Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Seer Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference maybe recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Carrie Mendivil, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Earlier today, Seer released financial results for the quarter and year ending December 31, 2021. If you have not received this news release or if you'd like to be added to the company's distribution list, please send an email to investor@seer.bio. Joining me today from Seer is Omid Farokhzad, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder and David Horn, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that management will make statements during this call that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties appears in the section entitled Forward-Looking Statements in the press release Seer issued today. For a more complete listing and description, please see the Risk Factors section of the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, Seer disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any financial projects or forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise. This conference call contains time sensitive information and is accurate only as of the live broadcast, February 28, 2022. With that, I'd like to turn the call to Omid.

Thanks, Carrie and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. 2021 was a momentous year for Seer. We had a strong first year as a publicly traded company with the commercial launch of our product and tangible progress across all areas of our strategic plan. These significant efforts resulted in $6.6 million in revenue for the year and laid the foundation for broad release of the proteograph product suite. We shipped 17 instruments to our collaborators and customers by the end of 2021. We completed the first two phases of our commercialization strategy and onboarded lighthouse customers across multiple market segments, which paves the way for future market adoption and exemplification of the unique capabilities of our technologies. We demonstrated the power of this technology together with our customers with more than 25 abstracts across a number of scientific conferences. We established partnerships with industry leading mass spec providers, Thermo Fisher, [indiscernible], and presented results on our joint workflows. We made great strides in strengthening teams across our organizations, including commercial, operations, quality, data science, and R&D. We made significant progress, building our operation infrastructure, including systems and lab space and executed contracts with key suppliers and partners to support our growing customer base globally, all while minimizing disruption to the business during the COVID pandemic. We also continue to build our board of directors adding strong operating leaders, representing a cross section of industries, company sizes and market segments. I couldn't be more pleased with the progress we made in 2021 and are more confident than ever as we're squarely focused on the customer experience and the broad release of the Proteograph product suite. I had previously shared at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in early January that we officially entered into broad release and have built a strong pipeline…

Thanks, Omid. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $3.1 million compared to $336,000 in the fourth quarter of 2020. This brought total revenue for the full year 2021 to $6.6 million compared to $656,000 in 2020. The increase in fourth quarter revenue was primarily due to sales of products related to the Proteograph product suite. Product related revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $3 million including related party revenue of $1.2 million in consistent of sales of SP100 instruments, consumable kits and platform evaluations Related party revenue of $1.2 million represents product sales to prognomic. Grant and other revenue from our SBIR grant from the NIH and research related collaborations was $34,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021, representing a decrease in these activities from the fourth quarter of 2020 total gross profit inclusive of grant and other revenue was $1.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, representing a gross margin of 47%. Total gross profit for the year was $3.4 million representing a gross margin of 52%. Full year gross margin has benefited from strong consumable kit sales, platform evaluations, service projects and grant revenue. In 2022, we expect gross margins will be dampen due to an anticipated larger percentage of instrument sales, a significant reduction in service and grant revenue and our continued investment in and scaling of our operations. As we have discussed previously, we continue to target long term gross margins between 70% and 75%. Total operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $21.3 million compared to $13.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Total operating expenses for 2021 were $74.9 point million inclusive of $25.9 million in stock based compensation compared to $34.3 million inclusive of $7.3 million in stock based compensation in 2020. Research and…

Thanks, David. As we move forward in pursuit of our vision this year, we will continue to drive execution against our core strategies. I'm excited and humbled to lead such an amazing team. I'm inspired by the passion, the hard work and the dedication that has allowed us to commercialize such a transformative product. I believe we have a technology, the team and the strategy to bring the next phase in omics to labs around the globe. We're paving the way for a portfolio of products that will open a new gateway to the proteo. We look forward to sharing updates on our progress over the course of the year. And with that, we'll now open it up for questions.

[Operator instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Tycho Peterson with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please. Go ahead.

Hey, thanks. I'd like to start with the guide, wondering if you could just give us any more color in terms of how you're thinking about instruments versus consumables, and then you did call out a step up in OpEx. Curious if you could just help us frame the magnitude of how you think about that step up and anything you could point to in terms of where the dollars are going, how much is going to the commercial channel versus R&D?

