Insight Molecular Diagnostics Q1 2026 Earnings Call - GraftAssureDx FDA Review Gains Momentum, Q2 Cash Burn Peaks at $9M
Summary
Insight Molecular Diagnostics is advancing its GraftAssureDx submission to the FDA with active engagement and expects first U.S. orders later this year. The company is building a self-funding GALACTIC Registry to drive clinical adoption, with 34 U.S. centers now enrolled and a clear path to commercializing its organ-agnostic technology across kidney and heart transplants. International progress is also accelerating, with early sales in Switzerland and Southeast Asia and a planned EU IVDR submission later this year.
Financially, Q2 2026 will see peak cash burn above $9 million due to one-time working capital needs and bonus payouts, followed by a decline to historical levels of $6 million per quarter as R&D expenses normalize and revenue ramps. Management remains confident in achieving software-like gross margins above 70% long-term, with initial pricing well into the hundreds per test relative to Medicare’s $2,753 reimbursement rate. The company is positioning itself as a high-margin disruptor in transplant diagnostics, with the heart transplant expansion and IOTA screening model providing additional growth vectors.
Key Takeaways
- GraftAssureDx is in active FDA review with high engagement; first U.S. orders expected later this year.
- GALACTIC Registry enrollment has grown to 34 U.S. centers, up from 28 in six weeks, nearing the 50-center goal.
- GraftAssureCore is reimbursed by Medicare at $2,753 per result, providing a clear pricing anchor for commercial strategy.
- Early international sales include a Swiss hospital purchase and pending orders in Southeast Asia, validating demand outside the U.S.
- EU regulatory strategy includes UK IVDD compliance and a planned EU IVDR submission later this year, with a 6-12 month review timeline.
- Q2 2026 cash burn will peak above $9 million due to working capital needs and bonuses, then decline to ~$6 million per quarter in H2.
- Long-term gross margins are targeted at 70% or higher, with initial ASPs in the hundreds and COGS slightly under $100 per test.
- Heart transplant expansion is in development, leveraging the same underlying technology as kidney, with a 510(k) pathway and minimal incremental R&D cost.
- IOTA screening model growth is encouraged, with a focus on high-risk patient groups like de novo DSA-positive patients to drive earlier detection of antibody-mediated rejection.
- Management reaffirmed its vision of building a multibillion-dollar company by disrupting transplant diagnostics, with risk being retired on the path to material revenue.
Full Transcript
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Insight Molecular Diagnostics first quarter 2026 results. If you have not seen today’s shareholder letter, please visit Insight Molecular Diagnostics Investors Relations page at investors.imdxinc.com. Today’s prepared remarks build upon the information already shared in this robust letter. Joining us today are Insight Molecular Diagnostics President and CEO, Josh Riggs, Chief Science Officer, Ekkehard Schütz, and CFO, Andrea James. We also have our analysts with us as panelists. After our prepared remarks, our analysts may ask questions. Before turning the call over to Josh Riggs, I’d like to go over our Safe Harbor. The company will make projections and forward-looking statements regarding future events. Any statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements.
These statements are made pursuant to, and within the meaning of, the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We encourage you to review the company’s SEC filings, including the company’s most recent Form 10-K and subsequent Form 10-Q, which identify risks and uncertainties that may cause future actual results or events to differ materially. Please note that the forward-looking statements made during today’s call speak only to the date that they are made, Insight Molecular Diagnostics undertakes no obligation to update them. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Josh Riggs.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thanks, Gabby, thanks everyone for joining us today. We are excited to share with you this business update and our progress creating value at IMDX for patients, clinicians, our employees, and our shareholders. Since submitting GraftAssureDx to the FDA in late March, we’ve had a high degree of engagement from them and expect that will continue as we move through the review process. We continue to enroll patients under the study protocol, building the data set and sample bank to support potential future publications, research, and claims expansion. We’ve committed to delivering software-like margins with GraftAssure. Over the past several months, we surveyed over 200 likely U.S. purchasers working through multiple pricing and purchasing scenarios to guide our pricing strategy.
This market research has affirmed our confidence in GraftAssure’s perceived value and our ability to translate that into strong margin for both the company and the shareholders who funded its development. We expect our first U.S. orders for GraftAssure later this year. Outside of the U.S., we’ve seen some encouraging market access progress for sites using the research use only version of our technology, GraftAssureIQ. In recent weeks, a Swiss transplant hospital purchased a small number of kits, and we are expecting our first orders out of Southeast Asia. These early milestones, though immaterial to revenue, represent important proof points to us about the need being addressed by GraftAssure. At least one of these centers was able to establish coverage and reimbursement for the test in its market.
