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Introduction & Market Context
Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) presented its fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 results on November 14, 2025, highlighting revenue growth across all business segments while continuing to progress toward profitability. Despite exceeding revenue expectations, the company's shares tumbled 15.74% following the announcement, as earnings per share missed analyst forecasts.
The synthetic biology company reported Q4 revenue of $99 million, surpassing guidance of $96-98 million and analyst expectations of $97.21 million. However, the company posted a larger-than-expected loss of $0.45 per share compared to the forecasted loss of $0.41, contributing to the negative market reaction.
Quarterly Performance Highlights
Twist Bioscience's fourth quarter showed continued revenue momentum with $99 million in revenue, representing 17% year-over-year growth. The company achieved a gross margin of 51.3%, within their guidance range of 51-52%, and reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $7.8 million, also within their projected range of $6-8 million.
As shown in the following quarterly highlights from the company's presentation:
For the full fiscal year 2025, Twist reported revenue of $376.6 million, slightly exceeding their guidance of $374-376 million. The company's gross margin for the year reached 50.7%, within the guided range of 50.5-51.0%, while adjusted EBITDA loss was $46.9 million, also within guidance. The company maintained a strong cash position with $232.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments as of September 30, 2025.
The annual performance metrics are illustrated here:
Segment Performance
Twist Bioscience's business is divided into three main segments, all of which demonstrated growth in the fourth quarter.
The SynBio Write segment, which focuses on DNA synthesis products, generated $39.5 million in revenue for Q4, representing 17% year-over-year growth. For the full fiscal year, this segment delivered $145 million in revenue, also growing 17% compared to the previous year. The company shipped approximately 938,000 genes during the quarter.
The NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) Read segment continued to be the company's largest revenue driver, contributing $53 million in the fourth quarter, up 16% year-over-year. For the full fiscal year 2025, this segment generated $208.1 million in revenue, growing 23% compared to fiscal 2024. Key product launches during the period included the Trinity Freestyle Fast Hybridization workflow and the Twist Oncology DNA CGP Panel.
The Biopharma Solutions segment, though smaller, showed the strongest growth rate with Q4 revenue of $6.4 million, increasing 22% year-over-year. The segment received $11.5 million in orders during the quarter. For the full fiscal year, Biopharma Solutions generated $23.5 million in revenue, representing 15% year-over-year growth, with $30 million in total orders.
Path to Profitability
A key focus of Twist's presentation was its progress toward profitability. The company has been steadily improving its adjusted EBITDA loss and gross margins over the past several quarters, as illustrated in the following chart:
Adjusted EBITDA has improved from a loss of $29.6 million in Q3 FY23 to a loss of $7.8 million in Q4 FY25, while gross margin has increased from 34.4% to 51.3% over the same period. This improvement reflects the company's focus on operational efficiency and scale.
The company highlighted several drivers for reaching profitability, including continued revenue and margin growth, strong operational and commercial execution, platform enhancements, new products, market expansion, and growing target markets.
Forward Guidance & Outlook
Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, Twist Bioscience provided optimistic guidance, projecting revenue between $425-435 million for the full year, representing growth of 13-15.5% compared to fiscal 2025. The company expects gross margin to exceed 52% for the year.
Most notably, Twist anticipates reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, a significant milestone in its journey toward profitability.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the company projects revenue of $100-101 million, continuing its growth trajectory.
Market Reaction and Challenges
Despite the revenue beat and progress toward profitability, Twist Bioscience's stock fell sharply following the earnings release. The stock dropped 15.74% to close at $25.19, reflecting investor concerns about the earnings miss and the timeline to profitability.
The larger-than-expected loss per share suggests ongoing challenges in managing costs or achieving expected profitability targets. While the company has made significant progress in improving gross margins and reducing EBITDA losses, investors appear to be growing impatient with the pace of progress toward positive earnings.
As Twist continues to invest in new product development and platform enhancements, balancing growth investments with profitability improvement will remain a key challenge. The company's success in executing its strategy to reach EBITDA breakeven by Q4 FY26 will likely be a critical factor in regaining investor confidence in the coming quarters.
Full presentation:
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