Sure. Tycho. It's David. Thanks for the question. In terms of instrument versus consumable, we do feel like it's going to again be majority instrument relative to consumable. We're not going to give you exact percent, but again, I think it would be something we still see good consumable pull through in revenue, but again, we think it's going to tip the balance towards instruments next year. And then in terms of OpEx, again, we're not going to give you a specific guidance on that, but again, I think we are going to continue to see good investment across the organization. Both in terms of operations and commercial, I think that's probably going to be the key investment area and then product development, we're continuing to invest in our product pipeline and then obviously R&D to kind of continue to seed the efforts and investments for long term growth. But again, we do see OpEx increasing, obviously headcounts increased and we will again be prudent with those investments. We feel like we're very well capitalized today to execute on the plan

And then a follow up on just the roadmap. You're currently doing around 2000 Plex. Some of your competitors are higher Plex. I'm just curious if you could talk about plans to increase multiplexing over time? Is there a roadmap you can kind of point to in terms of where you might go from a multiplexing perspective.

Tycho, thank you. So from a product roadmap perspective, Tycho, we're focused really on kind of three areas in the near term and then some additional areas a bit further out. In the near term, as we put the product in the customer's hand, the feedback that we receive which by the way, obviously mirrors the programs that we have internally were that customers were looking for increased throughput and the Proteograph really significantly adds the ability to do larger and larger studies, but you still have some limitation at the mac spec level. So they want increased throughput even at the mass spec level. So that was one. Second area was reduction in sample volume so that if you have a pressure sample, especially a buyer bank sample, you can start off with a with a lower amount, and then third was increased content. And by that I mean, a larger of protein IDs on a per sample basis. Remember when we talk about in Seer, when we talk about protein IDs, we're talking about the protein that are identified in a given sample at a 1% false discovery rate. This is an important point. So for example, the five nanoparticle panel that we have, if you look at it across the various different studies, they can identify, to date, we have identified, and we've actually discussed that title at your own conference just a couple of months ago, north of 12,000 proteins. And that number by the way is increasing. So for example, if you just look at the Alzheimer study that I alluded to in my prepared remarks, in that study, we're now north of 5,500 proteins inclusive of some protein variants. So I think from a content perspective, Tycho, the current technology allows us to access…

Okay. That's very helpful. And then maybe just one last one, before I hop off, cost per sample, as we think about early customers scaling up, has that come up as an issue at all? And where do you think cost per sample needs to go ultimately to really drive the market?

Look, I think your customers are always going to say, I like it to be cheaper, but if you look at the price point it's exactly where these customers are used to spending in getting the kind of content on the genomic front. So the product is priced somewhere between an exome and a genome. Other products in the market are priced very similarly, but that all said, the Seer is really the only solution that can give him the unbiased proteomics and the ability access new content at that scale. So I think the price point is right Tycho. I'm not sure if there's the going to be a lot of pressure for us to reduce the price at this point, but I think what you're going to see over time is additional value being given to the customer in terms of additional content that they get for the price point that we're at.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tejas Savant with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open, please. Go ahead.

Hey guys, good evening. Just a couple of quick ones for me to kick things off. Omid, can you share some color on the order funnel now that the broad release is underway? And where are you seeing the most interest?

Yeah, so Tejas, we went into the broad release with a very meaningful interest and a pipeline of demand for the product and we're seeing interest from other regions other than US, although I think for 2020, you can expect most of the revenue to be from US. It's a little bit early Tejas for us to discuss what person of revenue is going to be from outside of the US. But if you think about that funnel of demand right now, there's basically three buckets obviously the largest and really the most significant portion of it is the US demand. In Europe, we're going to have a direct commercial operation. We also have Evotech at the center of excellence. So that's an area that we're very focused on. And then also from Asia and Asia is going to be an indirect through our distributor which is in life medical in China, and then through our COE in Korea. So I think Tajas, the demand is coming globally. I think you can assume most of that the sales in 2022 are going to be driven in US.

That's helpful.

Yeah. The only thing I would add Tycho is just obviously we're seeing interest broadly across commercial and academic, just given the way these folks tend to operate, we do think the commercial folks will probably be a little more quicker to be able to fund and act than the academics. And so we do kind of expect more sales to commercial organizations over the course of the year.

Got it. David, that's actually a great segue into my follow up here. On biopharma R&D spending, are you seeing any sense of some hesitancy around CapEx sales and on your point on academic, I know you've talked about commercial being the dominant portion of the funnel here, but any signs of sales cycles elongating further thanks to Omicron or not really?

Why don't I take the first part of it Tajas in terms of just CapEx demand from biopharma. No, we continue to have good interest Tejas. We haven't in our own experience to date seen any significant pullback. People, again, these sales cycles take a while, right, but again, there is still interest in the technology and interest to explore and potentially acquire it. So we haven't seen any broader macro funding impact from biopharma at this stage. And then your second part of your question Tajas.

That was on just academic customer trends any elongation of sales cycles there, thanks to and omicron so on or not really?

