Quantum-Si (NASDAQ:QSI) reported second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
Quantum-Si announced a delay in the Proteus launch to Q2 2027, attributing the change to an additional integrated instrument design cycle to reduce manufacturing risk and improve product readiness.
The company is implementing cost-saving measures, including a 20% workforce reduction, to align expenses with the revised Proteus timeline and preserve investments in critical work streams.
Q2 2026 revenue decreased to $344,000 from $591,000 in Q2 2025, reflecting limited near-term capital purchasing for Platinum and deliberate commercial decisions to position for Proteus.
Gross margin improved to 50% in Q2 2026, with GAAP operating expenses down to $25.8 million from $30.5 million in the prior year.
Quantum-Si maintains its full-year 2026 guidance of approximately $1 million in revenue and adjusted operating expenses of $98 million or less.
The company is exploring market opportunities in non-human proteomics, with an estimated $4 billion annual market potential, particularly in pathogen and agricultural research.
Management emphasized a strategic shift towards application-oriented library preparation kits to better meet customer needs and reduce optimization requirements.
Quantum-Si has identified and qualified over 250 institutions interested in Proteus, spanning academic research, biopharma, and industrial applications.
The company expects to launch Proteus with a detection capability of either 19 or 20 amino acids, improving upon the previous target of 18.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quantum-Si second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I'd now like to turn the conference over to Risa Lindsey.
Risa Lindsey, Investor Relations
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier today, Quantum-Si released financial results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 2026. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Joining me today are Jeff Hawkins, our President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Jeff Kies, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that management will be making certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section entitled Forward-Looking Statements of our press release. For a more complete list and description of risk factors, please see the company's filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the live broadcast date today, August 13, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Except as required by law, the company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement. During this call, we will also be referring to certain financial measures that are not prepared in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release filed earlier today.
With that, let me turn the call over to Jeff Hawkins.
UNKNOWN, CFO
Thanks, Jeff. I'll now review our second quarter and first half financial results, discuss the expected financial impact of the operating expense actions we announced today, and then provide an update on our full-year outlook. Revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was 344,000 compared to 591,000 in the second quarter of 2025. Revenue for the first six months of 2026 was 602,000 compared to 1.4 million in the prior-year period. Results continue to reflect the dynamics we have discussed throughout 2026, including limited near-term capital purchasing activity for Platinum, ongoing consumable utilization for the installed base, Platinum customer awareness of the anticipated Proteus launch, and deliberate commercial decisions designed to position customers for a successful transition to Proteus. Gross profit was 172,000 in the second quarter of 2026, resulting in gross margin of 50%. For the first six months of 2026, gross profit was 246,000, resulting in gross margin of 41%. Gross margin continues to be affected by the mix and timing of instrument, consumable, and service revenue, as well as the commercial choices we are making to support market readiness for Proteus.
Turning to expenses, GAAP total operating expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were 25.8 million compared to 30.5 million in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted operating expenses were 22.6 million compared to 23.8 million in the prior-year quarter. For the first six months of 2026, GAAP total operating expenses were 49.9 million and adjusted operating expenses were 43.9 million. We continue to manage expenses with discipline while prioritizing the investment required to complete Proteus development, scale internal testing, support manufacturing readiness, and prepare the commercial organization for launch.
As part of this disciplined approach, earlier today we announced operating expense actions, including a targeted reduction in force representing approximately 20% of the total company headcount. These actions are designed to better align our expense base with the updated Proteus development plan, reduce cash usage, extend our runway, and provide additional flexibility as we execute the remaining product readiness work. In making these decisions, we were deliberate in preserving investment in the highest-priority work streams required for the Proteus launch.
We expect these actions, once complete, to result in approximately $12 million of annual operating expense savings. Net loss was $23.5 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to a net loss of $28.8 million in the same period of the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was negative 21.2 million compared to negative 22.2 million in the prior-year quarter. Dividend and interest income was 1.7 million compared to 2.3 million in the prior-year quarter, reflecting the rate environment and changes in invested balances.
