Earnings call transcript: ChemoMetec Q4 2025 sees stock surge despite earnings miss

ChemoMetec’s Q4 2025 earnings call revealed a significant surprise in its earnings per share (EPS) and revenue figures. The company reported an EPS of -$1.04, missing the forecasted -$0.62 by a considerable margin. The revenue also fell short, with actual figures at $120 million compared to the expected $128 million. Despite these misses, the stock surged by 12.45%, reflecting a complex investor sentiment driven by strategic advancements and future guidance. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains impressive gross profit margins of 93.93% and has demonstrated strong financial health with an overall score of 3.19 (rated as "GREAT").

Key Takeaways

• ChemoMetec’s stock rose 12.45% despite missing earnings expectations.
• The company introduced new products and innovations, including the Excitomatic XM40.
• Future guidance remains optimistic with a projected sales growth of 10-14%.
• Restructuring costs impacted Q4 results, with $8 million recorded in this quarter.
• The cell and gene therapy market presents significant growth opportunities.

Company Performance

ChemoMetec demonstrated robust performance with full-year revenue growth across all product segments, despite a challenging Q4. The company has focused on innovation and strategic product launches, which are expected to drive future growth. The restructuring efforts have streamlined operations, reducing the workforce from 184 to 170 employees, indicating a leaner operational model moving forward. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company’s strong financial position with a current ratio of 3.7 and minimal debt levels, suggesting ample liquidity to fund its strategic initiatives. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 15+ additional insights about ChemoMetec’s financial health and growth prospects through the comprehensive Pro Research Report.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $120 million (below forecast of $128 million)
• Earnings per share: -$1.04 (forecast was -$0.62)
• EBITDA margin: 50%, adjusted to 56% after restructuring costs
• Restructuring costs: $12 million, with $8 million in Q4

Earnings vs. Forecast

ChemoMetec’s actual EPS of -$1.04 was significantly below the forecasted -$0.62, marking a 67.74% surprise. This miss is notable compared to previous quarters, where the company had either met or slightly exceeded expectations. The revenue shortfall of 6.25% further compounded the earnings miss, reflecting operational and market challenges.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings miss, ChemoMetec’s stock rose by 12.45%, closing at $542. This increase is notable given the company’s 52-week range, where the stock had previously fluctuated between $339 and $616. The positive market reaction suggests investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and future growth potential.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, ChemoMetec projects a sales growth of 10-14%, with potential currency-adjusted growth reaching 15-20%. The company plans significant capital expenditures of $100 million for 2025-2026, targeting bioprocessing, cell and gene therapy, and automation markets. New product launches, such as the XM50 plate-based instrument, are anticipated to bolster revenue streams. This growth outlook aligns with the company’s historical performance, as InvestingPro data shows a robust 21.5% revenue growth in the last twelve months and an impressive 5-year revenue CAGR of 18%. The stock is currently trading above its InvestingPro Fair Value, suggesting investors are pricing in significant future growth potential.

Executive Commentary

Martin, ChemoMetec’s CEO, emphasized the company’s strategic shift: "We’re basically going from being a cell counter company to a solution-based company, including software." He highlighted the importance of automation, stating, "Automation is something that takes time. It’s like building a new production facility." These comments underscore the company’s commitment to innovation and long-term growth.

Risks and Challenges

• Tariff impacts: Estimated to affect the company by DKK 6 million next year.
• Market competition: Intense rivalry in the bioprocessing sector with competitors like Bicell Blue.
• Funding challenges: Smaller startups in the cell and gene therapy market may face difficulties, impacting overall market growth.
• Restructuring costs: Continued financial strain from restructuring activities.
• Currency fluctuations: Significant revenue generation in U.S. dollars exposes the company to exchange rate volatility.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts questioned the slow sales progression of the Excitomatic XM40. The executive team reassured that sales were advancing strategically. The rapid development of the sample management system prototype, completed in nine months, was also a focal point, with potential sales exceeding $1 million per system. Pricing for new instruments was discussed, with ranges between $80,000 and $130,000.

Full transcript - ChemoMetec A/S (CHEMM) Q4 2025:

Moderator/Host: I think we already have quite a few people, and it’s now 3:00 P.M. CET. I think we should just kick off, maybe, and I propose we do it in a traditional way in terms of hosting a conference call. You guys go ahead and do a presentation, then we’ll do Q&A, and I’ll make sure to take note of who’s raising their hands. Yeah, over to you, Martin.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Thank you. Welcome to everybody here. First, Kim will go over the financials, and then I will talk a little bit about the future and the market. Go ahead, Kim.

