Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (PACB) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day. And welcome to PacBio's Second Quarter of 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Also, please be aware that today's call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Caylene Parrish from Gilmartin Group. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to PacBio's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Mark Van Oene, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Gibson, Chief Financial Officer, and Christian Henry, PacBio board member and advisor. Earlier today, we issued a press release outlining the financial results we'll be discussing on today's call, a copy of which is available on the Investors section of our website at www.pacb.com or as furnished on Form 8-K, available on the Securities and Exchange Commission website at www.sec.gov. A copy of our earnings presentation is also available on the Investors section of our website. On today's call, we will make forward-looking statements including, among others, statements providing predictions, estimates, expectations, and guidance. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because they are subject to assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or discussed. Please review our SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-Q and 10-K and our press releases, to better understand the risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ. We disclaim any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. We also present certain financial information on a non-GAAP basis, which is not prepared under a comprehensive set of accounting rules and should only be used to supplement an understanding of the company's operating results as reported under U.S. GAAP. Reconciliations between historical U.S. GAAP and non-GAAP results are presented in our earnings release, which is available on the Investors section of our website. For future periods, we're unable to reconcile non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP operating expenses without unreasonable effort due to the uncertainty regarding, among other matters, certain acquisition-related items that may arise during the year. A recording of today's call will be available shortly after the live call in the Investors section of our website. Those electing to use the replay are cautioned that forward-looking statements may differ or change materially after the completion of the live call. I will now turn the call over to Christian.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Earlier today, we announced that I am stepping down as President and Chief Executive Officer of PacBio and that Mark Van Oene will lead the company as President and Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. I will remain on the Board of Directors and become an advisor to Mark as he drives PacBio's strategy forward. Mark joined PacBio shortly after I did, and in that time, he has led the R&D operations and commercial organizations. His deep understanding of the genomics and clinical markets will be invaluable to the company as we move deeper into supporting clinical sequencing around the globe. Additionally, his ability to successfully lead strong teams will ensure that PacBio executes well into its future. I'm proud of what we have accomplished over the nearly 6 years that I have had the privilege of leading PacBio. We have developed and launched groundbreaking new long-read sequencers that have dramatically improved the scale and economics of long-read sequencing. These platforms are enabling researchers and clinicians to dramatically improve their ability to understand the impact of genetic variation on disease, moving us closer to achieving our mission of enabling the promise of genomics to improve human health. Finally, I want to thank our employees, customers, and collaborators for their support. I look forward to advising Mark as he leads the company into its next phase of growth and continuing to serve on the Board of Directors. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mark. Mark?

