Alpha Teknova Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Clinical Solutions Surge and 2027 Growth Ambitions

Operator: Hello, welcome to Teknova first quarter 2026 financial results. 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 the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. I will now like to hand the conference over to Jennifer Henry, Senior Vice President of Marketing. You may begin.

Jennifer Henry, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Alpha Teknova: Thank you, operator. Welcome to Alpha Teknova’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With me on today’s call are Stephen Gunstream, Alpha Teknova’s President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matthew Lowell, Alpha Teknova’s Chief Financial Officer, who will make prepared remarks and then take your questions. As a reminder, the forward-looking statements that we make during this call, including those regarding business goals and expectations for the financial performance of the company, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ. Additional information concerning these risk factors is included in the press release the company issued earlier today, and they are more fully described in the company’s various filings with the SEC. Today’s comments reflect the company’s current views, which could change as a result of new information, future events, or other factors.

The company does not obligate or commit itself to update its forward-looking statements except as required by law. The company’s management believes that in addition to GAAP results, non-GAAP financial measures can provide meaningful insight when evaluating the company’s financial performance and the effectiveness of its business strategies. We will therefore use non-GAAP financial measures of certain of our results during this call. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are included in the press release that we issued this afternoon, which is posted to Teknova’s website and at www.sec.gov/edgar. Non-GAAP financial measures should always be considered only as a supplement to, and not as a substitute for or as superior to, financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation may differ from similarly named non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies.

Please also be advised that the company has posted a supplemental slide deck to accompany today’s prepared remarks. It can be accessed on the investor relations section of Teknova’s website and on today’s webcast. Now I will turn the call over to Stephen.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Thank you, Jen. Good afternoon, everyone for joining us for our first quarter 2026 earnings call. It was a relatively straightforward quarter for us across the board, with revenue and operating expenses delivering in line with or better than our expectations. Revenue grew 13% compared to the same period last year, led by 85% growth in Clinical Solutions. Gross margin, operating expenses, and free cash outflow were in line with our expectations, including the planned incremental spend in sales and marketing. From a macro environment perspective, we continue to see stabilization across our end markets. As we learn more about how our customers are planning for late-stage clinical trials and commercial production, we are growing increasingly confident in our ability to deliver long-term, sustainable above-market growth.

Building on that, I would like to provide a little more detail around our thoughts on the current macro environment. In the 1st quarter, we saw an increase in the number and total dollar value of orders over $25,000 compared to the same period last year, which we believe indicates that some of our customers are shifting their focus from cash conservation to strategic execution. While there are still accounts focused on conserving capital, we believe this headwind has now been offset by an increase in customers placing orders to move their research and clinical studies forward. Notably, we are seeing growth in nearly every end market segment we serve, including life science tools, diagnostics, and biopharma. Some of our leading indicators, such as customer engagement and funnel health, provide us more confidence in a predictable market backdrop going forward.

We are therefore encouraged that we begin ramping our commercial investment at the beginning of 2026. As a reminder, the roughly $2 million annual increase in commercial spend is split between marketing and sales to increase lead generation activities, build lead qualification infrastructure, and onboard sales associates with experience in tools, diagnostics, and large pharma. I’m happy to say that these initiatives are on track and that we should be able to see their impact on revenue by early 2027. We believe these investments, combined with the rebound in biotech funding and the progression of our customers’ therapies and diagnostics towards commercialization, should position us for approximately 20% revenue growth in 2027. Operationally, we continue to focus on driving efficiency through process improvements, automation, and software implementation.

In the first quarter, we increased our high-volume bottle production by tripling our single batch size and implementing an automated aseptic filling line. This project allows us to not only scale production volumes, but also to reduce labor hours per unit. From a software perspective, we have now migrated 90% of our 3,000-plus paper batch records to digital, providing enhanced data analytics, increased visibility, better documentation quality, and improved standardization. We are fortunate to have dedicated engineering and software development teams on staff to lead these initiatives as we look to scale and achieve profitability. In the meantime, we remain focused on executing our plan by driving growth in Lab Essentials customer wallet share and increasing our active Clinical Solutions customer count.

We are excited about the traction we are seeing so far in 2026, and believe the substantial investments we’ve made over the past three years have positioned the company to scale and generate significant value for our customers and stockholders alike. I will now hand the call over to Matt to talk through the financials.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Thanks, Stephen. Good afternoon, everyone. As Stephen explained, revenue was up 13% for the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same quarter prior year. This was also the first Q1 in which we earned over $11 million in revenue in nearly three years. I’m also very pleased with our progress on key profitability measures and cash usage. Overall, we delivered strong financial results for the first quarter of 2026. For revenue, Lab Essentials products are targeted at the research use only or RUO market and include both catalog and custom products. Lab Essentials revenue was $8.4 million in the first quarter of 2026, up 3% compared to $8.1 million in the first quarter of 2025. The increase in Lab Essentials revenue was attributable to higher average revenue per customer, partially offset by a decreased number of customers.