Kim, CFO, ChemoMetec: Thank you, Martin. The first slide here, we have the speakers of today, which is Martin, who you already met, and myself, as you know. Looking into the financial performance for this year, I believe that you all have read the annual report. As you can see, we’re really quite happy with basically all of the numbers. They’re going up compared to last year. Revenue, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, profit before tax, cash flow, basically all good news. If we then move into our Q4 performance, I know we got a big or a couple of questions from analysts this morning with respect to the 50% EBITDA margin, whether that was a disappointment. To us, it’s actually really clear because, as you can also see in the annual report, we had a huge restructuring round, at least based on our limited number of headcount, a huge restructuring round.

Basically, we have a $12 million cost included in these numbers, which then, of course, heavily affects our EBITDA margin. Again, if you adjust for those, you will see an EBITDA margin of 56% instead of these 50%. Yeah, again, basically, we are quite happy with that. Looking into the split, this is also all information which is in the annual report. We see revenue growth across all of our product segments, which is, of course, very satisfactory for us. The geographical split of our revenue is a bit boring because it is exactly the same as it was last year. No many comments on that one. Looking into a visual of our acquisition we did in October last year, we now, as we also stated in the annual report, consider the migration successful.

We are basically fully integrated the OVCO organization into our own, and we have taken over all the tasks related to the operational part of the business from Belgium and transferred here to the HQ. That also means that we are now seeing OVCO pretty much as an R&D activity, meaning that basically we have four very, very intelligent people left in Belgium, the ones who developed this quite good system. We have had to let go of all the related functions in Belgium. That also leads us into the financial review, where from my side, the main point is that we have a stable app and staff cost. Again, they are heavily affected by these $12 million in restructuring costs. That also shows quite clearly that at the end of the year, we are 170 full-time employees, whereas during the year, we were 184.

As you all can imagine, that means that the big part of these restructurings took place very, very late in the last financial year. What everyone should keep in mind, of course, is that these are one-off costs, and they also mean that when we look at our EBITDA margin going forward, we do expect to see a significant gain from this, basically. I will come into the guidance later on, but we are quite comfortable on the cost side of the business. I know we always get some questions with respect to tariffs and the U.S. dollar exposure. Just to be clear on that one, the U.S. dollar exposure is very, very significant. We have, as you know, 60% of our revenue in U.S. dollars. Of course, we are very, very vulnerable towards that. That one is, of course, important to keep in mind.

On the other hand, the tariffs in the U.S. are not that significant to us, basically because they are added on to our cost price of the products. Luckily, as all of you know, the actual physical cost price is not that expensive for us. On the tariff side, we are talking about an estimate of maybe DKK 6 million on next year’s numbers. Of course, assuming that the current tariff level of 15% is kept. I can maybe comment on that when we look at the guidance. As we also write in the annual report, this is based on flat USD exchange rates, and it’s also based on tariffs being 15%. If that changes, then of course it will affect our guidance.

On the revenue side of the guidance, I know that Martin is very much looking forward to giving you the full tour after my presentation into all the exciting things going on in that respect. Again, on the EBIT and the EBITDA margin, to me, of course, our largest cost is the staff cost. I’m quite comfortable that we got that under control. With that, I will hand it over to you, Martin.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yes, thank you, Kim. Over to some highlights. It’s very exciting to be at ChemoMetec these days. Every day is basically exciting. I’m looking forward to telling you a little bit about our product development. First, I’m going to go through market conditions, then I’ll go through some of the new products, and at last, product development, which is very exciting. Onto the next slide, Kim. Market conditions. First of all, some of our consumables are, of course, relying on the approved cell therapies out there because, as you might know already, many of these approved cell therapies are a customer of ChemoMetec. As you can see, when these revenues are increasing, of course, we are also selling more. Many of our customers need to use a certain amount of cassettes when they treat a patient. The more patients they get, the more our revenue will increase.

That’s been some of the reasons why we have, of course, some growth. Move on to the next slide. We will also see that we have basically a strong pipeline in this industry. The cell and gene therapy is still a very young industry. We only have 36 approvals. As you can see, it’s actually still growing with ongoing trials. Now we’re almost up to 3,200 ongoing trials. Imagine some of them coming through. That would be very good for us, of course. Long-term looks very good. If we look to the next slide, we are seeing some of the funding levels being a little bit difficult, and the startups are struggling a little bit to get funding. The macro environment doesn’t help. We are still seeing the smaller ones basically being difficult for them to attract funding. It’s mainly the larger companies who bring on new projects.