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of the team, thank you, Christian, for your 6 years of leadership. I'm honored and excited to step into this seat, and I'm grateful for the support of you, our leadership team, and Board who I have been working closely with to execute the seamless transition. Since joining in 2021 as Chief Operating Officer, I had the pleasure of leading the R&D organization that built the Revio and Vega instruments, and more recently oversaw development and rollout of the multi-use SPRQ-Nx chemistry. My recent commercial leadership focus has leveraged the strength of our clinical account engagement, which has proven particularly effective in the EMEA region. Looking ahead, my priorities will be directly built on this foundation, taking what's worked in EMEA and scaling it globally, driving SPRQ-Nx adoption across accounts, and growing our understanding of disease biology and biomarker discovery by enabling greater HiFi throughput, cost efficiency, and data access. I'm energized by the multiple catalysts in front of us and confident in what's ahead as we take PacBio into its next phase of growth. Part of that next phase means operating with a leaner team focused on our highest priority growth drivers. I want to address a targeted reorganization we initiated late last week. We are integrating our marketing organization more closely with the rest of our commercial organization to ensure we maximize the growth opportunities we continue to see in the clinical market. This new aligned structure will sharpen our focus and strengthen our support for our clinical customers. We also reviewed the broader organization to reduce management spans and layers. Importantly, I want to reiterate that none of our key R&D platform projects were impacted by this reorganization. Turning to discuss our recent performance and where I see the business going from here. The second quarter was highlighted by the full global commercial rollout of our new SPRQ-Nx chemistry. Access to our SPRQ-Nx beta program was in high demand in Q1, and feedback was highly positive as we approached launch. I am pleased to report that customer enthusiasm for SPRQ-Nx has remained strong since full launch. In fact, in June, over a third of our installed base opted into our new consumable software that facilitates usage of SPRQ-Nx, particularly its multi-use capabilities. As a reminder, SPRQ-Nx provides a significant increase in sequencing throughput per run, and new customers are now able to use each SMRT Cell up to 3 times. This improves the economics for our customers and enables us to compete for substantially larger projects where competitive economics are crucial to winning. Many of our high-throughput customers are currently in the process of validating the new multi-use workflows in their own laboratories, and we expect to see them ramping up SPRQ-Nx usage over the coming months. As a result, we believe SPRQ-Nx will be a significant driver of volume in the second half of the year and beyond. Against the backdrop of the SPRQ-Nx launch, our organization continued to execute on key priorities, including growing the evidence base of scientific validation for our HiFi platform through multiple significant publications. We believe these speak to the utility of long-read genome sequencing for rare disease diagnostics. In addition, we continued to make progress commercially. We delivered $39 million in second quarter revenue, a step up from Q1. Total revenue was roughly flat year-over-year, driven by growing consumables and new revenue in Vega placements as we commenced the full rollout of SPRQ-Nx chemistry. Another benefit of the SPRQ-Nx economics is that we saw several customers expanding Revio fleet with multi-system orders to take on larger projects and programs. Additionally, we closed and shipped a significant order for several Revio systems to a new population-scale customer that we expect to begin sequencing in the third quarter. Looking closer at our consumables performance in the quarter, total consumable revenue for the quarter was $20.1 million compared to $18.9 million in the prior year period. We continue to see strong adoption in the clinical market as shipments to clinical customers grew 67% year-over-year and represented a mid-teens percentage of total consumable shipments. We expect clinical shipments to continue growing as customers move to full commercialization mode across our installed base. However, we now expect consumables pull-through for the full year to be $200,000 to $225,000 per Revio system due to the pace of demand we are experiencing today. The narrow range reflects the timing of customer purchases as several accounts that received large Q1 shipments are now working through existing inventory while evaluating the multi-use feature. As we continue to roll out the SPRQ-Nx transition into late 2026 and 2027, we anticipate this range increasing. We expect to see the first wave of SPRQ-Nx consumables reorders in the coming months as accounts work through their inventory. Long term, we expect improved cost-per-genome economics should support higher utilization. Turning to instruments, we sold 20 Revio systems in the quarter. As I previously indicated, we had several multi-unit Revio shipments this quarter. These include a single new-to-PacBio customer, as well as two standing PacBio customers that were looking to further expand their Revio production fleets, which we believe is a testament to the appeal of Revio technology and SPRQ-Nx economics to both new and existing customers. These deals, coupled with the Basecamp opportunity we announced in Q1, signal our entry into larger population-level genomic studies which have been unlocked with SPRQ-Nx. Further, we are now seeing specific clinical customers exit R&D mode and move into more routine production sequencing with our HiFi technology. Overall, 60% of Revio placements in Q2 were to new customers, and 45% of Revio placements in Q2 were sold as a part of multi-instrument purchase orders. Cumulative Revio shipments stand at 366 systems. On Vega, we sold 26 Vegas in the second quarter, compared to 38 in the prior year period. Customer conversations remain constructive, but funding uncertainty in the U.S. continues