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Standard BioTools Inc. (LAB)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 3, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Fluidigm Third Quarter 2016 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Ms. Ana Petrovic, Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Ana Petrovic

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Fluidigm third quarter 2016 earnings conference call. At the close of the market today, Fluidigm released financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2016. During this call, we will review our results and provide commentary on recent commercial activity and market trends. Following these comments, we will host a Q&A session. Presenting from Fluidigm today will be Chris Linthwaite, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Vikram Jog, our Chief Financial Officer. The call is being recorded and the audio portion will be archived in the Investors section of our website. During the call and subsequent Q&A session, we will make forward-looking statements about events and circumstances that have not yet occurred, including plans and projections for our business, future financial results and market trends and opportunities. Examples of these forward-looking statements include expected changes to our commercial and organizational structure, and business strategies and the anticipated impacted of those changes, expected timing for releases and new products, changes in competitive dynamics, potential applications and growth drivers for our products and business, cash management and other financial plans. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from currently anticipated events or results. Information about these risks and uncertainties and other information affecting our business and operating results are contained in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, and June 30, 2016 and our other filings with the SEC. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 to be filed with…

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

Thank you, Ana. Good afternoon, everyone. As you may be aware, last month, we announced Gajus Worthington’s departure from Fluidigm. On behalf of the board, management and everyone at Fluidigm, I thank Gajus for his tremendous contributions over the last 17 years. He was a visionary for the company. I’m both honored and humbled to walk in Gajus’ footsteps and wish him well in his future endeavors. He will continue to support us in advisory capacity. Before commenting on our third quarter performance, on a personal note, I'm thrilled and energized by the opportunity to lead Fluidigm into the next chapter of the story. Since joining in August, I've made some preliminary assessments and begun moving swiftly to enact a number of needed changes. More details will follow on this front. As an industry participant, I had the opportunity to study Fluidigm for a number of years, particularly as it pioneered the single-cell genomics market. I was impressed by its audacity to invest and develop new markets, pioneering and punching above its weight class in many respects. I also saw things that I thought could be improved, namely, capital deployment, discipline and follow through on early product successes and the commercial organization. This will change under my leadership. One of the first changes I implemented was the reintegration of the commercial organization as well as a realignment of marketing and sales. As a reminder, last year, we reorganized and added to our commercial organization, building out an applied markets team and a research team. While having two or more commercial teams is a common structure in large companies, I believe Fluidigm is not ready for this split. We currently lack the organizational scale, financial resources and customized value propositions, critical to maximum success. In addition, we believe the reorganization contributed…

Vikram Jog

Analyst

Thanks, Chris and good afternoon, everyone. For the third quarter of 2016, total revenue of $22.2 million was down 23% year-over-year. For the first nine months of 2016, total revenue was $79.4 million, a decrease of 6% year-over-year. Instrument revenue of $9.2 million decreased 39% or $5.9 million year-over-year in the third quarter due to softness in sales across most platforms, driven primarily by lower revenue from genomics instruments. For the first nine months of 2016, total instrument revenue of $36.2 million decreased 15% or $6.6 million compared to the year ago period. Consumables revenue of $8.8 million, which includes IFCs, assays, reagents and antibodies, decreased by 12% or $1.2 million year-over-year in the third quarter, driven primarily by lower revenue from genomics IFCs, partially offset by increased sales from proteomics reagents. For the first nine months of 2016, total consumables revenue of $31.9 million was flat compared to the year ago period. For the third quarter, our genomics analytical IFC pull-through dragged moderately below its historical range of $25,000 to $35,000 per system per year. Our genomics preparatory IFC pull-through tracked substantially below its historical range of $15,000 to $25,000 per system per year and our proteomics consumables pull through tracked slightly below its historical range of $50,000 to $70,000 per system per year. Total service revenue of $4.2 million increased by 19% or approximately $665,000 year-over-year in the third quarter. For the first nine months of 2016, service revenue of $11.1 million increased by 23% or approximately $2 million compared to the year ago period. Product revenue of $18 million by customer which excludes service revenue for the third quarter of 2016 was as follows; product revenue from research customers was $11.9 million, down approximately 23% or $3.6 million year-over-year, mainly due to broad weakness in instrument sales,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Sung Ji Nam from Avondale. Your line is open.

