Hello, good morning and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you all for attending. For those who don't know me, my name is Charles Weston. I lead the European Healthcare Equity Research Team here. I've been following Oxford Nanopore for pretty close to 15 years or so. With me, I have the pleasure of welcoming Nick Keher, the CFO of Oxford Nanopore. The process here is that we are going to have a little bit of a recap from Nick on the key highlights of the trading statements. We're then going to be going through and discussing some of the key drivers in detail. There is, I think, a button for questions that will get emailed to me. I may be able to have a look at them as they go through. I may not have to come back to you. Nick, thanks very much for joining.
Thank you for having me, Charles. Appreciate it.
So, yeah, let's kick off, please. You know, a couple of minutes to you, really. What are the highlights that you want to sort of get across in terms of the trading in the last six months?
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So, look, we set out at the beginning of the year 20%-23% constant currency revenue growth and in what has been a challenging backdrop. Let's not forget all of the kind of pressures we had at the beginning of the year in the NIH funding in the U.S., the fact that trading in China remains difficult because of all the geopolitical issues that we're seeing, and throw into that the tariff news that we had during the course of the year as well. By the end of the year, and as we reported on Monday, we delivered 24% constant currency growth, so ahead of the guidance.
And, quite pleasing, we saw over 20% constant currency growth in each region as well, which I'm sure will go on to, but from the mathematical perspective, around about 30% growth actually in the Americas in the second half. We delivered growth across all product ranges. As we said, we would, we'd retain growth of the MinION franchise. And we're very happy with how the performance has gone overall, particularly expansion to the new end markets such as clinical, where we saw over 60% growth for the year, and biopharma, where we saw 30% growth as well. Applied, 27% growth, and still delivered 15% growth in research, which I think relative to the rest of the market is still very impressive.
The other metric we put in, we finished the year with GBP 302 million worth of cash, which was a bit ahead of where the market expectations were and reflects good work and working capital, particularly on inventories. So overall, we think we delivered against what we said we would, overachieved slightly on the revenue number, and leaves us well positioned in the next year. We didn't talk to margin, we didn't talk to EBITDA. We think we'll talk to those, well, we will talk to those when we get to the March results. We're really focused on the revenue performance of the year and the cash performance at this moment in time. But that's how we saw it.
Okay, thank you. That's great. So what I want to do for the most part of this call is focus on the performance by end market category, because I think that's the way most investors like to look at the business at the moment. But I think a couple of things to set the scene first. Can you talk by product category first? So talking about which end markets are important for PromethION, GridION, and MinION, and why those products are relevant in each case?
Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, can we take it maybe up another level to the flow cell type, because actually that's the most important part. So for the MinION flow cell, which is 30 gigs essentially of data that comes out, that means it's really applicable for, say, small genomes and targeted human sequencing as well. So when you've got a specific target in mind, but it's not suitable for whole human genome because you just simply can't get enough data off the flow cell. So for the MinION flow cell, 30 gigs, customers that are looking at specific things or before they're thinking about scaling. Then we look at the device type. And so for the MinION flow cell, we have two devices, the MinION device, the GridION device, GridION being five MinION flow cells on onboard compute.
The MinION device, something that is very portable, you can plug into a laptop. For the GridION device, the most applicable, the markets that are most applicable are within research and things people are looking into targeted sequencing for rare disease, infectious disease, for clinical markets for the exact same reason. And then also for the biopharma markets, where with the lockdown version of the GridION, we're seeing uptake for particularly where people have got known things they're looking at, such as plasmids or for mRNA and AAV and other types of targeted samples they're looking at. For the MinION device, it's much more predominantly a research-based product, essentially, where customers are looking to try out sequencing for the first time, not really for customers who are looking to scale.
We then look at the PromethION flow cell, where we get over 100 gigs, and so it's applicable for whole human genome and essentially anything anybody wants to do on the MinION flow cell as well, just at a higher scale, higher throughput, or quicker, or where people have range anxiety about using a MinION flow cell because they're worried that they won't essentially have enough data to be able to get to what they need to, so they use a PROM instead. So the PromethION flow cell, essentially, we've got two different form factors. We've got the P24 for those customers who want to scale, and then you've got the P2 form factor where people are looking at a smaller throughput that's required, so a smaller number of samples that we're looking at as well.
