Alpha Teknova, Inc. (NASDAQ:TKNO) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Stephen Gunstream: It’s a hard one to measure at the moment, because we have a multiple competing factors here, right. We’ve scaled up our commercial organization. We do see our funnel increasing, which would indicate that that’s true. But also we’re putting our efforts towards attracting those customers. But I will say that the cycles are longer and the size of the trials still seem to be smaller than they used to be. But I’m in agreement with you. It does feel like when you talk to customers that they are starting to think about how to move these things forward. That said, we still have the conversations with customers that they’re really stuck in trying to maintain their capital and the timing of when those actually builds happens is still undetermined.

Paul Knight : Would it be fair to say that the kind of the components of the XBI or larger more medium-sized, biotechs are not really deteriorating? Would that be fair? And then, kind of the last follow-on would be, what portion of revenue is emerging biotech right now do you think?

Stephen Gunstream: Yeah, I’m not sure I can comment that. We have had we mentioned our new facility opening. We’ve probably had four or five customers come through there now and they’ve been both large and small. And so we have not necessarily seen a specific trend on this side. But I will say that, wherever you’re engaging with customers is very early on that given the fact that the facility is just now coming online.

Paul Knight : Okay. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Mark Massaro with BTIG. Your line is open.

Mark Massaro: Hey guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Stephen, obviously, you’ve called out some soft climate in biotech and cell and gene therapy that’s very much consistent with what all of your peers have said. There’s really no surprise there. But I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on, other areas of your business, which are Diversified in areas like diagnostics, food, agriculture, I guess, what are you seeing across those other segments of your end-markets?

Stephen Gunstream: Yeah, great question, Mark. And so, outside of the sort of, biopharma early-stage biotechs, we do serve across all those segments from everything from academic to tools, diagnostics to food, and Ag. And I would say, generally speaking, the majority of those are kind of within line of expectations historically. We are coming over a tough year-on-year comparison as you can see. If you look at the first half of last year, the end of ‘21 and early part of 2022, we had a lot of larger biotech builds being made for clinical trials, then those were put on hold. So our year-on-year comparison is not exactly fair from a financial perspective, but when you look take a step down, we do see hot spots within spatial genomics, which I’m sure you’re aware of.

That group is growing quite nicely. And then, some of the more novel diagnostic sites like liquid biopsy and other genomic type of diagnostics were seeing some pick up there that is probably favorable or equal to what has been previously like in the ‘21 time period excluding COVID-related diagnostics. So we do benefit from that and being a diverse business that can support all these customers.

Mark Massaro: Yes. That makes sense. And congrats on the ribbon cutting of the GMP-grade facility. Maybe can you just remind us what the new facility is likely to enable? Whether it’s from new customers, size of customers, maybe just walk us through sort of how you see the business changing in the next couple of years?