Purchase decisions are being driven by demand for faster turnaround time, access to absolute quantification, and the ability to get reimbursed. We anticipate that these sites will become repeat customers as they continue to establish dd-cfDNA testing in their respective countries. On the back of receiving ISO 13485 certification in February, we are targeting regulatory compliance in the U.K. under IVDD in the coming months and plan to submit for in vitro diagnostic regulation or IVDR approval in the EU soon thereafter. In our March update, I explained that to be prepared for the successful launch of GraftAssureDx, we want to achieve or witness three key trends. Those are strong engagement in the GALACTIC Registry Study, early adopters using GraftAssureIQ, and seeing more head-to-head data establishing parity with legacy technology. We continue to make progress against all three.
First, our GALACTIC registry is designed to drive the clinical adoption and understanding of our absolute and combined measurements of donor-derived cell-free DNA. The current standard of care is the fractional or percentage measurement. We believe these alternative measures offer incremental information for the clinician and could prove to have additional utility in certain clinical contexts. This self-funding study will help more clinicians become familiar with our clinical reports and establish their usefulness in diverse real-world clinical situations. 34 U.S. transplant centers have expressed interest in being part of our registry. This is up from 28 centers just 6 weeks ago and represents remarkable progress toward our 50-center goal. In addition, we recently signed our first clinical trial agreement with one of those 34, putting us closer to first patient in. This is encouraging since successful enrollment generates revenue for the company this year.
As a reminder, Medicare reimburses GraftAssureCore at a rate of $2,753 per result. Second, later this year, we expect to see initial orders of GraftAssureIQ in larger volumes than we’ve seen before from our first U.S. customers. Third, we are seeing the emergence of head-to-head data comparing our GraftAssure assay with other commercially available technologies. We mentioned these studies in our shareholder letter. Just to emphasize, generating head-to-head data is the fastest path to establishing trust for a new diagnostic. We are very enthusiastic about what’s been reported to date. Finally, I will close my remarks by touching briefly upon our expansion into heart transplant testing. As a reminder, our GraftAssure technology is designed to be organ-agnostic, so the assay that we built for kidney will work in heart.
Clinicians and researchers at leading transplant institutions have expressed their excitement about our planned expansion. We are working with them to get the protocol finalized and first patient in as quickly as possible. We have made a lot of progress this year and look forward to updating shareholders as we push to make managing patients post-transplant easier for clinicians here in the U.S. and abroad. Let me turn the call over to our CFO Andrea James to provide a review of our financial results for the first quarter. Andrea.
Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thanks, Josh. Hi, everyone. Our first quarter results are in line with what we told you they would be and our preliminary release of our cash balance and revenue, which we made on April 14th. From where we sit today, our financial projections remain consistent with the update that we provided in late March. Our Q2 2026 revenue projection is for about a quarter million dollars, comprised mostly of laboratory services and a very low level of GraftAssureIQ sales. We’re projecting second quarter cash burn above $9 million, which will be the high watermark for the year. In the second quarter, we paid out bonuses and addressed other working capital needs associated with the GraftAssureDx FDA submission expenses, which we incurred in prior quarters.
We expect cash burn to come down in the back half of the year, closer to historical levels of $6 million per quarter, driven by working capital favorability and reduced research and development expenses, as many of our FDA program expenses will not repeat. This, of course, is also subject to revenue that can be difficult to predict. As revenue ramps, of course, this will significantly reduce our quarterly cash burn. This management team remains highly thoughtful about extending our cash runway and focusing our commercialization investments toward the areas that we believe will drive optimal ROI for the company. Finally, I’ll close by reflecting on my almost two-year anniversary with this company, which is coming up in June.
We have been building a foundation from which we expect to launch a rapidly growing company that has the potential to be highly profitable, and I am incredibly excited about our future. I told you on my first earnings call in summer of 2024 that we have a compelling opportunity to achieve market disruption and, in so doing, create a multibillion-dollar company. We are closer than ever to that vision, and we continue to retire risk on the path to initial and then material revenue. Gabby, we can now take questions. Eric, if you could please bring us up into gallery view. Thank you.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thank you, Andrea. With that, Thomas Flaten from Lake Street.
Thomas Flaten, Analyst, Lake Street: Hey, guys. Appreciate you taking the questions. Josh, I apologize if I missed this. Any clock stoppages in the FDA review so far? I know it hasn’t been very long, but just curious.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah, no, we’re gonna treat sort of all the back and forth, with the FDA as confidential. I’d say we’re pleased with the conversation. All those have been productive so far.
