Maravai LifeSciences Stock

Hello and welcome everyone joining today's Maravai Life Sciences Q2 2026 Results Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this call is being recorded and we are standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Deb Hart. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call. Press release and slides accompanying today's call are available at investors.maravai.com. As you can see from the agenda on slide 2, our CEO, Bernd Brust, will provide a business update and our CFO, Rajesh Asorpota, will review our financial results. [ Dr. Chan-Feng Zhao ], our Chief Scientific Officer, and Kurt Oreshack, our Executive Vice President and General Counsel, will join us for the Q&A session. Management will make forward-looking statements and refer to GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. Actual results could differ materially from expectations. We will undertake no obligation to update them.

We refer you to slide 3 for details on forward-looking statements and slide 4 for our use of non-GAAP financial measures. Press release and the slides provide reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, and we also post reconciling schedules to our investor website. Please also refer to Maravai's SEC filings for additional information on risks and uncertainties that may impact our operating results, performance, and financial condition. Now I'll turn the call over to Bernd.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with our second quarter performance, which builds on the strong momentum we established in the first quarter. Our results reflect solid execution across the business and reinforce our confidence in both our near-term outlook and long-term strategy. During the quarter, we generated revenue of $51.4 million, representing 9% year-over-year growth. TriLink revenue increased 12%, driven by strong demand for GMP consumables, and continued strength in discovery mRNA, particularly from larger preclinical programs, building our potential GMP pipeline as customer programs advance into clinical development. Because TriLink supports customers throughout the drug development lifecycle, we believe today's discovery success will create tomorrow's GMP opportunity.

Cygnus also delivered another solid quarter, with revenue growing 3% year over year, marking its 5th consecutive quarter of growth. Through its industry-leading HCP ELISA portfolio, combined with expanding analytical services, Cygnus continues to provide stable recurring high-margin revenue while strengthening customer relationships across the biologics workflow. Our profitability improved significantly. Adjusted gross margin expanded more than 1,600 basis points year over year to 58.9%, while adjusted EBITDA improved by $19.1 million to $8.7 million. These results reflect higher revenue, a favorable product mix, and the benefits of the operating model we've built over the past year.

We also significantly strengthened our balance sheet. In June, we refinanced our debt, reducing borrowings to approximately $150 million, essentially cutting debt in half since the beginning of 2026, while extending the maturities to 2032. With improving profitability, we believe Maravai is well positioned from both a liquidity and financial flexibility standpoint. Now let's turn to slide 7 and discuss our progress against our 3 strategic priorities: innovation, commercial execution, and operational excellence. Innovation. This remains the foundation of our long-term growth strategy. During the quarter, TriLink launched its new GMP-grade enzyme portfolio, expanding our ability to serve customers as a differentiated, single-source innovation partner. Increasingly, customers are looking for integrated manufacturing solutions rather than individual components, and this launch meaningfully strengthens our competitive position.

We also continue to see outstanding adoption of [ ModTill ]. Just 1 year after commercial launch, more than 125 customers are now actively using this technology, including many of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. Customer adoption continues to accelerate through new accounts, repeat orders, and broader use across multiple applications. Later this year, we expect to launch GMP-grade [ ModTill ], extending this platform into clinical manufacturing. Customer interest has been strong, particularly in cell and gene therapy applications, further demonstrating how discovery innovation creates future GMP growth opportunity.

Cygnus also continues to expand its innovation portfolio through the launch of a new [ residual prism ], a [ mix and go kit ], while continuing to invest in mass spec analytical services. Although services have a longer sales cycle, we are encouraged by growing customer engagement and increasing repeat business, and we expect this capability to become a more meaningful contributor over time. Finally, we continue strengthening our intellectual property portfolio across CleanCap, [ ModTill ], and Cygnus assays. In addition to 2 new European patents we received in Q1, during Q2, TriLink received a new China patent covering a full family of CleanCap capping analogs, further reinforcing our global IP position.

Commercial execution. Commercial momentum continued to build throughout the first half of the year. Greater customer engagement has improved forecasting, increased visibility, and strengthened order conversion, and those improvements are clearly reflected in our results. In discovery mRNA, we added 67 new customers in Q2, a record quarter for new customer acquisitions, while our e-commerce platform also delivered record quarterly revenue. GMP consumables remained a standout performer, growing 55% year-over-year, driven by large CleanCap clinical orders and our 1st GMP enzyme order. We had no COVID GMP-related revenue in Q2.

Operational excellence remains a key driver of our financial performance. The restructuring actions we implemented last year are now largely complete. Combined with our debt refinancing, the company has fundamentally reset its cost structure. Importantly, our manufacturing infrastructure is already in place. Between our state-of-the-art mRNA facilities and new GMP enzyme facility, we believe our operating model is now built to scale and we can support meaningful future growth with relatively modest incremental fixed costs. This operating leverage is central to our long-term financial model.

Now, let me switch gears for a minute and share how we think about TriLink. As part of our recent long-range planning process, we concluded that investors may appreciate greater visibility into the distinct growth engines within TriLink. While we continue to report and manage our business through 2 operating segments, TriLink and Cygnus, we increasingly think about TriLink through 3 distinct market categories: mRNA, CDMO, and specialty chemistry. mRNA is our largest and most strategically important business out of these 3. It spans the full development life cycle through discovery, clinical trials, and ultimately commercial programs.

The discovery mRNA, which grew 17% year-over-year in Q2, includes our research use products such as CleanCap, [ ModTill ], and related reagents. This spans the full research spectrum, academic and basic research customers on one end, and biopharma and biotech conducting advanced preclinical screening and program development on the other. This business not only generates revenue today, but also feeds future GMP demands. GMP consumables, which grew 55% year over year in Q2, is the critical grade supply business within mRNA: GMP CleanCap, GMP enzymes, and soon GMP [ ModTill ]. This is where TriLink's operating leverage becomes most evident.

The growth potential for TriLink here is straightforward. As customer programs advance through clinical development, we expect their demand for GMP materials to increase significantly, while our infrastructure remains largely unchanged. During the quarter, we added 4 new GMP customers. More importantly, with additional GMP product launches, we expect to increase the number of products each customer sources from TriLink, deepening relationships, and expanding our share of wallet. The 3rd stage is commercial programs. To date, this revenue consists of COVID-related CleanCap, which you'll recall was $14.3 million in Q1, or approximately 7% of estimated 2026 revenue at the midpoint of guidance.

Over the longer term, we expect commercial launches from our current non-COVID clinical pipeline to become a meaningful growth driver. As customers' programs advance toward commercialization, expected to begin around 2028 and 2029, we believe TriLink is well positioned to support commercial-scale manufacturing using infrastructure that already exists. Overall, excluding COVID CleanCap, mRNA represents approximately 35% of expected 2026 revenue, and we continue to expect this business to grow at high single-digit to low double-digit rates over time. The 2nd component within TriLink is our CDMO business, which represents less than 5% of expected 2026 revenue. While project-based and inherently variable, it serves a select group of highly strategic cell and gene therapy customers with programs progressing toward commercialization.

Finally, specialty chemistry. This is a stable, recurring research tools business consisting of oligo services and reagents, NTPs, and other related reagents. This business represents a little more than 20% of our expected 2026 revenue. While we expect lower growth than mRNA, it remains an important contributor with strong customer relationships and attractive profitability. To be clear, our external financial reporting remains unchanged. We continue to operate and report through our 2 segments, TriLink and Cygnus. The additional framework we're providing today is intended to help investors better understand the different growth drivers within TriLink and how they contribute to our long-term opportunity.

In summary, we delivered another quarter of strong execution. We advanced innovation, strengthened commercial momentum, improved profitability, and significantly enhanced our financial position. Perhaps most importantly, we believe the investments we've made over the past year have fundamentally changed the company's earnings profile. Our infrastructure is in place, our balance sheet is stronger, and as customer programs continue advancing from discovery into clinical development and ultimately commercialization, we believe we are well positioned to deliver attractive long-term revenue growth, expanding margins, and increasing cash generation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Raj to review the financial results and discuss our updated outlook. Raj?

Thank you, Bernd. Our second quarter reflects solid execution across both segments with improving margin flow-through. I'll focus on the key drivers behind the quarter, including revenue composition, profitability, and our updated outlook. Let me start with a closer look at revenue on slide 10. Our business remains well diversified across end markets. Revenue by customer type was 30% biopharma, 35% life sciences and diagnostics, 5% academia, 7% CRO, CMO, CDMO, and 23% distributors. By geography, revenue was 62% North America, 20% EMEA, 11% Asia Pacific excluding China, and 7% in China.

Turning to slide 11, our GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest was $21.6 million. This compares to a GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest of $69.8 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $8.7 million for Q2, exceeding our expectations and improving by more than $19 million year-over-year. This was driven by stronger revenue, favorable mix toward high-margin GMP and mRNA discovery, as well as continued OPEX discipline. Basic and diluted loss per share in Q2 was $0.08 compared to a loss of $0.27 per share in Q2 2025. Adjusted EPS was a loss of $0.02 compared to a loss of $0.08 per share last year.

Moving to the balance sheet and other financial metrics on slide 12. As Bernd mentioned, in early June, we significantly reduced debt and refinanced our term loan, extending the maturity out to 2032. We ended the quarter with $70.1 million in cash and $147.1 million in debt. Depreciation and amortization was $11.8 million. Net interest expense was $3.7 million. And stock-based compensation, a non-cash charge, was $10.2 million for the quarter. Turning to segment performance on slide 13, TriLink represented 67% of total revenue in the quarter and contributed $7 million of adjusted EBITDA, benefiting from high-margin GMP product mix and improved operating leverage. This represents an improvement of more than $14.2 million year-over-year.

Within TriLink, mRNA and specifically the GMP consumables and discovery mRNA categories were the primary growth drivers. Specialty chemistry was steady. CDMO was down year-over-year and in line with our expectations based on the timing of customer programs. Cygnus represented 33% of total revenue and continued to deliver strong profitability. Cygnus generated $11.4 million of adjusted EBITDA with margins of 68%. Cygnus saw steady demand for HCP ELISA kits and strength in China due to distributor ordering timing. Corporate expenses impacting adjusted EBITDA were $9.7 million in the quarter. These expenses include HR, finance, legal, IT, and public company costs.

Turning to our guidance on slide 14. We are maintaining our expected 2026 revenue range of $205 million to $215 million, representing growth of 10% to 16% over 2025. We expect TriLink to grow in the high teens, driven by continued strength in GMP and discovery mRNA consumables. For Cygnus, we continue to expect low to mid-single-digit growth. We are raising our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $33 million to $35 million, representing an improvement of $64 million to $66 million year-over-year, primarily driven by improved performance in TriLink. We continue to see strong demand in higher margin areas of the portfolio, including GMP consumables, our high margin mRNA discovery consumables, and key Cygnus product lines.

This mix shift, combined with the structural improvements we've made, is driving the outperformance in EBITDA. Additionally, we see further upside in gross margin expansion and now expect greater than 1,400 basis points of improvement supported by restructuring actions, cost discipline, product mix, and a strong first half of the year. The remainder of the guidance framework provided in our Q1 call is unchanged. The adjusted EBITDA guidance raise reflects higher confidence in profitability expectations rather than a change in our prudent revenue assumptions. We are maintaining the expected revenue range because 2 meaningful parts of our business, CDMO and large GMP consumables orders, are program-driven by nature.

Individual orders can be large and their timing can vary meaningfully quarter to quarter. It's simply how these businesses work, and our range is sized to reflect it. Overall, we are encouraged by the momentum in the business, improved commercial execution, a more efficient cost structure, and favorable mix are driving meaningful financial progress, and we remain confident in our outlook for 2026 and increasingly excited by the longer-term commercial opportunity Bernd described. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our 1st question from Matthew Stanton with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Maybe 1st one, just on the guide. I think you talked about it as being prudent, and obviously there's a lumpy part of the business. But you did a little over $100 million for the base business the first half. It seems to imply that steps down closer to a run rate of mid-40s per quarter from the low 50s you did in the first half. Just talk about kind of line of sight into that, any areas of potential conservatism there as we think about the back half guide, some of the timing dynamics due to projects you talked about. Can you remind us what you're penciling in for the GMP [ ModTill ] in the back half of the year, and then also anything for the recent enzyme launch as well?

I'll let Raj answer most of that as far as the guidance is concerned. I mean, Q3 inherently is a lower revenue quarter in this business. So that's what you're dealing with, certainly in the second half of the year. And the reality is we grew, I think our GMP business 55% in the second quarter, which is obviously an unusual number, no COVID in there whatsoever. And you just have some variability here. There's a couple of larger deals out there still, and a business our size, a couple hundred million bucks, since you have, it's not unusual to have multi-million-dollar type of orders in there. It just unfortunately shifts between quarters at times. There's a couple of deals out there that, we'll see whether they come in this year or next year, and we'll adjust it accordingly at that point, but we want to be just careful in how we position that.