to constrain new orders. There are two observations that speak to our continued conviction on Vega, despite these headwinds. First, Vega ASP has returned to normalized levels, demonstrating that we can drive demand and capture the Vega system's full value in the market without the promotional pricing offered in Q1. And second, U.S. public health labs, the segment we deliberately built out, purchased Vega instruments this quarter, and we expect more consistent utilization from these accounts as they ramp. Overall, 81% of Vega shipments in Q2 went to new customers. Cumulative Vega shipments stand at 200 systems. Regionally, EMEA continued to grow, and we expect it will remain our fastest-growing region in 2026. Americas revenue declined on academic and government funding constraints, while Asia Pacific consumables also declined as customers worked through existing SPRQ inventory in preparation for the SPRQ-Nx transition. What's encouraging is the reception to SPRQ-Nx. Customers across the region are actively evaluating it ahead of stepping up to volume purchases. And we expect that evaluation activity to convert into more routine ordering as the year progresses. As a reminder, SPRQ-Nx's core advantage is reusing SMRT Cells multiple times. Per genome, U.S. list price drops to $345 per 20x HiFi human genome, a 30% reduction versus our previous SPRQ chemistry achieved without compromising the accuracy or comprehensiveness that makes HiFi valuable. Expanded methylation detection and advances in DeepConsensus, our AI-powered consensus algorithm developed with Google, further improves accuracy, run performance, and the biological information generated from each read. SPRQ-Nx has changed the math for high-throughput Revio customers who have been waiting for long-read sequencing to become economically viable at scale, and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. In the first full month of full commercial rollout, customers have found that HiFi yield is near identical across the first two uses with a slight decline on the third. In June, over a third of our installed base opted into our new software that facilitates usage of SPRQ-Nx. As these customers continue these evaluations, we expect to see an expansion of SPRQ-Nx usage, which will in turn enable more throughput and expand gross margins. We anticipate over half of our installed base will have adopted SPRQ-Nx software by the end of the third quarter and the vast majority to have opted in by year-end. We are also excited to report that we will launch the SPRQ-Nx chemistry on the Vega system later in August. This chemistry will enable higher throughput of up to 90 gigabases per run and lower the DNA input requirements, harmonizing the SPRQ-Nx chemistry across both instruments for consistency of data quality and operations. Turning to the growing validation of our differentiated technology, two recent publications reinforce that HiFi long-read sequencing delivers better, more comprehensive results than the existing standard of care, which typically requires a multi-test process. This scientific validation strengthens our conviction that we can shift the standard of care paradigm entirely, benefiting patients and providers alike. On June 13th, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article called Clinical Long-Read Genome Sequencing for Rare Disease Diagnostics by Bitter et al., which is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for our thesis on the value of long-read sequencing, especially in the clinical setting. Overall, the results were compelling. Concordance between long-read genome sequencing and standard of care was 96.4%. Long-read improved or refined diagnoses in 3.4% of cases, while standard of care only caught variants that long-reads missed in 0.2% of cases. The publication demonstrates that HiFi long-read sequencing is a clinically effective first-tier diagnostic test that improves diagnostic yield while also simplifying the laboratory workflow, reducing turnaround time, and enhancing the overall economics of rare disease diagnostics. Hundreds of millions of people globally have rare diseases, and most of them spend years seeing specialists and being submitted to testing with little resolution to their issues. We believe a publication of this caliber in the New England Journal of Medicine also carries real weight with payers and health systems. It's the kind of evidence that accelerates the transition away from legacy diagnostic workflows to us. The second article was published in Nature Genetics, entitled Near-Perfect Genome Sequencing in Medical Genetics by Sabbagh et al. In the article, the authors proposed that long-read genome sequencing should be considered as one pillar of a broader technological convergence, encompassing diploid genome assembly, pangenome references, and AI-driven variant interpretation, termed near-perfect genome sequencing. They also highlighted the potential of near-perfect genome sequencing across post-natal, pre-natal, and oncological settings while also outlining a staged implementation roadmap toward this one-test paradigm. Like the New England Journal of Medicine article, this article similarly supports the move to the one-test paradigm, given the diagnostic completeness of long-read sequencing technology like HiFi. Beyond rare diseases, we also announced a preprint from the HiFi Solves subfertility consortium in Asia Pacific, which marks the first major study from that group. Subfertility affects around 1 in 6 couples globally, and yet the genetic evaluation most couples receive today is fragmented. Multiple sequential tests often require months or years of evaluation that frequently result in no definitive explanation. The data demonstrates that HiFi genome sequencing can provide a complete view of reproductive genetics in a single workflow, representing another long-term clinical opportunity for us. Additionally, our collaboration to run samples for Basecamp Research has been going very well. Samples are in-house, and we are sequencing and delivering hundreds of samples to Basecamp each week. We expect Basecamp to contribute more meaningfully in 2027 when the majority of the samples will be processed. I'll now turn the call over to Jim. Jim?