As of June 30, 2026, we had 169.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments in marketable securities. Taking into account the reduction in force and other operating expense management actions, we now believe we have sufficient capital to support the updated Proteus plan, execute the key activities required for launch, and fund operations into the fourth quarter of 2028. This runway allows us to remain focused on the highest-return uses of capital, including platform readiness, customer sample evaluations, manufacturing readiness, and commercial launch execution.
Our full-year 2026 outlook remains focused on three financial priorities: maintaining spending discipline; funding the activities required to deliver Proteus with the capabilities customers need; and preserving the balance sheet strength necessary to support launch and adoption. For the full year 2026, we're reiterating guidance of revenue of approximately $1 million, adjusted operating expenses of $98 million or less, and total cash usage of $93 million or less.
The key financial takeaway is that we are aligning our capital allocation with the updated Proteus development plan. The revised launch timing allows us to complete the additional design, testing, and readiness work needed before production, while the operating expense actions announced today are intended to fund that work in a disciplined manner. We're also continuing to invest in the activities that support customer confidence ahead of the launch, including evidence generation with Platinum, Proteus awareness initiatives, customer sample evaluations, and targeted commercial engagement.
Taken together, these actions are designed to reduce cash usage, extend our runway, and preserve the financial flexibility needed to execute the Proteus launch plan effectively. In summary, we remain focused on using capital efficiently, funding the critical path to Proteus launch, and making the right long-term decisions to support the adoption of the Proteus platform. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
OPERATOR
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star 11 on your touchtone phone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Our first question today will come from Scott Henry with Alliance Global Partners.
Scott Henry, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
Thank you and good afternoon. I'm going to start with a couple big picture questions, and I recognize you probably answered this perhaps in more detail, but I'm just looking for kind of a top-down, higher-level thought. What drove the change? Did it come from customers or, as you were working through it, did you just say, hey, you know, if we make these changes, it'll be that much more of an effective product?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yes, Scott, it's a good question. It comes from our internal assessment. You know, it's a mix of just the performance we're seeing in terms of repeatability and consistency across the machines. We have thinking about what the manufacturing processes have looked like all the way from the optical module and its sort of yields and success rates into the integrated machines. Looking at that and saying what improvements are necessary to have a very high quality, repeatable manufacturing and supply chain.
Looking at, you know, long-lead components and planning those out, it's really us thinking through all of those things and saying, you know, to have the highest likelihood of success, to ensure that this is the machine that customers expect, performs the way we want, and we can manufacture it and deliver it consistently, we believe we needed to add this additional cycle. It wasn't driven by some sort of new feedback from customers that caused us to believe we need to add some capabilities we weren't planning for.
It's really an internally driven assessment of where we are and the best way to get to the product with the capabilities and manufacturing quality we expect.
Scott Henry, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
Okay, great. That's helpful. And with regards to the target of 2Q27, do you feel pretty comfortable in that number? How much risk is there to that date, I should say?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Scott, it's a good question. It's a complex development program, so you're never 100% sure of anything. That said, I can tell you that we completed a very thorough review of the program. We took all the learnings from both prototypes and integrated unit testing into consideration. We've added this design cycle that really helps us to retire a lot of key risk before we move into production. And then we, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, really stepped up some of the program management side—the things we're doing to have even higher sort of oversight and governance, you know, including from my role in this project.
So I think when you take all those together, you know, based on everything we know, we factor that in, that the timeline of Q2 reflects the work required to deliver the product that meets our standards. And that's, you know, sort of how we landed on that date.
Scott Henry, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
Okay, great. And then, you know, another big picture question. I think everyone understands the enormity of the proteomics market in the different applications and how each one individually can be a blockbuster indication. But the question is, your new products, you know, they tend to have something that leads the way—a hook. And do you get a sense of, when you go to launch it, what the hook for the Proteus is going to be? Who are going to be the main initial users, adopters of the technology?