Yes, it's actually just, you know, before we go there. So, I think, like Bernd mentioned, the second half cadence, and like I said in my prepared remarks, our range has a couple of meaningful parts of the business, both again, CDMO and large GMP, which are more program-driven by nature. So, these orders can be very large, like Bernd said, and the timing can vary meaningfully quarter over quarter. So that's just simply how they work. And what we're doing is giving you a prudent guide based on where we see these, like how this changes, make customers' program schedules rather than with us. So our practice is not to assume those orders until we can see them. So I just kind of want to emphasize that. And Matt, you had another question on [ ModTill ]. Could you repeat that?

Just if you're penciling in anything in the back half of the year for both the GMP [ ModTill ] and also the recent enzyme launch.

No GMP [ ModTill ] in the second half of the year. No, we will release our GMP [ ModTill ] in the second half of this year, but we don't expect orders until 2027 for that. Enzyme launch. Enzyme launch, yes. Enzyme, we have our 1st enzymes order shipped, in fact. But [ ModTill ] is a little too early, right? It's been about 1 year now since we launched that, and great uptake, 125 or so customers so far. And we expect some of that to hit a GMP requirement sometime next year, but the 1st step is for us to make it as a GMP quality product and then sell it in 2027.

Appreciate the color on the kind of sub-segments within TriLink. Just would love kind of your view on, you know, you talked about TriLink, you know, having potential for higher growth and maybe some upside, the drivers of that. Sounds like maybe the commercial programs are more '28, '29, you know, earlier biotech coming on, maybe that's, you know, earlier we took upside there, some of these bigger product launches, you know, taking hold, just how do we think about kind of the midterm upside drivers to some of the color you gave in terms of the five-year CAGRs for the subsegments?

I think one of the most positive signs in our business is that we're seeing incredible uptake in the discovery world at all levels, basic research as well as into later stage clinical trials, preclinical trials. So the fact that that business is growing materially and we see continued growth there, that should certainly lead into more GMP opportunities as those programs progress. And so I think short term, that's where we look at, and again, all the indicators are positive there. So on the commercialization front, yes, obviously we don't control the speed at what that moves. Those are customer programs and our customers that are driving that. But from what we see, we expect that sort of in '27, '28 to take place.

Maybe I'll add a little bit more there. You know, and I think in the near term, we expect TriLink to grow at a high single-digit rate, and then, you know, it's really, again, driven by discovery and GMP consumables. And as clinical programs convert into commercial supply, we expect that to move to a low double-digit rate, and you know, and then margin leverage layer on top of that can really create like an inflection point, you know, for the business. The commercial conversion here is a mix story, which is why we expect margin expansion to also accompany this revenue growth.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim. Please go ahead.

I'm wondering if you could share anything about MockV growth in the quarter. And previously you've had some comments around positive regulatory feedback and the potential for this to replace traditional viral clearance studies. Do you expect any guidance from regulators or any endorsement that could potentially accelerate adoption there? And maybe just how should we think about its contribution to the Cygnus growth this year and next year?

Yes, we don't really give the MockV growth rate, but it's a small base and it's continuing to grow and contribute to Cygnus' growth profile. In terms of regulatory, it's a little too early to get any intel from that.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Congratulations on the record quarter with the new online strategy. I'm just curious how that's kind of playing out relative to your expectations and how we should think about that ramp over the course of this year into next year.

I'll maybe give a higher level answer to this and Raj may make some specific statistics on that. The short answer is it's going much better than we even had anticipated. The adoption is incredible. The number of orders and revenues flowing through now without really any human interaction is pretty significant now. This largely happens in a smaller discovery world, of course, it's so many places a half-million-dollar order, it's hard to kind of assume e-commerce takes that over. But look at what we are currently seeing, the largest uptick of orders coming through in TriLink come all through our e-commerce platforms.

That's excellent. And I think, oops, go ahead. No, I was just going to add to what Bernd said, just in terms of top line growth, you know, this whole e-commerce AI strategy is improving our ordering automation. We've got a lot more data-driven customer engagement and predictive analytics. So that's kind of producing into nice commercial opportunities. We shared with you at the beginning.

I think 60-some new customers in the second quarter. A lot of it is driven through e-commerce.

That's great, that's great. And then out of curiosity, so you noted that the CleanCap patent that you received during the quarter, how important was that to, I guess, going after that market in a bigger way, having that patent protection behind you, was that something that was critical and now you kind of put your foot on the gas or were you already kind of going after that market hard and this just kind of provides a little bit of protection behind the scenes?

I think the new patent is evidence of the strength of our patent portfolio around the world. I think we are still, the business in China at the moment is still small, but is a focus of ours as that market continues to develop.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Matt Larew with William Blair. Please go ahead.

So I guess just want to start on the guide, just a quick one. I know it's kind of been touched on, but just wanted to confirm that the rationale behind not raising it is just purely prudence and not really related to any nuances and market demand and customer behavior, customer orders slowing or anything around that, and really understand or appreciate the fact that your business is susceptible to the big, lumpy orders quarter to quarter and really just don't want to include that.

That's absolutely true. And I would even add to that, when you look at our run rate business, sort of small to mid-size orders, we see significant growth there. And so the revenue guidance we're talking about here is purely driven by larger orders that are purely tied to customer projects. They're not competitive.

If you look at all the, like I may have mentioned before, the underlying demand indicators, whether it's new customer adds that Bernd talked about, or our GMP consumable growth, the e-commerce, all of those indicators improved in Q2. So it's really just a function of the variability more than anything else.

Okay, that makes sense. And then, yes, I also appreciate the new disclosures around TriLink breaking out the 3 sub-segments. It's very helpful. I know you mentioned the external financial reporting is not changing anything, but just kind of wondering if these are areas you plan to continue updating the investor community with on a quarterly basis. And kind of, you know, I know the base TriLink business has now grown double digits for 3 straight quarters, which is also very good to see, but just wondering if you can kind of touch on what's driving the improved performance and kind of the sustainability of growth here. Is it just as simple as the improved execution and commercial rigor coinciding with improving end markets, or is there something else there?

I think you touched on all of it. I mean, yes, the intent is to continue to report and give this visibility to the investor base that we have. And yes, I mean, demand is certainly up. The markets are getting stronger. I think our execution is materially better than it has been in the past. I think our new products and technologies coming to market are helping growth. So I think all those pieces together, the sustainability of that growth in TriLink, we feel good about. So I think when you look specifically at our CDMO and our GMP business, we talk about it a lot, is the lumpiness.

That is just simply the nature of that business, and that has nothing to do with market demand. In fact, our number of clinical trials are growing. We're almost close to 50 customers now, I think, in clinical trials. Each of those customers represents somewhere between 2 and 3 programs. So the volume of customers moving are healthy. And so we feel really good about the underlying markets and how we are positioned in there.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Matthew Parisi with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

You highlighted the incredible uptake in discovery, and I was wondering if you're seeing that come through from the improved biotech funding, or is that improved funding not really translating to revenue yet?

I think funding in general is improving in the segments where we play. And so there's no question that that's helping out. If you look at the last few years, obviously it's been one of the toughest cycles in the market segment that we find ourselves. But that certainly is showing a rebound here, the fact that we're seeing growth, not just in the later stage clinical trials, but also basic research, is a really good indicator for us.

I appreciate the insight. And then last quarter, you flagged that you expected 9 customers to transition to GMP throughout '26 with 2 already converting. I'm wondering if that 9 still holds and then if you've seen any convert into Q2.

Yes, so we're at 6 now. We added 4 in the second quarter. And so, yes, we see the 3 remaining for the year. That should be obtained.

Appreciate the insight.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Dan Arias with Stifel. Please go ahead.

It looks like [ ModTill ] went from more than 70 customers in the 1st quarter to more than 125 in Q2 within 1 year since launch. If you convert that to dollars, what did [ ModTill ] contribute this quarter and how many of the 125 customers have requested GMP material?

We won't break out the dollar value for [ ModTill ]. It's 1 level too low as far as what number of customers, a few customers have requested GMP material. I don't know if Raj has an exact number for that, but we expect that there's some number of customers that are going to request GMP material for 2027. We'll be ready sometime later this year to have that material available.

Okay, thanks. And, you know, how much of Cygnus is to... Sorry. How much of the 2026 and 2027 revenue plan comes from products launched in the last 24 months? I'm trying to figure out whether the innovation pipeline is genuinely additive or substituting for legacy CleanCap dollars.

Was it a Cygnus question or was it a TriLink question?

Yes, I think. Sorry, this is just the overall product question. This is an overall product question within the pipeline. Sorry.

Yes, we're not going to break down revenues coming from new products. I mean, [ ModTill ] is obviously a driver there, and then some things in Cygnus on services are big drivers, or will become bigger drivers. And so we're not specifically going into what revenues are coming from newly introduced products.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Justin Bowers with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

So, just curious what the funnel looks like for GMP. Is there potential for upside to that, the 9 customers for this year? I mean, you're at 6 now. And do you have visibility into 2027 on GMP?

Well, certainly there is an opportunity for upside, right? As we talk about being prudent on our revenue because these things can be rather big, that means you can see some delays, but you can also see some things happening. We like our funnels, they're growing steadily. And so from that perspective, we feel good about where that business is heading. We're not giving guidance yet on '27 on what the new incremental customers will be, but I will say where we've seen really throughout this year, we've seen really nice performance in this larger discovery world where that kind of really indicates people getting ready for clinical trials. These are very large preclinical orders. And we see nice movement there. And so we feel good about where that funnel is heading. And so there's nothing we see today that would indicate that that's not going to continue to grow.

Appreciate it. And then just on the other end of the spectrum, how about uptake of the e-channel, how that's trending and how that's performing versus sort of what your expectations were when you changed the commercial strategy there?

Yes, I mean, it's doing really well. When you look at the new number of customers, we mentioned sort of in the mid-60s this quarter, that's primarily coming from this earlier stage development basic research world. There's some exceptions to that, but the majority are new customers, and a lot of those are acquired through our e-commerce capabilities these days. And with that, we're starting to see nice growth, right? When you look at the basic research segments up until really 6 months ago, that was a struggling market, and we've seen a nice rebound there, both market funding as well as our ability to acquire those customers. And certainly, [ ModTill ] is not hurting there either. We're seeing a big uptick in that world of people trying [ ModTill ] with their mRNA experiments.

Thank you. This does conclude our question and answer session. I would like to now turn the conference back to Bernd Brust for any closing or additional remarks.

All right. Well, thanks, everyone. We appreciate the time here. Now, we keep on loving where this business is going, right? TriLink grew 12% year over year. Great strength in the mRNA business, both in GMP consumables as well as discovery. I'm glad everybody appreciates the other insights we're giving in this business to really understand where growth sits within the TriLink business. Cygnus remained stable, right? It's 3% year over year. We've always had mid-single digits. That business is on track for hitting plan this year.

We should see a little bit more growth in the second half, but generally, that business is performing the way we expect it to. Another great quarter of execution, right? Great innovation, really, really good commercial momentum, both from large deals and the commercial teams in the field to the e-commerce capabilities that we really have brought on board here. Profitability continues to get better. There's not been that many questions on this here, but our financial position really has been significantly enhanced. When you look at us recapping the business, our cash position is absolutely amazing. We're good till in the early '30s now. And if you're looking at the long-term outlook of this business, with great growth in research as well as clinical trials, but as that evolves into commercial, having that balance sheet in place gives us a lot of confidence that we're in here and we'll work this for many years to come and see our growth getting to where we want it to be when you have multiple commercial programs going live. We feel confident about the business. We like the quarter. We feel good about the rest of the year. We feel certainly great about the long-term future of the company. Appreciate everybody's time here, and we'll speak to you again next quarter.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect.

Hello, and welcome, everyone, joining today's Maravai LifeSciences Q1 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Deb Hart, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our first quarter 2026 earnings call. The press release and slides accompanying today's call are posted on our website and available at investors.maravai.com. As you can see from the agenda on Slide 2, our CEO, Bernd Brust, will provide a business update; and our CFO, Raj Asarpota, will review our financial results. Dr. Chanfeng Zhao, our Chief Scientific Officer, will join us for the Q&A session.

Management will make forward-looking statements and refer to GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. It's possible that actual results could differ from expectations. We refer you to Slide 3 for details on forward-looking statements and our use of non-GAAP financial measures. The press release provides reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, and we also post reconciling schedules to our investor website. Please also refer to Maravai's SEC filings for additional information on the risks and uncertainties that may impact our operating results, performance and financial condition.

Now I'll turn the call over to Bernd.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with our first quarter performance, which represents a strong start to 2026 and builds on the momentum we exited with last year. The quarter results reflect solid execution across the business and reinforce our confidence in the trajectory we outlined on our call in February.

Turning to Slide 5. We delivered total Q1 revenue of $65.8 million. That's 41% year-over-year growth and 10% year-over-year growth in our base business when you exclude COVID-related CleanCap revenue. This performance was driven by improved TriLink demand, steady contribution from Cygnus and continued progress against our strategic priorities. TriLink revenue grew 65% year-over-year with a base business growth of 15%, supported by strong demand in both GMP and Discovery consumables.