Thank you, Mark. I will discuss non-GAAP results, which include non-cash stock-based compensation expenses. I encourage you to review the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures in our earnings press release. Unless otherwise noted, all growth rates are year-over-year. We reported total revenue of $39 million in the second quarter of 2026, compared to $39.8 million in the second quarter of 2025. Instrument revenue in the second quarter was $12.8 million, a decrease of 9% from $14.2 million in the second quarter of 2025, primarily reflecting a lower average selling price driven by customer mix, including lower-priced strategic Revio placements to key accounts and fewer Vega system shipments as academic and government funding constraints continued to pressure capital purchases. We sold 20 Revio systems, up from 15 in the prior year, and 26 Vega systems, down from 38, ending the quarter with cumulative shipments of 366 Revio systems and 200 Vega systems. Turning to consumables, revenue of $20.1 million in the second quarter increased 6% from $18.9 million in the second quarter of 2025, with annualized revenue pull-through per system at approximately $202,000. Consumables revenue increased primarily due to the growth in the installed base and continued utilization of Revio systems, particularly among clinical customers. Growth was partially offset as customers worked through existing inventory and completed SPRQ-Nx workflow validation prior to the broader adoption. Finally, service and other revenue was $6.1 million in the second quarter, compared to $6.7 million in the second quarter of 2025, reflecting continued growth in Revio service contracts as our installed base expanded, offset by lower revenue as we completed a population sequencing program. From a regional perspective, Americas revenue of $17.6 million was down slightly compared to the second quarter of 2025, as ongoing NIH and broader academic funding uncertainty continued to weigh on capital purchasing decisions. Clinical and commercial customer activity remained resilient, and we continued expanding our Vega installed base within public health laboratories. For Asia Pacific, revenue of $7 million decreased 45% compared to the second quarter of 2025, primarily reflecting the conclusion of a significant population sequencing program, continued academic and government funding headwinds, and the lower consumables demand as customers completed SPRQ-Nx workflow validation and worked through existing reagent inventory. EMEA revenue of $14.4 million increased 52% compared to the second quarter of 2025, reflecting continued clinical adoption as hospitals and clinical customers transitioned from pilot programs into routine production, together with growing demand for the Vega platform and a significant strategic multi-system Revio placement supporting a large-scale national genomics initiative. Moving down the P&L, second quarter non-GAAP gross profit of $13.9 million represented a non-GAAP gross margin of 36%, compared to a non-GAAP gross profit of $15.2 million, or a gross margin of 38% in the second quarter of 2025. Non-GAAP gross margin declined primarily due to previously discussed compute cost inflation and lower manufacturing volumes. In addition, gross margin was impacted by $1.1 million in costs associated with transitioning Vega manufacturing in-house from our contract manufacturer. These transition costs are expected to conclude by the end of 2026. Separately, cash outflows were higher due to strategic purchases of memory components to support future production. Importantly, these purchases are largely timing-related, and we now expect to have sufficient memory to support operations through the end of 2026. Non-GAAP operating expenses were $56.1 million in the second quarter of 2026, a 3% decrease from $58.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decline reflects continued expense discipline across the organization while maintaining investment in our highest strategic priorities. Operating expenses in the second quarter included $8.6 million of non-cash share-based compensation compared to $11 million in the prior year period. Regarding headcount, we ended the quarter with 492 employees compared to 485 at the end of 2025 and 491 at the end of the second quarter of 2025. As Mark discussed, we recently initiated a restructuring designed to further align our cost structure with our strategic priorities. This action is expected to reduce our workforce by approximately 40 employees and lower our ongoing operating expense base while preserving investment in our highest priority growth initiatives. Non-GAAP net loss was $41.9 million, representing $0.14 per share in the second quarter of 2026, compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $40 million, representing $0.13 per share in the second quarter of 2025. We ended the second quarter with approximately $236.9 million in unrestricted cash, cash equivalents, and investments, compared with $279.5 million at December 31, 2025. Turning to our full-year outlook. Given the dynamics that Mark cited, we are lowering our revenue expectations for 2026 to $155 million to $165 million. The revised outlook assumes consumables will remain the driver of growth, supported by continued utilization from clinical customers and the expanding Revio and Vega installed base. At the same time, we expect SPRQ-Nx adoption to build progressively through the second half as customers complete workflow validation and transition existing reagent inventories. We continue to assume no meaningful recovery in academic and government funding, particularly in the Americas, and a more gradual recovery in China than we had previously anticipated. We now expect non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 35% to 37% for 2026. This revised outlook reflects temporary Vega manufacturing transition costs of approximately $2.5 million, elevated compute and memory costs, a more gradual SPRQ-Nx adoption curve, and the margin impact of lower-priced strategic Revio placements. Turning to our cash outlook, we expect to end the year with approximately $175 million to $185 million in cash, reflecting our updated revenue outlook, continued investments in SPRQ-Nx, the temporary manufacturing costs, and working capital impacts we discussed today, and the cost reduction initiatives Mark outlined earlier. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be in the range of $215 million to $220 million, a reduction of $5 million from the range we guided in Q1 and down from 2025 levels. Looking ahead, we expect cash burn to step down meaningfully in 2027. In addition to the benefits of our restructuring, which we expect to reduce compensation-related expenses by approximately $15 million to $20 million next year, we expect to realize approximately $15 million to $20 million of additional annual savings as we move past development spending on our high-throughput platform. While these actions significantly improve our cash profile, our outlook also reflects the continued impact of elevated compute costs and a more gradual gross margin improvement than we previously anticipated. As a result, we now expect to achieve cash flow breakeven in 2028 compared to our prior expectation of the end of 2027. Based on our current operating plan, we believe our existing cash resources provide sufficient flexibility to execute our strategic priorities, support the commercialization of our new high-throughput platform, and fund the business through cash flow breakeven. I'll now turn the call back to Mark for closing remarks.

