Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Puneet Souda: Okay. Got it. That’s helpful. And then just wondering some — are your reagents peers have talked about softness from the smaller biotechs. Wondering if you’re seeing any of that. And then lastly, I appreciate the comments on the makers market, maybe Emily. Just wanted to understand academic customers show a large number of them out there, but more price sensitive. So wondering what’s your expectation on both the sort of pricing of the product there and the sort of the quality of product — liquid biopsy customers. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on that, too?

Emily Leproust: You get second here. Yes, I think we don’t have different quality. It’s one grade for academia and it’s the same product for academia and companies. And we break the revenues for academia and companies for the entire companies, but not for NGS, but I think we’ve seen in the past that the majority for our NGS revenues are around clinical product.

Puneet Souda: And on the smaller biotechs, are you seeing any of that in the quarter? And currently, are you seeing any impact? Some of your peers had commented around weakness in the segment for reagents.

Emily Leproust: Yes. No, I don’t think we have any specific comment around our ReO versus clinical.

Operator: Our next question comes from Rachel Vatnsdal with JPM.

Noah Burhance: This is Noah for Rachel. First, if I could just potentially get a little additional clarity here. Just as it relates to NGS, you mentioned that there is an annual price increase that you pushed through in January. So could we get a little commentary regarding the pricing strategy here. How did you see orders trend in NGS pre-price increase versus post-price increase? And then I have one more.

Emily Leproust: Yes. I think we tried to price on value. And I think there’s an understanding that costs are going up and so we were able to — based on the quality of our product, based on the strength of our product we are going to put in a price increase, which has been quite well received.

Noah Burhance: Awesome. And then just regarding the data storage offering, you partnered with some big tech giants to bring DNA data storage into existence. Can you talk about conversations you’ve had with these partners in recent weeks as we’ve seen some of the tech industry starting to tighten their belts around investments relating to non-core businesses and do some layoffs. So like how do you expect to push the adoption curve of DNA storage? Or what have you been hearing from your customers regarding time lines for adoption there?

Emily Leproust: Yes. That’s a very, very good question. I think the data storage, over the last several years, we’ve made a concerted efforts in creating an industry, and so it’s not just us, but we’ve created DNA data storage alliance, that alliance got into stand. Now you have data storage conference where on their own, they are putting a DNA to the storage track. And so in the industry. It used to be when I would talk to data storage customers, they will say, never heard of storing a DNA and then it moves to — I heard a lot about storing DNA but I don’t believe it. And now it’s, oh, I’ve heard about DNA storage in DNA where can I buy it. And so there’s definitely storing in DNA taking mind shift because there’s such a need for deep archive, where paper and hard drive are just not well suited.