Tejas, I would say look, the academic folks the cell cycle is going to be longer anyway, just by virtue of the fact that the whole grant cycle, but I think that they impact a bit more because in their case they also have to access, they have to get access to samples in some cases, not so much in US Tejas, but at these exUS we also have kind of difficulty getting to them for install. So I think that if anything, the academics are probably impacted a little bit more but the cycle we had expected to be longer for academic than pharma. I think that's going to be the case. I think if I look at the funnel of demand, kind of more of a split down the middle in terms of pharma and academic folks.

Got it. Helpful. And then David, just one quick question for you on the guide here. Can you share a little bit color around what you're assuming for instrument sales to the proteogenomics consortium here? I think Omid, you mentioned it's ramping up in the second half. And should we be assuming sort of standard ESP on those instrument sales into the consortium as well, or should we be thinking of a lower price point as you look to get it off the ground here?

Yeah, thanks Tajas. We assume kind of little to minimal revenue Tajas in terms of the proteogenomics consortium. We do expect it to get up and running in the back half of the year, but we've been very conservative in terms of our overall timing there and the amount of volume that goes through there. So very, very little is the answer on that front. And if you remember how the deal is structured and it is a deal where we it's kind of a pay over time for the instrument. So we will be selling them consumable kits. And part of that over time will be used to pay for the instruments. So they won't pay upfront, but they will pay overtime and so that's the way to think about that piece of it.

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks for the time guys.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Derik De Bruin with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. Hey, just curiosity what's the -- where did you end your installed base number at, at the end of the year and also what sort of like pending sort of give us some idea on the backlog, just basically trying to get a sense of how should we be thinking about instrument growth in '22?

Yeah, Derek. So we ended the year with 17 instrument shifts. I don't think we're going to be -- we're not going to be disclosing what the expectation is in terms of instrument in 2022. At the end of the year, Derek we'll give you one more update in terms of the number of instruments that ended up getting placed in 2022. David, do you want to add to that?

Yeah, no, I think Derik probably the way to think about it is slightly higher percentage of instruments and consumables this year. And so, we've given you the guide and then you kind of know generally what the general selling price of the instrument is. So you can kind of, do your math there, but again that's kind of again, I think Omid kind of said, we're not going to be giving specific guidance quarter to quarter on base or instruments.

Yeah, that's fine. Just was trying to get a ballpark figure to make sure that we're true up at the end of the year, and related, I've had some people asking about the related party and like how that in 2022.

Sure. I think, we've been around a third of revenue is generally what it's been and they were 35% at the year. I think in the first couple quarters, you may see a similar percentage and then as we ramp the non-related, the other customers basically that that percentage will start to come down.

Great. And on your experience of your customers so far, it's how quickly are they coming back to start additional programs, or is there a digestion period where they've got to look at to analyze it, publish it before they're coming back? Basically, I'm just sort of thinking about what's the experiment cycle time if people want to sort of go back and do iterations of experiments.

Yeah. Derik, I would say if you look at the Oregon Health, it's probably a good -- it's probably a good example. So remember they got their instrument in December of 2020. That instrument was up and running in early 2021. They did a pilot study that they presented data on, kind of in Q3 based on that pilot study, they then said that they were going to do a larger study. So they had to then kind of get the resources, both financial resources and also the samples to get that study done. That was the study of a 1,000 samples and they're now underway. That 1,000 sample should be done in Q1 and then they'll process the data and they'll present it. So I think if you look at kind of the cadence of that, which is you spend few months, you get to know the system, you run your pilot study, you love what you see, it forms a basis to do something substantial that follows. And I say, Oregon is a good example, but on the back of Oregon, there is at least two other studies that are now starting a very similar scale. And of course, someone like prognomic or our own spinout those guys did not need to have that initial dating phase if you would, in understanding the platform, because obviously it was a fear spinout and they understood it. So they hit the ground running at scale and in fact, there now, Derik at scale, as they are the magnitude of growth for them in terms of the kinds of studies that they will be doing is going to mirror some of the larger genomic studies and I just think that and by the way, you're going to begin to see data presented from them as well. So I think they're, at the end of the day, the science and the data is going to drive demand. You just have to give folks time to do that and I think Oregon is a good example.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Dan Brennan with Cowan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great guys. Thanks for the questions. Maybe first one would just be on your commercial plans. Can you just walk us through a bit like where you are with field salesforce? Give us a sense of like what the plans is, are this here in terms of how many customers you plan to target? What is that targeting strategies or like an 80-20 rule? Just give us some flavor about your go to market strategy with the full commercial launch.

