Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ:PACB) reported 6% revenue growth for the third quarter of 2026 as customers adopted its SPRQ-Nx sequencing chemistry, though consumables revenue declined from a year earlier and academic funding constraints continued to weigh on instrument purchases in the Americas.
The company, known as PacBio, reported revenue of $40.6 million, up from $38.4 million a year earlier and $39 million in the second quarter. It narrowed its full-year revenue outlook to $155 million to $160 million and lowered its forecast for non-GAAP operating expenses following restructuring savings.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Van Oene said the company had improved its commercial execution and secured deals in clinical genomics and biological artificial intelligence, but cautioned that the work would take time to translate into meaningful revenue and cash generation.
SPRQ-Nx adoption and instrument sales
More than half of Revio consumables revenue came from customers using SPRQ-Nx during the quarter, and about two-thirds of the installed Revio base had opted to upgrade its software by quarter-end, Van Oene said. PacBio expects the vast majority of the installed base to opt in by year-end.
Consumables revenue was $20.8 million, down from $21.3 million a year earlier but up from $20.1 million in the second quarter. Chief Accounting Officer Bill Meyer said customers were using existing reagent inventories and transitioning to multi-use workflows, with sequencing activity growing faster than consumable purchases.
Annualized Revio consumables pull-through was approximately $204,000 per system in the quarter. PacBio maintained its full-year expectation of $200,000 to $225,000 and expects to return to a range of $225,000 to $250,000 in 2027, Van Oene said.
Instrument revenue rose to $13.2 million from $11.3 million a year earlier. PacBio sold 15 Revio systems, up from 13, and 35 Vega systems, up from 32. Cumulative shipments reached 381 Revio systems and 235 Vega systems.
Van Oene said an August launch of SPRQ-Nx on Vega increased that system’s output by 50%. More than 90% of Vega shipments in the quarter went to new customers, he said.
Clinical and AI programs expand
Van Oene said PacBio’s clinical consumables business has consistently grown more than 20% year over year and that clinical now exceeds 20% of the company’s overall business. Europe remains its strongest clinical market, although he said clinical is still less than half of the business in that region.
Among recent developments, GeneDx announced plans to add long-read whole genome sequencing to its genome testing portfolio. Van Oene said the company plans to deploy the technology in rare disease testing.
Berry Genomics added 10 Revio systems for a five-year rare disease program in China backed by the China Birth Defect Intervention and Assistance Foundation. The program initially aims to improve diagnosis for patients whose conditions remained undiagnosed after short-read exome or genome sequencing, Van Oene said.
PacBio also highlighted a multiyear collaboration with Verily Health intended to combine long-read genomic and clinical data for AI-ready datasets. Separately, TychoBio plans to use PacBio sequencing across more than 10,000 samples to develop RNA datasets for AI drug discovery.
The company’s high-throughput platform remains on track for a commercial launch by the end of 2027, Van Oene said. He described it as a priority for research and development and said it would be better suited to large projects than Revio alone.
Costs, cash and outlook
Non-GAAP gross margin fell to 36% from 42% a year earlier, primarily because of higher memory costs and Vega manufacturing transition costs, Meyer said. Non-GAAP operating expenses declined 13% to $47 million, while the non-GAAP net loss narrowed to $32.8 million, or $0.11 per share, from $36.8 million, or $0.12 per share.
PacBio ended the quarter with approximately $199.4 million in unrestricted cash, equivalents and investments, compared with $279.5 million at the end of 2025. It continues to expect to end 2026 with $175 million to $185 million in cash. Meyer attributed some third-quarter cash use to the timing of payables and extended receivables.
The company reduced its 2026 non-GAAP operating expense forecast to $203 million to $207 million from $215 million to $220 million. It maintained its non-GAAP gross margin outlook of 35% to 37% and its expectation of reaching cash flow breakeven in 2028.
Van Oene also said Jim Gibson had stepped down as chief financial officer and that PacBio had begun a search for a successor. Meyer has been appointed chief accounting officer and will serve as principal accounting officer.
About Pacific Biosciences of California (NASDAQ:PACB)
Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc (NASDAQ: PACB) is a life sciences technology company that develops and supplies DNA sequencing systems, consumables and related software. The company is best known for its single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology, which produces highly accurate long-read data used to analyze complex genomes, structural variation, genetic disease and other biological information.
PacBio’s product portfolio includes the Revio long-read sequencing system, the Sequel II and Sequel IIe platforms, sequencing consumables and the associated data-analysis software.
