NEW YORK – Ginkgo Bioworks said Tuesday after the close of the market that it is taking a conservative approach with its 2025 guidance, due to uncertainty over government funding and government contracts.
For full-year 2025, Ginkgo expects total revenue in the range of $160 million to $180 million with cell engineering revenue in the range of $110 million to $130 million. "Government has been a source of growth for us … in 2024 and was expected to be a source of further growth in 2025," CFO Mark Dmytruk said on a conference call with investors following the release of the firm's fourth quarter and full-year 2024 financial results. "However, given current uncertainties in this area, we are baking that risk into the low end of our guidance," he said.
Government spending accounted for approximately $20 million of cell engineering revenue in 2024, Dmytruk noted.
Uncertainty around government spending could also impact the firm's biosecurity business, which is expected to have revenues of at least $50 million this year. "This business is almost entirely dependent on government funding, which is a risk we have been managing since we started operations in the biosecurity space," Dmytruk said. "We are providing guidance here under the assumption that our government contracts continue."
CEO and Cofounder Jason Kelly expressed some optimism about US government biosecurity priorities. "I think you're going to have some people that have a certain vision for things. It's going to be potentially different than the visions of people that have come before, and they're going to want to move on it just as aggressively and quickly as you've seen them move on the cuts," he said. "And that represents an opportunity."
However, Dmytruk also saw "potential upside to this [guidance] range coming from our new tools offerings where we have a solid business development pipeline and … closed a number of new biopharma deals in Q4."
For the three months ended Dec. 31, Ginkgo reported $43.8 million in revenues, up 26 percent from $34.8 million in Q4 2023 and short of the consensus Wall Street estimate of $44.3 million.
"I'm very proud of the team for pushing the technical envelope and delivering for our customers as we enter this new year," Kelly said in a statement. "Our expansion into life science tools with our Datapoints and Automation offerings are going well, and we are continuing to drive our cost-cutting and sustainable revenue-generating efforts as we enter a very exciting year for Ginkgo."
Cell engineering revenues were $34.8 million in the fourth quarter, up 29 percent from $27.0 million a year ago, attributable to large biopharma customers and government accounts, partially offset by declines with smaller industrial biotech customers.
Dmytruk noted that the shift in Ginkgo's customer mix "has been a headwind to growth in prior quarters, and so we're very pleased to now see the positive impact of the shift in this quarter's revenue."
Biosecurity service revenues were $9.1 million, up 16 percent year over year from $7.8 million.
In the fourth quarter, Ginkgo added 31 new cell engineering programs; however, Dmytruk said that going forward Ginkgo will be using "active programs" as a metric rather than new programs. In Q4, Ginkgo supported a total of 138 active programs. This includes "all programs that generated revenue in the quarter, including smaller programs," he said.
Ginkgo's net loss for the quarter totaled $107.5 million, or $2.00 per share, compared to a loss of $211.7 million, or $4.28 per share, in the prior-year period. The weighted average number of shares outstanding in the quarter was 53.8 million compared to 49.5 million in the year-ago quarter.
The firm's R&D expenses for the quarter were $76.4 million, down 35 percent from $117.0 million in Q4 2023, while G&A expenses were $57.3 million, down 36 percent from $89.2 million a year ago.
"Cash burn in the fourth quarter of 2024 was $55 million, down significantly from $114 million in the third quarter of 2024," Dmytruk said. "We would further expect to reduce the cash burn run rate significantly from this level by the fourth quarter of 2025."
Ginkgo's full-year revenues of $227.0 million were down 10 percent year over year from $251.5 million in 2023 and just short of the consensus estimate of $227.7 million.
Cell engineering revenues for the year were $174.0 million, up 21 percent from $143.5 million last year, driven by $45 million in noncash deferred revenue relating to the mutual termination of a customer agreement. Excluding that $45 million, cell engineering revenues would have been $129 million, a decrease of 10 percent year over year. Biosecurity revenues were $53.1 million, down 33 percent from $79.0 million in 2023, while Ginkgo reported no biosecurity product revenues compared to $28.9 million last year.
Ginkgo Bioworks' net loss for 2024 totaled $547.0 million, or $10.54 per share, compared to a loss of $892.9 million, or $18.37 per share, in 2023.
The firm's full-year R&D expenses were $424.1 million, down 27 percent from $580.6 million in 2023, while G&A expenses were $246.2 million, down 36 percent from $385.0 million in 2023.
The firm incurred restructuring charges of $24.2 million in 2024, including $4.2 million in Q4.
As of Dec. 31, Ginkgo had $561.6 million in cash and cash equivalents.
In Wednesday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Ginkgo Bioworks were down 4 percent at $9.84.