Seer, Inc. (SEER) Earnings Call Transcript

Good day and welcome to the Seer, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Marissa Bych with Gilmartin Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Earlier today, Seer released financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. If you have not received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor@seer.bio. In addition, during today's conference call, we will be referencing a slide presentation that can be accessed on the Events and Presentations section of Seer's Investor Relations website. Participating today from Seer is Omid Farokhzad, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board, and David Horn, Chief Financial Officer and President. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. Information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section titled forward-looking statements in the press release Seer issued today. For a more complete list and description, please see the risk factors section of the company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Seer disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projections or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. This conference call contains time-sensitive information and is accurate only as a live broadcast today. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Omid.

Thank you, Marissa, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. I want to begin by acknowledging the ongoing efforts of the entire Seer team, whose daily contributions propel us towards a future where proteomics can deliver a revolutionary impact for patients around the world. I've never been more excited than I am today about the differentiated value proposition of our Proteograph technology, the impact we will have, and the market opportunities in front of us. Now, let me walk you through where we stand. In the second quarter, we delivered a total revenue of $3.1 million, a step up from our first quarter revenue and reflecting the ongoing pressures on academic funding. I want to be direct. Revenue at this stage does not reflect the value of what we're building. In nascent markets, technological advancement precedes commercial inflection. That is exactly where we are. The science and technology at Seer are delivering tangible value to customers and reinforcing our conviction in the opportunity ahead. With $209.5 million, we have the runway to see this through and enable us to investments, including opportunistic share repurchases. Repurchases reflect our continued belief that there is a significant dislocation in our share price. As of June 30, 2026, we have repurchased approximately 13.4 million Class A common shares over the life of our share repurchase program, reducing our net total common shares outstanding by approximately 15%. We have approximately $25.1 million available for future share repurchases under existing authorization. Turning to slide 3 to discuss validation of our platform. We now have over 95 publications, preprints, and reviews validating the Proteograph Product Suite, an approximately 80% increase in the last 12 months, spanning independent researchers and leading academic medical centers, biobanks, and pharmaceutical companies. In our field, scientific publications are the currency of credibility. Each one moves us closer to becoming the standard for deep unbiased proteomics. And as that recognition builds, we expect it will translate directly into revenue. Turning to slide 4, one publication I'd like to highlight is an independent head-to-head comparison from Roche titled, Nanoparticle Protein Enrichment Competition Heats Up Within Broader Plasma Proteomic Space, and published in the Journal of Proteome Research. The study evaluated Seer against 5 other plasma proteomics workflows, some of which we believe are trying to enter the field we invented, which I will address shortly. The study moved the discussion beyond protein counts to biological origin, robustness, and signal interpretability, and concluded that nanoparticle enrichment delivers substantially deeper plasma proteome coverage than conventional approaches, with Proteograph demonstrating an exceptional balance of depth, reproducibility, and resilience to pre-analytical variability. Importantly, the findings reinforce that the value of proteomics platforms is not simply how many proteins they can measure, but how confidently those measurements reflect underlying disease biology and real-world sample variability. That ability to generate more reliable biological insight is central to helping researchers make better biomarker and therapeutic development decisions. And we believe this publication provides meaningful third-party validation of that value proposition. Now turning to slide 5, I'd also like to highlight an independent study published in Nature Genetics titled Nanoparticle-Enriched Mass Spectrometry Proteomics in British South Asians Identifies Link Between Genetic Variants, Plasma Protein Levels, and Disease Risk. Researchers compared our Proteograph platform against 2 affinity-based assays, Olink HT and SomaLogic 11K, in a study of about 1,400 individuals of British South Asian ancestry. The results are compelling, and they speak directly to what makes the Proteograph different. Using machine learning models trained on assay characteristics, the researchers found that only 13.5% of Proteograph targets were unlikely to achieve cross-platform concurrence, speaking to the robustness of our platform, compared to 39% for SomaLogic and over 45% for Olink. The study also found that the Proteograph measured more than 3,400 proteins that neither Olink nor SomaLogic could detect, and drove the discovery of more than 600 new genetic protein associations. Remarkably, 143 