If we look to the next one as well, you can see that it’s actually all over the place. Phase two is growing a little bit, but it’s mainly down. This is something that has been difficult for some of these startup companies. If we move on to new products, which I believe is very, very exciting, we actually launched some of our Excitomatic products the previous year. It’s very important for us to basically tell you that the XM40 is targeted for bioprocessing. It’s a new product, but it’s into an existing market. We’re going to compete straight up with Bicell Blue and also the Cedex system. Luckily for us, Cedex announced end-of-life. Basically, we’re only going to have one competitor in that market. It’s a market we try to penetrate.

Of course, it takes time when customers need to move from a Trifond Blue-based count to AO and DAPI. What’s really exciting, though, is this new emerging market called automation. You need to basically look into it as when all these car companies back tried to automate the production of these cars. This is basically what we’re going through now in the cell and gene therapy. Customers are looking for solutions where you can fully automate your production. Luckily, the 30 and the 50 is made for that. We have already done some validations with the 30, and it looks very good. The Excitomatic, an analyzer, is actually being remade because we have had customers asking for that product in automation as well. Today, it’s slide-based, which doesn’t work too well in automated setups. We are actually working on automating that product as well.

The last product, the NC203, is a cassette-based instrument. It’s on the XM platform as well. Basically, that’s for the customer who still wants to work with the cassette-based instruments. If we look at the next slide, you’ll see we have made a case example this year. That’s because we’re not selling shoes here at ChemoMetec. It’s basically very, very difficult to get customers onto these products. When they’re on, they’re going to be there forever. For them, it’s about validation. We’ve tried to explain here how long it can take to basically get people to use our products in a manufacturing setup. What’s important here to know is automation is something that takes time. It’s like building a new production facility. You need to figure out how you want to do it. You need to make sure your setup works.

You have to basically look into, can we get it through FDA? The good thing, though, is you can really minimize your production cost. Today, the production cost of a cell and gene therapy is very high. What you want to do here is you want to lower your cost, and you also want to increase capacity. Doing that with automation actually means these cell therapies can be more available to many people. Today’s customers or patients who actually can’t get the cell therapy are not able to do it because of the capacity. Automating is very important. We have tried to explain how we’re actually working with the customers in this example. I really hope you’re going to read that. Move on, Kim. Looking at the 203, which we launched, it is basically launched to a customer who wants to transition from the Vysel XR.

One of our competitors, Vysel, also announced end-of-life on the XR. Of course, we’re seeing some customer demand from that area as well. This first one is a vaccine producer. It’s actually interesting to see how long it’s going to take for them to validate this instrument. Transferring from one instrument to another takes time. We know they’re going to buy these instruments into manufacturing for 2028, but it just takes time. It’s an upgraded version of the 202. It’s still cassette-based, but you’ll get it with our new platform, Excitomatic, which has bright field and is more consistent. It’s based on our AI algorithm, so it’s more consistent, and it’s actually better at detecting some cells. Also, we launched a new cassette via 3 with this product. The next instrument is basically our analyzer, and it’s a single-cell analyzer.

It’s image-based, and it’s very good at identifying and marking single cells. We got some great customer feedback. Since the market is moving into automation, customers are asking if we can help them basically automate this product. In a slide or two, you’ll actually see why. Product development. First, we have the XM50. XM50 is very exciting because it’s built on the same technology as the 40 and the 30. Basically, a customer asked us if we could build it for them because they needed to transport their production through plates. Their automated setup is relying on plates. Actually, they needed another instrument before they could hand it over to our 30. Developing this product means they can actually get loose of this extra instrument. We aim to sell the first instrument in early 2026, and we already have customer demand. For us, it’s all about finalizing the product.

As you know, in this industry, it’s really important launching a good product. We will do a soft launch in 2026, give it to selected customers, get feedback, and finalize the product. We move on to the next slide. Oh, sorry. No worries. What I really think is exciting here is that we have spent so much time on finalizing our Excitomatic platform. If you look into this system, sample management system, we have actually developed a new prototype for an end-to-end automated sample management system. This means that customers can basically produce with the bioreactors on this picture, and we can sample, we can actually help them sample their production in our cell counters. What’s really exciting here is you can actually have this system running for two weeks without labor. On the new software platform we’re going to make, you can actually follow it centralized.