At Cygnus, revenue grew a little more than 1% year-over-year. We saw solid underlying momentum with high single-digit growth in North America and low single-digit growth in EMEA, reinforcing our confidence in the positioning of the business. This was partially offset by lower contribution from China due to distributor ordering timing. From a profitability standpoint, we delivered adjusted gross margin of 65.3% and adjusted EBITDA of $20.3 million. These results reflect the benefit of higher revenue, favorable product and customer mix and the cost disciplines we have implemented across the organization. We also generated $4.2 million of positive free cash flow in the quarter, which is the first time the company has been cash flow positive since Q3 of 2024.

We see this as another clear indication that the structural improvements we have made are taking hold. Given our strong start to the year and improved visibility into the balance of 2026, we are increasing the range for our full year revenue expectations and substantially raising our EBITDA guidance. Raj will walk through that in more detail shortly.

Now let's turn to Slide 6 for an update on our performance against our three strategic pillars: commercial execution, operational excellence and, of course, innovation. Starting with commercial execution. We are seeing strong momentum across the business. Our increased focus on customer engagement is translating into better forecasting, improved visibility and stronger order conversion. We are securing more annual and multi-quarter purchase orders, which is improving the stability and predictability of our revenue base. This is a meaningful shift from where we were a year ago and reflects the effectiveness of the changes we have made in our commercial go-to-market approach. That said, our business has a disproportionate number of large orders that can result in quarter-over-quarter performance variation.

Large orders tend to align with customer program progression. And as a result, revenue can vary between periods. What gives us confidence is not the timing of any single order, but the strength and continued expansion of the underlying opportunity funnel. Within TriLink, our portfolio now spans enabling technologies such as CleanCap and ModTail, along with custom and catalog mRNA, enzymes, oligonucleotides, including guide RNAs and a broad range of nucleotide chemistries, including NTPs. This breadth allows us to participate more deeply across the mRNA and gene therapy workflows.

We also recently launched all-in-one IVT kits, which simplify the production of capped RNA and provide early-stage researchers with easier access to our platform. At TriLink, our model continues to work as intended. We establish relationships early in discovery, embed our technologies and customer workflows and then grow with those programs as they advance into GMP.

Mentions of TriLink technologies and scientific publications remain strong, underscoring their role in customer workflows, which we view as an important leading indicator of future demand. A key highlight in the quarter is the continued adoption of ModTail. We now have more than 70 customers using this technology across both large pharmaceutical companies and emerging biotechs. We are seeing growth in new customers, repeat orders and increasing use across multiple applications. We also see continued strength in our GMP funnel with GMP customers expected to grow 22% in 2026, representing nine existing RUO customers transitioning to GMP customers, two of which we have already converted this year.

Many of these programs are progressing into later clinical stages, which supports the durability of the demand as a long-term GMP supplier. At Cygnus, we saw growth from our newer DNA quantification and extraction kits as well as from our MockV product offering. These product lines extend us beyond our traditional HCP franchise into adjacent applications. While still early, we are encouraged by the traction we are seeing as customers look for high-quality analytical tools across their development and manufacturing workflows.

And finally, at Cygnus, our kits continue to play a critical role in the market with a 100% attach rate supporting the safety testing of all 29 of the 29 FDA or EMA-approved CAR T cell and gene therapies.

Now turning to operational excellence. This remains a core focus and a key driver of our improved financial performance. The restructuring actions we implemented last year continue to deliver results, and we now expect to achieve more than $65 million in annual EBITDA savings. These savings span labor, facilities and controllable spend and are creating a more efficient and scalable cost structure. This is clearly reflected in our margins. We are benefiting from both cost discipline and a favorable product mix, particularly as higher-margin GMP consumables represent a larger portion of our revenue.

At the same time, our operating model is now positioned to absorb incremental volume without significant increases in fixed costs, supporting continued margin expansion as we grow revenue. We are also making progress on our digital and operational initiatives. Our e-commerce channel continues to expand with more customers placing orders directly through our platform, improving speed and efficiency.

In Q1, our website delivered record revenue, reflecting both improved customer engagement and the scalability of our digital platform. Finally, turning to R&D. Our focus remains on translating innovation into revenue and strengthening our competitive position across our customers' workflows.

At TriLink, we are making strong progress on our enzymes portfolio. Our GMP facility has now been completed, and we expect to launch GMP quality enzymes this quarter. Early customer engagement has been encouraging, and we see this as an important extension of our capabilities. With ModTail, we are building on the strong discovery adoption and expect to launch GMP-grade ModTail later this year. We are already seeing customer demand for GMP material to support clinical programs. This is a clear example of how our innovation pipeline feeds future revenue growth. More broadly, our portfolio continues to diversify across custom mRNA kits and catalog mRNA, complementing our existing CleanCap and oligo product lines. This strengthens our position and reduces reliance on any single product or customer.

At Cygnus, in addition to host cell protein assays, which remain the gold standard for clinical and commercial drug product lot release, we now offer an expanded suite of HCP analytical services, utilizing advanced mass spectrometry methods and state-of-the-art instruments. These innovative analytical capabilities deliver critical insights to customers throughout drug development and into commercialization, helping ensure their products remain safe and effective.

We continue to invest in and expand our IP portfolio across our core platforms, including CleanCap, ModTail and Cygnus assays. During the first quarter, TriLink received two additional European patents, including further strengthening protection around our CleanCap technology and methods for synthesizing RNA.

In addition, Cygnus was granted a new U.S. patent related to its MVP mock viral particle technology, supporting our assay and analytical capabilities. In summary, the first quarter represents an incredible start to the year. We are executing well across all three pillars, driving commercial momentum, delivering operational discipline and advancing innovation. The fundamentals of the business are strong, and we believe we are well positioned for continued growth, margin expansion and cash generation in 2026 and beyond.

I'll now ask Raj to provide details on our first quarter performance and our updated guidance. Raj?

Thank you, Bernd. Building on Bernd's comments, the first quarter reflects solid execution across both segments with improving base demand and strong margin flow-through. I'll focus on the key drivers behind the quarter, including revenue composition, profitability and our updated outlook. Let me start with a closer look at revenue on Slide 8. Our business remains well diversified across end markets. Base revenue by customer type was 32% biopharma, 31% Life Sciences and Diagnostics, 4% academia, 7% CRO, CMO, CDMO and 26% distributors. By geography, base revenue was 60% North America, 25% EMEA, 8% Asia Pacific, excluding China and 7% in China.

Turning to Slide 9. Our GAAP net loss before noncontrolling interest was $6.4 million. This compares to a GAAP net loss before noncontrolling interest of $52.9 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $20.3 million for Q1, exceeding our expectations and improving by more than $30 million year-over-year. This was driven by stronger revenue, favorable mix toward high-margin GMP and discovery consumables and high-margin contribution from COVID CleanCap.

Basic and diluted loss per share in Q1 was $0.02 compared to a loss of $0.21 per share in Q1 2025. Adjusted EPS was positive $0.01 compared to a loss of $0.08 per share last year. Moving to the balance sheet, cash flow and other financial metrics on Slide 10. We ended the quarter with $165.9 million in cash and $242.9 million in long-term debt following the voluntary $50 million debt prepayment during the quarter. We generated $4.2 million of positive free cash flow, reflecting improved EBITDA and disciplined capital management.

Depreciation and amortization was $11.4 million. Net interest expense was $3.9 million and stock-based compensation, a noncash charge, was $6.7 million for the quarter.

Turning to segment performance on Slide 11. TriLink represented 72% of total revenue in the quarter. Excluding COVID CleanCap, TriLink represented 64% of total revenue with base growth of 15%. TriLink was the primary driver of adjusted EBITDA improvement, benefiting from high-margin product mix and improved operating leverage. The segment generated $17.3 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing an improvement of more than $26 million year-over-year.

Cygnus represented 28% of total revenue or 36% of base revenue and continue to deliver strong profitability. Cygnus generated $13.6 million of adjusted EBITDA with margins of 73.8%. Corporate expenses impacting adjusted EBITDA were $10.5 million in the quarter. These expenses include HR, finance, legal, IT and public company costs.

Turning to our updated guidance on Slide 12. Our outlook reflects a strong first quarter and increased confidence in the base business trajectory. We are raising our revenue range to $205 million to $215 million, representing growth of 10% to 16% over 2025. We expect TriLink to grow in the high teens, driven by continued strength in GMP consumables and a return to growth in Discovery.

We do not currently expect additional high-volume COVID CleanCap revenue in 2026. However, we continue to view $10 million to $20 million of annual endemic demand as a reasonable baseline longer term.

For Cygnus, we continue to expect low to mid-single-digit growth, and we view the Q1 softness in China as timing related. We are substantially raising our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $30 million to $32 million, representing an improvement of $61 million to $63 million year-over-year, primarily driven by performance in TriLink. This reflects the composition of the growth we are seeing. We continue to see strong demand in higher-margin areas of the portfolio, particularly GMP consumables, our higher-margin discovery consumables and key Cygnus product lines. That mix shift, combined with structural improvements we've made is driving the outperformance in EBITDA.

Additionally, we expect continued gross margin expansion of greater than 1,300 basis points, supported by restructuring actions, cost discipline and favorable product mix. The remainder of our guidance framework we provided in February call is unchanged.

Importantly, we expect to generate positive free cash flow for the remainder of the year, representing a meaningful improvement from 2025. Overall, we are encouraged by the momentum in the business. Improved commercial execution, a more efficient cost structure and favorable mix are driving meaningful financial progress, and we remain confident in our outlook for 2026.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Well, congratulations on a very nice start to the year. Maybe first up and real high level, I'm just curious what you're seeing from your pharma customers and kind of segmented large versus small and your expectations for those two groups as the year progresses. Obviously, the funding has improved, and there's been a lot of talk about that. But what are you seeing from a spending perspective for that -- the smaller pharma and biotech group?

When we look at that group, it's kind of consistent across the board. Big pharma has been very healthy and specifically some larger discovery orders. But Discovery or smaller biotech, smaller pharma has been pretty consistent as well across the board. I think the area where we still see the most significant softness is in this academic research world. That's not a huge part of our revenue any longer. But when it comes to pharma, biotech, it's pretty consistent, healthy.

That's great. And then maybe just speaking to China. Obviously, there's a little bit of an order timing issue there, but it sounds like that's going to pick up. But as a whole, when you look at the year, is China starting to come back? Or what are you seeing?

When you look at our Cygnus business, we have one distributor who represents us there. They're a solid company. We are certainly continuing to explore other commercialization options there. Raj and Dr. Zhao were actually in China last week for both Cygnus and TriLink. So we look at China for this year, probably still as a sort of mid-single-digit growth engine, and I think we should be able to get there.

The problem is a little bit these are all larger orders, right? There's not really any run rate modeling behind that. But we feel good in general about where that is sitting. On the TriLink front, we really haven't done much business in China. That's actually the main purpose for being in China last week. We had some great interactions with customers there. I think you're going to see some progression happening there over the next months to come. And so China as a whole, revenue-wise, not a super critical component of the business, but certainly something we're going to continue to work on enhancing.

Congratulations again on the start to the year.

We'll now move on to Matt Stanton with Jefferies.

Maybe to go back to the demand question. Just the base TriLink business, mid-teens growth year-over-year. Can you just unpack the demand a little bit more what you saw in Discovery versus GMP? I think you said you expect GMP to grow over 20% for the year. I did you see that here in 1Q? And then last quarter, you sounded pretty upbeat on kind of order trends, funnel activity. Would just kind of love to hear how that trended for the rest of 1Q and here into 2Q in terms of some of the future demand indicators. I assume pretty good just given the guidance rate, but would love to get any more anecdotal color just on some of the funnel and order activity as well for Discovery and GMP.

Matt, I think when you look at TriLink, like we said, that grew 15%. And while that Q1 kind of base growth was strong, as you kind of extrapolate for the balance of the year, like we said, there's some variability in larger GMP orders. we characterize that underlying growth in the second half in TriLink to be in the low to mid-single digits. And we do remain very positive on the longer-term trajectory as we kind of look for more consistent growth. We have -- we talked about ModTail as a particular call out on the R&D side that is starting to kind of get good traction. We've seen revenues from last year into this year steadily climbing.

And then as that starts to turn into GMP level in the second half, we should see some more positive growth as these programs get traction towards the end of the year and into next year.

Great. And then maybe just on ModTail, just it sounds like how is that tracking to expectations? It sounds like maybe better 70 customers, new customers, repeat orders. And then the scope to launch the GMP in the back half of the year, just how meaningful is that? And is that kind of accelerated as it relates to what you've seen so far in the activity levels on that product?

Yes. Certainly, ModTail is well performing above what our expectations are. 70 customers is a pretty big number. I think the dollar amount is right in line with what we had expected for the whole year. Now it's still a fairly small portion of our total revenues, of course, it being a newly launched product. But the fact that we have some larger customers already asking for GMP quality product is pretty unique so early on after launch. So yes, we're moving quickly on that based on some of these earlier customer indications. I don't think the GMP consumables and ModTail will have a material impact in 2026. But certainly, if you start seeing demand there, it should set us up for a very nice 2027 for that product line.