Thanks, Jim. I'm energized about this next chapter for PacBio. The catalysts we've built toward, including SPRQ-Nx full rollout, expanding clinical adoption, and our entry into population-scale genomics are now converging. My focus as CEO is straightforward. Scale is driving growth, sharpen our execution, and run a leaner, more focused organization built around our highest conviction growth drivers. I've spent 5 years in this business, and I understand both its potential and what it takes to realize it. I'm confident in our team, our technology, and our path forward. With that, we'll open the line. Jim and I are available for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question here will come from Kyle Mikson with Canaccord Genuity.

Nice quarter. Christian, it's great working with you over the past several years. There's been the highs and the lows, but it's been overall a really impressive job. Mark, congrats on the role. It's going to be great to see how things progress going forward. So thanks, guys, for everything. Back to the quarter and the questions there. So I guess on the Revios and the Vegas, interesting to see how many are still coming from new customers. I'm just curious how many are clinical customers that would be interesting to see if most of these new customers are clinical in nature and how that's kind of looking and shaping going forward.

Thanks, Kyle. It's going to be fun working with you as well. It's really my pleasure. I'm just going to start, just a quick thank you again to Christian and to recognize his contributions to PacBio. His industry knowledge and experience really has transformed PacBio. We've got a portfolio of products. We've got the commercial scale now, workflows and service, clinical markets, and really obviously building off of that foundation. And he's going to continue to be a great partner to me as he becomes a member of the board or stays a member of the board and advises me through this transition. You're speaking specifically about the Revio and Vegas, and maybe I'll start with Revio, because it was a good rebound for the Revio. As you can see, we shipped 20 Revios this quarter. The majority of those to new customers and some multi-system placements, which I think is a really important part of the SPRQ-Nx thesis, Kyle, to make sure that that economic is driving scaling of existing customers, as well as bringing in new customers. In terms of the clinical adoption, the majority of those are going to clinical accounts. And so we continue to see the momentum in the business there, not just on the growth and consumables, but on the instrument platform. Likewise in the Vega, we had a smaller number than last year, but I think consistent with last quarter's overall Vega units. The majority of these are to brand new customers to PacBio, which again, that was the idea with the Vega platform launch was to decentralize the HiFi sequencing, expose more of the globe to our technology. And so, we continue to do that, and again, Vega is predominantly still smaller targeted applications. In terms of applications, I think what we noted there is the health labs are starting to pick up Vega. So we're starting to see some momentum in wastewater testing and your non-traditional uses of HiFi genome for higher throughput whole genome type applications. So really encouraged by the Vega new customer demand as well as the clinical and public health lab adoption of it.

And our next question will come from Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim.

Thomas on for Subbu. On Revio, you said you placed some boxes to customers doing population-scale sequencing. You gave some comments on the consumables timing. Just thinking about those factors and some clinical accounts, can you just walk us through what you're expecting on pull-through sequentially from here? Just what does the second half look like in terms of third quarter, fourth quarter?