Or maybe it will be a mix of multiple. I just wanted to get your thought on that early adoption.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, I think, Scott, it will probably be a mix of a couple things. I think naturally, with any new product launch, and we saw this even in the very earliest days of Platinum, you're going to have some number of customers, often in the academic research space, who are going to adopt the new technology and sort of explore its capabilities and its edges of performance. I think there's always going to be some number of those folks—that's obviously not your big sort of user base for the long haul, but they certainly are there in the early days.
I think as we look at where are more of those applications or market segments where you can sort of have that initial hook, you know, I sort of would think of it in two ways. One is, you know, clearly in the academic research environment, our ability to have very high coverage of proteins, you know, be able to address the most studied post-translational modifications—you know, those types of things fit very well into sort of that translational world.
I've got a protein that now I want to study it in a population of people. I think as we look more into biopharma and other industrial applications, as we talked about on our call a bit, our ability to work with proteins that aren't covered by existing technologies—we've seen this a bit in the military applications we've talked about. We've worked across multiple branches here with the U.S. military. We have active engagements with other militaries outside of the U.S. This sort of ability to apply a technology that doesn't need a defined reference to things like pathogen identification, pathogen surveillance, other epidemiological type of work—we think that opportunity could be very meaningful and isn't well served by competitive methods. So that could be another area where we see sort of a hook, and that spans researchers, it spans government entities, it could span industrial, as you think about antibody production and other things.
So I think those are maybe the two really unique capabilities that we see sort of having some hooks into the different segments.
Scott Henry, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
Okay, great. Just a final, just quick question on R&D. I can see SG&A contracting with the cost cuts. How should we think about R&D in the next couple quarters relative to Q2?
UNKNOWN, CFO
I think you're going to see R&D fairly consistent to prior quarters. I mean, there are some adjustments as we streamlined the development process, as we commented on earlier, Scott, but by and large the spend on the program, and the important spend on the program, will remain intact because that's the most important thing that we're doing here. There could be some ups and downs just over the next couple quarters as we change around a few things to make sure the program's on track and it stays on track for Q2 2027.
But our operating expense action is really hitting all areas across the company and is really associated with the timeline of the program and to make a few things around the company more efficient. So from that aspect, I think you're going to see the spend relatively consistent with a few adjustments.
Scott Henry, Analyst at Alliance Global Partners
Okay, great. Thank you for taking the questions.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Thanks, Scott.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Michael King with Rodman and Renshaw.
Michael King, Analyst
Hi guys, thanks for taking the question. Maybe just a bit of a follow up on Scott, our answers to Scott's questions about additional design cycles. So again, just to be clear on this, was this a function of you running demonstration runs with, you know, with prototype systems, or was this a result of some scale up that you were doing for, you know, future customer delivery? That's the first part of the question. And the second part of the question is how does this affect your ability to satisfy the early access program that you've put in place?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, Michael. So again, this is driven by us having deployed integrated machines in our R and D environment and looking at the repeatability of the performance we see not just in pure sequencing. As you can imagine, when you're developing a product like this, you're also looking at a lot of other more fundamental performance metrics or requirements of specific submodules, even of the system. And what we were really looking at is how are all of those things performing?
Where are they against what our expectation is? And that feeds back into also what did we learn when we produced those units and what other things we could do that would make that process more efficient in the future or result in a higher first pass yield. So it's a mix of our assessment of the repeatability of performance and also our assessment of opportunities to make some design-for-manufacturability type changes. Now the second part of your question is critical.
When you think about when we launch, we want to be able to confidently and reliably make these instruments and deliver them to customers. So some of those changes are exactly aligned to do that so we don't end up with that learning down the road when we're in the market.
Michael King, Analyst
Okay. And would it apply to the reagents themselves, Jeff, or just the instrumentation?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, it's very hardware-focused, Michael. I mean, reagent development is still ongoing, as well as the consumables, but those areas have really been tracking largely to our expectations, very instrument-centric on this particular sort of topic.
Michael King, Analyst
Got it. And the part of the question about the early access. Yes, slow that down a bit.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah. So we haven't yet officially started any early access. We have announced that we have, for select customers, done some sample testing. With this shift in the timeline, we would expect that the early access will also move out. We don't have an official date with which we're saying we're going to start that activity. But I think from our mindset, we want to really see this instrument design cycle get completed, built and tested internally. That would then allow us to sort of open up for testing customer samples, and then that then sort of following on would be sort of deploying these into the field for early access. So I think that event's gonna, you know, it's gonna obviously shift out in time. Yeah.