of the newly discovered genetic protein associations were not included in previous Olink and SomaScan studies that were up to 30 times larger. And this is a direct quote. In terms of sample numbers, as noted by the authors, that is a real proof point. In this study, the Proteograph uniquely delivered depth of coverage, reliability, and unique biomolecular discovery, and that combination is exactly why researchers are turning to Seer to find novel biology that is not possible with others. In fact, the data density the Proteograph delivers is exactly what AI foundation models need for their algorithms to learn rules, recognize patterns, and make predictions. A typical assay run identified 77,000 protein measurements per sample, 7x more data points and 11x more average measurements per protein at peptide level resolution when compared to the highest-plex targeted assay. More important than the sheer quantity of data points generated is that these data help us get to the depth of the proteome where content remains completely undiscovered today. This is where potential new biomarkers exist that can inform new therapeutic innovation. No other platform can deliver this at scale. We are uniquely positioned to advance AI biological models at this critical stage of the field development, and we have concrete plans and opportunity. I want to highlight the milestone that speaks directly where this company is headed. At ASMS 2026 in June, Seer and Korea University presented preliminary data demonstrating the potential of AI-driven plasma proteomics for multi-cancer screening. Dr. Sang-Won Lee and Dr. [ J. Wu Kang ] perfected the scale example. With the proteomic data sets generated on the Proteograph and the AI framework, the team can learn directly from a substantially larger portion of the underlying data and uncover biological patterns that traditional workflows cannot access. The early findings from Doctors Lee and Kang offer a compelling glimpse into how deep proteomics and advanced AI can open entirely new approaches to disease detection. This is exactly the science the Proteograph was designed to enable, and we're just getting started. The market we're building continues to attract new entrants, but we believe the Proteograph remains differentiated by depth, standardization, throughput, and reproducibility. Just as importantly, we have built a strong intellectual property portfolio, protecting the core innovation underlying our technology. Our portfolio includes more than 250 patents and patent applications, including 4 issued patents covering nanoparticle protein enrichment and automated deep proteomics, and we remain committed to protecting innovation that is a platform. We are opening our IP regional buildings by the end of the second to two upon early development. What's more important is that Tony has already spent the last two months on the road meeting with a group of people who are already working on the development, approximately 20% of our North American customers, and also many potential new customers. His interactions with our customers have validated his confidence in our commercial opportunities that lie ahead. Tony has built and scaled commercial organizations inside private equity-backed companies where lean execution, capital discipline, and shareholder value creations are non-negotiable. He has also held leadership commercial and business roles at several larger organizations, including most recently at bioMerieux. That combination has given him fluency in both the operating rigor of big company commercial infrastructure and the speed and resourcefulness of an entrepreneurial environment. He's bringing the same discipline to Seer. During Tony's short tenure, he has provided a focus that has made commercial engagement more efficient, our customer interactions more targeted, and our resources increasingly concentrated on large accounts that drive meaningful recurrent revenue. While the full impact of Tony's leadership will take several months to fully materialize, we expect the ramp to build over time. The underlying trajectory and the discipline behind our commercial engine are exactly what we want to see. Tony will optimize the commercial infrastructure to maximize its value. Now an update on the Seer Insight Program. We received a strong set of project applications to access the Proteograph Product Suite through our Insight Program this year. We're pleased to announce that we have secured an exciting new collaboration with the Mayo Clinic in translational research, further validating academic interest in our platform. We're applying to sharpen our commercial approach as we continue expanding Proteograph adoption within the biopharma market. Turning to slide 6, moving to an update on our population scale studies, which represent one of the most important long-term value drivers for Seer. Progress continues to build. For PRECISE SG100K, the team completed running the 10,000 samples from the prospective 100,000 sample cohort in May. The PRECISE team is currently analyzing the data and is scheduled to present preliminary data during the breakfast symposium at HUPO in September. We believe the data coming out of PRECISE will be the kind of proof point that drives 100,000-plus sample buyback commitments. This is the inflection point we have seen unlock flywheel dynamics for companies building new markets. We're having active conversations with multiple population scale cohorts across both public and private entities. These partnerships take time to close, but the trajectory is clear. The demand for deep, large-scale, unbiased proteomics is growing and no platform is positioned to meet it the way Proteograph is. We will now turn the call over to David to walk through the financial results for the second quarter.

