growth. Directionally, I am very pleased with our efforts.

We remain confident in the strength and differentiated positioning of both our research tools and diagnostics businesses even if markets are soft. Our ultrasensitive protein detection capabilities and high plex spatial analysis in tissue combined with our differentiated multi-analyte approach provide competitive advantages across targeted translational research and diagnostics. Our strong experienced commercial leadership team brings heightened commercial discipline and our diagnostics team is ready to leverage expanding partnerships. We plan to drive high margin recurring revenue as well as expand pull-through like the consumables strength we just produced.

Our senior management team is focused on achieving key milestones in Alzheimer's disease testing, including the upcoming publication of 3 clinical utility studies and advancing our engagement with the FDA regarding clearance of our pending 510(k) application for our multi-biomarker blood test for Alzheimer's disease pathology as well as our upcoming submission of our 510(k) application for our HD-X platform as an IVD. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Mary to begin the Q&A session. Mary?

Mary Conway: Thank you, Everett. Operator, please assemble the Q&A roster.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Kyle Mikson with Canaccord Genuity.

Kyle Mikson: Nice quarter. So congrats on the spatial consumables growth there. That's great. But on SIMOA consumables, I'm just looking at instrument placements increased sequentially I think and then spatial revenue overall beat nicely. So the delta is probably on SIMOA consumables. I guess I know spatial instruments were a little soft. But there seems to be like a healthy interest for utilization in the industry kind of including large-scale proteomic studies recently. Any reason why usage may have been a touch soft in the third quarter for SIMOA?

Everett Cunningham: Yes. Kyle, first of all, I appreciate your comments. Maybe let me touch on a couple of things that we think are driving that sequential improvement and then I'll have Mike maybe touch on SIMOA and what we're doing as we launch new tests and assays on the SIMOA side. I think it's driven by couple of things, Kyle. First of all, we made intentional movements in our commercial organization, splitting our commercial organization to product focused teams now. We saw that lift starting in Q3 and we know that it's going to be continued in Q4 and into '27.

So just allowing our teams to really dive deep into their specialty, the customers that they know was a really good move for us. So we're happy about that. And when you think about the consumable growth that we had sequentially and the stickiness of our business, I think it's driven a lot by our commercial organization and the leadership by Jim Gute. I'm also pleased too with the new assays that we launched on the SIMOA side, which will give us some really good trending moving forward in Q4 and '27. I mentioned the ApoE4 proteotyping and the IL-18 on the SIMOA side.

And then on the spatial side, we launched the PhenoCode 2.0 Molecular Barcoding Kit and 2 new assays that will take us and give us momentum in '27 with the TIME panel and the ADC panel. We actually brought Mike here on the call to maybe dig a little bit deeper in terms of why we're bullish in terms of both of those showing sequential growth moving forward. Mike, anything to add?

Michael Miller: Kyle, I think you had asked about the SIMOA progress and I think we've been adding menu strategically in terms of the feedback we get from our customers and our CROs and I think we're focused on those studies and applications where the benefits of ultrasensitivity combined with precision and reproducibility are critical. So that typically is later stage clinical trials as well as clinical research studies where quantitative comparisons are key to be able to draw the conclusions about the role of the biomarkers in disease. And so I think we remain focused on that. We see continued strong interest from CROs and uptake from CROs. So that's a sign that we're playing well in that space.

Jason Faessler: Kyle, it's Jason. One bright spot in the quarter for SIMOA was instruments were up $1 million quarter-over-quarter. So that's a bright spot. And there was a slight change in the mix on Accelerator, which offset the instrument improvement. There's a bit more Accelerator quarter-over-quarter from spatial. So that highlights sort of the offset on the SIMOA side.

Kyle Mikson: Okay. Fantastic. And then on the diagnostics side so LucentAD Complete volume doubled so that's great. I'm curious if revenue also doubled given there's been -- everybody has got different pricing, I guess you have the payment rate out there. Collections could be variable so it's interesting to hear about. And then I'm also wondering how you've been so successful with that asset so far just without FDA approval and hopefully, that comes maybe early next year.