Interestingly, and this is something we didn't talk to in the end of November, but the question goes to the heart of what is the kind of the overlap of our product to end market piece as well, so the PromethION, when we went through our work of saying the 47 market segments that we looked at and split those by the end markets that we're talking to now, we then overlaid each of the product portfolio for each of the end market segments, and what we found is that actually, yes, the MinION flow cell and the GridION and the MinION are applicable to certain market segments like the ones we talked to. The PromethION is actually applicable to almost all of the high priority markets that we're going for.
And the P2i in particular is the most applicable product because it has onboard compute, which means that actually for the customers who are just looking to get the device out of the box and without want of a better word, maybe aren't as green-fingered to be able to set it all up themselves and just get going. The P2i is applicable to almost all of the end markets that we're looking at, in particular because they can help people start at one point and scale because you can daisy chain them together. And then for the P24, it's really for those customers who are looking for the much higher throughput. And you do have customers that have graduated essentially from being on a GridION or a MinION to GridION, then to the P24 or P2i. So you have had customers that have kind of moved.
What we're seeing though, more often than not, is that people are going straight for the P2i and the PROM. When we look at the customer base though, just end markets to really answer it to another level. In the biopharma space, customers that are on the PROM are predominantly the target ID customers today. So the research focus. Once we have the PromQ, we could see the biopharma community actually go for that device rather than the grid. They'll have an option. It depends on how much scale they want to look for. But for the clinical markets, PromethION, absolutely.
For besides those targeted sequencing pieces like in rare disease, where the GridION has got an applicability, we're still going to see the same customer potentially use a PROM because they can also use it not just for infectious disease as well, but they can use it for whole human genome sequencing, which is going to become a bigger part of our growth in the future in the clinical space. And in research, as you've seen, if people are looking at what is driving disease and they want to understand human genomes, the P24, the P2I, very applicable as well. So I'm afraid to say it's quite broad for the PROM and very targeted for the grid and for the MinION about where it's used.
Thanks for that. We're obviously going to now come back to you and start asking you for device numbers again, so just be aware of that.
I know it's coming.
Yeah. Let's talk about geography then now. Research is the most important market for Europe. Non-research markets are the most important for the Americas, and there's a mix in Asia-Pac, right? So can you just explain, well, A, confirm that's the case, and B, sort of explain why the regions are not more similar in terms of the market mix?
Yeah, absolutely. So I think experts would say each of the end markets are important for every region, first of all. But in terms of the weighting, you're absolutely right. So over 50% now of the Americas is actually coming from the applied industrial, clinical, and biopharma segments. And those segments are growing much quicker than the research space, particularly in the Americas. Why is that the case? I think that's a billion-dollar question, actually. And I think it could have some to do with the fact that we're playing in the backyard of our biggest competitors, particularly when we think about the research community. And it could also be because there are just less population scale programs kind of happening now in the Americas versus in APAC and EMEA. For EMEA, over 50% of the end markets are those applied industrial, clinical, biopharma in the Americas.
Not quite 50%, but actually, so more like 60% essentially is for EMEA. Is still research, but those other segments are growing much quicker. It's worth noting that actually our fastest, clinical still delivered over 50% growth in EMEA, and biopharma was up, again, similar to the number we reported for EMEA as well. Those segments are growing strongly in those markets. For Asia-Pacific, I think this is really related to the fact we use more distributors than anything else, and as we talked to you before, our distributors are reported within our research and government space as well. Over time, once we get the ability to see directly into the end markets that we're serving through those distributors, you may see a rebalancing take place as well in the reported numbers.
Okay. Okay. That's helpful. I didn't realize about that Asia-Pac bit properly there. So let's talk about the demand by market. We'll just go through the four markets by size for Nanopore. The biggest research, which is around two-thirds of the group, I think in 2025, you disclosed 22% growth in H1, and that fell to about 9% in H2 on tougher comps and the completion of a major sequencing program. But it seems really important in this space to slice and dice by region. So can you give us a sense of color on academic growth by region?
Yeah. So academic growth by region, so Americas essentially flat for the year. For APAC, was up teens, and in EMEA, we're still up over 20%.
Okay. Focusing on the U.S. in particular, what are the, can you talk about cadence? If it was flat in the year, how does that work, sort of first half versus second half? What are the teams hearing on the ground right now?
Yeah, and that's specifically looking at the academic piece. When we look at research and government as a whole, we were up single digit, just to kind of put that into context for the Americas. And what we're seeing on the ground at the moment is, and what we're hearing is that there's some stability in the market. We haven't quite seen, we've heard and we've seen that the markets have got better. In Q3, we saw it a little bit towards the end that the markets improved. Have we seen this rebound to normality? I don't think we have yet. It's more just stability at the moment. We're not the bellwether though, Charles. So we are, as we just discussed, we're minuscule in terms of market share. If I look at market share of ourselves in the U.S., we're only about 2-3%.