Michael King, Analyst
And then is there any thought maybe you could. Would you be able to. I know you were limited in your supply with Platinum Plus, but I'm sorry, Platinum Pro, but are you able to, you know, swap those units in just to keep potential clients engaged with the company, or is that kind of a misdia?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, Michael, we have sufficient Platinum Pro machines to be able to work with customers. We have been continuing to use the placement program where we have folks. As the one example I gave around AAV serotyping. That's a good example of leveraging the placement program to engage with a customer, work on their application, really, for us, both the customer and us, to understand exactly what's needed to share. And we feel very good there about Proteus sort of closing the remaining gap.
So we still have that available. Our reps have that available. Some customers like that path. Others prefer to wait and start with Proteus. So we really let the customers hear that. But we're comfortable that we have sufficient supply of— to continue to support that placement program, you know, as customers may request, on the path to Proteus.
Michael King, Analyst
Okay. And then just as far as kind of merging, you know, the full—excuse me, the full suite of reagents with the commercial unit. Assuming that, you know, you guys hit your timelines. I was under the impression you'd have, you know, the full repertoire, 21 amino acids available sometime in the first half of next year. Is that still, you know, is that still your goal? And, you know, would that mean that when Proteus is out there that the, you know, the full suite of reagents is available?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah. So, Michael, let's go back. What have we said sort of historically? We've said when we believed we would launch Proteus by the end of this year, we had said we would launch with 18 and we would demonstrate all 20. Right. And then add 20 when we got into 2027. What we communicated today was with the timeline move, we expect now that we'll be in a position to launch with either 19 or 20. If we launch with 19, then we would still expect to bring on 20 during 2027.
We just don't know yet exactly where we'll land on 19 or 20, but we still think we'll be able to demonstrate all 20 this year. We just aren't yet ready to commit to exactly what will be in that kit, except to say we do believe it will be either 19 or 20, given the additional time.
Michael King, Analyst
Okay. Thanks very much for taking the questions.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yep. You're welcome.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Kyle Nixon with Canaccord Genuity.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Hey, guys, thanks for the questions. On the additional cycle that you're, I guess, working on, can you maybe speak to how performance or reproducibility could be affected by this? Or maybe, you know, maybe the steps that you take to avoid maybe impacting what your, you know, prior performance level expectations were going to be.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, Kyle, I think—let me answer what I think you're asking. If I—and if I'm off, just let me know. So what we've observed again in the units that we have internally is we have some instruments that really reliably perform at a very high level, meaning above our internal specifications for the product. We have other machines that are performing sort of at or a little below where that's at. And what we are really trying to do with this set of this sort of design spin is, you know, make the changes we've identified that we believe all of those units to be performing consistently at that higher level.
So we think this enables us to sort of unify the repeatability sort of profile of the instruments and also, equally as important, take some of the sort of complexity or challenges we saw in manufacturing out by making those design-for-manufacturability improvements. So I think it'll be a combination of the improvement in the simplification of the manufacturing process, but then also the repeatability we should see in the machine should continue to trend up and be consistently above our internal specifications.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Yeah, that was perfect. Thanks, Jeff, for the clarification. And I guess on this note, I'm curious if the production time or any sort of, you know, any kind of timing with—I don't think a sales cycle is a good question for this, but I think the production time could be interesting to ask about. Could that be—is that elongated through this process? It's not really clear how much is affected in manufacturing versus the kind of the end product. Does that make sense?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. So I'll say a couple of things. On the manufacturing front, it has definitely been, you know, more challenging and sort of longer to get experience than we had anticipated. I think we have an optical module that is made as a fully built-up component by one of our partners that is then sort of qualified and shipped to our instrument partner who then puts that into the broader sort of fully integrated machine. When you're doing this for the first time, you certainly learn a lot about how each of the steps in the process works, how bringing all that together works, and then sort of learn a lot about how exactly do you test that and confirm its functioning is going to meet its requirements. So we've definitely learned a lot about that that improves every time we make another machine. And I think with the set of changes for manufacturability we've identified, we'd expect with this next cycle for that to look a lot more compressed and lead to a very high-yield sort of success coming out the end of the line. So I'd say sort of that about the manufacturing side of the house.
