So with regards to the sort of wording there. They are still looking at EUAs and it’s really just about addressing the feedback more than, I think it is about how they prioritize it. But their language. But I think that at the end of the day, it’s really about addressing feedback and getting the test to the regulatory process. So certainly, there are time-to-market advantages for the EUA process. And so we want to continue to leverage that what we can. But that’s not in place of a de novo. It’s really just a staged approach. So we wouldn’t say that EUA is a sort of permanent objective. It’s the sort of staged approach to getting to that full de novo like we did with COVID, we first got EUA, then we got the de novo for it.
Mark Massaro: And then maybe one for Aasim. Just as we think about extending the cash runway, obviously, you announced another workforce reduction in January. Just can you give us a sense for — was that a $30 million use of cash in Q4? And maybe walk me through how you’re thinking about cash utilization per quarter here in ’24?
Aasim Javed: We’ve taken significant measures to reduce the cash utilization. In fact, despite a decline in COVID revenue across the industry in 2023, our cash utilization in ’23 was actually less than it was in 2022. So as you mentioned, we’ve taken $200 million out from a cost structure standpoint on an annualized basis. And look, going forward, we continue to remain very focused on our strategies highlighted in our prepared remarks. And we continue to remain very judicious with where we deploy on our cash. So continue to remain focused on decrease in cash utilization and increasing runway.
Mark Massaro: Okay. But no targets to provide us with.
Aasim Javed: Yes. As we think about cash and go forward, et cetera, as I said, we continue to decrease our cash utilization. One of the things I’ve mentioned in the past as well is we continue to evaluate opportunities and options to bolster our balance sheet.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from the line of Tejas Savant with Morgan Stanley.
Unidentified Analyst: This is Yuko on the call for Tejas. I apologize for earlier. We had some technical issues on our end. A couple of questions for me. Could you comment on your comfort with the pricing structure for both enterprise and consumer settings? And do you anticipate that current pricing for both the reader and the cartridges can still generate enough demand?
Ayub Khattak: Yes. The pricing that we’ve adopted, there’s a lot of factors that go into that. We look at demand, we look at also reimbursement. And if you look at the reader, in particular, you mentioned that — if you compare that to other laboratory analyzers in the point-of-care space, you’re looking at a literal order of magnitude difference in the sort of cost to get the reader versus the laboratory analyzers that have similar capabilities. So we feel really good about the reader and the cost structure there and there are various programs in both the consumer side and the point of care side that allow the customer to get the reader at no cost. And so really, what we’re — our goal is to increase the installed base because as we’ve seen — as we mentioned for Q4, we see a lot of pull-through on each install — in each reader that’s in the field.
And so there is a dynamic with the reader is you want to get that out there. and then you want to allow the customer to get value from that and continue to purchase cartridges and that dynamic will be even better with more menu. And so that’s really what — why menu expansion is our number one priority because we want that installed base to pull through and get value out of a lot of additional menu items.
Unidentified Analyst: And also, earlier in the year, you made some changes to your Board of Directors. And you also plan to add additional independent directors to the Board in the future as well. Since the changes to the Board, should we anticipate any meaningful changes to your business strategy? What are some focus areas that are in discussion?
Ayub Khattak: We announced a few weeks ago that we entered into the cooperation agreement with Tarsadia to add Board member, Rishi. And this is really we’re looking forward and harmony with our shareholders and really incorporate their point of view. We feel good that those conversations are now behind us and you can execute on our strategy. I think this shows our commitment to working with our shareholders. One of the main agenda items that we’ve been hearing was, look, cost structure needs to come down, and we have been actively working on that last year. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we have achieved over $200 million of cost reduction in the year. So we think we’re really executing on what our shareholders want to — we’re maximizing the shareholder value with our approach of lowering the cost, executing on menu expansion as our number one priority.
So I think that what you’ve seen is that we’ve incorporated these strategies into our strategy as well.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