We're about 7-8% in other markets. So there is a kind of an imbalance for sure, but we're growing very quickly in the Americas, so hopefully we can change that. So I don't think we're the bellwether. Things are going a bit more normality. There is maybe a bit more confidence that actually investment in the NIH might actually be better than people are talking about, particularly as the Americans think about investing more in the biotech sector to keep the global dominance in this space.
Okay. That sounds positive. So tougher and now a bit more stable, but haven't quite seen a rebound. And outside, if I look at EMEA or Asia-Pac, was there any particular difference H1 to H2?
The biggest one is APAC, where we had the PRECISE contract roll-off. So for awareness, $3 million essentially in the second half of last year, zero in the second half of this year. So that's the kind of the big delta. EMEA, clearly we've got just for awareness, the NIHR contract is now coming to an end because we've completed it. So that will be a headwind into next year. But we have got the Biobank contract, which only delivered about a million in the second half of this year. And it's a teens million contract, and it's really going to start ramping now. So we've got that tailwind that will come from it. Otherwise, in Europe, we're seeing a lot of activity still, particularly related to the ELRIN project, so European Long Read Initiative, as well as individual-focused research projects that are out there.
So there's activity happening in EMEA. There's activity happening in APAC, but in APAC, we just had the PRECISE contract rolling off, which we've discussed before.
So, sequencing in Biobank, and that's largely delivered next year, or is it spread over a couple of years? And what's the context for NIHR in terms of the headwind?
Yeah. So for GBP 14 million, the majority of which will be in 2025, with some in 2026, sorry, 2026 and some in 2027 as well. So that will be helpful to the number. And in terms of NIHR, you're talking about a headwind of around about GBP 5 million, essentially, that you'll see to GBP 6 million over the course of next year.
Okay. Great. Let's move on then to applied industrial, so around about 13% of sales grew 27%, roughly similar growth rates in H1, H2. You've talked a lot in the past about displacement of old-style Sanger sequencing of plasmids, and just for the audience, plasmids are used throughout biotechnology research to move genes around and copy them, and also in antibody and cell and gene therapy drug manufacturing, so how much of the growth in this segment of that 27% is driven by this specific application, and I know you've mentioned one particular customer before, Plasmidsaurus, but how diversified is the customer base within this segment?
Yeah. The fastest growing region for us for applied is actually APAC, actually in the year just gone. That is because we're seeing more of those Sanger sequencing providers actually switch over to ourselves as well. Plasmidsaurus itself is not; it is one of the key drivers within that segment, but it's not the only thing happening there. There are about five tests that essentially are done on Sanger, which make up a decent chunk of what they are doing. We are seeing that kind of switch over to ourselves happening as well across different types of providers. Absolutely, we think the market opportunity is over a billion for us to target. We're at the early stages of conversion here.
We think we could be going quicker, but for restrictions that we saw, particularly in China in the year just gone on customers that would have been buying the product, so we think we can kind of continue to grow at a fast clip. We didn't deliver as strong growth as the year before, around 40% because of those restrictions in China, but also in the U.S., we are seeing more players come onto our technology for plasmid sequencing, but it's driving a bit more price competition in the market between each of those providers as well, so volumes haven't grown as quickly as we saw the year before. It's a bit of a lull as people kind of go onto the PromethION in particular as they scale, going back to your very first question, and then once they do that, they essentially start to take further market share.
Does that pricing impact your pricing?
No. No. It's more that they are getting as much out of the flow cell as is humanly possible to be able to deliver the plasmids back. So they're getting more plasmids on a flow cell.
Okay.
Higher throughput barcoding in particular.
So perhaps it's worth just touching on the new chemistry that you were talking about at London Calling. I think you were looking to effectively get scale-wise two genomes per flow cell rather than just one. That's going to be quite important from the perspective of any pricing competition, productivity competition with any of your peers. How's that going?
So yes, talked about London Calling 2021, the new chemistry that's coming through. The key thing here is actually it's more applicable for the whole human genome market, first of all. And we've got to be very specific about where this is going to be used. So it's more for the clinical market and the research market where people are looking at whole human genome blood samples. So specific sample types, specific read lengths. And actually, an interesting fact that we're seeing is the way what we're seeing is essentially this is helping the pore stay open for longer. So more data can be run for a longer time. And we've got a 72-hour cutoff that we essentially have looked at for the flow cell itself.