Thank you, Omid. Turning to slide 7. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $3.1 million compared to $4.1 million in the second quarter of 2025 and to $2.8 million in the first quarter of 2026. The decrease in revenue was due to lower product and service revenue as a result of continuing macroeconomic headwinds in academic and government funding and continued elongation of sales cycles in some commercial accounts related to extended customer evaluations. We were encouraged by the uptick in revenue from the first quarter as we saw increased consumable pull-through and STAC service revenue in the second quarter. The project revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $2.3 million and consisted of sales of Proteograph instruments and consumable kits. Service revenue was $700,000 for the second quarter of 2026. We continue to see steady customer interest in running projects through STAC, which we view as an important leading indicator of future instrument placements. In addition, customers continue to appreciate the flexibility of accessing our technology through our SIP program. Of total instrument shipments in the first half of 2026, one-third were previous STAC customers and one-third were part of our SIP program. Other revenue was $100,000 for the second quarter of 2026 and consisted of lease and shipping revenue. Total gross profit was $1.5 million for the second quarter of 2026, representing a gross margin of 49%, compared to 52% in the second quarter of 2025, and a 1,300 basis point improvement sequentially. The decline in gross margin was due to lower product sales in the second quarter of 2026 versus the second quarter of 2025. We continue to expect variability in our gross margin on a quarter-by-quarter basis as the proportion of instrument, consumable, and service revenue fluctuates. At scale, we continue to believe our long-term gross margins will be in the range of 70% to 75%. Total operating expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were $18.3 million, including $1.5 million of stock-based compensation, compared to $22.6 million, including $3.7 million of stock-based compensation in the second quarter of 2025. Research and development expenses were $8.2 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $12 million in the second quarter of 2025. The decrease in R&D expenses is a result of lower employee compensation expense, including stock-based compensation, laboratory, and professional service expenses. Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $10.1 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $10.7 million in the second quarter of 2025. The decrease in SG&A expenses is due to lower employee compensation expense, including stock-based compensation, partially offset by higher professional service expenses. We incurred elevated legal and other professional service expenses in the second quarter. Net loss for the second quarter of 2026 was $16.9 million, compared to $19.4 million in the second quarter of 2025. Free cash flow, defined as net cash used in operating activities less net purchases of property and equipment for the six months ended June 30, 2026, was approximately negative $25.3 million. Our opportunistic share repurchases in the quarter reflect our continued belief that there is a significant dislocation in our share price. In the second quarter, we purchased approximately [ 1.4 million ] Class A common shares at an average price of $1.68 per share. As of June 30, 2026, we have repurchased approximately 13.4 million Class A common shares at a VWAP of $1.86 per share, utilizing approximately $24.9 million under our share purchase program authorization. As a result, we have reduced our net total common shares outstanding by approximately 15%. We have approximately $25.1 million available for future share purchases under our existing authorization. We ended the quarter with approximately $209.5 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. We believe that with our current cash on hand, we have sufficient capital to reach cash flow break-even. Turning to slide 8, despite a softer second quarter, we continue to see positive trends in customer interest and discussions that we believe will lead to revenue growth in the second half of 2026. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $16 to $18 million, representing approximately 3% growth at the midpoint over the full year 2025. As a reminder, that guidance reflects our ongoing expectation that the challenging academic and government funding environment would persist through 2026, impacting customer behavior. Despite the challenging funding backdrop and the impact on the length of our sales cycle, we believe the continued ramp in publications, data from population scale studies, and our new commercial leadership will drive increased instrument utilization and consumable pull-through throughout the second half of the year. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Omid for closing comments.