Clinical Solutions products are made according to good manufacturing practices or GMP quality standards and are primarily used by our customers as components or inputs in the development and manufacture of diagnostic and therapeutic products. Clinical Solutions revenue was $2.1 million excuse me, for their first quarter of 2026, an 85% increase from $1.2 million in the first quarter of 2025. The increase in Clinical Solutions revenue was attributable to an increased number of customers and, to a slightly lesser extent, higher average revenue per customer. We expect revenue per customer to increase over time when a subset of these customers ramp up their purchase volume as they move through the clinical phases. Excuse me. This metric can be affected by the addition of newer Clinical Solutions or GMP catalog customers who typically order less.

Just as a reminder, due to the larger average order size in Clinical Solutions compared to Lab Essentials, there can be more quarter-to-quarter revenue lumpiness in this category. Onto the income statement. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2026 was $3.8 million, compared to $3.0 million in the first quarter of 2025. Gross margin was 34.2% in the first quarter of 2026, which is up from 30.7% in the first quarter of 2025. The increase in gross profit was driven primarily by higher revenue. Operating expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $8.1 million and for the first quarter of 2025 were $8.0 million.

The increase in 2026 was primarily driven by higher spending in sales and marketing, resulting from higher headcount and increased marketing expenses, partially offset by lower general administrative expenses attributable to lower stock-based compensation expense and professional fees. Net loss for the first quarter of 2026 was $4.6 million or negative $0.08 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $4.6 million or negative $0.09 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was negative $2.0 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to negative $2.5 million for the first quarter of 2025. Capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2026 and 2025 were both $0.2 million.

Free cash outflow, a non-GAAP measure which we define as cash provided by or used in operating activities, less purchases of property, plant, and equipment, was $3.6 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to $4.3 million for the first quarter of 2025. This decrease compared to prior year was due to lower cash used in operating activities. Turning to the balance sheet, as of March 31st, 2026, we had $17.8 million in cash equivalents, and short-term investments, and $13.2 million in total borrowings. 2026 outlook. Turning to our 2026 guidance and outlook, we are reiterating our 2026 total revenue guidance of $42 million-$44 million. At the midpoint, this implies approximately 6% revenue growth compared to 2025.

As our underlying end markets continue to recover, we have seen improvement in orders of custom products from both biopharma and life science tools and diagnostics customers. Customer conversations about future 2026 custom product orders continue to be encouraging, and we have started to see more large orders, those greater than $25,000. Are waiting to see more durability before we consider adjusting our guidance for the year. As we have indicated before, due to the high percentage of fixed costs associated with our operations, we estimate that each additional dollar of revenue drops through at a marginal cash rate of approximately 70%, with some variability quarter to quarter in reported results due to GAAP accounting. We continue to expect gross margin in the mid thirties % range for the full year 2026.

The company posted operating expenses of $8.1 million in Q1 2026, which reflects our scaled investment in sales and marketing, which we expect to be approximately $2 million for the full year 2026. Our expectation is that these investments will pay off as soon as the end of 2026, but more likely in 2027 in the form of double-digit revenue growth rates. At this higher spending level, we expect to become adjusted EBITDA positive in the range of $52 million-$57 million in annualized revenue. If customer end markets are stronger in 2027 and our stepped up commercial activity bears fruit as expected, we should report a positive adjusted EBITDA quarter by the end of 2027.

The company continues to see a reduction in free cash outflow during the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same quarter in the prior year. While the company saw an increase in free cash outflow compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, this is consistent with the company’s expectations for the year and is higher due to certain larger payments typically occurring during the first quarter. We anticipate lower average quarterly free cash outflow for the remainder of the year. The company continues to expect free cash outflow of less than $10 million for the full year 2026, even with the increased investment in our commercial capabilities. With that, I will turn the call back to Stephen.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Thanks, Matt. Overall, we were very pleased with the start to 2026 and the progress we’ve made against our strategic priorities. We believe the outlook for our end markets remains positive, and we are committed to executing on our strategy to help our customers accelerate the introduction of novel therapies, diagnostics, and other products that improve human health. We will now take your questions.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone, then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Steven Etoch with Stephens Inc. Your line is open.

