Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Unidentified Analyst: This is on for Matt. I realize that you just sort of shipping commercially from Factory of the Future, and you’ve talked about fast gene being launched in the fall of this year. Could you talk about how you’ve been able to break into the gene makers market prior to that launch? Or will the launch be an inflection point for getting into that market?

Emily Leproust: Great question. We’ve been getting into the maker market a little bit over the last few years with our long (technical difficulty). So what we know is that some customers buy short genes then they assemble themselves with short genes to long genes. So they buy short genes, but they are makers of long genes. And when we offer our long gene offering, it is very far, very cost effective and some of our revenue growth comes from us converting some long genes makers. So we are a little bit in the markets — in the DNA makers market. But we do need the speed, which means that from — as you pointed out, when we are hedging, that’s when we should see an inflection point.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Great. That’s helpful. And then what do you think the potential of gross margin uplift is for fast gene this year? Will it ramp enough for us to see it come through in ’23 or roll that mostly come in next year?

James Thorburn: Overall, we see our gross margins. The gross margins in Q1 are just under 46%. This quarter, we see gross margins 30%. We’re launching our fast genes in fall of this year. So overall, this year, gross margins are in the range of 39% to 40%. And as fast genes pick up next year, we continue to scale our manufacturing operations, we’ll leverage fixed costs, and that’s primarily going to be driven by volume and success of fast genes. So that kicks in FY ’24.

Operator: Our next question comes from Sung Ji Nam with Scotiabank.

Unidentified Analyst: Just to have a couple of high-level end market trend questions. Maybe starting with Biopharma was wondering, obviously, solid growth there, kind of expecting a bit more muted, I think growth for the next quarter. And I was wondering if you might be able to call out kind of the trends you’re seeing in the near term, if you — if there are any kind of differentiated trends across different segments within Biopharma. And also, if you expect the weakness to be prolonged throughout the year? Any kind of color you could provide there? And then the second question is in terms of ex-U.S. markets like China, Europe — as well as Europe in terms of whether you kind of called out China continuing to see headwinds from the COVID situation. And if you might be able to kind of compare whether that has materially worsened in the current quarter versus what you were seeing last quarter? Just also any additional color there would be very helpful.

Emily Leproust: Thank you, Sung Ji. Maybe I’ll answer the first question and Jim will cover the second question on the global markets. So in terms of Biopharma, some of the trends we are seeing is definitely some of our customers have some funding headwinds, some others are very big companies and maybe lesser for the companies that have funding headwinds. I think it is an opportunity for us. It may take time to add them, but what we offer is more short-term goal, and so we basically extend their budget. So I think our offering is very well fit for them. The other trend we see is that people maybe spend a little bit in the balance of the budget. Maybe there is a bit less for upfront discovery and maybe they’re balancing more towards later stage work, which means that maybe they will do 10 discovery projects a year and maybe they’re shrinking to 8 or less.