908 Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:MASS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Matthew Larew: Good morning. Maybe just following up on that. Kevin, you referenced good to get MAVERICK out ahead of the budgeting cycle for next year. Just curious as you’ve had conversations with customers, what you’re hearing about? How customers are thinking about 2024 budgets? I think throughout this earning season on the bioprocessing side, we’ve heard perhaps that the de-stocking phenomenon may be coming to a close, but that broader secular pressures are still in place. So just kind of curious what you’ve heard from customers as you’ve begun talking about potential product placement next year.

Kevin Knopp: Yes. Thanks Matt. I think you’re right. I mean there definitely is that backdrop of a challenging macro. And we think of it as both in the bioprocessing, but also that lifescience instrumentation customers and certainly consistent with what we’re hearing there. As you know, we’re trying to get new technologies into that preclinical early stage process development, so that the bar is hard there. You’re definitely seeing people still with the situation where capital has been reduced on hold, a bit more scrutinized, all of which is really kind of prolonging the sale cycle. We are staying tight with customers, monitoring, having good dialogue about individual situations there. That said, I think we’re confident there will be a recovery here and that we’ve got the right tools in place to take advantage of that to kind of build on the strength of our handhelds as we progress that and see that market recovery.

If you think about 2024, I would say it’s a bit early for us. We’re going to see how Q4 plays out, but we’re cautiously optimistic. We’ve had a series of productive conferences this fall, but how those budgets translate into the opportunities and closing time in, and whether that’s H1, H2, et cetera, of next year, a little bit remains to be seen there.

Matthew Larew: Okay, fair enough. And then on the opportunity, the AVCAD opportunity, did you maybe help us think about the economic opportunity per unit and how that might compare to a traditional placement? But that’d be the first part. And then the second part, and you referenced 60,000 placements with Smith’s sort of legacy opportunity. I guess over what time frame did that get placed? Did it get placed sort of on a typical quarterly cadence or are there a few large orders that comprise that? Just trying to think about how that might materialize if it does over time?

Kevin Knopp: We’re just going through some of the details. You can imagine we’re very excited to be moving into this initial production phase with AVCAD, which began in the third quarter and is likely to span into the first half of 2025 from a timing perspective. We delivered those initial product in Q3 for approximately $2.5 million and expect to deliver an additional million in Q4. And then there’s additional product and support in 2024, maybe about $1 million as currently contracted. And the deliverables are up front and loaded. Basically, to enable Smiths, our partner to complete their build and deliver it to the US government and will support those initial deployments and any services required. Ultimately, that goal is to get into the full rate production for 2025 and beyond.

Sort of the cost per unit, these are components, not a full MX908 and it varies based upon quantities, especially as you get into future full rate production phase. But it’s a great opportunity. And picking more broadly, right, for J-CAD, I think you alluded to it, it represented a full rate production and extended years of the initial commitment that Smith’s had on the previous J-CAD program. For AVCAD, right, the goal is a successful transition to full rate production and it would have a meaningful impact on our revenue in later years, by 2025 and beyond. And at this time, we’re really focused on that initial production phase and there are no firm commitments for full-rate production. The full-rate production could be or up to or even over $10 million plus a year in opportunity if we were to get to full rate production.