[Operator Instructions] We'll move next to Justin Bowers with Deutsche Bank.

Can you talk about the funnel and how that's shaping up and maybe any metrics around growth there and RFPs over the last few quarters or a few months? And then also what you're seeing in terms of decisions and time lines there? Any change in the velocity?

Let me maybe give a high-level comment, and I'll let Raj get maybe into some more details here. On the GMP front, the funnels continue to be good. I think we pointed out in our comments earlier that we have nine or so new discovery customers that are moving into clinical trials forecasted for this year. Two have already started. The remainders we're expecting sometime in the remainder of this year to start. That funnel is always fairly easy to manage just because it has a fairly long outlook. And so we have a pretty good grasp on what's happening there and it's good growth for the remainder of this year.

On the larger discovery orders, it's been great velocity. In fact, it's been faster than we had expected. Customers that we were expecting to buy later in the year, bought earlier in the year. Hopefully, that's a good indication around them accelerating their experiments, their work and further growth moving forward.

The challenge in that part of the business a little bit for us is that the average sales cycle there is like 2 months or 3 months. So the GMP, we pretty much know in advance what's going to happen. On the large discovery segment, we don't quite grasp yet what's going to happen in Q3 and Q4, just given again, the sales cycle that comes with this. The trajectory has been great. We see no reason why that shouldn't continue that way. Certainly, that's what we are seeing in the first 4.5 months or now of this year. But all in all, great, great growth trajectory in both areas. Any specifics Raj, you want to add to that or?

No, I think you covered it, Bernd. I mean maybe on discovery, again, if you -- we segment those under $15,000 and greater than 15,000 orders. And as we've always said, under $15,000, those orders are predominantly academic and early-stage research. And that segment, like we said, is still recovering, but it's consistent with our broader funding environment, and we did see modest growth in this segment in Q1. And then on greater than 15,000 discovery orders, those are kind of dominated by biopharma and biotech development programs, and those are seeing really healthy growth, like Bernd said.

We'll move on now to Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim.

How did the CDMO customer orders perform in the quarter, particularly for Cygnus?

Well, there's not -- in CDMO and Cygnus, I don't think we reported out necessarily. If you're talking about CDMO and some of our work we're doing with TriLink, that business is fairly steady. We have a couple of great programs in there. It's a pretty small part of our business yet. And as we shared last year, we restructured that organization a little bit just to control our costs. But the programs that are there are doing well. It's not a very large group. So there's a lot of lumpiness in there as well. But that's probably the only CDMO we break out. I don't know if we break CDMO out customer-wise for Cygnus. I don't think we have in the past.

Okay. That's helpful. And then when we think of Maravai just zooming out and we want to look at leading indicators, where would -- should investors lean on? Should it be smaller biotech that are working on biologics? Should it be cell and gene therapy companies or in general, the whole bioprocessing end market?

I would go with your last suggestion. I think that the health across the board is starting to get much, much better. And like we said, we're seeing a weakness still and it's such a small part of our business, but it is in the academic, the smaller research world.

We'll move on to Matthew Parisi with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

This is Matthew Prices on for Paul Knight. Congrats on the quarter. As a percentage of revenue, APAC decreased pretty meaningfully in the quarter compared to the fourth quarter. I was wondering what drove that change? And then is that a trend that you can expect for the rest of 2026?

I'll let Raj go into the details here, but my guess is that's largely through sickness. There's not a lot of TriLink activity in that part of the world. So Raj, keep me honest there. TriLink -- sorry, Cygnus, we talked about China. I think the other area was Korea, South Korea, where we saw some softness. I don't know whether we have great behind that.

It's not that meaningful. And again, going back to China, that current softness that we saw in the first quarter is really kind of distributor ordering pattern and it's not end customer driven. We typically have good line of sight to what the end demand is, and that is not impacted. This is purely a timing issue. So we don't see any significant shift for the balance of the year and that demand is not impacted. So we feel pretty good about recovering the demand in the balance of the year.

And if I can just squeeze in one more. I was just wondering about kind of how the engagement has been with the new mRNA builder?

Great. I mean it's still early days, obviously, we saw the highest increase in online activity with the business in this quarter. Our total e-commerce revenues is still under 10% for the business. So it's still a long runway to go here. But -- good engagement. We've seen our first noncontact orders coming through and highly optimistic that, that will be a big driver, specifically as the academic world will bounce back at some point here that allows us to touch those customers without really increasing any kind of human interaction.

[Operator Instructions] We'll now move on to Dan Arias with Stifel. This is [ Rohan ] on for Dan.

Last year, you were pretty adamant that high-volume CleanCap visibility was near zero without binding purchase orders. And today, you've pinned the COVID-19 revenue at exactly $14.3 million. What specifically changed in your forecasting methodology or customer contracts that allows for this level of precision now?

I think that's a misunderstanding, guys. I think we shared last year that we expect COVID in 2026 to be between $10 million and $20 million, and we expect that to be the same number kind of moving forward. We received orders in that this is the dollars that came in. And so we don't expect any other orders for the rest of the year. But I don't think we ever said that we would not have any further COVID-related orders in 2026. We would have said that for 2025.

Okay. And you raised the midpoint of adjusted EBITDA guidance by $12 million or so at the midpoint, right, while only raising revenue by $5 million. Aside from the restructuring savings, how much of this kind of change or delta is driven by higher margin mix from ModTail or the GMP enzymes versus just kind of pure cost cutting?

Okay. So for EBITDA, I think in Q1, we saw the EBITDA disproportionately tied to revenue. We are seeing great benefits, like we mentioned from our commercial strategy kind of focusing on high-value customers and programs. We've improved our pricing discipline and just manage that longer tail of lower-value transactions. So that, coupled with the favorable mix that we're seeing on GMP on the higher-margin orders is kind of improving the quality of revenue and the flow of EBITDA through that.

On top of that, our operating expenses are tracking to plan and the cost reset that we did on the restructuring is fully embedded as we modeled, and we're continuing to see savings there. So those are some of the drivers on the EBITDA performance.

It's not a unfair comment. We do potentially put in a little risk on some of our lower-margin service businesses, not tied to commercialization, just tied to project and how will the success of those projects be. If you see some softness there, it won't impact our margins really in any material way. So the product mix is truly a material impact of why we're seeing such great EBITDA performance.

Okay. And just if I could squeeze in one more question. You have GMP enzymes launching in Q2. How much of the 2026 guidance raise is contingent on this launch? And do you have any preorders in place from existing Flanders 2 customers?

Zero is tied to that revenue call. We had assumed this was going to happen. We have orders in hand for GMP. We're running our engineering runs at the moment. I think we would start delivering those GMP orders towards the end of this quarter into early next quarter.

We'll now move on to Matt Larew with William Blair.

Since the new team, Bernd and Raj, you've been in place, obviously, the focus has been on restructuring, rightsizing, kind of improving the operational health. And I think last quarter and this quarter, too, the business clearly has turned a corner and end markets are improving as well. You mentioned being over in China recently to talk about TriLink some new business development opportunities, the some benefits on the website in terms of record sales or new product launches upcoming. I guess just as you think about the shifting the organization sort of velocity or trajectory from one of restructuring and rightsizing to attacking new growth opportunities -- what areas do you think are sort of the highest return or most midterm things that you can do as, again, the market recovers and customers fingers crossed are looking to continue to spend more?

I think maybe pointing out first and foremost, I'd like to really think the team that we put together here, and this was in July, August last year, really combined this focus both on the restructuring while at the same time, focusing on how do we commercially grow this business again. I think on the product front, you saw a great example from our R&D team and launching ModTail and the great response to that product.

On the commercial front, you've seen the restructured commercial organization, bringing these products to the customers very effectively with more than 70 customers in place right now. And so I think the restructuring has happened really in parallel with this commercial effort. I wouldn't say that that's what we started first and now we are shifting. That shift has happened for some time, and I think that's why you're seeing the results. I think as far as where do we see the biggest wins, Clearly, you're seeing automation and AI coming into play with our smaller academic basic research orders.

We try to avoid having -- we want to have as little interaction, human interaction with those types of orders. And so the biggest windfalls, the biggest gains, I think, clearly sit with big pharma, small pharma, biotech in this large discovery space, where there's just a lot of uptick in activity. And when we listen to our commercial teams, a lot of interaction with customers there.

And then clearly, the bet here is that a lot of that effort will lead into future GMP activities where these programs enter some stage of clinical trials. And clearly, that's the entire approach for our business, how do you get your discovery consumables into the GMP consumables, and we're seeing a great future for that.

As far as geographic is concerned, obviously, we're spending the majority of our time today between North America and EMEA. I think you will start seeing an increased shift in focusing more on Asia. I think there are opportunities there that we haven't captured. I think it's a little bit early days. I would say, in timing of where we have chosen to spend our time, it has been to obviously rightsize the business, but also focus commercially on the regions I just mentioned. So Asia, for sure, we'll see more effort. I think it's a little early to kind of talk about what that looks like.

And our final question will be from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum.

All right. With Matt not on the line, why don't we turn it back to Bernd for some closing remarks.

Thank you, Deb. I'll keep this short here as well. Thanks, everybody, for taking the time today to listen to our Q1 results and some great questions. Like the results showed in Q1, we feel great about where the business is heading. When we came in last year and the changes we were bringing forward that always leaves some concern for instability, and we really haven't seen any of that. All of us have kind of commented here also on positive momentum in the market, specifically in pharma and biotech, which is really our bread and butter.

And so great Q1. We feel absolutely solid about the remainder of this year, and we feel great about the market. So Asia, I think the question has come up a couple of times. I think there's opportunity for us rather than downside just because our exposure isn't that great there yet. But all in all, we feel great about the business. I appreciate your support and look forward to speaking to you again in about 3 months.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

Hello, and welcome, everyone, joining today's Maravai LifeSciences Q4 2025 Results Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this call is being recorded. We are standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Deb Hart. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us on our fourth quarter and year-end 2025 earnings call. The press release and slides accompany today's call are posted on our website and available at investors.maravai.com.

As you can see from the agenda on Slide 2, our CEO, Bernd Brust, will provide a business update and our CFO, Raj Asarpota, will review our financial results. Dr. Chanfeng Zhao, our Chief Scientific Officer, will join us for our Q&A session.

Turning to Slide 3. I'd like to note that we have renamed our 2 reportable segments from nucleic acid production and biologic safety testing to TriLink and respectively. This change is to better align with our brands and internal operating terminology. There have been no changes to the composition of our reportable segments, the nature of the products and services offered or the manner in which we evaluate the company's operating performance or allocate resources. This change is nomenclature only and does not impact our segment composition, financial results or historical comparability.

Throughout today's call, we will be referring to our 2 segments by this updated terminology. Management will make forward-looking statements and refer to GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. It is possible that actual results could differ from expectations. We refer you to Slide 4 for details on forward-looking statements and our use of non-GAAP financial measures. The press release provides reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, and we also post reconciling schedules to our Investor website. Please also refer to Maravai's SEC filings for additional information on the risks and uncertainties that may impact our operating results, performance and financial condition.

Now I'll turn the call over to Bernd.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. After assuming the CEO role last June and implementing the restructuring actions we announced last August, the management team and I were clear on our priorities: simplify the business, improve operational execution, increased customer interaction and deliver better financial results. We are doing exactly that.

Let's turn to our financial results on Slide 5. Today, we reported full year revenue of $185.7 million, exceeding guidance by about $700,000. Total Q4 revenue was $49.9 million excluding the $14.3 million comparison from high-volume sales in Q4 2024, revenue grew 18%. Growth was driven by strong performance in GMP consumables and CDMO services at TriLink and by customer demand for wholesale protein with all of our top 5 customers increasing their HCP kit purchases during the quarter.

Raj will walk through the full year and fourth quarter results in more detail, but I would like to highlight a key milestone this quarter. We demonstrated the leverage of our new operating model by delivering positive adjusted EBITDA of just over $500,000 in Q4. This represents an improvement of approximately $11 million sequentially from Q3. This marks the company's first return to positive adjusted EBITDA in 4 quarters.

We achieved this well ahead of our internal expectations. The improvement was driven by disciplined execution across the organization, including exceeding the $50 million in cost saving targets we set as part of the restructuring, coupled with stronger revenue and more favorable product mix.

I want to thank our entire team for their efforts over the second half of 2025. Because of their work, we believe the company is now positioned to return to full year revenue growth, deliver positive adjusted EBITDA and positive cash flow in 2026.

Let me briefly highlight what we are doing differently and how our operational changes are delivering improved results. First, our commercial execution. We have materially increased our direct engagement with customers at TriLink positioning CleanCap as the product of choice and as part of a broader portfolio that includes our enzymes, oligos and our newly released products.