As you can see to the furthest left, we have our analyzer. Not only can we do count and viability, we can actually also do analysis on this system. We’re launching it next week, and I really think this is the future for cell counting. It’s fully automated, and customers basically just need to add a bioreactor, which we are not making, and then we’ll take care of the rest. At last, this system will come with, on the next page, Kim, a software where they can actually now or in the future control everything from one place. What you’re seeing on the pictures to the right is actually us setting up a production line where you might have three bioreactors. We have said we want a count every second hour, and then we need the data online. You can sit anywhere in the world and see these pictures.

The future is basically automation, and it’s hardware, and it’s software. This is basically also why we have increased our investments in the guidance because we want to focus on both the hardware automation side, also the software side. These are the first pictures, and we’re going to actually show them to customers for the first time next week. I think, Kim, it’s on to Q&A.

Moderator/Host: Yes, perfect. I think just to remind people to raise the hand on Teams if you have any questions. I can see we’re already getting a few. If I could maybe just start out, if we could briefly touch upon the instrument sales in Q4 particularly, both in terms of the Excitomatic sale, but also the other part of the instrument sales, XM. If we start out with the Excitomatic, your sales came in about $4.5 million in the quarter, taking it to about $28 million for the full year, so rightly in line with what you previously guided, somewhat below the $20 million you generated in the first half. How do we think of the launch at this point in time?

I think there’s also a few comments in your annual report that this is a launch that will take time, and you also alluded to it before, Martin, yourself. What is your sort of expectations for this range, especially into next year, but also in years ahead? I think you previously talked about having 40 active trials ongoing. Any update on that? Have you added more trials to that sense, or have some even pulled out in the meantime?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, so basically related to XM, every single month we start new trials. As you can see in our case example, of course, we expected this question. We thought it was a very, very good idea to basically specify that even though we have some quarters here at the beginning without XM sales, it’s not the worst, actually, because for us, it’s not about pushing quick. It’s about getting the customer to use the product. We feel very comfortable about the validations. We have added more, and that’s also in the guidance that, of course, we expect more sales from this in the future. As we go, we’ll add more and more trials. Of course, we’re going to sell more in the future from that. One quarter is not important to us here at the beginning.

As you can probably figure from our case example, some of the sales we did last year are due to the early validations. The validations we do now, we expect sales from them in the future, of course. The more we start, the more we gain. I think you have to look again all over at the NC200 back when we started with that. It was basically the same thing. We started out with some few customers. Then we added more and more and more. Suddenly, you saw the hockey stick. This is basically what it’s about for us. It’s about making sure the customers are happy. We’re not short-term. We’re long-term. Validation-wise, it looks very good, we believe. Of course, that’s in the guidance for next year as well.

Moderator/Host: Right, perfect. I can see we have five questions on the line. I think I’ll just start going through those. Ludvig, if you can go ahead, please.

Kim, CFO, ChemoMetec: Thank you. Ludvig Lundgren from Nordea. Two questions for me, please. First, I wonder regarding the restructuring cost. You specified total $12 million for the full year. I think you also highlighted some restructuring in the H1 report. I just wanted to, if you could help us dissect if this full $12 million was in Q4 or if it was spread out throughout the year.

Moderator/Host: Yeah, it’s spread out throughout the year, but $8 million of them are in Q4.

Kim, CFO, ChemoMetec: Perfect. Thank you very much. Secondly, very strong consumable sales here in fiscal Q4, almost 30% in constant exchange rate, I believe, in growth. Do you think there were any pre-buying effects here in the quarter, or do you expect this strong growth to also continue into H2?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: As we’re usually saying, Ludvig, we like to look at it over a year because quarter over quarter doesn’t make any sense with our customers. They buy when they need it. Some are buying every six months, and some are buying quarterly. For us, it’s difficult to predict. I think if you look at the year in total, that’s probably what’s giving the best estimates for the new year.

Kim, CFO, ChemoMetec: OK, thank you very much.

Moderator/Host: I think Bradley is up next.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Yeah, hi, thanks. Hi, Martin and Kim at Brad from ABG. Just a quick question, please, regarding the sales guidance of 10% to 14% growth. That’s not currency adjusted. If we adjust for currency, which I calculate it to be about 5% or 6%, the underlying sales growth guidance is then estimated to be approximately 15% to 20%. This is very solid, gentlemen, if not strong. It may not be your last guidance for the year either. My question really then is if you could please elaborate or provide some color behind the strength in the customer interest and demand, please, for this year. Thank you.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, I think it’s a good question, Brad. How we see this, we’re trying to penetrate a whole new market for us, bioprocessing. We haven’t been focusing on that for many years. Basically, we’ve never focused on that before. Of course, we hope to gain some growth in that area. We have the cell and gene therapy. We have the biggest customers in the world, basically, and since they are growing, we expect to grow there as well. We have this new automation market, which we see is very interesting. We hope basically that we’re generating a lot of revenue from each place, and that’s basically how we expect that that’s how we make the guidance, basically. We are now targeting larger markets than previously. That should hopefully help our growth.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Sounds great. Thank you.

