Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation (NASDAQ:ADPT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Chad Robins: Yeah, thanks, Mark. And we have been talking for the last 18 months about having two distinct business opportunities. And we are evaluating all options with our partners at Goldman Sachs to maximize the value of both businesses. Really it’s a fact that we have two distinct businesses and they’re at different stages of maturity. They have different value drivers and they also have different investment requirements. I mean, if you look at the MRD business, I mean, it’s a commercial stage diagnostic business. It’s the gold standard in MRD. But that business is, it’s all about execution. And on the top line, we got to drive volumes, increase ASPs and on the cost side, it’s about bringing down the cost of goods sold and achieving scale to get to profitability by 2025.

But IM is a very different business. It’s a very different business model. It’s much more tend to traditional biotech business or therapeutics business. The business takes you more time. It’s really valued on on its high, very high potential, but revenue at present isn’t the driver. It’s about generating data and it’s about developing assets and going through clinical trials and really about showing additional proof points that are milestone and catalyst-driven. And it’s become increasingly clear where each business is, it’s really the natural point to look at a separation as MRD has now kind of achieved that scale. And at the same time, we’ve had really what we consider a really nice breakthrough discovery in our platform in MS that we think is going to apply to multiple other kind of autoimmune disorders.

So, now’s it’s the time and we’re ready to go.

Mark Massaro : Okay, great. So obviously, I understand they’ve required different capital needs and investment, but as for why you’re choosing to withdraw the Immune Medicine business from your guidance? I guess, can you maybe peel the onion back a little bit as for that reason?

Chad Robins: Yeah, a lot of it is because, if you look at, if you look at kind of MRD, which has a kind of very known trajectory, and what we don’t want to do is it’s a really different story in Immune Medicine where we don’t want to trade off, or mortgage kind of the short-term for long-term value creation. There are number of deals which we could do that we want to make sure that we’re doing in the right context to really maximize the potential kind of for the long-term value of that business. And in some sense, like being forced to do deals under kind of certain time pressures and constraints, what I think, giveaway value, that would nurture our shareholders.

Mark Massaro : Okay, great. And last one for me, I might have missed it. but can you just walk through the split between MRD revenue from clinical versus Pharma? Obviously, you talked about the pharma having some headwinds, but and you certainly maintained your volume guide for 50% for the year. But maybe just any additional clarity on how you’re thinking about the clinical versus pharma breakup?

Chad Robins: Nitin?

Nitin Sood: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, just for, I mean, you’re asking on the breakout in the third quarter? Or what we are expecting for the fourth quarter?

Mark Massaro : Just both would be great, but I’ll take either.

Nitin Sood: Yeah, I mean, look, the clinical business, if you kind of looked at, so we didn’t have any milestones there, right? If you kind of look at, US obviously, it’s about, a 60/40 split overall. It’s kind of the right math for this quarter between clinical and pharma. We mentioned pharma was down a little bit – down a little bit sequentially versus the same quarter. Clinical volumes kind of nice sequential step-up. And then, for the fourth quarter, it should be similar kind of 60/40 split.

Mark Massaro : That’s really helpful. Thanks guys.

Chad Robins: Okay. Thanks Mark.

Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Dan Brennan with TD Cowen. Dan, please go ahead.

Dan Brennan: Great. Thanks. Thanks for the questions. Maybe the first one, just on this strategic review. It looks like there’s a lot of options on the table. Is the idea that the Immune Medicine business, you’ll look to sell that, could that business come out as a standalone business and trade publicly? Or is there a potential that both businesses get sold? I’m just trying to think through obviously, the press release discusses strategic options. Things are on the table. Just what are the permeations, where that are being considered?

Chad Robins: Yeah. Thanks, Dan. We are evaluating all options that are all on the table that we think can maximize value. Obviously, we can’t comment on any M&A at this time. All we can say, I mean, if you look at MRD, it’s a differentiated business with a clear category leading position with real strategic value. And so that provides us a range of viable options to pursue. Same thing on the Immune Medicine business. It’s we think we’ve got some very differentiated targets and are moving forward and those could be standalone businesses and do very, very well as standalone publicly traded companies. But again, all options are on the table right now.

Dan Brennan: Are there things without Immune Medicine on the MRD side that you guys would do differently in terms of, you want to get the profitability to balance sheet in good shape. I don’t know what but in terms, maybe you’d want to be more aggressive, maybe you want to get more scale, maybe you want to add another businesses. I don’t – when you think about MRD on its own operating like, are there strategically, how does that business look on its own?