In parallel, we are obviously being very conscious of how lead times of components can move around. That is not a constraint today, but we're watching very closely, especially in the world of electronics and GPUs to make sure—I mean, you don't have to be an expert in AI to know that the proliferation of data centers and the buildout there is a massive consumer of those chips. So we are definitely staying very close to our vendor for those and ensuring that we have those procured well in advance so that when we get to the production stage, that's not a limiting factor.
So I think the most important thing to limit any future production is really staying on top of long-lead components. But I think in terms of just the time to build, that should be largely resolved through this next spin we do prior to going into production.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Excellent. On the topic of—I think you just referenced data—so with this chipflation and memory prices increasing and everything, remind us of your exposure to that potential challenge. I guess, you know, beyond '26, when you have Proteus out there. I know the architecture is a bit different, but maybe obviously the company historically has been reliant upon semis and everything. So just remind us. Thanks.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah. So if you look at Platinum, the consumable is based on a semiconductor chip. So you're sort of square in the foundry world of producing chips. When you look at Proteus, that consumable is essentially a fused silica array—so a form of a glass array. That's not a CMOS chip. It has a fabrication step where we put the nanowells on. But in that context there are many vendors that can do that and we're a very small consumer of that. We also get a lot more individual consumables from a single—so our exposure to sort of the semiconductor and chip world, you know, sort of goes away when we move into Proteus.
In terms of the instrument, we still have, you know, a little bit of exposure in terms of the GPU. We have a GPU in this system to do data analysis. Again, we're a pretty small player in that world, so we don't perceive it as a large risk. That said, we understand lead times can be very long and given the low number of these that we use comparatively, it's very easy to sort of stockpile a bit and hold that to just sort of buffer any potential for the supply of GPUs to be moving in or out.
But, you know, we sort of get away from the historical CMOS-related semiconductor chip that was certainly more at risk of the sort of the foundry capacity that you're alluding to.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Okay, that's what I thought. And then on the non-human market opportunity that you talked about, I think that was 4 billion and I assume it's, you know, plant, animal, and, you know, similar things like that. I mean, I have to imagine that was always part of the plan. I guess maybe just, just kind of backtrack a bit and talk about, you know, originally why human? I guess the research, I suppose, was maybe the focus and especially on the pharma side—of course, of course those drugs are meant for humans.
And going forward maybe this is a good like low-hanging fruit potentially for like, you know, kind of early on with Proteus and I guess what the residual Platinum activities.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah. So Kyle, I think obviously we've always wanted to target our technology to any markets as we can. I think naturally when you go to market, given all of our respective backgrounds and the backgrounds of our sales professionals, you know, you go to large academic centers, large academic medical centers, biopharma, and when you're in those, your world's largely in the human world. Whether it's basic research, mechanism of action, translational, you're in, to your point, you're in sort of the human world.
Platinum is really showing us really what the breadth of that non-human market might look like with Platinum. We originally got our first sort of exposure to this through the military side with pathogen and toxin detection. When we opened up the placement program, we got drawn into more in the area of pathogen ID and surveillance, antimicrobial resistance, lots of different areas sort of getting drawn into different types of laboratories doing that work.
Those can be government, they can be industrial, they can be academic. The other side is with the placement program we got drawn into some in the agricultural space. So really Platinum, what Platinum did was draw us in a way where we got a depth of understanding of what the customer is trying to accomplish, the limitations of the tools available to them and what specific capabilities we could add that would make our technology even more attractive in that segment.