Moderator/Host: All right, next, Björn. Go ahead.

Björn, Analyst: Yeah, hello, Björn. Welcome to the sofa. Just a short question on Kim. You mentioned that the guidance with the flat USD, that’s current levels. Or what’s the exchange rate you have in your guidance back then?

Moderator/Host: Yeah, that’s the current level. That’s basically the end of June 2025, which is pretty much the same exchange rate as we have today, so around 6.40 compared to the new krone.

Björn, Analyst: OK, thank you. For Martin, a question on the XM range. You touched briefly on it in terms of a bit slower, how to say, ramp-up of sales going. From your own perspective, would you have expected those sales to pick up even more a bit further? I remember last time we spoke, you had a lot of happy trial clients. I at least got a feeling that there is more of those guys who, I don’t know, transfer a bit earlier into sales and from the initial testing.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: I’ll say I’m very satisfied, to be honest. Also, because in this industry, believe it or not, it’s word of mouth. Usually, if you need to swap out your Cedex, you’ll ask someone in the industry, what are you doing? For us, it’s about getting key opinion leaders to use our product, and then it starts spreading. Some of it we do, but also word of mouth is very, very interesting here in this market. I’ll say we’re satisfied. I think when we get the feedback from the customers, they like the product. Actually, they say, yeah, yeah, we want to integrate. It just takes time. For them, just doing the data part of it takes, as we’re saying, up to 12 months, basically. It’s a big decision. What’s different from the NCs is that this is CAPEX versus OPEX. They need basically to put it in budgets.

They need approval and go through that round. It is different selling more expensive products. They’re very calm, and we’re very satisfied with the launch so far.

Björn, Analyst: OK, any pushback so far, whether just on the cost side or budgeting side?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: In the bioprocessing area with the XM40, we have this competitor called Bicell Blue, and they did drop their prices. We have some customers saying, you’re too expensive. Can you lower a little bit? We give some small discounts, but it’s not too much. We believe we have a better product. That’s what we hear in the market. Of course, they don’t want to pay the double for our instrument versus maybe the competitors. Sometimes we need to drop a little bit. In the automation with the XM30 and the XM50, we don’t have any competitors. We’re not price-sensitive there. Customers are paying what we basically tell them to. I’ll say the split is probably like that.

Björn, Analyst: Thank you.

Moderator/Host: Perfect. Next is Simon.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Good afternoon, Simon from Danske Bank. I was just wondering a bit if you could elaborate on the background to why Cedex, why they are discontinuing the Cedex system, just for us to understand the dynamic behind that choice, if you have anything to say to that.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, I definitely know why they did it. They have trouble with supplies, basically. Their camera, they’re not able to produce any more cameras. They had to discontinue the product because of that. Luckily for us, we have huge inventories. We usually get the question, why do you have such big inventories? That’s because basically when we start launching a new product, we need to do a last-time buy basically on day zero. You can see for Cedex, they ran out of cameras. Now they’re not able to sell anymore. It’s not just actually replacing that camera. If they do that, customers need to revalidate. That’s why it’s basically, to be honest, very lucky for us. It’s the perfect timing.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: OK, yeah, it makes sense. Do you have any idea about the installed base of Cedex systems in the market that you could share?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: We have heard between 4,000 to 6,000 instruments.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: OK, maybe the final one from me then. Could you say anything about sort of how far the first or the earliest XM customers have come in terms of their validation journeys? Or where are we?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: We’re basically at the point where they’re moving from analytical development to process development, which means they accepted our product. Now they try to, through process development, add our product to their product. They’re trying to add it to a cell therapy, basically. This is how far we have come. With others, we have received the acceptance as well. A lot of these instruments have been sold mainly for validation, so we’re not even close to manufacturing yet.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Is it possible to say anything about potential hit rates once you have reached the process development stage? I mean, how often do people sort of churn from that point, or?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: They don’t. When you’re in process development, usually they won’t swap. When you get through analytical development, it’s very good for you.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: OK. Sounds very good. Thanks so much.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: You’re welcome.