Everett Cunningham: Yes. Let me touch on that, Kyle. Again we're so excited about our diagnostics build-out. We brought in Jeff Albrecht from Quest Diagnostics, who is our Diagnostics GM, over almost 30 years of experience in diagnostics and Jeff has experience with blood-based biomarkers. I would say there's 3 levers for the diagnostics. First of all, our internal build-out is impressive. Jeff now has a dedicated team of around 20 people. We have a dedicated internal sales force that's really focused on selling to our segments LucentAD Complete. Number two, we have a differentiated test, the 5 marker test. What we're hearing from our customers are the fact that it provides more answers.

We feel it's a better test and we're going out there really selling the value of LucentAD Complete and that's what you're seeing a sequential pickup of the samples quarter-over-quarter. And then lastly, we're not doing the scaling by ourselves. Again my hats off to Jeff and team. They've scoured the globe in terms of finding what I would call really good partners to help us scale. And we announced just 2 this morning in Sherman Abrahms lab in the New York/New Jersey Tri-State area and TruPath that spans across 14 states that have themselves the sales force that will help us scale to improve the momentum of LucentAD Complete.

And then as far as payment, most of those are client bill pay and it's off a low base. So we're really not in Q3 going to talk about specifics around that; but as we grow, we'll give more visibility. Jason, I don't know if you want to add anything.

Jason Faessler: No, nothing to add. The revenue is still relatively immaterial. So just we're going to hold on releasing that. But we're excited, as Everett said.

Operator: Your next question comes from Dan Brennan with TD Cowen.

Daniel Brennan: Maybe just first just more of a short-term question and then I'll zoom out for a longer-term question. Just for the updated guide so I guess it's $40 million for the midpoint for the fourth quarter. Any color on just the building blocks for that $40 million across the different product lines and/or the different SIMOA versus spatial?

Everett Cunningham: Yes. Dan, thanks again for your question. I have confidence in our Q4 guide albeit it's not a layup. It's going to be every day, every week slogging it out. Why I'm confident? I mentioned Jim Gute. Jim has decades of what I would call really rigorous granular pipeline bottoms-up building and we've seen that since he's come on board since August 17. Jim meets with the team on a regular basis. He meets with our business development managers, which are our frontline people driving the volume. We then roll that up by business, by SIMOA, by spatial, by region. That's reviewed with me on a weekly basis.

And what we did was we did a granular bottoms-up build-out of Q4. We're going to do the same thing when we build our '27 annual operating plan. But just the experience that Jim has and the additional rigor gives me confidence of us executing in Q4. Jason, I don't know if you want to add.

Jason Faessler: Yes. Thanks for the question. So for Q4, we expect to start to see a nice step-up from Accelerator [ per ] the recent bookings performance that we've been highlighting. So I think that's one highlight. And then I think one of the levers on the range will be instrument placement and the success on that. And we see a nice step-up in consumables as well. So I think Accelerator is the highlight.

Everett Cunningham: Yes. I would say with our Accelerator team too, what again gives me confidence is if you look just a couple of quarters ago, we did not have a stand-alone fully dedicated Accelerator team. One of the things we did back in August again intentionally was getting an Accelerator leader who has years of experience at Quanterix and now we have dedicated people, around 7, selling Accelerator globally and that's why we're confident with our book-to-bill improvement quarter-over-quarter.

Daniel Brennan: Awesome. And then maybe just I know you're not going to guide for '27, but you do have the cash flow breakeven target in '27. Can you just speak to that a little bit? Just any construct what needs to happen to realize that either from a top line basis and also just from a COGS and an OpEx basis?

Jason Faessler: Yes. Dan, as you expect, I'm not going to go into details on '27 yet. But our view is unchanged on cash flow breakeven for next year. Just as a reminder: coming into this year, the company was targeting at '26 and last quarter we pushed that out to '27. And as a part of that '26 guidance change, it was a step down in revenue, right? So one of the biggest levers of achieving that next year will be revenue and I think that's it simply.

Operator: The next question comes from Puneet Souda with Leerink Partners.