This reflects our strategy to expand trialing beyond capping reagents and deepen our role across the full mRNA and gene-based therapeutic workflow from early discovery through clinical development and into commercialization. By engaging earlier and across more components of the workflow, we increased our opportunity per program and strengthen our position as a long-term strategic supplier. A good example is our upcoming launch of GMP enzymes next quarter.

Based on the commercial team's improved customer engagement, we are already seeing strong demand with more than $1.2 million of GMP enzymes orders in hand for 2026. This illustrates the model. We support customers in discovery with research-grade consumables and services and as their programs advance into clinical trials, we are positioned to transition with them to GMP-grade supply.

In discovery, builder is enabling earlier, higher value engagement with our research customers. MRNA builder is trialing AI and computer-aided design and ordering platform that simplifies designing optimized mRNA. Customers upload their gene of interest and the platform guides them through the design of a high-performance mRNA construct. This platform is increasingly becoming embedded in customer workflows, as evidenced by direct customer feedback and repeat usage.

And as these discovery programs advance, this naturally supports pull-through of our GMP portfolio. Few competitors can offer this continuity from discovery through commercialization and debt continuity is a meaningful differentiator for us. Operationally, we have reduced fixed costs centralized operations and made the business far less sensitive to volume fluctuations. We now have clear ownership and accountability, remove functional silos and improve the speed of decision-making.

We have implemented additional automation to improve efficiency and consistency across the organization. And our new automated EU site allows us to quickly supply screening for the European market. These are structural, sustainable and scalable improvements, combined with our technical record, regulatory capability and reputation for high-quality supply, these changes further reinforce TriLink position as a partner of choice.

From an R&D perspective, we are prioritizing investments in the highest return opportunities across mRNA cell and gene therapy and the biologic safety testing business. Products introduced in the second half of 2025 are already showing strong traction and our development road map is focused on areas where we can most clearly differentiate our capabilities and best serve our customers' needs. We have a robust pipeline of NPIs planned for 2026.

Our recently launched ModTail technology continues to see strong early adoption, generating over $0.5 million in 2025, an unusually strong start for our newly introduced consumable in our market. We have already surpassed that level in 2026 year-to-date bookings with engagement across several large pharma companies. Importantly, early customer data and our own internal studies demonstrate improved protein expression an extended duration of expression both critical attributes for the next-generation RNA therapeutics.

We are also investing in additional capabilities at Cygnus. During the quarter, we expanded our mass spec infrastructure to increase capacity and broaden our analytical service offerings. This positions us to offer services that provide drug developers with a full understanding of the host cell protein in drug substances, ultimately leading to increased patient safety and product stability. We view Analytical Services as a strategic growth level for Cygnus, complementing our existing HCP and Lisa kit business.

We also continue to invest in our MockV product line for viral clearance prediction. As we see quarter-on-quarter year-on-year growth driven by increased market penetration and encouraging regulatory feedback. Taken together, our commercial execution operational discipline and focused R&D enable faster decision-making, improved responsiveness and altogether, a strong foundation for long-term durable growth and profitability.

In addition to our improved internal execution, let me share some of what frames my optimism for 2026 on Slide 8. The broader tools and biotech environment appear to be stabilizing. Biopharma funding is showing signs of recovery, particularly in the private markets. Large pharma remains active and well-funded biotechs are advancing programs, while smaller players remain cautious. While academic and government funding remains muted, we have low exposure to those markets.

Overall, we're seeing strong order volume and increased visibility. We are also seeing continued expansion in the number of companies pursuing mRNA and guide RNA programs globally, which according to the BEACON RNA database is now 809 companies compared to 643 a year ago. That growth reflects sustained scientific and commercial interest in RNA-based approaches. As delivery technologies advance and pipelines broaden, both emerging biotech and established biopharma continues to invest in RNA platforms.

At the same time, companies continue to prioritize capital and rationalize early-stage programs. Importantly, this has not resulted in a meaningful decline in overall clinical trial activity. Trial activity by phase remains stable, and we continue to see solid engagements across discovery, preclinical and clinical developments. TriLink currently works with about 250 to 300 companies on a regular basis or roughly 1/3 of the company's pursuing mRNA and guide RNA programs. We believe with our newly released ModTail technology, we have an opportunity to penetrate additional customers and programs regardless of capping method.

Finally, customer feedback suggests the FDA remains constructive in areas such as cell and gene therapy, particularly in rare disease and oncology, where expedited pathways continue to be utilized. While infectious disease vaccine development may face a more measured approach in the current U.S. environment, our exposure into vaccines is low and therapeutic programs continue to progress. What I'd like to leave you with is how confident I am that the fundamentals of this business are solid.

We have leading technologies. We have long-standing customer relationships where we continue to build greater transparency and intimacy. We have deep scientific credibility. Now all that coupled with the right team and appropriate sized operations to execute.

Now I'll turn the call over to Raj for more details on the quarter and year-end results and our 2026 financial guidance.

Thank you, Bernd. Let's turn to the Q4 financial results on Slide 10.

Revenue for the quarter was $49.9 million compared to $56.6 million in Q4 2024. As Bernd noted, excluding $14.3 million of high-volume COVID GMP CleanCap sales in the prior year quarter revenue increased 18% year-over-year. As Deb mentioned at the start of the call, we have renamed our 2 reportable segments from nucleic acid production and biologics safety testing to TriLink and Cygnus, respectively.

TriLink generated $34.6 million of revenue, down 17% year-over-year. Excluding the $14.3 million COVID CleanCap comp in Q4 2024, TriLink base revenue grew 25% year-over-year, driven by GMP consumables and CDMO services. Cygnus revenue was $15.3 million, up 4% versus last year. I will discuss segment results and profitability a little later in the call. Revenues by customer type in Q4 were 31% biopharma; 29% life sciences and diagnostics; 4% academia; 11% CRO, CMO, CDMO; and 25% distributors.

Revenue by geography in Q4 was 55% North America 15% EMEA; 21% Asia Pacific, excluding China; 8% in China and 1% Latin and Central America.

Turning to Slide 11. Our GAAP net loss before noncontrolling interests was $63 million for the fourth quarter of 2025. This included a $25.8 million noncash intangible asset impairment charge related to TriLink and $12.1 million of noncash restructuring charges, including lease unwind costs. This compares to a GAAP net loss before noncontrolling interest of $46.1 million in Q4 2024.

For the full year, GAAP net loss was $230.8 million compared to a loss of $259.6 million for 2024. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was positive $536,000 for Q4 above our expectations, driven by efficiency of initiating our cost restructuring actions and stronger revenue. This compares to negative $1.1 million in Q4 2024. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was negative $31.2 million versus $35.9 million for 2024.

Moving to Slide 12 and EPS. Basic and diluted loss per share in Q4 was $0.24 compared to a loss of $0.18 per share in Q4 2024. Adjusted EPS was a loss of $0.04 compared to a loss of $0.06 last year. For the year, basic and diluted loss per share was $0.90 versus a loss of $1.05 in 2024. Adjusted fully diluted EPS, a non-GAAP measure, was a loss of $0.29 per share versus a loss of $0.10 in the prior year.

Advancing to the balance sheet, cash flow and other financial metrics on Slide 13. We ended the year with $216.9 million in cash and $294.2 million in long-term debt. Cash used in operations in Q4 was $22.8 million, including $3.6 million related to restructuring. Depreciation and amortization was $12.4 million Net interest expense was $4.2 million. Stock-based compensation and noncash charge was $3.9 million for the quarter.

During Q1 2026, we made a voluntary $50 million debt repayment using cash on hand. As a result, both cash and total debt reduced by $50 million from these year-end numbers. We believe this was a prudent step to reduce ongoing interest expense.

Next to Slide 14 and the discussion of segment performance. Trading revenue was $34.6 million in Q4, representing 69% of total revenue. Excluding the $14.3 million COVID CleanCap comp in the prior year quarter base revenue grew 25%, driven by GMP consumables and CDMO services. TriLink generated $936,000 of adjusted EBITDA in Q4 returning to positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time since Q4 2024. For the full year, TriLink revenue was $119.8 million or 64% of total revenue with adjusted EBITDA of negative $23.1 million. Excluding high-volume CleanCap revenue, driving revenue declined 8% for the year.

Cygnus revenue was $15.3 million in Q4, up 4% year-over-year and representing 31% of total revenue. Growth was driven by continued demand for HCP kits particularly from our core customers. Cygnus delivered $10.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q4 for a 66.7% margin. For the full year, Cygnus revenue increase to $66 million with adjusted EBITDA of $44.2 million and a 67% margin. Corporate shared services expense impacting adjusted EBITDA was $10.6 million in Q4, down $2.8 million sequentially. These expenses include HR, finance, legal, IT and public company costs.

Please turn to Slide 15. As Bernd mentioned, we are ahead of our previously announced target of greater than $50 million annualized reduction in expenses and are now estimating savings of greater than $65 million. We continue to identify additional opportunities to streamline operations and improve profitability.

Now let's discuss the financial expectations for 2026 on Slide 16. We expect total revenue of $200 million to $210 million, representing growth of 8% to 13% over 2025. We expect driving to grow low double digits at the midpoint driven by double-digit growth in GMP consumables and stabilization in discovery. Cygnus is expected to grow low to mid-single digits year-over-year. We expect full year adjusted EBITDA of $18 million to $20 million, representing an improvement of $50 million to $52 million over 2025, primarily from improvements in our TriLink segment.

We expect gross margin expansion of approximately 1,200 basis points year-over-year, driven by our restructuring actions, cost initiatives and product mix as we expect greater revenue contributions from TriLink GMP consoles. Total operating expenses are expected to decline approximately 13%. And G&A expenses are expected to decline approximately 8% and sales and marketing should decline approximately 13%.

And R&D is expected to be modestly up as we continue to fund new product innovation. To help you with your modeling, here are a few additional expectations behind the guide. Interest expense, net of interest income, $15 million to $17 million; depreciation and amortization of $50 million to $52 million. Stock-based compensation of $26 million to $28 million as is fully converted share count of approximately 261 million shares net capital expenditures of $4 million to $6 million.

Finally, I'd like to provide an update on internal controls in the securities class action litigation. As you'll see when we file our 10-K this week, we have completed the implementation of our radiation plan and enhance the design and operation of our controls to address the previously identified material weaknesses. Those weaknesses related to controls over our revenue process as well as controls around key inputs and assumptions used in determining the fair value of our reporting units in the quantitative goodwill impairment assessment.

To remediate these matters, we strengthened controls over period-end revenue recognition and pricing approvals enhance the review and documentation of key inputs and assumptions used in the goodwill impairment analysis and provided additional training to control owners.

In addition, I'm pleased to report that the United States District Court for the Southern District of California dismissed in full the securities class action lawsuits against Maravai and certain of our former executives. I want to thank the team for their focus work in resolving these matters. In closing, our fourth quarter reflects the benefits of the actions we have taken, sequential revenue growth positive adjusted EBITDA and continued cost discipline. We are entering 2026 with a leaner cost structure, improved operating leverage and clear priorities. We remain focused on execution driving revenue and continued margin expansion.

I'll now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]. We'll take our first question from Matt Stanton with Jefferies.

Maybe on the commentary on visibility improving and the color on Slide 8, you talked about strong order volume. Is it fair to say orders are tracking kind of ahead of what you're guiding on revenues for '26 on year-on-year growth. So maybe just derisking a bit or leaving a bit of upside. Is there any more color you can give in terms of order and funnel growth type of a strong order volume? And if yes, maybe I've got some of the opportunity where you see the most areas of upside as you move through '26 year?

Thanks, Matt. This is Bernd. We shared in our last earnings call that there's a little lumpiness of course, in this business, right, in the business that's a couple of hundred million bucks in revenue and our average order volume is fairly high. Average order cycle is about 6 months. It's hard to get a true outlook on what happens in for the full year. And so we're certainly I think trying to be somewhat conservative as to how we set ourselves up for the future here.

But specific to your question, or volumes are materially higher so far than they were last year at this period of time, so that's a good sign, obviously. What we see specifically is in the TriLink world in our GMP consumables as well as our larger order sizes and discovery. When we look at our business in discovery, there are sort of 2 categories: orders under average $15,000, what do we assume those salespeople are involved in orders over 15 that does require usually some kind of sales involvement where we're seeing material growth in is in these larger orders in discovery alongside with GMP. But order volumes are great, and we feel very, very confident about where we are with our forecast for the year.

And maybe just on the GMP consumables, you talked about the strength in 4Q, the strength in orders. Can you talk a little bit more about it? Is that tied to a few programs moving further through the clinic? Is it selling more products into the GMP consumable ecosystem? Just talk about maybe some of the underlying demand factors underpinning the GMP consumables strength you've seen?

Yes. It's really a broad set of customers. There's really not one customer that stands out that says this is where we're seeing all our growth. So I think that's the beauty actually about the business at the moment where certainly the COVID years great revenues, but from a very small number of programs, the number of programs is quite significant at the moment. And so yes, we feel good about the depth of our customers that we are currently interacting with.