But actually, if people don't worry about the turnaround time, it could actually run for longer and actually could deliver more output over time as well. It's in early access, beta testing in reality. We are thinking very hard about positioning for this product, as you can tell, and essentially how we're going to be using it with what customers, in what context, pricing, all of those good things. We're thinking quite long and hard about because we think we've got something here that could be a big revenue driver for the company, actually, when we're thinking about those whole human genome market opportunities, be it in the research space, but also with the clinical customers.
Because actually, at the moment, what we've seen in clinical, I'm jumping a little bit here, but rare disease is where we've landed, where the price point has meant that we've been a reflex test and now we're going frontline. Targeted sequencing or whole human genome, two different use cases, both rare disease, from essentially is where we've landed with these American customers in particular. But we know if we can get to a price point on whole human genomes per sample, essentially, they'll give us their oncology business as well. And the volume is significantly higher. So this product is essentially allowing us to kind of potentially capture this market now as well. And we're just going to be very careful about how we launch this and how we communicate it to the market. So yes, we talked about London Calling.
We might be a bit more coy on this until we've essentially gone through all the process that we need to be able to launch this appropriately during the course of this year, next year as well.
I was going to ask, is it this year or next year, or is it more of a phasing of rollout that means it all blurs together?
Phasing because we've got to be careful as well that we want to make sure we get this right. And there's going to be potentially two different PromethION flow cells in terms of manufacturing runs because you're going to have one with the chemistry, one without the chemistry. Where is this chemistry going to be applicable to which customers? So for instance, is this really applicable for the plasmid sequencing customers? Probably not. It's really going to be applicable just for the customer who's doing whole human genome in specific circumstances. So actually, should we, because there's going to be a cost of implementing this as well because it is a change. So actually, when we're thinking about do we want to do all flow cells like this or not, we've got to think about it.
Okay. So I guess to put this into context, if I think about your clinical sales, you've talked about rare disease. You've talked about oncology and not really being there yet as much. We've talked about infectious disease in the past. So in order of sort of weighting within your portfolio in clinical, is it almost all rare disease, or is it rare disease and infectious disease and then smaller oncology? How should we think about the mix?
So yes. We've got to be careful here because we're still working on essentially the kind of the granularity of the data that supports it, but we're coming back to that. But yes, infectious disease, rare disease, part and oncology building because the oncology use cases are much more for like blood cancers where somebody needs a very quick turnaround time to guide therapy. And they can't wait for a batch or they can't answer the question on a competitor device today.
Okay. Let's come back to the sort of competitor dynamics a bit later. In general, though, if we think from a high level on your clinical business, you had kind of 60% growth in the year, 70% year-on-year in H2. I appreciate it off a smaller base, but if you could hold 60%, it would mean that you're 10 x bigger in five years. And your current penetration is minuscule into the whole of the space, especially in that, obviously, that oncology side. So is this the kind of level of growth that you're shooting for? Obviously, not an official target, but is that the sort of cadence that you want to drive from this business?
We'd love to. Now, but what you've got to look at, it's not that simple, so for instance, when people look at the entire oncology or clinical market that our competitors are doing today, there's about $1 billion that is in NIPT, which works very well. Cost point is very effective. Why would anybody have a switch? And we shouldn't target it. When we talked about when we've gone over those 47 end market opportunities that we're looking at and the high-priority segments, things like infectious disease, imagine a bubble chart and a two-by-two that we've clearly done. Infectious disease is a very big bubble. And how are we going to get there?
Things like what we're doing today, but the bigger, more significant drivers are essentially about when we are partnered with the likes of bioMérieux and Cepheid and how the products that we're working with them on, once they start coming to market, and they're going to be step changes in growth, actually. So yes, in the rare disease markets we're in today, infectious disease, the way we've got the go-to-market working at the moment, that kind of cadence in terms of market size, it could be held for a few years. I think you're going to see a step change, actually, once we start working on products with our partners because the market opportunity expands quite significantly at that point.
Actually, our ability to penetrate it is a lot better when we've got the likes of a Cepheid, bioMérieux, essentially that muscle from a channel perspective behind it as well. And the stamp of approval that comes from working with companies like that.
What is the sort of timeline we should be thinking about? You talked about bioMérieux for some time. Specifically in the example when you talked about the GridION having the CE marking, is that ahead of Cepheid? What sort of timing should we be looking for for that, as it were, in launch or inflection?