Puneet Souda: You talked about some bookings and order book and maybe book-to-bill, Everett, you talked about that. Just wondering if you can provide any numbers there just given the midpoint of the guide was lowered here. Just want to get some context on that, if you can provide some quantitative numbers there.

Everett Cunningham: Yes, Puneet. Our Accelerator business, we might think of the step-up from Q3 to Q4, a lot of that's built on our Accelerator business. We did about $2.9 million in Q3, a significant step-up in Q4 just because of our sequential book-to-bill improvement. When we look at Accelerator, Puneet, typically it converts to billings. It possibly takes about 4 to 6 months to do that. That's why we have the step-up in Q4 just with our improvement in Q2 of this year.

In addition to that, this is a unique business and I said this before, it takes 1 to 2 big deals for this business to start to really, what I would call, flywheel and the conversations that we're having with much bigger pharma partners, it's impressive. And it's not just done on the commercial side, but also our lab side, truly it's just better connected than it was quarters ago and then that's going to -- Jason talked about our margin. The Accelerator business has accretive margins across the way. So we've intentionally put focus on this with people, with who we're targeting from the pharma side and just again bullish on our Accelerator in Q4.

Jason Faessler: Just to add to that. We were up in instruments, consumables and the biggest step-up was in Accelerator. So really pleased with the bookings. And there was a slight offset in other services where maintenance is, which can be a little lumpy. So that was a bit of an offset. So in our key categories, it was a nice step-up quarter-over-quarter.

Puneet Souda: Okay. That's helpful. And then on the diagnostics, I mean look, you've talked about LucentAD submission, FDA review. We have seen at least 2 assays here that have gotten FDA approval. You were expecting clearance by year-end. So just wondering I mean is that still your expectation? Any updates from FDA in terms of the data that they need or anything else that's potentially holding it back from approval?

Everett Cunningham: Yes, Puneet. First of all, we're excited. I think the FDA approvals talk about the attractiveness of this market. It talks about Alzheimer's disease and just the health care innovation that's needed in this ugly journey of Alzheimer's. So the fact that Roche and C2N got approval, we're actually happy because it legitimizes the market. We are right now having productive discussions with the FDA, really productive discussions. What I also like too is the step-up internally around just the cross-functional nature of our commercial team, our regulatory team, our research and development team, Mike and his team are stepping up with making sure that we have the best approaches with the FDA.

But those conversations have been very productive and we're still optimistic about our FDA clearance here coming forward.

Puneet Souda: Okay. Last one around the Medicaid pricing that you talked about in Florida. I mean how should we think about the ASP of the assay? I believe the pricing of the assay is higher than the Medicaid pricing and Medicaid is generally lower. But just wondering sort of the penetration you expect on the Medicaid side and then how you expect the pricing -- do you expect that to impact the pricing of the assay longer term?

Everett Cunningham: Yes. So Puneet, during my comments, I talked about the Florida decision Bill 885. Reimbursement has already been established. I said $480, it's actually $484. So that's a step-up and we're happy about that. We do think just looking at other states that have legislation, we think that it's going to be enacted by other states really soon. Again my hats off to Jeff Albrecht. We hired a dedicated market access person with deep experience in this space just last month and we're targeting the states, we're targeting the federal, we're targeting commercial plans. So reimbursement is going to help. It's too early. It's early days in terms of talking about pricing, reimbursements, what we're going to get.

What we communicate is those deals that we've closed in terms of Florida, Medicaid. By the way, the addressable market in Florida, I've always stated, I've been in the space of health care for 35 years. You always want to start with the big 4 states; California, Texas, Florida, New York. We're really excited about the reimbursement of blood-based biomarkers in Florida. Jason, I don't know if you want to add anything?

Jason Faessler: No, I don't want to add anything to that, Everett.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mary Conway for closing remarks.

Mary Conway: Thanks again for joining us this morning to discuss Quanterix's third quarter update. We welcome continuing dialog with investors so please reach out to Investor Relations if you would like to speak further. We plan to participate in the Piper Sandler Healthcare Conference in New York in early December. So if you're attending that event, please let us know if you'd like to meet. Have a great day. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

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