Sung Ji Nam

Analyst

First though - first off if I could ask a clarification. Did you say that the high throughput IFC will be available in December of this year? Both the small cell as well as the medium cell?

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

Hi Sung Ji, this is Chris. Yes, we did say - I did say that, yeah.

Sung Ji Nam

Analyst

And then in terms of - for the commentary for Helios, you talked about some competitive dynamics there, this is kind of the first time we're hearing direct competition for that particular product, was wondering what kind of technologies are some of the competitive products to that particular platform?

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

Let me make sure I clarify, could you just repeat which area in particular?

Sung Ji Nam

Analyst

For Helios in general. Are there different competitors for applied markets versus life sciences, or…?

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

No, I wouldn’t look at it that way. I think as you know this is really developing a new category in the high parameter space. So what you see is in the academic market a willingness to adopt the technology to explore and build out of capabilities, and test and build methods around it. For the applied markets, it's more about - there are substitutional alternatives and they’re using conventional methods for doing more limited analyte-based or single or handfuls of analytics or analyte-based protections. And so there's a higher burden I think of evidence you have to prove to get folks to make that commitment and applied market settings. So I don't think it's a new competitive dynamic per se it's just more of a sophisticated understanding of what it takes to be successful over the long period of time in the applied markets with the new emerging technology.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Brokmeier from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.

Bryan Brokmeier

Analyst

You indicated that all three growth drivers of the new product supply market consumer revenue and single seller were all down. Where is the biggest shortfall and as you look at your pipeline or other information which areas are you most confident will stabilize or improve in the near term and which may be a little bit more challenging to reaccelerate?

Vikram Jog

Analyst

Hey Brian, this is Vikram, as we had indicated the biggest shortfall was on the Helios side and we've talked about the dynamics that affected Helios during the quarter, we talked about the several systems that was stuck in the procurement process and some lengthening cycles particularly as they apply to the applied business based on different customer characteristics and expectations. And lastly we've talked about the beginnings of some kind of competitive headwind in that area as well. The other dynamic we talked about was in the genomic analysis chip business during the year, I'm sorry during the quarter and we believe that was mostly due to timing of large customer orders?

Bryan Brokmeier

Analyst

And which one can you reaccelerate, are you confident you can reaccelerate in the near term?

Vikram Jog

Analyst

Let me answer the question little differently. In terms of the trend line on the genomic analysis, we believe based on our assessment in Q3 that should go back to Q3 trend line.

Bryan Brokmeier

Analyst

Can you provide some color around the delayed 800 small cell high throughput chip to December and are you able to provide an update on the 10,000 cell chip which is planned for early 2017.

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

Hi, this is Chris, maybe I will take a little bit crack at that. So first on the 10,000 chip, I'll take it backwards. So going forward we're not going to provide any forward looking statements related to new product development until the product is ready for launch. So at this stage unfortunately I’m not going to comment in a meaningful way about the 10,000 chip. On the HT chips, I think I characterize the situation, there are some very modest - they were kind of going to come out in the market sequentially. So, we had some new insight as we were going through the final stages of validation of that technology and they’re preparing it for market release, and so we got to the advanced scale up phase, we realized the new insights. We stick those insights, we’re really excited of the potential the chip going out and just pushed out the two chips sequentially based upon the first chip being [indiscernible].

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Quirk from Piper Jaffray. Your line is open.

Alex Nowak

Analyst

Great. Good afternoon everyone. This is actually Alex Nowak filling in for Bill today. So Chris just a couple high level questions for you. The first one is when you think you'll complete the planning for the action plan for the business and then share those results with the investor community and along with that when you plan to reinstate the 2016 guidance or issue 2017 guidance.