Thomas Flaten, Analyst, Lake Street: I know this has come up previously, but how are you balancing the desire of accounts to participate in the Registry Study versus getting commercial wins? I know you’re gonna make money on the Registry Study, but how are you thinking about that? Are you gonna exclude anyone from the Registry Study, or is it an all-comers type of approach?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah, I’d say we are being selective on the sites that we’re bringing into the registry. I would say the commercial success is kind of one and the same for us. We expect that most of these centers that join in the registry are going to be kit customers for us long term. It’s something that we talk to them about as they’re coming into the study, where we, you know, we say that the purpose of this is to introduce our new scores, but also, you know, give you a chance to bring this in-house once there’s a regulated product out there. We see that both things are serving sort of one end goal, which is to get instruments into the field and then kits out there.
Thomas Flaten, Analyst, Lake Street: All right. Appreciate it.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thanks, Thomas.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Sure.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Let’s go with Mason Carrico from Stephens, please.
Mason Carrico, Analyst, Stephens: Hey, guys. appreciate the questions here, Josh. On the survey you conducted around pricing, any incremental detail you’re willing to share around maybe the learnings from that survey and your updated thoughts on pricing?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah, no, thanks for the question, Mason. I would say, you know, the guidance that we’ve kind of given before around how centers are going to look at pricing on day one, which is kind of relative to what they expect they’ll get reimbursed from CMS, and then what they won’t get reimbursed from the private payers on day one, is kind of playing out. Everybody’s kinda seeing the same math that we saw and, you know, that pricing is going to be, you know, well into the hundreds for the, for the DX product. I think Andrea wants to, you know, massage that a little bit, so I’ll let her jump in.
Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: No, it’s great. Just wanted to add one more thing. You know, we’ve given you that $2 billion total addressable market, and the pricing research is really affirming the numbers that we’ve already given you on the size of the market.
Mason Carrico, Analyst, Stephens: Got it. Okay. You guys have also referenced the software, like longer-term gross margins. I guess, could you talk about how we should be thinking about what gross margins will look like maybe in the first 12-24 months post-commercialization when volumes are ramping?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah. I know, Andrea, if you wanna take a look at that. I know you spent a lot of time with the numbers.
Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: An ASP that’s in the hundreds. You’re going to model in a cost of goods sold, slightly under $100. Now we can bring that cost of goods sold per result down over time. The other thing you want to think through is that our initial go-to-market customers will get some sort of leader pricing. We’re obviously going to grow into that gross margin profile over time. The other thing to note is that we do have a revenue share with the former Chronix shareholders from which we acquired the IP. That also takes 10% off the top. You know, we have a long-term target gross margin of around 70% or higher. I don’t know if the initial contracts will come in at that.
I wouldn’t model that for your first six to twelve months.
Mason Carrico, Analyst, Stephens: Got it. Thank you, guys.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thank you.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thank you. Mike Matson from Needham.
Mike Matson, Analyst, Needham: Yeah, thanks. Once you get the FDA clearance, how quickly can you start to drive sales of the kits? You know, are there any hurdles you have to cross once you get the FDA clearance in place, or can you kind of hit the ground running there?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: I’d say one of the rate limiters that we’ll face is, you know, the placement of the instrument. That’s where, you know, we’ve talked about in the past, you know, the sites that are participating in the FDA study itself are the most likely day 1 adopters, just because they’ll have, you know, the instrument on hand. I think what you’ll expect to see from us is to take advantage of all these instruments that we’ve had in-house to support the FDA program. We’ve now finished all of that work, so we’re starting to try and get those out in the field. I think we’ll be able to update you guys on sort of progress of sort of getting some additional instruments out there, as we go forward throughout the year.
Mike Matson, Analyst, Needham: Okay, great. Then with the EU -- I really can’t talk. The EU IVDR submission. Kind of a mouthful there. If you submit it later this year, I mean, how long do you think that process will take?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah.
Mike Matson, Analyst, Needham: Yeah.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah. I would say what we’ve been given as guidance, and this can change, but is, you know, somewhere between, you know, six and nine months, all the way up to a year, depending on how much the backlog builds with TÜV SÜD. I’d say once we submit, we’ll probably have a better idea. We’ll get the guidance from them at that point, we’ll be able to update you then.