Moderator/Host: Perfect. Thank you. Next up is Wei. Go ahead.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Thank you for taking my question, Wei from SAP. I have two questions here. Firstly, on this sample management system, if I recall correctly, this is the first time you mentioned. You already talked about launching in the not-too-distant future. I mean, could you talk about how long time you have spent on the product development?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yes, around nine months.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Only nine?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yes.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Oh, that sounds very impressive. Does that assume that there would be a very low barrier of entry given it’s a new field for you and only spending nine months? You can develop it.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: I can actually explain to you how it went. This customer Simon just asked about, we actually went on-site, and they had started their own project of automating their production. When we were on-site, we saw that they were using liquid handler systems to transfer the sample to our XM30 and asked them if it would help if we basically made a plate-based instrument. They said yes straight away, so we started making the plate-based instrument. They asked us, yeah, actually for us, we’re also thinking about how do we get the sample from the bioreactor into your product. Suddenly we came up with this idea. If the customers are trying to build their own systems, why don’t we do it? We’re the experts. We basically started making this project nine months ago. I can tell you we’re a little bit surprised ourselves as well that it’s pretty much done.

That’s why we’re telling the market, and that’s why we’re launching it next week. It is a prototype because we don’t expect it to be exactly like this. We expect to get some feedback next week, and then we need to do some minor changes. I like that you think it’s a quick getaway. I do as well. That’s ChemoMetec, basically. We’re very agile, and I think this shows exactly that we are.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Very clear. Thank you. Also in this context, another question here. You talked about automation, and I have no doubt about it. This is a main focus for the cell and gene therapy developers, especially in the production. You are still a small player in this huge market. When we compare to the large players like Thermo Fisher, I mean, they have a much larger product offering and those huge bioreactors, and they’re all in all parts of the value chain. Are you seeing them getting more and more interested to incorporate a cell counting, an automated cell counting in their product offerings, which could threaten your future?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, it’s a good question, Wei. You should think when you’re that big as Thermo Fisher, you should be doing it straight away. It’s funny that a small company like ChemoMetec did it in nine months, right? It’s a good question. The problem for many companies is that they don’t have the cell counter. No one can produce a cell therapy without doing a cell count. It’s our luck. That’s actually why it was so important to finalize these products because cell counters are everything in this area. If we don’t allow other companies to use our cell counter, the customer won’t buy their product. For us, it makes totally sense that we’re actually doing the automated sample management system because we have the cell counter. Now we assume we have the software. We only need the bioreactors.

We will need some other companies to provide those, at least on the short term, yeah.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Does this mean that going forward, your sales strategy could be more partnership with the larger ones?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, at least a lot of them are asking if we would like to. That’s probably because of the cell counter. For us, we’re never going to do any exclusive deals with any partners. If it makes sense and we can keep our margins, why not? We will need someone to provide bioreactors. We will see that we’ll probably see that we need to do some partnership somehow, yeah.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Makes sense. Great. Thank you so much. If I may ask one last question, on the CAPEX, the $100 million for 2025, 2026, how about long term? Should we expect it to come down to normalize, or would it be sort of the wrong rate?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: It depends, Wei, because if we see something in the field we want to build, we’re probably going to invest because our margins make it possible to do that. Mainly, the increase is to software and the sample management system. If we see more out there, we want to provide for the customers. If they’re asking us for more, why should we decrease it? It wouldn’t make any sense because we’re a growth company. We’ll spend what we need. The margins need to stay high. That’s how we’re seeing it.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Oh, I mean CAPEX.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, that’s more up to you, Kim.

Moderator/Host: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s also what Martin is explaining here, that basically it depends. If we see something that really needs us to invest heavily, like we see software now, like we see the sample management system, of course, we’re going to invest all that we can, so to speak, because basically time is everything here. When we see the opportunity, we have the free cash flow every month that enables us to invest quite a lot. I think, yeah, we expect $100 million for the coming year. Maybe it’s more a year from now, or maybe it’s less. Who knows? It basically depends on what we see in the market.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: OK, fair enough. Thank you. I’ll jump back to the queue.