We'll take our next question from Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim.

First one is on the gross margin expansion of 1,200 bps from restructuring cost initiatives and product mix. Can you break out each of these buckets, if possible?

Yes, sure. We can -- I can give you the details on the cost savings that we've outlined before. So

The so we talked about the $55 million that we previously mentioned. And now the actual gross margin expansion is going to be coming from the $65 million annualized savings. And again, I'd like to remind you that we captured about $3 million of that in Q3 and another $8 million in Q4. So the $65 million in annualized cost savings basically reset the fixed cost base to create that margin lift on gross margin, which is independent of volume growth.

And then there's additional expansion on gross margin that's going to come from mix, made from GMP consumables contribution and the operating leverage as we continue to expand revenue.

And then one high-level. AI role in drug discovery, development and manufacturing is the investor focus of late. How is Maravai using AI either as side in R&D or otherwise to generate efficiency?

So the question was is AI driving efficiencies in the business?

Yes.

Yes. I think we're implementing this in various areas of the organization. And you heard us talk about mRNA builder that we went live with, I think it was the third quarter of last year. It's really an automated platform that we acquired through the efficient acquisition early last year that allows customers without really any human intervention to upload their DNA construct and then create an optimized RNA construct from there.

I think so far, since we have been live, something like 70-or-so orders have been going through that system. It's gradually picking up. But that's probably the biggest involvement of AI that we have at the moment. I can't speak to whether we use that in the CDMO world, I don't believe so.

We'll take our next question from Matt Larew with William Blair.

Congrats on the update. It seems like you've turned a corner here. I wanted to ask about the guide for the year. Just given Q3 and Q4 you had some lumpiness with some of the CDMO builds. And so a number of larger peers have characterized perhaps a softer first quarter, though they're optimistic about the build for the year. So just curious if there's anything you call out either from a prior year comp or an expected order conversion that might affect casing in the first quarter in particular?

Listen, we're optimistic on Q1. As we shared, we're optimistic on the year as well. On the top line, it's really not any serious negative comps. So obviously, we comped out all of the COVID hits that we comped against '24 and '25, but when you look at the orders that we are currently seeing in the business, it's really quite a diverse set of customers across the portfolio of TriLink. And obviously, Cygnus continues to run at the sort of mid-single-digit revenue levels as well.

So we really don't look at it as a negative or positive comp in Q1. I think if you look at this year, probably Q3 last year was pretty tough on the GMP world. So we'll see what that means this year on Q3. But certainly, as we look at the first half of the year here, we shared with I think the group here in September that we were expecting somewhere between $10 million and $20 million worth of COVID caps in 2026, specifically in the first half. We still expect that to happen in the first half. So that is the 1 positive comp that you'll see in the first half. But other than that, I think it's true strength of customer spending.

[indiscernible] I think we spoke about this on the previous call in terms of our commercial engagement and how that's giving us better visibility into the GMP consumables world. So that continues to happen. So on the strength of that, we've seen Q1 coming in relatively strong, and we -- and that's going to kind of continue through the balance of the year.

Okay. And then cost reduction program came in ahead of schedule. And I think the way you guided OpEx is good to see in terms of R&D getting dollars but finding efficiencies at our places. Prior to COVID, Maravai operated with EBITDA margins above 40%, though that was maybe largely as a private company, and I understand it's maybe not a perfect comp, but if you think about the midpoint of the guidance year, EBITDA margins being roughly 9% and where you expect to be in the future, obviously, now you have a portfolio, you've adding new products, which we don't fill and other margins of. But where do you think margins can go long term?

And understanding that long term is maybe undefinable in terms of time line at this point, but just terms of the structure of the business and get the kind of products and services you're offering, but where do you think you can get over

I think you're going to get your margins up truly through higher product sales, right? When you look at the organization today, you have a fairly complex GMP operating model here that you did -- knows how much volume to an COVID sits in the same infrastructure we still have. So we can absorb a large number of other GMP orders without really increasing our cost structure with the exception of raw materials and maybe a little bit of labor. So the natural margin increases, I think, are going to come purely from revenue growth over the outlying years here.

We'll take our next question from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum.

Maybe first up, regarding the restructuring, you got through that earlier than expected. So should we anticipate that the expense lines kind of have reset at this point, maybe a little bit below the Q4 numbers for sales in general and all that. and kind of show some normalized growth -- growth, if you will, over the course of the year or is there still yet 1 more step down after Q1?

So again, going back to the macro level, the $65 million in expense reductions that we've outlined those expense categories haven't changed. Some have moved a little bit towards being more favorable. Our labor expense profile is going to remain the same. Our facilities is going to essentially remain the same. Our controllable expense is going to be down a lot more than we anticipated. And then just by the account types.

If you look at our COGS profile, that's going to materially essentially remain the same. But on the OpEx side, you're going to get a lot more out of G&A. And like we said we're going to invest a little bit on R&D and sales and marketing is going to essentially remain the same. There will be another modest drop in Q1 to to get your question directly.

Got it. And then maybe a separate question. The FDA recently provided some new draft guidance regarding some of your markets. And I'm just curious what your thoughts were on that draft guidance? And more importantly, when do you think that you could maybe start to see some benefit from that?

Yes. I don't think we have internally looked at that very closely. We don't have a ton of exposure on where that dialogue sits at the moment. And so I don't think we have a clean view on that

Our next question comes from Catherine Schulte with Baird.

This is Josh on for Catherine. You mentioned that you're working with around 250 to 300 customers within mRNA ecosystem. I was just wondering where kind of market shares shake out between clinical and preclinical customers and how you kind of characterize the recent market share dynamics there? And then just lastly, how do you kind of feel about current mRNA pipeline trends heading into 2026?

Yes. I think we assume about 1/3 market share, right, of mRNA customers out there. It's not always that easy to talk about programs because we don't always know how many programs are customers running at a given point in time. But I think if you look at our G&P revenues, which Raj, which are this year forecasted -- it's somewhere around $45 million, right, something like that.

And so that suggests that your discovery business is still larger than our GMP business. So I would say that today, the GMP world, I know it's 1/3 of our revenue, something like that. And we're seeing the fastest growth happening there. So that certainly to us indicates that you're going to continue to see -- there are more programs coming into the GMP world or programs progressing higher volumes.

Great. And then throughout 2020, we saw a lot of policy headwinds in areas like mRNA, so gene therapy and MSN. You're heading into 2026, how are you feeling about the broader policy backdrop here? How does this inform the improved visibility that you're seeing across the business?

Yes. I think a lot of the policy has been driven around vaccines, right? And so we really don't have a ton of exposure in that area any longer now that we wash through the COVID comps from 2024. But when you look at just customer behavior, we're a consumables provider and we're directly dependent, of course, on customers doing either mRNA research or trials.

We're starting to see more and more traction coming from our broader customer base, not just in GMP, but also in the discovery world. And that tends to be the best sign, of course, in that you have to assume when you have larger discovery orders coming in that some of those will move into a GMP clinical trial world at some point. So the fact that, again, discovery orders and larger size are becoming more and more the prominent at the moment is a very good sign of where we think the GMP will lead into.

We'll go next to Justin Bowers with Deutsche Bank.

So sticking with GMP, can you give us a sense of what that -- how much revenue that generated in 2025? And then as we think about 2026, excluding the COVID revenue, is there any seasonality that we should take into consideration for TriLink?

I don't think seasonality necessarily. That's kind of the interesting part about this business. The lumpiness exists based on these order sizes really until you get some of these programs becoming commercial you have changes from certainly discovery into GMP, you have certainly movement from Phase 1 to 2 to 3. Some programs don't make it out of certain trial levels. And so the lumpiness that we see in the business is really not seasonal, it's purely tied to really how successful these clinical trials are.

But yes, the nature of our business is such that because these orders are fairly large, as they shift between programs they will likely shift between time as well.

Understood. And just a quick follow-up. What was GMC consumables in 2025? And then part 2 of that would be, I think last year, you talked about maybe some maybe sharing space or thinking about some alternative revenue generation activities in Flanders and just curious if there's an update on those issues?

Well, on the facility front, we have -- one of our Flanders sites is our CDMO business, and that's fully occupied by that. And the other Flanders sites, currently, we don't occupy -- we have closed that facility. If we find somebody to take it over, we will deal with that at that point, but we're not looking for incremental revenues necessarily coming from that piece. And so that has been all addressed in our accounting world as well. We don't take those into our EBITDA lines any longer.

On the question around GMP consumables, maybe Raj, do you have those numbers?

Yes. We kind of don't break that out completely. But if you look at the GMP and CDMO business combined, that's in the mid-30s last year.

And by the way, for clarification, the 43 I mentioned a minute ago for GMP consumables that excludes CDMO.

Our next question comes from Doug Schenkel with Wolfe Research.

The first on APAC, the second on So starting on APAC. As a percentage of revenue, APAC increased pretty meaningfully in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. I think you said China was stable. So it does seem to imply that there was a pretty big pickup in Asia, ex China. Am I thinking about that right? And if so, what drove that change? And is this a trend that you expect to continue into 2026?

And then on MockV, you called out demand as a driver of growth in the quarter. How has that been trending? And how do you expect that to contribute in 2026? And I'm just wondering if over time, that could be a contributor to driving overall Cygnus growth above the mid-single-digit construct?

I'll take the -- I'll start with the GMP. And like in Asia Pacific in Q4 was driven by 2 large GMP orders, but they were kind of tied to our ongoing programs and partnerships and not kind of the onetime events. And then -- so we view this as a sustainable kind of event and reflective of the ongoing improving program momentum we have, and it's not a one-off event. So that was what drove the APAC growth.

And then what was your second question again, sorry?

Yes, we did see MockV growth, and we think that product has shown tremendous kind of runway from last year to this year and in -- sorry, from 24 to 25 and we see continued kind of growth on that product line within Cygnus

If I also may add MockV. So Cygnus has supported several customers with the including MockV data in customers' clinical try application. So the initial approach has been positively received by a regulatory agency. So the idea of MockV could potentially replace expensive lengthy viral clearly study, which can really broaden our potential customer base.

And we think MockV has such a great potential runway here, and I think it's a good indication of that. I would also say, don't expect that to happen in 3 months. [indiscernible] the longer-cycle business and short-term growth, I think the question was how do we potentially look at Cygnus growing faster than sort of mid-single digits.

I think certainly, long-term MockV could be a player there. We've invested some more in services. We bought another mass spec into the organization. So I think you'll see some opportunity coming from there. And I think you're right, Asia does have some opportunities. that are potentially there for us to capitalize on.

We'll take our last question from Matthew Parisi with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

This is Matthew Parisi on for Paul Knight at KeyBanc Capital Markets. Congrats on the great quarter. So a quick question about the CleanCap revenue. You mentioned $120 million will come in the first half. Can we assume that there will be additional COVID CleanCap revenue in the second half?

No. I think we shared with all of you in Q4 that we expect $10 million to $20 million will be the total number for 2026. And we kind of look at that as the ongoing run rate in the following years as well. And you should keep that number as a guidance for the business. We expect this year that all to come in the first half of the

All right. And then next would be kind of -- you talked to the significant traction you're seeing in ModTail. I was wondering if you could talk to the traction you're seeing in the new IVT kits. And then you previously mentioned that you intend to launch new kits in '26? And when could we potentially expect to see the launch of those kits?

Deb, do you want to answer that or would you like me to?

Yes. Yes. So we've -- the market we launched M&A service and cash M&A. And so the data coming back from customers that they are very positive. And so they are starting asking -- as Bernd mentioned, that we have large fund companies using this technology. And as the positive data coming back, they are asking sort of GMP-related question obviously we'll be ready for GMP to meet the customer demand.

And for the IVT kits, as you know, China has been doing for many years. So we have deep knowledge IVT CleanCaps. So the kit is really well received in the field. We have over 100 kits ordered first few weeks -- first 4 weeks, and we see sequential growth from Q3 to Q4, and we also see more adoption in the field, we also convert 1 major customer from a competitor to use our kit. So it's all good, and we are going to launch more kits and a different version of kit to meet customer demand this year.

So ModTail is an interesting product. I mean it's still early days, obviously, but the fact that we officially launched this in September through the commercial organization, well over $1 million in orders already. And that's through Chanfeng's service and some catalog mRNA. Feedback that's come back from customers have been quite impressive. And so we have a lot of confidence this product becoming a big driver of revenue growth for our business in the years to come.

At this time, there are no further questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you. Thanks again, everybody, for dialing in, sticking with us. We know that we're still new in this organization. I think we are bringing it around very quickly. We are highly confident about the progress that we're making. TriLink certainly that's been stabilizing and positioned for growth in 2026. The fact that sickness now has hit its positive growth quarter, 3 in a row, is a great story, and we are confident that's going to have a great 2026 as well.

Our cost savings materially higher than we had initially planned really without impacting the business, I think, is an incredible sign for the organization. We're going to see EBITDA growth. We're going to see cash positive direction in 2026, again. We're leaner, where we move faster, great interaction with our customers and highly confident that we're going to have a great 2026 here.

