NanoString Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSTG) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Dan Brennan: Got it. And then maybe final one, if you think about you guys had the Investor Day not that long ago, maybe longer. When you look out, say, the next three to five years, I mean, you’ve got, you know, three elements which is wobbling right now, but you guys still feel good longer-term. It’s got a real strong place and CosMx obviously guys are excited. How do you think about the collective business, say growing, not over , I mean, when you look at, say, the next three to five years, 20% top line growth, 30% top line growth, any range of outcomes that you would talk to about what the overall company should be able to do?

Brad Gray: Dan, this is Brad. I don’t think we’re going to establish long-term growth rates here on this call. But I think we believe we’re going to be a market leading company in a market €“ in the spatial biology market, which is just getting started and will grow in a very meaningful way for a decade ahead. We obviously have some transient impacts this year with the inability to recognize revenue on CosMx, and we’re still learning the consumable pull-through dynamics on GeoMx, but the secular trend, heavy growth in the spatial biology industry should drive meaningful top line growth for the years ahead.

Dan Brennan: Alright, guys. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Arias with Stifel. Your line is now open.

Dan Arias: Afternoon, guys. Thanks for the questions. Brad, why do you think biopharma spending is retracted? Historically speaking, the consistency there has been well above average in the R&D setting?

Brad Gray: Well, we’ve been talking about forever since the recovery from the pandemic about a slowdown in clinical trial approval that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. And because the translational biology that’s done on our systems is downstream of that approval typically starting once all the clinical trial samples have been collected, we have seen slower recovery in pull-through in biopharma than we had amongst academics in the time since the 2020 pandemic. That has not improved. It has remained suppressed relative to pre-pandemic levels.

Dan Arias: Okay. But if you were €“ I remember you were talking about that earlier in the year when it didn’t seem like that was impacting GeoMx pull-through at the time. Is this sort of like a follow on effect or something that you’re realizing later? I’m trying to understand the progression of the issue over the quarters.

Brad Gray: Well, it’s an issue that has been impacting both nCounter and GeoMx pull-through ever since the post-pandemic period. I think we’ve talked about it most in the context of nCounter because the overall magnitude in absolute dollar terms for nCounter is bigger than it is for GeoMx in the stage of their lifecycles. But this is not a new issue. It’s probably one that we would have guessed, would have recovered by now, that we have not seen the recovery in biopharma pull-through that we would have expected as those trials completed enrollment and translational biology began.

Dan Arias: Okay. And then you mentioned this quarter and then last quarter as well that pull-through is suffering from some of the newcomers that are just slow to ramp, what about the existing users? Those labs that bought an instrument in 2019, 2020, early 2021. I think there were about 200 devices or so that were installed by June of 2021. So, just curious how pull-through is trending amongst that crowd and how it compares to the that you’re referencing here?