Yeah. Dan thank you. So Dan we have said that we aren't going to be disclosing the number of reps that we have, provided that we're hiring about two quarter ahead of need both in terms of sales and support. So we're basically doing that and we're on schedule with that. And we're also building a sales team, not just in US, but also in Europe with feed on the ground and a team that I'm super proud that's coming together on this product. And what was the second part of your question Dan?

Really could go to market? Like give us a sense of are you -- are you going after the highest mess spec labs, obviously just kind of give us a sense of who are the types of customers in the first year, the full commercial launching that you're targeting?

Yeah. so then if I look at the, if I look at the, the pipeline of demand that we have right now, it actually sort of mirrors, exactly what we had in terms of customer type that we said we were going to have. In, the limited release, not with the limited release was supposed to be a guide for these lighthouse customers. So that includes customers in Academia, customers in large bio-pharma customers in the early detection of diagnostic space, customers in biotech companies focused on drug development, CROs, as you just mentioned and then obviously our own COEs. The biggest one now is the, includes also our, our Proteogenomics Consortium with Discovery Life Sciences, albeit our other cost including Evotech in Europe are going to be starting to take to take orders as well. So then it's, it's basically across that entire spectrum and not just if you would, the mass spec focused core labs, as you mentioned.

Great. Thanks. And, and I think the question we asked earlier, but I'm just wondering in terms of the placements that you expect to make in '22, is, is there a firm backlog in place for any of that? Like how would you characterize, I know the qualitative adjectives were very constructive, but is there any more granular view towards a third of our placements, we feel like we've got good visibility on anything of that sort?

Yeah. I think that David mentioned that which is, you can assume that in 2022 that a healthy part of our revenue is going to be instrument based. We, need to have that install base. In other words, this is a razor blade model. We got to have an install business, large enough so that the pull through begins to be meaning for us to hit our target margins that, that we're interested in having when sea is a mature commercial entity. If I look at that six different customer segment, if you would, my, my expectation is that the distribution that we had in terms of our limited release is actually going to more play out, meaning I expect for us to have customers across every one of those six segments in terms of in terms of 2022 and then the exact number of instruments, then we're just not, we're just not going to do that right now. We will, we will tell you the numbers at the end of the year and, and kind of provide more granular information. And then the reason for that is at this point, we, we just need to understand it better ourselves so that we can give you information that is that is at least based on some side on disrupts. Let me see if David wants to add to that.

Yeah. Dan, the only thing I would add, just in terms of the visibility point, recall that quite a few of our limited release customers did enter into multi-year agreements with us. And so we do have some visibility on some of the pull through relative to this year and what the anticipated you know agreements with those entities; to say, so we do have some visibility on, on 2022. But again, I just wanted to we're not going to be providing quarterly instrument placements or the like, but we do, we do have some visibility

And maybe this one final, like what, what are some of the early learnings that you've had with the, with the first year and kind of a limited launch now, as you go into the full launch, what are some of the things that you learned in year one that you're taking head to year two, that'll help with the commercial rollout?

Yeah. Dan, I would say, look on, on, on the on what is better, what we're now doing better you is, or install time has materially become more efficient since we started. In other words, if I look back at the time that it took us to install the organ instrument and to validate it and to get those guys up and running and where we are today. We're probably 4X faster in terms of our install time in a highly reproducible way in getting these customers up and running so that from the time that they get the instrument to the time that they can actually start running pilot studies is much shorter than, than when we started. And that's quite positive, but I have to say then on a more positive note, boy, the instrument really behaved extremely well in the hands of customers. They were doing runs where kind of like batch to batch runs in different days intra variability. Those numbers are all super tight. So the instrument and behave really, really well. I'm super proud of our product development team, our operation team for, and our commercial team. But what the areas that I think we noticeably improved are getting the customers up and running faster. And my expectation by the way is that that is probably a at point where we're comfortable with, I don't see a ton of improvement there, because from the time that the instrument now hits the ground there till the time that it's valid and they can use it, it is it's just around a month. It's hard to kind of beat that timeframe. Let me know if you have any other questions then.

Yeah. The only thing I would add Dan is just it, it's, it's really fun to watch putting a disruptive technology in, in the hands of these different types of customers. And I think some of the learnings is people are going to do a whole variety of things. I mean, we've got just the, the, the flexibility breadth of the platform. We've got folks not only doing all the biomarker work and target development work and that type of thing early detection, but also people looking at animal models using the same nanoparticle panel doing plant and, and other types of things. So it's just exciting to see people taking the technology and using it ways that that is, is, is very encouraging and also really interesting in terms of potential things we hope to see down the road from a data perspective.

Thank you. And this does conclude today's question and answer session, ladies and gentlemen. This also does conclude this day today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect everyone. Have a great day.