Pacific Biosciences of California Q2 Earnings Call Highlights

Leadership and outlook changed: CEO Christian Henry stepped down and was replaced immediately by Mark Van Oene. PacBio lowered its 2026 revenue forecast to $155 million–$165 million and pushed expected cash-flow breakeven to 2028. Q2 revenue was essentially flat at $39 million: Consumables revenue grew 6% to $20.1 million, but instrument revenue fell 9% to $12.8 million amid fewer Vega shipments and a lower average selling price. SMRT Next adoption is central to the growth strategy: The new multi-use chemistry lowers the cost of a 20x HiFi human genome by 30%, but customer validation and existing reagent inventories are delaying the expected consumables ramp until late 2026. Pacific Biosciences of California NASDAQ: PACB reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $39 million, roughly flat from $39.8 million a year earlier, while announcing an immediate leadership transition and lowering its full-year revenue outlook amid a slower-than-expected rollout of its new multi-use sequencing chemistry and continued funding constraints in academic and government markets. Christian Henry stepped down as president and chief executive officer and will remain on PacBio’s board while serving as an advisor. Mark Van Oene, who previously led the company’s R&D operations and commercial organization, succeeded Henry as president and CEO effective immediately. “My priorities will be directly built on this foundation,” Van Oene said, citing plans to scale the company’s clinical-market approach globally, expand adoption of its SMRT Next chemistry and support larger sequencing projects. Revenue mix and instrument placements Consumables revenue rose 6% year over year to $20.1 million, supported by growth in PacBio’s installed base and clinical customer utilization. Shipments to clinical customers increased 67% from the prior-year period and represented a mid-teens percentage of total consumables shipments, according to Van Oene. Instrument revenue declined 9% to $12.8 million. Chief Financial Officer Jim Gibson said the decrease reflected a lower average selling price resulting from customer mix, including lower-priced strategic Revio placements, as well as fewer Vega system shipments. PacBio sold 20 Revio systems during the quarter, compared with 15 a year earlier. It sold 26 Vega systems, compared with 38 in the prior-year quarter. Cumulative shipments reached 366 Revio systems and 200 Vega systems. Sixty percent of second-quarter Revio placements went to new customers, while 45% were part of multi-instrument orders. Eighty-one percent of Vega shipments went to new customers. Van Oene said the majority of Revio placements during the quarter were to clinical accounts. He also said PacBio is seeing public health laboratories adopt Vega systems, including for wastewater testing and other applications outside traditional high-throughput whole-genome sequencing. Regional performance was mixed. Revenue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa increased 52% to $14.4 million, driven by clinical customers moving from pilot programs into routine production, growing Vega demand and a strategic multi-system Revio placement for a national genomics initiative. Americas revenue was $17.6 million, down slightly year over year, as uncertainty around NIH and broader academic funding affected capital purchases. Asia-Pacific revenue declined 45% to $7 million, reflecting the completion of a population sequencing program, funding headwinds and lower consumables demand during customer workflow validation. SMRT Next rollout and clinical strategy...