So thanks, again, for your time and interest in the company, and we'll speak to you again in about a quarter. Thanks.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to today's Maravai LifeSciences Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Also, today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

Now at this time, I'd like to turn things over to Ms. Deb Hart, Head of Investor Relations. Ms. Hart, please go ahead, ma'am.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us on our third quarter 2025 earnings call. The press release and slides accompanying today's call are posted on our website and available at investors.maravai.com.

During today's call, management will make forward-looking statements and refer to GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. It's possible that actual results could differ from management's expectations.

We refer you to Slide 3 for details on forward-looking statements and our use of non-GAAP financial measures. The press release provides reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, and we also post a reconciling schedule to our investor website. Please also refer to Maravai's SEC filings for additional information on the risks and uncertainties that may impact our operating results, performance and financial condition.

Now I'll turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Bernd Brust.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining. Let's begin with a review of our third quarter performance on Slide 5. For Q3, we reported $41.6 million in total revenue with Biologic Safety Testing generating $16.3 million, growing at 7% and Nucleic Acid Products contributing $25.4 million, declining at 53% year-over-year.

Cygnus continues to perform well with strength from the U.S. and European markets. Although we experienced a decline in Q3 revenue performance from TriLink, this was in line with our expectations and driven by order timing in our GMP and CDMO businesses, segments that by nature are lumpy. Excluding COVID GMP CleanCap, we expect strong top line growth for NAP in Q4 with the majority of orders already in hand.

Please turn to Slide 6. As we shared during our Q2 call in August, our immediate focus as a new management team was to get our cost structure in line and position the company for both positive adjusted EBITDA and cash flow in 2026. We have stabilized our operations and significantly reduced expenses, strengthening our balance sheet going forward. We are on track to lower our expected annualized expenses by greater than $50 million. We expect to see more than $7 million in sequential adjusted EBITDA improvement in Q4.

The execution of the restructuring is largely complete and the remaining initiatives are progressing to plan. The work we have done to reset, refocus and strengthen the company, positions us to deliver attractive growth in Q4, while continuing to serve our customers with the same dedication we've had in the past.

Turning to Biologics Safety Testing on Slide 7. Our sickness business continues to deliver strong recurring revenue with broad adoption across novel monoclonal antibodies, biosimilars, recombinant vaccines and all 25 approved CAR-T cell and gene therapy products, maintaining our 100% coverage in this space. We are expanding our HCP assay portfolio, including novel mass spectrometry-based assays and seeing robust demand for contract services, MockV viral clearance kits and custom assays.

Q3 marks our second quarter of year-over-year growth in BST. The strength in Q3 came largely from our core markets in the Americas and Europe, which were up 8% and 17% year-over-year, respectively. We believe this growth reflects renewed focus on biologics development and manufacturing by biopharma and CDMO companies. Cygnus's position as the gold standard and thought leader with regulatory agencies and throughout the industry helps ensure customer retention, and we believe our expanding full-service offerings can fuel continued growth for our BST segment.

Turning to our Nucleic Acid Products segment on Slide 8. We offer discovery consumables, GMP consumables and CDMO services for therapeutic, vaccine and diagnostics applications. TriLink's discovery market continues to be influenced by the broader macroenvironment and lower funding levels.

While a portion of our discovery revenue comes from early-stage basic research, a substantial share, approximately 60% is generated from larger orders that typically reflect more advanced programs that have moved beyond early discovery into later-stage screening and preclinical development activities. We are encouraged by early signs of stability and renewed growth in these higher-value orders. In Q3, our Discovery business achieved modest sequential growth, and we are seeing strong momentum into Q4, supported by a healthy funnel and strong start in October.

In TriLink GMP consumables, historically, we have presented GMP CleanCap sales related to COVID, amounting to approximately $66 million in 2024 with no projected revenue for 2025. The fourth quarter will mark our last period of negative comparison of $14.3 million. Beginning in 2026 onwards, we anticipate annual revenues of roughly $10 million to $20 million from COVID vaccines and we'll manage the business holistically, embedding COVID GMP CleanCap as part of our ongoing GMP consumables portfolio.

In the third quarter, our base GMP consumables revenue declined due to the timing of CleanCap GMP orders, which typically align with customer programs advancing into next stage trials. This revenue stream traditionally has quarter-to-quarter variability. Despite lower third quarter revenue, we have strong visibility into our fourth quarter forecast and expect strong sequential and year-over-year growth in base GMP consumables.

On the innovation front, we launched our ModTail technology. ModTail enhances mRNA protein expression and duration, both key for next-generation RNA medicine and is showing promising results in early trials at both established customers and internal trials. We are aggressively driving adoption through targeted marketing and customer sampling with ModTail now offered as an opt-in on every quote. We believe this innovation will help broaden our customer base, drive new customers into our ecosystem and is expected to be a future revenue driver, especially in CAR-T and oncology applications.

While our ModTail works seamlessly with our CleanCap technology, there are also significant improvements seen even when using an enzymatic capping mechanism, thus opening the sales channel to non-CleanCap users. Through Q3 2025, we've already had 9 clients use our new mRNA plus ModTail services, some for multiple programs and another 14 clients have ordered our catalog ModTail products.

We're also pleased with the reception of our IVT kits, which combines several of TriLink's innovative RNA discovery products to create an all-in-one solution for high-performance RNA synthesis. These kits were launched in May and although still early days, the momentum has been terrific. We've had consistent bookings growth month-over-month since launch with both existing and new customers. Importantly, these kits serve as an entry point for customers who may transition into using our GMP products over time, expanding our user base, strengthening cross-product adoption and fostering long-term relationships. Based on their early success, we plan to launch additional kits in 2026.

Last quarter, I highlighted the launch of our computer-aided design and order platform, mRNA Builder. I'm pleased to report an encouraging early response. Customers are now designing and ordering mRNA constructs through our fully guided self-service workflow, enabling us to serve more clients with greater operational efficiency. Since the launch of the platform, we've seen a doubling of the number of orders placed. Customers require minimal or no direct interaction during the purchasing process and increasing our quote-to-order conversion rate to over 80%. We are working to expand the platform and to commercially launch on a larger scale, broadening our digital ecosystem.

Within the NAP business, we also have our CDMO services. Please turn to Slide 9. Our CDMO capabilities set us apart, offering comprehensive support from discovery through late-stage clinical development. We are seeing increased engagement from both new and repeat customers, particularly in the cell and gene therapy market and have secured multiyear supply agreements, which enhance our revenue visibility and strengthen our long-term partnerships.

Maravai is uniquely positioned for this industry, and we plan to continue to add capabilities to support our cell and gene therapy customers. The anticipated growth in this sector suggests that our CDMO business can support the mRNA market without depending solely on infectious disease vaccine manufacturing. In 2026, we are expecting an increase in the number of CDMO programs we support as well as an increase in the average batch size per build.

Please turn to Slide 10. While Maravai has had challenges over the last year, my team and I have taken decisive actions to adjust our cost structure and to reinforce our foundation. Our core technologies, deep customer relationships and strong end market exposure remain powerful assets that position us for growth in Q4 into 2026 and beyond.

What I would like to leave you with today is that I continue to be energized by the opportunity to lead Maravai. Being in the CEO seat for 5 months now, I, along with my leadership team, have developed our strategy based on 3 fundamental pillars for results: operational excellence, revenue growth and of course, return to positive adjusted EBITDA in 2026.

We are operating with greater financial discipline, prioritizing cash generation and aligning investments with clear ROI. With a strong balance sheet and healthy liquidity, we have the flexibility to invest in the highest return opportunities, while maintaining profitability improvement as a top priority. I have the utmost confidence in our future.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Raj Asarpota, our CFO, for more details on the quarter and our financial guidance.

Thank you, Bernd. Let's turn to the Q3 financial results on Slide 12. Revenue for the quarter was $41.6 million compared to $69 million in Q3 2024. Excluding revenue for COVID GMP CleanCap, base revenue in Q3 2024 was $50.8 million. For the base business, which excludes GMP CleanCap orders, primarily related to COVID vaccine programs, was down 18% for Q3 versus 2024. Our Nucleic Acid Products or NAP segment had revenue of $25.4 million in Q3. The Biologics Safety Testing segment, or BST revenue, was $16.3 million in the third quarter. I will discuss segment results a little later in the call.

Revenues by customer type in Q3 were 27% biopharma, 32% Life Sciences and Diagnostics, 4% academia, 8% CRO, CMO, CDMO and 29% through distributors. Revenue by geography was 60% North America, 19% EMEA, 12% Asia Pacific, excluding China, 8% in China and 1% from Latin and Central America.

Turning to Slide 13. Our GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest was $45.1 million for the third quarter of 2025. This compares to a GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest of $172.5 million for the comparable third quarter of 2024. Note that in Q3 2024, there was a goodwill impairment charge of $154.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was a negative $10.8 million for Q3 2025 compared to a positive $16.2 million for Q3 2024.

Moving to Slide 14 and EPS. Basic and diluted EPS for the third quarter was a loss of $0.18 per share compared to a loss of $0.68 per share in the third quarter of 2024. Adjusted EPS in Q3 2025 was a loss of $0.08 compared to a loss of $0.01 in Q3 2024.

Advancing to the balance sheet, cash flow and other financial metrics on Slide 15. We ended the quarter with $243.6 million in cash and $295.6 million in long-term debt. For Q3 2025, cash used in operations was $15.2 million. This includes a $1.6 million impact from restructuring expenses. Depreciation and amortization was $13.2 million and interest expense net of interest income was $4 million in the quarter. Stock-based compensation, a non-cash charge was $9.1 million for the quarter.

Next to Slide 16 and the discussion of segment performance. The NAP segment had revenue of $25.4 million in Q3, 61% of total revenue. Base NAP business, excluding GMP COVID CleanCap was down 29% year-over-year. The year-over-year revenue decline in NAP was driven by the following. First, the timing of GMP product orders we saw in Q3 2024 not recurring in Q3 of this year. As Bernd mentioned, this part of the business can receive large orders as customer programs advance in clinical trials, and we already have strong order velocity for GMP consumables in Q4 and into 2026.

Second, CDMO build from Q3 last year did not repeat in Q3 of 2025. We have a strong funnel for contracted CDMO services revenue, some of which is expected to be recognized in Q4. And third, discovery continues to be impacted by the current funding environment and other macro conditions. While discovery was down year-over-year, we did see growth in Q3 over Q2 for our discovery consumables, and we've seen a strong start to Q4. Bernd discussed some of the trends we are seeing in discovery, particularly in the screening and preclinical part of the business that is less impacted by funding dynamics.

Adjusted EBITDA for NAP was negative $7.9 million in Q3. We view Q3 as a low bar and see significant growth in Q4 for NAP. BST grew 7% year-over-year to $16.3 million in the third quarter or 39% of total revenue. The strong year-over-year growth was driven by demand for wholesale protein kits and quantification services and increasing adoption of MockV viral clearance products.

In BST, we saw strength in the U.S. and European markets, while China was down. Adjusted EBITDA for BST was $10.5 million for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 64.8%. We incurred an increase in cost of goods sold in Q3 in BST due to a change in our labor and overhead capitalization methodology tied to team realignments, which temporarily reduced EBITDA margins, but creates greater operational efficiency and long-term margin improvements.

Corporate shared service expenses impacting adjusted EBITDA totaled $13.4 million in the third quarter. These services include centralized functions such as human resources, finance and accounting, legal, information technology and the incremental expenses associated with being a public company. This is another large pocket of cost within the organization that we have reduced with the cost actions announced last quarter.

We are on track for the expected greater than $50 million annualized reduction in expenses and expect that we will have reduced expenses by more than $10 million in the second half of 2025. The strategic realignment and cost reduction initiatives are proceeding according to plan and the foundation focused on executional rigor has been established with the aim of expanding margins. We expect more than $7 million in sequential adjusted EBITDA improvements in Q4.

Now, let's address our guidance for 2025 on Slide 17. As you likely recall, as a new leadership team, we made the decision to withdraw the company's prior guidance range to give us a chance to complete a full business review. That process is now complete. We're also confident that we have a disciplined forecasting process in place with cross-functional engagement embedded in monthly planning and visibility improving across our business units.

We anticipate closing 2025 with revenue of approximately $185 million. This implies Q4 growth of 18% over the third quarter and excluding GMP COVID CleanCap, Q4 base business growth of 16% year-over-year. We also expect our 2025 adjusted EBITDA loss to be roughly $35 million for the year, which would mean an adjusted EBITDA loss of $3.5 million in Q4.

In closing, I'm encouraged by the steps we have already taken and continue to position Maravai for long-term success. Our financial discipline is evident in our ongoing efforts to align investments with strategic priorities and to optimize operational execution across all segments. We're committed to driving efficiencies, enhancing our cost structure and ensuring that every dollar invested yields measurable value for our shareholders. With clear financial targets and a road map for returning to revenue growth and expected positive adjusted EBITDA in 2026, I'm confident in the trajectory of our business.