Steven Etoch, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Hey, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. You know, great to hear about the updated macro outlook. You know, I’ve heard some of your peers talk about maybe a little bit of a bifurcation between earlier stage biotech and later stage biotech. I’d just love to get your sense of, you know, what you’re hearing at this point from these individual customers or if you’re seeing a similar trend in your customer base. Thank you.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah, thanks, Steven Etoch. In some ways, yes, we’re seeing some similarities, right? We had some nice large pharma growth in the quarter. But on the clinical side of our business, we did still see some of these earlier stage, phase I, phase II, place some nice orders with us. A lot of that probably has to do with the work we’ve been doing with them for some time. In the very early stage, on the research side, in the Lab Essentials, there is a little softness there, but we haven’t seen it as much. It could just be some of the accounts that we’re supporting today, but we’re starting to get more customer engagement from these smaller biotechs. It’s, it’s looking pretty encouraging right now.

Steven Etoch, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: Appreciate that. As we think about just your general different end markets that you serve, it sounds like all of them are kind of coming back together as one. Are there any that are leading the pack more so than others?

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah, like I just mentioned, we had some nice growth in large pharma in the quarter. We did get some nice growth in the diagnostic side as well, in the tools and diagnostics, but particularly on the liquid biopsy, we had some nice orders come in there. We’re seeing some growth there. I think, like I said, the biopharma as a whole is a little bit slower, but you’re starting to see some growth there. There are certainly pockets where we expect that to increase throughout the year.

Steven Etoch, Analyst, Stephens Inc.: I appreciate the color.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brendan Smith with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. Congrats on the quarter. Maybe actually, excuse me, just following up actually on that previous question a little bit more, and kind of the commentary regarding customers advancing through clinical development. I think you flagged it both within kind of the biopharma and tool CX guys. I guess, do you have a sense maybe what kind of proportion, even like broad strokes, what % of customers are in that, you know, preclinical phase I bucket versus those in phase III or kind of approaching commercial? I guess I’m just kind of wondering how that funnel is looking at this point, excuse me, just especially as the funding environment continues to improve. Thanks.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah, Brendan, it’s not that different than what we put out in our slides for the 2025 full year. We are supporting approximately 70 therapies. There are 5 therapies in phase II or phase III that are nearing completion at the moment. 12 in phase I, and then the rest are preclinical. You know, I think we’d expect the number to increase as we go throughout this year. I mean, that’s our strategy as you onboard more of these clinical customers. Certainly if the biotech funding comes back, we’d expect that to continue. We’ve done that really since, you know, since we started targeting these clinical customers back in 2020.

Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Cowen: Got it. Okay, great. Maybe just kind of a quick follow-up. I think, you know, we’ve started to see some increases in maybe wet lab spending activity, actually as a result of, it seems like kind of rolling out some of their own AI capabilities internally and kind of needing to validate those models and all the new target sets they’re starting to get. It feels like it’s still quite early, but I guess, do you have any sense of this materializing in any way kind of within your customers’ ordering patterns? Is there any reason maybe why that wouldn’t be kind of a notable tailwind for Teknova over the coming quarters? Just kind of any incremental color on how you guys are thinking about that. Thanks.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah. I think these AI data generation programs are significant, it’s lots of reagents, right? They’re generating significant amounts of data. We are supporting many of the customers that are supporting the end users here to generate that data or directly. The standard products we offer in our catalog products, like the LB broth, grow bacteria or the buffers and things to purify proteins, I would expect that to be a tailwind for us. There are customers we’re supporting that we are seeing pick up their spend with us for those reasons, it’s not yet, you know, a significant material.

Brendan Smith, Analyst, TD Cowen: Got it. All right. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Larew with William Blair. Your line is open.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Hi, good afternoon. Matthew Lowell, the, you know, nice upside in the quarter relative to certainly the street, the guide was maintained. You referenced wanting to see more durability there before changing the guide. It does seem like more companies than normal have called out, you know, benefit from more days in the quarter that reverses later in the year. Just curious if there was any, you know, timing impact like that or any orders that got pulled forward into the print or if indeed it’s just an effort to be conservative given the broader macro picture.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Right. Good question, Matthew Lowell. I would say, I mean, we do have some of this phenomenon where we have, you know, business days impacts, particularly the catalog portion of our business, which again is about 60% of the total business. I would say that was not really a factor for Q1. It will be and usually is for Q4. I would say we saw pretty typical ordering and delivery type of behavior in Q1, I don’t think there’s anything that’s really impacted unusually here.