So while it's always been a part of our plan, I think the depth of understanding we've been able to gain from the Platinum exposure really helps us make sure all of those capabilities and the additional that they're looking for are in the Proteus platform. So we can really go attack that when we launch the platform.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Great. And last one on AI. So I'm just curious if you're hearing anything, like getting any inbounds or if you're, like, looking forward of it and trying to think about the potential to generate proteomics data to train an AI model, maybe at a pharma company bound to buy the company and just given for clinical human samples, you need kind of more of a—there's a wide dynamic gradient involved there. Can Proteus maybe satisfy that market opportunity as well, given that could be relatively large over time?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, Kyle, I think you're spot on and I think we're hearing this. Not only are we hearing it, I think other companies operating in the proteomics space are certainly talking a lot about AI. To get the most out of AI, it's really about the training data. How rich is that data? Is it linked to outcomes or phenotypes, those types of things? So we certainly are hearing that in the marketplace. We're hearing it not just in biopharma, but also we hear about it in the academic space because many of the leading academic institutes are sort of operating at the cutting edge of AI tools for whether that be proteomic analysis, whether it be proteins and generating novel proteins, or whether it be how might we multi-omic, integrate different modes of data and get the most out of that. So I think academic institutes are certainly playing a big role in that area. I'd also say internally we've talked about this before, but just to reinforce it, you know, artificial intelligence has been something we have applied significantly in our operations. We use it in the analysis of data. We use it in many other functions.
We've talked about it in the recognizer design, the enzymes in our kit, but we also use it across marketing and finance and other areas, market research inside the company. And it's certainly a very powerful productivity tool as well. So we're bought in. We definitely believe in it as a tool we use, and we do believe our technology will play a role with Proteus in helping people who are looking to build those sort of rich databases to train AI models.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Awesome. I have one more question for Jeff Kaise on the model. So the $12 million in OPEX savings—yeah, like I think it was referenced earlier, that's probably just mostly SG&A. But can you just talk about the cadence and the timing of when that truly will hit and be fully implemented over the next couple quarters?
UNKNOWN, CFO
Yeah, I think we're going to start seeing the benefits of that in, call it, fourth quarter, second half, or fourth quarter because we have to work through severance-related costs and the timeline of certain folks leaving the company, but on an annualized basis—that was my prepared remarks—that we expect $12 million related to this specific action of annualized savings as we move forward once it's all implemented.
Kyle Nixon, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity
Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Thanks, Kyle.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Charles Wallace with H.C. Wainwright.
Charles Wallace, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. This is Charles. I'm in for RK. So I was wondering if you could share kind of the specific gating items between now and 2Q27 and, yeah, and what new items are in there that weren't in the prior gating items?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, I mean the main gating item, Charles, to our prepared remarks is adding this additional instrument design cycle. So that cycle involves finalizing the exact changes we're going to make in that cycle, rolling that through manufacturing, building those machines and getting them in-house and tested. So we expect to work through that cycle of finalize the design, build, test and confirm performance over the course of the remainder of this year.
So that's really the big task. Assuming that task goes well, we intersect it with what we're doing on the reagent side and with the consumables and then you bring that together through the first half of 2027 to launch in the second quarter. So I would say that that's the key gating item—it's really just working through that cycle, getting those instruments installed and confirming the performance.
Charles Wallace, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright
Yeah, that's really helpful. And then I guess another question. So I think you said earlier that you haven't started the early access program, if I heard correctly.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
And so are you still planning to do that? And when would you kind of do that? Would that be kind of this year event or—It'd be before the launch? Yeah, so it's definitely before the launch. But yeah, I did answer that earlier. You're correct. We haven't started that yet. With this design cycle that we're going through, we wouldn't expect to start that till sometime after this cycle is complete. So, you know, don't have an exact date. But if you just sort of think through this cycle, you know, confirming the performance, you know, it's probably more of an end of year, beginning of next year type of event is where that would happen.
What we're hoping to be able to do, perhaps, you know, in advance of that, is start allowing customers to send some samples for evaluation. Again, we don't have an exact date for when we would offer that capability, but you know, that's something we're keeping a close eye on. We'd like to be able to do that and we would expect to be doing that before we went to a deployed sort of early access. So right now if you're trying to peg something, I'd say I'd be thinking more, you know, as early access as sort of an early 2027 type of event.
