Cerus Corporation (CERS) Earnings

Management highlights

- Focus on three core priorities: driving sustainable double-digit growth, advancing innovation, and strengthening financial foundation. - Strong first quarter results with product revenue growth driven by global platelet franchise and accelerating U.S. IFC business. - Raised full-year 2026 product revenue guidance to $227 to $231 million and IFC revenue guidance to $22 to $24 million. - North America's platelet franchise growth with 6% increase in volumes and 9% in treatable doses compared to Q1 2025. - International RMA business strong, led by France and Belgium, with multi-year contract with French EFS. - Innovation includes rollout of next generation I&T 200 Illuminator, track to submit PMA for I&T 100 to U.S. FDA, and growth in U.S. ISD franchise. - Operating expenses declined 7% compared to Q1 2025, with SG&A largely consistent and R&D expenses down due to lower development costs of INT200. - Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2026 totaled $4 million, marking eighth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA.

Guidance

- Raised full-year 2026 product revenue guidance to $227 to $231 million, representing 10 to 12% year-over-year growth. - Raised full-year IFC revenue guidance to $22 to $24 million, approximately 30 to 40% year-over-year growth. - Expect to deliver third consecutive year of positive adjusted EBITDA results for the balance of 2026. - 2026 gross margin expected to be in the low 50s range, with potential relief if external factor assumptions prove conservative.

Segment performance

Product revenue in the first quarter was $53.7 million, up 24% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Total revenue, including government contract revenue, increased 23% year-over-year. North America accounted for nearly 70% of first quarter product revenue. EMEA revenues grew by 28%, with demand for platelet product being the primary contributor. First quarter IFC revenue was $5.7 million, up from $3 million in the first quarter of 2025, with demand increasing approximately 120% year-over-year by therapeutic dose equivalent and revenue growth approaching 90%.

Risks & headwinds

- Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual events, performance, and results to differ materially, including risks related to future financial and operating results, clinical trial data availability, regulatory submissions, market opportunities, tariffs, inflationary pressures, etc. - Near-term challenges in certain regions like the Middle East with ongoing conflict creating logistical complexities that may impact shipment timing.

Analyst Q&A

• Q: Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions and congratulations, Obi, on moving into your next chapter. It's been a long, resilient run by you and leaving the company in a position of strength here, looking at these one key results and being on the cusp of some RBC approvals globally. We'll miss you, but congratulations, Vivek, on your new CEO seat. I'd like to start just with... Just asking about guidance, it seems like the uptick is or looks like the uptick is being driven mostly by IFC strength, but also by intercept platelet strength. Maybe just talk about the outlook for the U.S. intercept platelet franchise versus the OUS intercept platelet franchise and where you're seeing more upside relative to the outlook at the beginning of the year.

  A: Yeah, thanks a lot, Josh, and thanks for the kind comments to start. Vivek, do you want to handle that question? Yeah, I'd be happy to. Josh, echoing Obi's statement, thanks for the kind words. They're much appreciated, and certainly appreciate your continued interest in our story. You know, the thing that's most encouraging to me about Q1 results is that the strength of the performance is really broad-based, both globally and across product category. You're right to point out that ISD performed quite well and is a significant part of our revised upward guidance. But as you also correctly pointed out, platelets is a big component of that as well. If you recall late last year and earlier this calendar year, we pointed to the BCA agreement in the US and the opportunity to have effectively a hunting license in about half of the US market where relatively speaking, our platelets were under penetrated we saw good progress in the first quarter in that section of the market but we also saw strength with platelets internationally as evidenced by what kevin spoke to in terms of strengthen our emea organization and then we also highlighted the renewed contract with the ess so as we think about the outlook for the balance of the year We see continued solid platelet growth in both geographies, continued expansion in the U.S. under the umbrella of the BCA agreement, as well as continued adoption both in growth areas internationally, but then also in some of our core markets where we're seeing a recommitment for customers. So really there's a lot of enthusiasm coming out of first quarter results and the general qualification of demand in the marketplace.

• Q: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Obi, it's been great working with you, and congrats as you transition into the chairman role, and Vivek, congrats on your well-deserved promotion to CEO. All right, so moving into the business, you know, I wanted to get a better sense on the guidance because, you know, when I look at the IFC business, you know, you grew 90% in Q1 here. The 2026 guidance for IFC has been raised to approximately 30% to 40%. So I'm just trying to get a sense. about the seasonality of this business. It looks like in Q3 last year, it was down sequentially. I recognize there's probably lumpiness as you roll this out, but can you just walk us through the assumptions as to, you know, just the delta between the really strong growth to start this year and, you know, your full year growth outlook for IFC?

  A: Yeah, thanks for the question, Mark, and thanks for the comments to start as well. Vivek,你 want to cover that? Yeah, I'd be happy to. Mark, thank you for the kind words about the org transition. Much appreciated. You're right to point out that the business is a little bit lumpy as we're in this early growth stage. But I just want to emphasize that our conviction around continued growth and the fact that, you know, it's still we're a single digit市场 share. player and feel like there's a tremendous amount of headroom. I don't want any of that enthusiasm to be lost as we talk about some of the specifics about the current position itself. I'll remind你 that a year ago, there were some anomalies in terms of our posted results. If you recall, we deferred from an accounting standpoint, some revenue recognition to the second quarter as we were sort of starting the process of transitioning from a finished therapeutic sale to a kit sale. That transition continues and really we're driving towards being fully kit sales ideally by the end of this calendar year. That may bleed a little bit into 2027. So we've been talking about really unit volume from the standpoint of therapeutic dose equivalence as opposed to the revenue growth. And so you'll see that current transition, you'll see that transition accelerate through the balance of 2026. And that was part of what factored into the guidance for the full year. Obviously, we took it up pretty significantly from original guidance of 20 to 22 million for the full year now to 22 to 24. So underlying growth remains strong. There'll probably be some period to period idiosyncrasies just given that transition in the nature of our business model. But as we think about blood centers manufacturing IFC, hospital start, some of the things that now we're paying attention to, all of those trend lines are pretty strongly positive. So hopefully that could be a little bit more color, certainly halfway to answer any more questions about the IFC business as you have them.