As you noted, and I did as well, that, I mean, there is still macro uncertainty and while we’re off to a good start here, we’re, you know, certainly optimistic, but not ready to suggest that there could be, you know, in to increase our guidance range at this time. It’s definitely something that we’re, you know, evaluating each quarter here and it’s encouraging to have this great start.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Okay. You know, you brought up Stephen, 2027, in your remarks to be in position for 20% revenue growth. You know, if I look at sort of TTM revenue at this point, certainly has improved over, you know, sort of 1 year ago, particularly on the Clinical Solutions side, and Lab Essentials has stabilized at least in the mid-single digits. As you think about kind of where we’re at from a TTM perspective today to how you get to 20% in 2027, what elements, you know, do you see improving the most? Certainly, you called out things like larger orders today and improving funnel, you know, where do you think the 20% comes from for next year, relative to today? Thanks.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah. I think a couple of things come into play. First is, you know, an improving backdrop, right? We’ve seen the biotech funding now 2 quarters ahead of where it’s been. We’ve shown and from past data, and we think it’s pretty similar this time, that we will start seeing an impact from about a 4-quarter lag, 3 to 4 quarter lag in that. We’re expecting to see that towards the end of next year. I think that will drive a portion of that growth. The baseline’s kind of picking up a little bit. On the clinical side, you know, we are supporting more customers, and there’s more of them moving later into the pipeline, including we’d expect either a diagnostic or therapeutic commercial approval by the end of next year.

That, you know, even them moving from phase I to phase II or phase II to phase III or phase III obviously into commercial, you know, those will drive significant growth. That base is relatively small. That actually true on the, on the diagnostic side. You know, there’s a couple in there in the leukapheresis side that we may be supporting larger volumes for next year. In addition, you know, this investment we make on the commercial side, both on the marketing and on the people in the field, you know, that will take 6 months-12 months to ramp up and that will help us as well. You know, that historical Lab Essentials business has grown 11% on average since 2008.

That mid-single digit, I think we start to see that pick up a little bit and then combined with these other things, should get us into that 20%.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: All right. Thanks, Stephen.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is open.

Matthew Hewitt, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Good afternoon, congratulations to the nice start of the year. Regarding the Clinical Solutions, obviously a phenomenal Q1, up 85% year-on-year. I’m just curious if there was anything to call out within that. Was there a larger order that kinda drove some of that? Was it more broad-based? You noted several large orders, was that really it? How should we be thinking about cadence for that bucket over the remainder of the year?

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah, I’ll let Matthew Lowell touch on the cadence in a minute. Just when you look at the customers we supported in Q1, and we talk about this a lot, about the lumpiness. I think, you know, the question’s right. Say, is this just a lumpy quarter, or is this something that is more broad-based? In this case, it is more broad-based. In fact, we had a fairly large customer last year order, and now we came over that. Then, you know, a number of customers here that we delivered for in Q1. I would say it’s pretty positive on our side that this one is not just a one-time lumpy piece that we’re having for a quarter. I’ll let Matthew Lowell talk a little bit about the cadence for the rest of the year.

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Right. I just echo what Stephen said. I think we’re feeling pretty good about the diversity in that part of the business in Q1, and also based on the discussions we’re having now for the rest of the year. I think that’s an area where we should continue to see, you know, that at these kind of levels or, you know, let’s just say in the $2 million range a quarter or better, depending on how things go later in the year. That’s definitely going to be an important component of growth this year. All to say that, yeah, I think that part is looking good, and we should continue to see, you know, good results in that part of the business.

Matthew Hewitt, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: That’s great. Shifting gears a little bit, with some of the investments that you’ve been making, digitizing, all the paper, some of the investments in, you know, creating larger batch sizes. As I think about your target, you know, 60%-65% gross margins in a few years, how much of that’s gonna come from volume leverage versus some of these new strategic decisions that you’ve been making, you know, the past year to kinda help with the gross margin lift?

Matthew Lowell, Chief Financial Officer, Alpha Teknova: Yeah, that’s a good question, Matt. I do believe that the single biggest driver is and will continue to be volume growth. Obviously, we’re not just gonna, you know, sit and rest on our laurels and wait for that to play out. There’s lots of other things we can be doing and are doing. That’s the example you gave there, is a good one. They are meaningful. These are not trivial things. There are sometimes they can play out as productivity benefits where we see that benefit more as we grow than immediately in terms of a cost reduction. It can just mean we have cost restraint as we grow.

We have that digitization and a lot of other projects always going on, and there’s just a never-ending bucket of opportunities to do that. I wouldn’t want to. I would still say that the main driver is volume growth. From what we’re seeing, that’s happening right now. We’re excited about it.

Matthew Hewitt, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Got it. All right. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Parisi with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Matthew Parisi, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hi. Yes, this is Matthew Parisi on for Paul Knight. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for the question. You mentioned the onboarding of new sales associates during the call, and I was just wondering how long that ramp period takes.

Stephen Gunstream, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alpha Teknova: I think, typically, in my experience, you know, this is 6-12 months until you really start to see the impact from that. I think I mentioned in here that probably towards the end of this year, we’ll be able to see that. We’re starting to see some early indicators with, you know, more meetings, more engagement with some of the target accounts that we’re after. It’s been great to onboard them, and we’re very happy we started in January. I think all is going to plan.

Matthew Parisi, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Thank you. That’s all for me.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, I’m showing no further questions in the queue. That concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.