NEW YORK – Pacific Biosciences is bracing for full-year revenues to be on the lower end of its previously issued guidance after it saw second quarter instrument sales fall 51 percent year over year, company officials said on Wednesday. The company is also launching several new promotions in an attempt to boost sequencer placements.
For the three months ended June 30, the Menlo Park, California-based sequencing technology firm reported revenues of $36.0 million, down 24 percent from $47.6 million in the prior-year period and missing the consensus Wall Street estimate of $40.9 million.
Revenues included $14.7 million from instrument sales, from $29.9 million a year ago. The company placed 24 Revio instruments in the quarter, bringing its installed base to 225.
Consumables revenues were $17.0 million, up 24 percent from $13.7 million a year ago. Service and other revenues were $4.3 million, up 9 percent from $3.9 million a year ago.
Lower instrument revenues were "due to the ongoing impact of the difficult macro backdrop and elongated customer purchasing cycle," CEO Christian Henry told investors on a conference call following the release of the Q2 results. "We continue to experience unanticipated delays in the procurement process, which include tenders in Europe and Asia-Pacific, where they're taking longer than expected."
"Sample volumes are not materializing as fast as we expected for some potential new Revio customers, causing them to delay orders," he added.
One bright spot was consumable revenues in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which grew 42 percent year over year. "Despite the total growth in consumables, revenue was slightly below expectations, which we believe was primarily due to a large research project in the United States losing funding and weakness in the Asia-Pacific region, notably in China," Henry said.
Americas revenues fell 13 percent year over year to $20.8 million. Asia-Pacific revenues fell 36 percent to $8.2 million. Total EMEA revenues fell 35 percent to $7.0 million.
PacBio now expects full-year revenues at the low end of its guidance of $170 million to $200 million.
In order to help place instruments, PacBio has offered customers promotions to lower the upfront costs. "In the second quarter, we shipped several instruments to customers utilizing some of these promotions and are actively working to close several more deals in the second half of this year," Henry said. PacBio has also signed a partnership with Mitsubishi Capital to offer US customers a two-year Revio rental with an option to buy the instrument at the end. "This program does not require a consumables purchase commitment, which is appealing to research customers that are primarily project based," he said.
PacBio is also offering a trade-in deal for Onso that would lower the list price from $249,000 to $99,000.
PacBio's net loss in the quarter was $173.3 million, or $.64 per share, compared to a net loss of $69.8 million, or $.28 per share, in the prior-year period. On an adjusted basis, loss per share was $.20, beating the Wall Street estimate of a loss of $.23 per share.
The firm's R&D expenses fell 17 percent in Q2 to $38.5 million from $46.2 million a year ago. Its SG&A expenses grew 13 percent to $45.9 million from $40.6 million in Q2 2023.
As of June 30, the company had $509.8 million in cash and investments, as well as $2.3 million in restricted cash.
In Thursday morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of PacBio were down 4 percent at $1.48.