Patrick Donnelly: Thanks for the question.
Operator: And our next question will come from Tejas Savant with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst: Hi, this is Jason and for Tejas. Congratulations on the quarter, guys. So my question is, the VA MVP extended your contract for next year for $7.5 million. This is down from $10 million the previous year. What do you think was the driver behind this lower rate? And how should we think about this number going forward?
Aaron Tachibana: Hi, Jason, this is Aaron. In terms of the VA contract, you know, they don’t say specifically the rationale for dollar amounts here or there. But it’s our belief that was what they had in mind from a budgetary standpoint. It was down a little bit. In terms of the way we look at that $7.5 million, it’s good business. We’ve been doing business with the VA for several years now, back to 2012. Our focus is really on the oncology business. And so, you know, everything we do inside of our company is focused on driving, you know, the clinical evidence, the commercial engine, getting towards reimbursement, driving MRD with pharma, working with PCV manufacturers to be able to go and exploit that technology. And so in terms of long answer here, but the focus is really on the oncology revenue. So the VA has been nice business for us in the past, but looking forward, the oncology business is really more important for us.
Unidentified Analyst: Got it. Thank you. That was helpful. And if I may ask a follow up, you ended the quarter with a $121 million in cash. So you previously guided that this providing you about two years of cash runway. So it’s another three months to pass off. How do you think about cash management and financing opportunities over the next year?
Aaron Tachibana: Yes. So, you know, earlier this year, we took some actions to extend our cash runway, reduced expenses. We continue to reduce expenses every quarter. We’re looking at discretionary spend and we’re looking at what we absolutely critically need to go and invest in, right. That’s along the path to go get clinical evidence done or reimbursement, other types of things where we can defer or eliminate spend. We’ve been doing so. And over the last few quarters, we’ve been continuously saying we have two years of cash runway, and that’s because we’re successful in pushing things out, deferring in different places, right? And so in terms of where we’re at today, we believe we have a strong balance sheet to weather the storm.
The capital markets aren’t very good. As Chris mentioned, we have several milestones in front of us here in 2024, meaning, get more clinical evidence out, being able to submit for reimbursement and you know, our targets are to be able to get reimbursed for at least one cancer type in 2024. So we believe we have enough capital to get us to reimbursement and be able to start to go up ramp and then start to show some revenue for NeXT Personal in the clinic.
Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. That was helpful.
Aaron Tachibana: Thanks, Jason.
Operator: And our next question will come from Dan Brennan with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Dan Brennan: Great. Thanks. Thanks for the questions, guys. Maybe just on the commercial partner, can you just kind of remind us on the type of partner you’re looking for, kind of how advanced those discussions and when something like this might come about?
Chris Hall: Yes, I mean, thanks, Dan. We’ve always said that like since in the last, you know, that finding a commercial partner was key to ultimately helping us bring this to market. I’ve always believed that you’re better off partnering these types of things that go on a lot in this particular climate and in particular, it’s better to do that. We think that the type of partner that works well is a partner that doesn’t have an MRD solution, but yet calls on and talks to oncologists so that, they have those call points and they have those relationships and they can integrate this in. And ideally, that partner would be able to integrate it into their into their call cycle and their talk track and their discussions, that helps to distinguish them of having a cutting edge product that they’re bringing that adds luster to their brand.