Moderator/Host: Yeah, we also have a question on the chat. If you could give us the prices for your top five products. I’m not sure how much you can give on that specifically, but I would also have an additional question to this, essentially. If you could explain a bit about the economics of the XM50 and also maybe the sample management system, how would you think about the price points of those in connection to your existing products, at least to some extent, and also from a consumable point of view, maybe to understand the dynamics?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, it’s a good question. You can say first the sample management system, we have to figure out with the customer how much they’re going to save, basically. We’re going to price it from that. Right now, we expect they can cut a lot of costs, maybe up to 80% of their current cost today because this will be fully automated. Labor cost is the biggest cost for these customers. With respect to the margins, we’re never going to invest or produce anything which is not at the same level or better for us. That’s one thing. The pricing range for the new XM products is in $80,000 to $130,000. That’s basically XM. We have a little cheaper product. NC is in the range of $20,000 to $45,000.

Moderator/Host: OK, so the XM50 would be in the high end of that range you just gave us. How should we think of that?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yes, they will be in the high end. The whole system, the sample management system, will be way higher, of course. We expect that to be the most expensive at all. That’s going to cost them a lot because they’re saving a lot. That’s the idea. The price exactly, we haven’t figured yet because we have to get the feedback first. It’s going to be modular. If you need, you can see at the, if you go back, actually, Kim, and we look at the sample management system here, we have an example of four bioreactors. Some customers are running 100 bioreactors. We can basically just keep adding to this system. We’re probably going to charge per module. You would probably expand the bioreactor area modules. It depends how many modules they need, basically.

Moderator/Host: OK. For the XM50 specifically, how would the consumable part work on that to some extent? How would the.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: The same as the 30. You will have the instrument itself, a stain, a rinse, some test kits, some daily system suitability kits, and a service plan. It is basically the same business model as everything else, which is very sustainable, we believe, and the margins will be, yeah, very good.

Moderator/Host: Perfect. Thank you. I think Simon has a follow-up question.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: No, a bit on the same theme. I was just wondering, like, take this bundle deal with the XM50 and the sample management system. I mean, could I get a major order? What can an order look like? I mean, what type of sort of magnitude are we talking about compared maybe to the XM40 or XM30? Maybe not thinking in the numbers, but just like get some.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: The system you see here is going to be more than $1 million. That’s probably the range starting there.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Sorry, I think you broke. Could you repeat?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: This system, the sample management system you see here, is going to be more than $1 million.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Very good. Thank you.

Moderator/Host: Perfect. Maybe speaking about margins, you also had a very high gross margin in the second half of the last financial year. Could you talk a bit about the drivers behind that and how sustainable that is coming into this coming financial year and going forward, especially considering the way that you’re pricing some of the new products as well? It sounds like that’s not going to be a drag, at least from that point of view.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: No, no, you’re right.

Moderator/Host: Yeah, you’re right. Yes. As we also discussed earlier, I think the best way to see this is on a full-year basis. Because naturally, when we do our year-end procedures and so on, we basically adjust for any uncertainties we incalculated in the numbers during the year. I think to get the best idea is to check the full-year numbers and not just the Q3 or the Q4. OK, understood. Maybe on the staff cost, which was somewhat high as well, and we talked briefly upon it before in terms of the one-off cost to some extent, the $12 million that you saw. How should we think of staff cost into the next financial year, especially considering you, I think you mentioned this yourself before, you had 184 people on average employed throughout the year.

You essentially ended up 170, so actually down year-on-year relative to where you ended last year. Give us a bit of feedback on that.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Yeah, yeah. To do it simple, think of it that we have the full staff cost of 184 people this year, and then add on to that the $12 million in restructuring cost. When we look into the coming year, we start out the year with 170. As you can imagine, we start quite lower than what you see on average during the year.

Moderator/Host: Perfect. All right. I think Bradley has a follow-up. Go ahead.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Thank you. You have more than enough growth drivers, Martin and Kim, with the XM platform, with bioprocessing and automation markets, et cetera. Just this sample management, at a very high level, are we talking about a new total addressable market to add on for the group, and maybe just a ballpark figure regarding timing of commercialization for you, please?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, it will be a total new market for us because we’re basically going from being a cell counter company to a solution-based company, including software. When it’s ready, it depends on the feedback we get next week. Maybe we’re totally wrong and no one wants it. We don’t believe that. What’s important for us now is to basically get the feedback and then finalize the product. Of course, we would like to commercialize this product in 2026, the calendar year. Again, it’s not something we can promise today.

Moderator/Host: All right, perfect. We have a question from Christian Terhallen.