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

I'll tell you, this is so important, frankly that we need to take over much time the required to make sure we get it right. So at this stage I'm not going to give a forward looking statement if you will about when we'll come back out with that prepared plan. Clearly we need to work on those that are very swift pace we already are working on at a very swift pace. We know there's a lot of implications behind it. So there's no advantages to being slow in this process. So we'll come out as soon as we're ready. With regards to 2016 I wouldn’t be speculating about when the day would be to come back with any more information about 2016 and I know 2017 there are also some people working on in parallel and will come out when we’re ready.

Alex Nowak

Analyst

And then another high level and then and then another follow up question. How is the moral with the employees over Fluidigm based on the recent results, are you having any trouble retaining personnel or recruiting new employees. And just goes along with the previous question but do you plan to have a global meeting with the Fluidigm employees to unveil your plan once complete?

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

So I tell you right now as a new member of the Fluidigm, and there's a number of new members I think I'm just as excited even more excited now that I've been inside the organization and seen the potential. I've always characterized and I believe still today its full potential has not been realized. And so I think from a perspective of attracting talent. I don't see a problem from that perspective once we come out with a very clear roadmap in what we're going to be doing next. I think there will be many people that would be very excited about the potential this technology and realizing how we're going to lock all of these dimensions of our business going forward. From a turnover perspective there's not been a meaningful change in the trend lines related to our quarterly turnover, we do track that information, we look at both the voluntary and involuntary turnover. And so far we've not seen any particular changes in those trend lines. But in all seriousness I mean this is an organization that wants to win that wants to be associated with success, no one here is satisfied with performance of the prior quarter, no one is satisfied with the trend line that we've established for this year and for the last few quarters. So, I would just characterize the organization is really I think thirst - there's a thirst for making sure that we're all aligned rallied around very clear in what we're going to work first, second and third. I think the management team’s obligation to get that information out as quickly as possible. It's quite likely that we you know a series of meetings I've already held town hall meetings at each one of operations. And a chance to meet with almost all of our colleagues around the world and I've seen as I've looked them in the eyes I see nothing but positive energy and excitement about the future. But we owe them specifics and we'll come back to that soon.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Doug Schenkel from Cowen and Company. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi, this is Adam on for Doug, thanks for taking my questions. In your prepared remarks you provided some color on the European and Asian geographies but I was wondering if you could do the same for the US which decreased by 8% year over year, were there any notable dynamics in this region that you noticed in Q3. Thanks.

Vikram Jog

Analyst

This is Vikram, so the dynamics in the US I think we're not as acute as the ones we talked about for Europe. But in the US we had same dynamic from salesforce issue of the applied research split that we spoke about in our prepared remarks. But I would say that the effect in other geographies was a lot more pronounced.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And you also mentioned in your remarks there are several large initiatives that are appearing in the news lately that can use single cell approaches such as the Human Cell Atlas. Can you provide any color on what role you believe Fluidigm will have in these large initiatives or is it too early to tell? Thank you.

Chris Linthwaite

Analyst

So, I think I’ll take a crack at that. So thanks for the question Adam. With regards to the various initiatives I think we've had a really I think I won’t call it a privileged position but we've had a special position with the KOLs in the market, key opinion leaders, developing and leading the initiatives. I think a few were participating in the CZI, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative launch unveiling, you’ve actually seen a picture of one of our chips held as an example of the promise of the technology and what the initiative is all about. They did that without us having to position that sale -- that picture with them. But clearly we’ve involved in the steering committees in the commission of the teams that are organizing the work groups around how this works in the meantime. So as a pioneer in the space, we will and should continue to be a major market participant in this initiative, so we're super excited about it, we've got a group of people who are working on how to make our tools available and modifying any value propositions that are important for those groups as the work stage evolves and how the work is going to be delineated or shared around the world.

Operator

Operator

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would like to now turn the conference back to an Ana Petrovic, Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Ana Petrovic

Analyst

We'd like to thank everyone for attending our call, a replay of this call will be available on the investor section of our website. This concludes our call and we look forward to the next update following the close of the fourth quarter 2016. Good afternoon everyone.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day, you may all disconnect.