Yes, on the population genome opportunity that we mentioned, we'll disclose who that is when the timing's right for that. So expect for some further updates there. On the clinical customer scaling, this is where you start to see the scaling with much faster uptake of the consumables, again driven with the SPRQ-Nx economics here again. So we expect those to start to implement and scale through the back half of this year. In terms of the overall timing of the SPRQ-Nx and consumables scaling, we are going through this transition. You saw we were relatively flat quarter-over-quarter on our consumables revenue. I would expect that to continue through this next quarter and then start scaling as we get through the back end of this year. These SPRQ-Nx customers are optimizing their workflows, they're getting used to running our SMRT Cells multiple times and hardening the validation of that. And so I expect this transition to last through this quarter and then start to scale towards the back end of the year.

And our next question will come from Jack Meehan with Operon Research.

Mark, congrats on the new role. My question is for Jim. I was wondering if it was possible to talk about gross margins for memory. How much of your supply is locked in now for the second half and 2027? And can you talk about what any incremental headwinds could be if the spot pricing holds? Maybe just on the positive side, you've talked about the multi-use SMRT Cells potentially improving PacBio gross margins. When do you think that's going to start to show up?

Sure, thanks, Jack. So first, let's talk about the memory impact and its implications for this quarter and going on. So, from the standpoint of supply, we are supplied through the end of 2026 based on our current forecast. So we have memory coverage, GPU coverage through then. We'll probably enter the market to start purchasing more memory tail end of this year. So as we're looking, and part of the reason we've adjusted our gross margin guidance down to 35% to 37% is we do expect the memory impact to persist through the rest of this year. We don't have good visibility into '27 yet. That's part of what drove some of the actions that Mark talked about in the restructuring. Number two is the other piece that's actually impacting our margins for the rest of this year is the transition cost with the Vega. So one of the things we're really trying to do is cut costs in the long term as we insource manufacturing and bring down a number of suppliers. So part of that transition, we're incurring some unanticipated costs. However, it's allowing us to accelerate that transition to Vega or in-house manufacturing. So that's something we are doing to help us look a lot better moving into '27. And the third part of your question is, as Mark mentioned, we do expect the SPRQ-Nx ramp to increase more in the latter half of the second half of the year, so that will be offsetting some of those persistent memory costs and those transition costs. So we're excited to get the transition behind us. I think we're excited to see memory stabilize. I don't think we're going to necessarily see a decrease in memory, but I think one of the things we've been impacted by is the fluctuations in spot markets and how that's impacting our supply chain. So that's part of the reason we have some of the unanticipated impacts in the latter half of the year. But I think some of the early indicators are that's starting to stabilize. So...

And our next question will come from Mason Carrico with Stephens.

So on SPRQ-Nx, I guess, could you just talk about the early signals and signs, I guess, that you're seeing from customers on whether that 30% to 40% cost reduction is expanding sample volumes to more than offset that pricing discount and how we should be thinking about maybe the sequential pacing of that playing out as we get into the back half of the year.

Yes, thanks, Mason, for the question. So this SPRQ-Nx launch is critical for us to establish both ourselves in these larger scale programs, which we're seeing the indication of with some of these multi-system Revio deals, but also for that gross margin expansion that you talk about. The 30% price decrease, I do expect us to overcome here as we work through the growth in the back half of this year. And so, I think the timing is relatively short term. We mentioned that we've already seen 1/3 of our customers upgrade the software to enable the SPRQ-Nx and so the demand is there. We have seen in Asia-Pac, the drop in consumables in the second quarter was them burning down their SMRT inventory and getting ready to take on the shipments of SPRQ-Nx at scale. So the early indicators are there, and the excitement is there as well as the opportunity for involvement in some of these larger projects. So we look for that gap to be closed as we work through this quarter and then exit the back end of this year.

And our next question will come from Dan Brennan with TD Cowen.

Pradeep on for Dan. This transition phase with the SPRQ-Nx chemistry on Revio with the existing inventory and the validation phase. Do you similarly expect that with Vega consumables a few months after launch or not so much because that's a different base of customers?

Yes, I don't expect the same dynamic with Vega, mostly because Vega utilization is less than that of the Revio. And so I don't think you'll see the same impact on utilization with Vega. I think what you'll see with Vega is an opportunity for the SPRQ-Nx to expand the application set that Vega is used for. In this launch, we're increasing the throughput of Vega to be able to deliver 90 gigabases of yield versus the 60 gigabases with the on-market version of Vega. And so we do think that that increase in data is going to enable people to start thinking about larger panels of genes, larger amplicon sets, the occasional whole genome, whether that's human or non-human genome. So more than anything, I think the SPRQ-Nx on Vega with the higher throughput and the lower DNA input requirements is going to open up the applications that we see on that and drive utilization upwards.