Björn, Analyst: Yes, thank you. Hi, Martin and Kim. Christian from Danske Bank. Maybe it could sound like a follow-up here on software in general. Maybe if you look three to five years ahead, how should we view software as an earning stream, a potential new pillar, just to sort of understand how it would fit in when you have service, you have consumables, instruments, et cetera? How potential do you see in software?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Of course, that’s an area where we see a lot of potential. I think we’re going to sell it as we do with the service plan, a yearly fee for each instrument you need to connect to our system. Basically, this is an area because our vision is basically to become more a software company in the future. We like the margins, but also if you want to automate, everything starts with software. We hope we can become a software company with nice hardware. How much it’s going to be is difficult to say. It’s all about install base as well. Our idea is that a new product from ChemoMetec will come with one software license in the future on the Excitomatic (XM) platform specifically. We hope that it’s going to be like our service revenue stream. It’s going to scale as we go. It’s difficult to predict.

I think it’s too early. We really want to be more into software than we are today. That’s for sure.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: OK, thank you.

Moderator/Host: Yeah, I’ll just remind people to raise their hand if they have any questions. I think we have another few minutes at least. Maybe just on the full-year guidance that you provided, if you could give us a bit more flavor on some of the assumptions behind that, especially like low and high end to some extent. I think you alluded to in your commentary as well, but also you said the same in connection with the Q3 results that you are seeing some uncertainty in the market as well, and whether that has played into especially the other instrument sales in Q4 to some extent in terms of that volatility we saw there. If there’s anything to be cautious of going into next year, specifically at the beginning of the year, if there’s any facing to be aware of from that point of view.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Do you want me to take it, Kim?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yes. I think here it’s also about saying we have the cell and gene therapy market itself, which are using a lot of our NC products. We have the automation market, and we have bioprocessing. Of course, we’re expecting still some growth from cell and gene therapy on the NC products. On top of that, we hope for some growth, of course, from automation and the bioprocessing area. That has been some of the thoughts behind what we have done here. Also, with the validations, we’re trying to say how much can we count in, how much do we believe we can actually close, of course. That’s basically how we did the guidance. It is a difficult field because some customers, it’s not important for them to close next quarter, for example. It’s more about getting the right product. For them, they’re not in a rush.

We don’t want to push them. It is difficult making these guidance. Of course, we are very much aware of how we’re doing on the new products and the existing products.

Moderator/Host: OK, nothing to sort of be aware of in terms of the year being more back and loaded relative to sort of like considering some of the comments you have around sort of macro uncertainty that you’ve seen in the latter part of the year and whether that plays into an uncertainty, especially at the beginning of the coming year.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, and it’s a good point. Of course, the macroeconomics is very important here because many of our customers in cell and gene therapy are relying on funding. As well as the tariffs, it can be. When something like what happened in April happens, our customers get hesitant to acquire new equipment. We did see some hesitant customers back then. As you can see in our guidance, we expect it to become better this year. The cell and gene therapy market is very sensitive to the funding levels. That’s also why we want to move into automation and bioprocessing because they are more established. These customers are generating billions of dollars in revenue, which will help us as well, of course.

Moderator/Host: Thank you, Ludvig. Have a follow-up. Go ahead.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Thank you. In the annual report, you highlight that you’ve seen significant demand for Excitomatic in Denmark. Are you able to share what type of projects this relates to? Maybe what area? Is it cell therapy or anything else?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: No, it’s a combination of cell therapy and bioprocessing. The split is probably 50/50.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Perfect. Thank you. Another one on the nuclear counter sales, which has been a bit slower in the last two quarters, I think. Is this related to funding? When would you expect a reacceleration here? How is the funnel looking for nuclear counters currently?

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Yeah, we still have a lot of these ongoing trials on NC products. We still are expecting some revenue from that area for sure. The thing is, if you look at our new technology, then of course, if you look 10 years ahead, we do expect many of our customers to be on the XM platform. Here now, many customers are going through clinical trials. No one is going to change that, basically. They want to stay on the NC products. We are still expecting a decent amount of revenue from that area as well.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Perfect. Thank you very much.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: You’re welcome.

Moderator/Host: I also think we are out of time, at least compared to what was scheduled. Unless there’s a last question, and maybe did I just see something on the chat? Yeah, this one last one, maybe from the chat. What % of sales is your largest customer today? Also, largest single customer, DROC, if possible. Thanks.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: I’m not going to mention DROC, but below 5%.

Moderator/Host: Below 5%. OK, yeah. Perfect. I think that concludes the call. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: Perfect. Thank you for your time. Take care.

Multiple Analysts, Various, Nordea, ABG, Danske Bank, SAP: Thank you. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you.

Martin, CEO, ChemoMetec: You too.

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