We will offer detailed guidance for 2026 during our fourth quarter call. The progress we have made so far, combined with our operational rigor, sets the stage for sustainable growth and value creation in the quarters and years ahead. I'm optimistic about what lies ahead for Maravai.

I'll now turn the call back to the operator to begin the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first this afternoon to Justin Bowers with Deutsche Bank.

So just curious on the anticipated $10 million to $20 million of revenue contribution in 2026 from CleanCap, do you have commitments for those orders? Or is that more around just conversations that you're having with the customer and for customers and indications there?

Justin, this is Bernd. It's a combination of 2. We have some orders in hand and others tied to customer discussions. That $10 million to $20 million is a good number.

Okay. And then in terms of the cost savings that you have running through in the fourth quarter and next year as well, is that coming out of the COGS line, SG&A? Sort of what's the split, and the thinking there?

Yes, I'll take that. This is Raj. So as we've communicated previously, the $50 million plus comes through a bunch of different categories. We expect about 40% to 50% of those kind of realizing from labor cost reductions, another 15% to 20% on facilities, 15% to 20% on CapEx and then another 15% to 20% on other controllable spend. And if you look at the split between COGS and OpEx, it's roughly 50-50.

We go next now to Matt Larew of William Blair.

This is [ Jake Kim ] on for Matt. Just wanted to ask about that strategic review. It sounds like it's largely been completed, which is -- it's good to hear. So maybe just more high level on the first part. Wondering if you could just talk a little bit about your key findings from the review? What was the most surprising or maybe stuck out to you? And what we say like the actual outcome of the review is? It sounds like the adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow positive targets for '26 are still intact. But maybe what are the sensitivities to that time line to the target and visibility into achieving them, both on sooner than expected, but also potentially then being pushed out?

Let me maybe take the high-level side here and then hand it over to you. I think specifically to the findings, so we've been here for, respectively, 4, 5 months now or so together. And the choices we made to restructure the business and obviously impact quite a few people's careers here is tough, but I think ultimately went as smooth as it could have gone. So I think the finding here for sure has been the company was probably structured a little too heavily for what its base is.

And so I think ultimately, what we have experienced here is a business today that runs much better. I think we have a leadership team that's highly engaged and focused on building this business to where it needs to be again. But ultimately, I think the impact on the business with the changes we've made have been minimal. And so I think findings of being heavily structured in areas where we shouldn't have been. Those are now downsized has worked out great for the business.

Great. And then just a follow-up. I wanted to ask about the BST performance in the quarter. Good to see this business now return to growth for 2 consecutive quarters now. I imagine a lot of that has to be driven by like improving biotech funding backdrop. But really wanted to unpack where you're seeing strength here on a regional perspective? I think you mentioned strength in the U.S. and Europe, while China remains weak. We've heard from peers in this reporting cycle, China seems like it's starting to recover. So just wondering what you're seeing there and maybe what's embedded in your outlook?

I think you're spot on with what you said. I mean I think in our last earnings call, there was some question whether strength was coming because of some related tariffs in China and people stocking up and that clearly is not the case here. It's nice to see strength coming back in the core markets of the U.S. and Europe. I'm in agreement with you. I think it's starting to show improvement on funding. We'll see how the continuing quarters will be. But certainly, we're optimistic about where this business is heading.

We'll go next now to Doug Schenkel of Wolfe Research.

This is Madeline Mollman on for Doug Schenkel. I just wanted to touch on the gross margin. Gross margin has been in the teens so far this year. I know you talked about taking about $25 million of the $50 million out of the COGS line. How should we think about the gross margin expansion in Q4 and then into 2026, especially if you do get that contribution from the COVID CleanCap, which is typically one of your higher-margin products?

Yes. It's a good question. And I think as we feel -- as we kind of look ahead into Q4, you can definitely kind of think about modeling improvements with the cost reductions we've announced. And we'll give more specific guidance in our fourth quarter call, but there will be improvement in gross margin, primarily related to product mix. So like you said, as we start to get more GMP orders in, that gross margin rate will improve.

Great. And then just one clarification. You talked last quarter about some of the like high-volume CleanCap orders that could come in 2026. Is that $10 million to $20 million of COVID orders the same as what you mentioned last quarter? Or would this be on top of that?

That is the same.

We go next now to Catherine Schulte of Baird.

This is Tom Peterson on for Catherine. Just want to maybe dig in on the TriLink funnel and order velocity that you spoke to. You mentioned orders in hand thus far kind of supporting this outlook. So I guess, is this just kind of typical order timing or lumpiness? Or do you think there's something else that's really contributing to the sequential improvement?

I think it's a combination of both again here. When you look at Q3, it's hard to feel great, obviously, about the revenues that happened in the GMP business there, but nothing was unexpected as far as what our forecast were from our customers. So I think part of this is just purely timing that we normally experience in this part of our business.

But I do think we're seeing some positive direction of seeing incremental orders coming in. We've seen a number of larger orders coming through our system in the last couple of months. And all of that is pretty much tied to either screening kind of activities or sort of earlier-stage clinical trial work. So it's nice to see some of that movement happening.

Great. And then maybe just wanted to get a few more comments on the discovery funding environment, in particular. You mentioned the macro and kind of the challenging funding environment that we've seen. I guess what are you hearing from customers today? We maybe heard a little bit more positive developments given some of the policy outcomes around [ MFN ] and things like that. So I guess what are you hearing from this customer set?

Yes. I think it's becoming more neutral, but I don't think it's great yet. I think the important part in our business, when you think about discovery, we look at the business kind of in 2 segments, right? Orders over $25,000, which we don't consider Discovery with more screening and clinical trial kind of activity that's still using RUO consumables. That's about 60% of our revenues in that segment, and we feel really good about what's happening in that segment.

And if you look at orders under $25,000 in that Discovery segment, that's -- I still think fairly tough. However, if you think that's primarily academic for us, that's less than 4% of our revenues today. So we're fairly well shielded from what's happening in that market. So do I think you're hearing some positive things? Yes. Do I think Maravai as a company is at this point very well protected against some of that funding challenge? I think we're in a good place.

We'll go next now to Subbu Nambi with Guggenheim.

This is [ Ricky ] on for Subbu. Maybe just if you could provide a little bit of color on the confidence you had in the ex-COVID GMP CleanCap in 4Q and then also in 2026? And maybe just any changes to your expectations or your outlook for excluding COVID, that GMP business longer term?

Well, certainly, on Q4, we have a high level of confidence and most of these orders are in hand. And we have 2 months left in the year. October was strong. So I think we're in a good place for what the Q4 forecast is. I think macro level for 2026, we feel good. And if you look at the number of orders in hand today for 2026 versus similar orders in 2024 for 2025, we're materially greater now than we were last year. So I think all those indicators show the right direction that we have to take here.

Raj, I'm not sure if there's more specific numbers you want to add, but I'd leave it with that.

No, I think like Bernd said, we are already seeing a lot of good visibility through our customer forecast. We've got binding purchase commitments. We've got multiyear supply agreements, and that visibility gives us really kind of strong confidence not just in Q4, but as we kind of look at the growth trajectory for '26, we feel pretty good about it.

That's helpful. And then maybe just on that same topic, the visibility you have, is there any differences geographically that you'd speak to? You already talked a little bit about some of the different customer sizes and end markets, but just geographically speaking, that visibility [ and thing ]?

I think we should not give guidance on that. I think it's -- obviously, we're seeing good strength outside the U.S. at the moment, but I think there's some nice movement happening here as well. I wouldn't go into specifics on that at this point.

We'll go next now to Nathan Bolanos with UBS.

Obviously, there's a lot of moving pieces, but do you have any initial thoughts on what a long-term -- mid to long-term normalized growth rate for the Nucleic Acid segment could be?

Difficult question to answer. I think we continue to feel good about growing in line with what our market peers are saying in their various earnings calls. Now do I think that mRNA specifically and our weighting toward mRNA gives you some material upside depending on what happens with so many of the clinical trials that are going on. Yes, there's upside.

I think whether that takes place and when that takes place is hard to judge. It's very much tied to how these trials are moving forward. But if you put a high level of confidence in that mRNA therapeutics and a very bright future and our position within that, you have to kind of assume that greater growth will come. How to truly kind of quantify an exact number is very hard to do at this stage.

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next now to Matt Stanton with Jefferies.

Maybe going back over to Cygnus. I think year-to-date growth is kind of tracking mid-single-digits. Just talk about kind of durability and visibility returning here? Any pockets that are still lagging and maybe we don't go back to the mid-teens we saw historically, but is there a pathway for this to get kind of towards more bioprocessing consumable type growth?

And then I know it's still very small today, but just any more color to share on MockV and the growth there? And then just more broadly, the potential opportunity within the viral clearance market for that product, which seems to be getting nice traction.

Raj, you want take that?

Yes. Sure. For Cygnus, if you look at the broad portfolio, our wholesale protein kits, that's kind of like our gold standard. That's been growing at -- that grew 7% in the quarter, and it kind of demonstrates our position with customers who remain loyal to us.

And then to your question around MockV, yes, that continues to grow at a pretty rapid clip due to, again, industry adoption and confidence in the product. So we're seeing really good traction there as well.

And then even on HCP quantification services, we are continuing to grow there due to repeat customers and our focus on tactical programs to kind of engage new accounts. And then just across -- if you look at the different geographies, APAC was strong, and it's been at 18% year-over-year this quarter. 8% of that growth came from the Americas, 12% in APAC and 17% in Europe. So all in all, the whole portfolio is holding pretty strong.

I think we're seeing the biggest weakness is China still, right?

Yes.

Or was still down? So when we say Asia, we kind of exclude China?

Exclude China. Yes, China was down 12%.

Okay. And then, I appreciate all the color on some of the new products with ModTail, the IVT kit. It sounds like there's more coming in the mRNA builder. Maybe just talk about the pipeline of innovation more broadly? It feels like you're taking maybe more of a refined approach for less numbers of products, but maybe those that are more impactful or more impactful sooner. And then as we try to start to think about what that can mean for '26 and beyond, any of these, can they move the needle on their own? Or if we kind of package some of the meaningful launches up together, is there a chance that those could add a couple of points to growth or something next year as you continue to get traction there?

We have our Chief Scientific Officer, Chanfeng Zhao, sitting here. We'll have her take your questions.

Yes, sure. This is Chanfeng Zhao. Yes, you are right. We are more focused on differentiating products moving forward. So ModTail is a good example of it. [indiscernible] mRNA has a 5x cap, but there's nothing [indiscernible] we add a small [indiscernible] that 3x end of the mRNA that decreased mRNA lifespan [indiscernible] digestion. So this new technology help mRNA protein expression and the duration of the expression.

So it works for mRNA made with co-transcriptional capping methods like our CleanCap method, also works for mRNA with enzymatic capping methods. So, as Bernd mentioned earlier, we have a number of customers seeing promising results. And it's still early in the marketplace. It's not big a revenue yet, but we believe this technology will expand our customer base and also introduce new customers into our ecosystem and especially for CAR-T and oncology-related applications.

So it comes to the IVT kit, as you know, we have patented CleanCap. We also have improved [indiscernible] polymer. And over the years, we optimized IVT buffer and [indiscernible] workflow. So we really wanted to have scientists in mRNA field to take benefit of what we learned over the years. So it's really logic for us to have the kit. So that really helps our customers to get higher mRNA yield, have more robust IVT process and have lower double-strand RNA. As you know, small double-strand RNA means lower immunogenicity. So we believe this IVT kit will serve as an entry point for help our customers to transition into using our CleanCap GMP product over the time.

Specifically, right, to our strategic direction of do we think new products in our portfolio will drive growth beyond just CleanCap in this segment? The answer is yes. I mean there's no question that our goal is to continue to innovate consumables in the discovery world that we then take into GMP manufacturing and then have those used, obviously, in various clinical trials and commercialization eventually.

I think when you look at our ModTail product, amazing opportunity to be not just in products that use CleanCap, but also enzymatic capping. We have an enzymes business that we're trying to bring into a GMP world. We're finishing our GMP facility in Florida up on that, I think, in the next 3 months or so. And there'll be a variety of other consumables over the next years to come that we will bring forward into GMP manufacturing. So I think that the overall depth of our pipeline through R&D is incredible with some really outstanding potential high flyers there as well like ModTail.

And ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions today. Mr. Brust, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.

Well, I appreciate everybody dialing in again. Q3, obviously, from a growth perspective, not something that we can all feel great about, but expected within [ mind ] of what we felt as a management team. I truly believe that the vast majority of this is due to timing, and we're seeing that materialize in Q4 here. So we appreciate your continued support and are excited to bring Q4 to closure here and have the next call where we can talk about all that having happened in a great 2026. So I appreciate your support, and we look forward to speaking with you again in the next 3 months.

Thank you, Mr. Brust. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude the Maravai LifeSciences third quarter earnings conference call. Again, thanks so much for joining us, everyone, and we wish you all a great evening. Goodbye.