Mike Matson, Analyst, Needham: Okay. All right. Just next steps for the heart, the phase of heart and, you know, what impact does that have on your operating expense and cash burn?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah, thanks. I’d say it’s baked into the numbers that Andrea has given you. you know, fortunately, 95% of the work that goes on between your sort of heart and kidney is copy and paste. because the underlying information is all the same. I’d say the clinical piece is a much simpler study here, where it looks more like a head-to-head, where we have a 510(k) pathway available to use.
Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Yeah. Just to build on what we said last quarter. you know, we had done the capital raise in February that allows us to sustain our research and development spending at a higher level than it was, say, back in 2024. We expect research and development expenses to come back down closer to first half 2026 levels, but not go all the way back to where they were at 2024 levels. We expect research and development to continue to come down in the back half of the year, but not back to where it was a couple of years ago. Sustaining investment in heart is what that looks like on the R&D line, if that helps.
Mike Matson, Analyst, Needham: Thank you.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thanks, Mike. Mark Massaro from BTIG.
Mark Massaro, Analyst, BTIG: Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. Josh, one for you. Can you just speak to your latest thoughts on the IOTA model and whether or not you think that can be sort of one of the growth drivers for your business? If so, is there anything about the, you know, your particular strategy relative to send-outs that you think you could capitalize on?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: No, it’s a great question. Thanks for Mark. I would say, you know, we are encouraged by sort of some of the volume growth that we’re seeing around IOTA. I think anytime you can create a high-risk pool of patients, the more likely it is that the payers will support a higher screening, you know, protocol. I think that’s, you know, where we’ve been focused is on identifying higher risk groups like the de novo DSA positive patients, as kind of a ground for we really need to be screening these people more aggressively.
I think, you know, us and other, you know, dd-cfDNA companies are going to lean into this going forward and, you know, try to, you know, push those numbers up a bit because we know that, you know, catching AMR early is going to become more and more important as these anti-CD38 drugs come to market. I think that’ll have a much bigger clinical impact for those patients that are potentially, you know, getting the marginal organs out of the IOTA model. I think it’s a rising tide scenario. I think we talked a little bit about this on the last call, and I think if that’s where you’re going with it, then I completely agree with you that there’s opportunity for increased screening across the board.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: If I could just throw out some acronyms help for some of the generalists that have come into the stock in the recent months. Increasing Organ Transplant Access model and then AMR is antibody-mediated rejection.
Mark Massaro, Analyst, BTIG: Awesome. Thank you for that, guys. You know, it’s nice to see you move the ball forward in Europe. You know, this is sort of a theoretical question, but assuming that, like, Europe and U.S. had a similar start date, which market are you now thinking will probably pull forward the biggest volume, you know, in your initial launch?
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: I’d say the reimbursement question being solved in the U.S. makes things a lot easier here for the initial adopters. I would say the pent-up demand in Europe is strong. I think you’ve got several countries where you have very loud clinical groups that are kind of banging on the door with their payers, saying that we need access to this technology. We need better access to this technology. You know, there’s competitive, you know, technology out there that’s, you know, competes with ours, and they’ve been out there for years working on the same argument.
I think what we saw in Europe, which is kind of like the first crack in the door, that there are centers that are getting paid at this point, is a great positive sign. I think, you know, we’re very hopeful that we’ll see a couple of more cracks in the door here in the second half of this year. We know that there was a recommendation made to NICE in the fall of last year. We were hopeful that, you know, they finally, you know, come to that positive decision. I’d say, you know, we have a strong presence in Germany and a lot of work that’s been going on there.
You know, we’ve been fortunate to have a good group of clinicians that understand the payer system and have been pushing there as well. I mean, obviously, we can’t predict, you know, when the payers are going to finally break on this topic, but it seems like the evidence is overwhelming at this point that there is clinical utility here, that there is clinical need to address this. We will keep our fingers crossed that the European market starts to look a lot more like the U.S. over the next, call it, 12 months. I think we’ve seen some early positive signs.
Mark Massaro, Analyst, BTIG: Awesome. All right. That’s it for me. Congrats on the progress.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Thanks, Mark.
Gabby, Moderator/Operator, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Any additional questions? Thank you so much, analysts. Josh, I’ll turn the call back over to you.
Josh Riggs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insight Molecular Diagnostics: Sure. Thanks, Gabby. Thanks, you know, thanks, everybody. You know, we appreciate you guys taking time with us today. I want to thank our dedicated employees for their hard work. I also want to thank our clinician partners who have helped with the development of our assay. Finally, thanks to our shareholders for believing that we have the opportunity to disrupt and transform transplant testing and for providing us with the capital to help make that a reality. We are excited about the progress being made and look forward to sharing additional updates with you in the coming months and quarters. You guys have a good day. Thank you.