And our next question will come from David Westenberg with Piper Sandler.

This is Skye on for Dave. Thanks for the question. Maybe just more generally, as the industry is shifting now towards multiomics, can you talk about the advantage of PacBio's long-read technology? What are you seeing from your biopharma partners? What are they looking for? Where are the demands there?

Yes, so this is where I really do believe that we are most differentiated. We have the most comprehensive clinical genome or whole genome that lets us look at, if you think about multiomics in the sense of different variant classes. So we're seeing a lot of interest in the repeat expansions and the structural variation that you see and then the diploid genomics that lead to the publications like the Near-Perfect Genome paper. The methylation is starting to expand in knowledge and the reference sets around that, and the methylation signatures are starting to expand the desire for the methylation that comes with our genome analysis. So in the multiomic sense of the DNA, we're starting to see a lot of progress including that chromatin architecture. In the RNA world, the desire for isoforms and looking at the impact of isoforms across development and conditions is continuing to increase, which is driving the transcriptomics field into more of a transcriptomics rather than gene expression field. And so the combination of DNA and RNA is working really well for us. This is, when I talk about how important it is for us to drive our data into better data sets and model training in the future. It is the comprehensiveness and the multiomic nature of the data that makes this so attractive to people. How can they look at something that's going to be future-proofed so they can go there and use our data for AI model development as we've seen with the Basecamp deal and work there. So comprehensiveness and quality and multiomics is only becoming more and more prevalent in the conversations that we have with biopharma and/or just the biology research community.

And our next question will come from Tycho Peterson of Jefferies.

This is Lauren on for Tycho. Mark, congrats on the new role. Mine is around the guidance. So you lowered it since last quarter, but that's despite having the SPRQ-Nx launch on both systems now, ramp in the back half of the year, new population-scale customer, accelerating Revio placements. Could you just talk about what's not showing up in these positive signals that resulted the confidence to come down?

Yes, thanks for the question. I do believe that the guidance that we provided, the $155 million to $165 million, does reflect the confidence in our ability to execute. While we do see the traction and a lot of positivity, this is in the context of the SPRQ-Nx transition, and so I think because of that, I think it's appropriate that we have this guidance range on the revenue side. The impact on the cost of compute that Jim was talking about is real, and while we're looking at different ways to mitigate that and we've done some pre-purchasing of that, I do think that the guidance on the gross margin is also better reflected with just the uncertainty that we have and some of the real headwinds that he fixed there. So to me, it's the SPRQ-Nx transition headwinds and the cost of compute headwinds that we just want to make sure that we're properly accounting for. And because of that, we've ended up lowering or extending, sorry, our expectations on cash flow breakeven to 2028. And so I think we take a really balanced view, given the backdrop of what we're working through over the back half of this year.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Luke Sergott with Barclays.

Mark, congratulations. Long time coming. Christian, I hope we still see you at AGBT, perennial on the dance floor out there. I guess just on the commercial rework, what spurred the changes and what's the new look going to be like? I mean, I understand that you want to be more focused and agile for the clinical customers, but you guys have AI customers now, you have POPSEQ customers. Just what other investments are you going to need to make or what's that structure going to look like?

Yes, thanks, Luke, and I'm sure we'll play some beer pong. The clinical team is doing really well, and it's really leveraging what we're seeing in Europe and the clinical traction we're getting in Europe, and how can we more effectively take that out in a really positive combined motion into the rest of the world. So the restructuring was a lot around the marketing organization to really focus them on the clinical workflows, the clinical marketing, how we're going to drive the understanding of the usefulness of HiFi in and around that clinical market. And so it is really alignment of marketing and sales motions and sales towards that clinical opportunity that we're really starting to see the early stages of success in Europe and then expanding that. So don't expect a massive change. We're going to continue to always support the plant and animal and the research community if the research budgets start to unlock here. But it's really just the education and awareness that's required right now for us to focus on that clinical opportunity. Talking about biopharma and data strategies, those are large, lumpier deals that are handled more in a business development or corporate development piece of the company. So I don't see that as a major distraction. I really think it's just a united force making sure that we're stepping into this clinical opportunity that I see ahead for us.

And this will conclude our question-and-answer session in addition to today's call. Thank you all for attending and participating in today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a great day.