Charles Wallace, Analyst at H.C. Wainwright
Okay, that's very helpful, thank you.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Thanks, Charles.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Jason McCarthy with Maxim Group.
Michael Kunowich, Analyst at Maxim Group
Hey guys, this is Michael Kunowich on the line. Thanks for taking my questions today. Just a couple, primarily on the market opportunities here. First off, I wanted to ask just about the non-human proteomics market, how mature that is and if it's, I guess, ready for a device with the capabilities of Proteus at this time, or is this something where you would need to build out a base of published academic research first?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, so it's a good question. And what I would say is the reason we focused our remarks on specifically the pathogen research and agricultural is because we've got actual hands-on experience with our existing Platinum and Platinum Pro devices in that market segment. So those are customers trying to solve problems or address initiatives they have right now in place from their institutes. So we believe those markets are absolutely ready for the technology.
Some of them already applying our first-generation technology and many of them we would expect would move and apply the Proteus technology. Where your comment about the maturity of markets comes in is the part that we also talked about a little bit in the prepared remarks, which is there are a lot of other areas in non-human life like animal health or industrial or food or environmental. Those areas we don't have as much of that direct customer experience and yet we're doing the work to learn about those.
So we just, we're not really factoring those into our thinking right now because, to your point, we don't know exactly what the fit of the technology is or what the exact need or urgency might be. But certainly in pathogen and agricultural, given the Platinum work, we think it's a market that's there today and we think Proteus will only build upon the opportunity that we've already sort of uncovered with Platinum.
Michael Kunowich, Analyst at Maxim Group
Thank you. And then I wanted to see if you could help qualify the difference between only capturing 17 or 18 amino acids versus capturing the full suite. Is this something where there's an incremental benefit to the end users or does having the full suite open up new applications entirely?
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah. I would think of it in two ways. One is, as you start to get out to 18, 19 and 20, you can imagine that we're talking about, generally speaking, lower-abundance amino acids. As you can imagine, when we were developing the technology, we tried to target the most abundant ones. So I think for many applications, there isn't a significant difference between 18, 19 or 20. I think in the area of really deep protein profiling—so maybe somebody who wants to try to sequence as many of the amino acids, let's say in an antibody, as they can—that's where that sort of, to your point, that opportunity opens up where people want to do that, they might really care about the difference between 18, 19 or 20. So I think there are some examples of that. There are many instances where it's probably less impactful to the performance. But I can tell you there's also just a general sort of psychology of customers that I think getting out there to 19 and 20 just sort of resonates as it's complete. It's sequencing. I think when people think of sequencing, they largely think of DNA and they think of, you've got to cover all the bases in DNA.
So I think there is sort of a—maybe a little bit of a mental or psychological bar that, you know, it's a less nuanced conversation with the customer when you have all 20 than when you have, say, 18 or 19. But I think outside of a small number of applications where you really need all 20, it doesn't really open up a lot of markets. It's more, you overcome that. It makes the sales cycle a bit more straightforward. It makes the explanation—get into all these nuances with a customer about what, you know, what coverage they need for their application.
Yeah, you don't have to justify why
Michael Kunowich, Analyst at Maxim Group
18 is enough anymore.
Jeff Hawkins, CEO
Yeah, it's the same concept in the DNA sequencing world. Before we were sequencing everything, we used to use arrays. Right. And the question was, well, how many of the different SNPs in the genome could you look at? Well, this one looks at 500,000, this one looks at 800,000. And eventually when sequencing came out, it's like, well, I can just now look at the whole exome or the whole genome. And people just moved there because they didn't need to make that choice.
They didn't need to think through exactly what, you know, what panel they needed. If they could just see the whole thing. I think sequencing is somewhat like that in protein. If you just have the full suite, you don't have to really help people think that through, despite the fact that in most applications the difference between 18, 19 or 20 is very marginal.
Michael Kunowich, Analyst at Maxim Group
Well, thank you. I really appreciate the additional color. And congrats on the progress.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Thank you. This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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