Thank you, David. Turning to slide 9. The proteomics revolution is underway, and Seer is at the center of it. This quarter, we defended our foundational IP on two continents, presented pioneering AI-driven cancer screening data to a standing-room-only audience at ASMS, and added commercial leadership to convert years of scientific credibility into revenue traction. We are building a new market from the ground up, and we're winning on dimensions that matter most at this stage: scientific validation, the quality of our collaborations, and the IP we defend. To our shareholders, thank you for your continuous support and confidence in Seer. We appreciate the trust you demonstrated at our recent annual meeting with the reelection of all of our director nominees. We will continue to focus on delivering shareholder value for you. And to our employees, thank you for staying focused on our mission over the past few months. With that, we will now open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Kyle Mikson with Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Wanted to ask about instrument placement trends first. So in the first quarter, I think 40% were previous STAC customers and 20% were from the SIP program. This quarter both were at 30%. I think I understand on the STAC side, but on the SIP side, does that just mean they're having more SIP customers mature and turn into direct, real instrument producing customers? Just to explain that to you. I'd like to continue to be helpful.

You're exactly right. There is a kind of a push and pull, if you will. We did ship some additional SIP instruments, and we also had some conversions in the first half. So some of those SIPs turned into, you know, owned instruments, if you will. So it's kind of a...

As you move through time. All right. Thanks, David. That's helpful. And then I know this is very small as part of the business, but related party revenue and COGS were nominal in the quarter, I guess 0. So maybe I didn't know there was an update there. What happened with PrognomiQ, even though they had decent data a few months ago?

Yes, as we've said, you know, they've become an increasingly small part of our revenue in that they are squarely focused now on their lab-developed test. And so they are doing kind of the discovery work that was driving a lot of the revenue earlier. So not surprising. And we continue to, you know, talk to them about smaller projects, but they're clearly focused on the LDT that they've developed the ProView on.

Awesome. And then Omid, you talked a lot about AI during the prepared remarks conversation. I guess I'm just kind of curious how you think, you know, Seer and other proteomics tools, detection tools maybe kind of flow into that world, so you think about the identification, quantification, and then preparation proteomics, if that's sort of in your wheelhouse, and what you think about as it relates to the complexity and maturity of this area. Like just how do you think that ultimately we can kind of get to a point where we're seeing AI models being trained on protein data, like we're seeing in the genomics world today?

Yes, thank you. I think the presentation that happened at the ASMS by the professors from Korea University probably be a perfect example of how this will work. When you do proteomics studies using deep unbiased approaches, of which obviously Seer is the one that pioneered it, what you end up with is a significant increase in the number of data points on a per protein basis, and then a large number of proteins get detected at the same time. And what that means is that you're able to actually interrogate the proteome, not just at the level of a protein group, at the level of a variant of a protein group. And that's relevant. I mean, I think a perfect example of it is the value proposition that Alamar brought to the table where you're looking at a particular variant of tau, and those variants are what drives biology. So now, the reason I think the future of proteome in an unbiased way is actually uniquely positioned well to fit the needs of the AI models is that what's going to drive a lot of that learning is large-scale adequately powered studies where you're looking at these variants of proteins during the spectrum of health to disease. And I think a lot of that is then going to translate into new biomarkers for diagnostics, new therapeutic targets. And I think that study from ASMS is a good example of that. Now, could you drive AI models using targeted approaches? Absolutely, if the goal and the objective is to interrogate a defined set of proteins or protein variants, then you can absolutely do large-scale studies using that. But the point that I've always made in terms of where we are in proteomics is that the universe of the proteome is very large. And what we have identified to date is just the tip of the needle. So, we need to identify the content first at scale, and that is what becomes possible using untargeted approaches that Seer offers, and that uniquely fits the large-scale data analysis that AI enables.