I don't think it'd be appropriate to talk about independently which one's ahead of which, to be honest with you. But all I would say is that I think in the next 24 months in particular, I think you're going to see quite a bit coming through. So is it an influencer on even our 2027 viewpoint? Yes, it is.
Okay. And just coming back to the CE marking on GridION, enabling tests to be approved, regulatory approved on the instruments. What do you think are the sort of the timelines here in terms of, obviously, you've talked about bioMérieux, but potentially other adoption or the catalyst of growth from having a box with that sort of regulatory stamp?
Yeah, it's important for people to realize that we do have a device that is held to that high standard. So essentially, people can kind of trust and develop on the back of the product now, knowing that we can achieve those high levels. So I think this is a door opener, and partners, customers will take this as a real positive. There is a lot more nuance, as you can imagine, to things like 510(k) and where are the devices 510(k) exempt. The reality is it's all about the assay, actually, as well, and that kind of development work will always be done by partners. But now they know that the device meets those high standards. I think this is going to, well, it is helping from a partnering perspective as well.
Okay. So it's a step in the process rather than a.
It's a step in the end game. Yes.
Yeah.
Exactly. And the other thing I'd say is like the Q-Line, there's almost, yeah, the stages, right? Where we have the products historically where they're not locked down, there's a lot of iteration that happens because the software updates. That's one segment for the research community in particular, the Q-Line lockdown variant, particularly for the biopharma, but also for clinical. So the PromQ is going to be very applicable for that. And when you're thinking about DX, that's almost a sure that we can work in the IVD market where that will be applicable to people. But what we do see is people want that lockdown version. They want the DX. They can turn off the functionality of DX as well if they want to. So they just want to, they just need it to be able to do it for certain things.
Okay. Let's move on to biopharma, please. So 9% of revenue, 19% growth in H1, which was lackluster in inverted commas if 19% is lackluster. But you've been talking about it very positively. And I think we were looking for more than that. And then in H2, it was up 40% year-on-year and sequentially up 50%. So first of all, is the revenue here being driven more on the discovery side or the manufacturing QC side? And so what else can you sort of share with us about that trajectory, whether this is lumpiness coming through or whether it's the start of an inflection?
We did see an uptick in the QC piece, which is what we were talking to. Last time we spoke, Charles, I mean, we said that we can't name the companies, but things are happening. It was quite frustrating. It's been frustrating. At the half year, we weren't happy with 19% growth, which is incredible things to say. We knew that the things were happening. In the second half of this year, we could already see it coming through in the numbers. We just couldn't talk to it. We can't talk about it with specificity about which customers are doing exactly what. We have said in the QC space, we've got in Europe, one large, very large biopharma is using its sterility testing from a centralized facility that manages several sites.
And there is a plan for that to go into each of those sites over time as well. There's an internal tech transfer process they're going through. And in the mRNA space, there is a very large customer that's using it for QC for a clinical trial. And that ties us in essentially for that product as well. So we are very excited about what's happening there. And we were pleased with the second half growth. But I think it's fair to say we could have been doing better. So we've got to reflect on the fact that yes, we delivered 24% growth in the year and for biopharma 30%. But I think it'd be completely balanced. We were hoping for better. And we've got to kind of take this back and realize why we haven't grown even quicker than we'd like.
Part of that is the market and the fact that penetrating, bringing a new device type into that biopharma QC space is going to take time. Customers take a long time to contract with the evaluation phases, all of this. There's also a piece here that's on us, which essentially is about how we've executed in the market as well. And we could have done better. And I think that's why we did a lot of the review on the overall corporate strategy last year because we could see that we weren't going as quickly as we'd like to into particularly these new market segments like biopharma. And it's why we've got the GridION version two coming out on the Q-Line. Because the first version that came out, perhaps we didn't capture the requirements as well as we should have done.
And so we have a second version coming out for a greater subsegment of customers where it's more applicable, answers more of the questions they have and some of the table stakes that they needed the product to do to adopt it for the kind of QC requirements as well. So you're going to see more. So the trajectory perhaps isn't even as steep as we would have liked in terms of growth, but it's still good. I think it could be better. And actually, over the course of the next 24 months, you're going to hopefully see that as well.
So you mentioned the GridION too. Is that a whole new device or is that effectively a tweak on the existing device? And when can we see that?
Tweaks on features. And it's essentially a Q1 product that's going out now. We've finished the development of it last year. We're just making sure we launch it in the right manner in these months, actually. So it's happening now.
Do you think that answers?
It is tweaks more than anything.
Okay. And do you think that answers the question? You said execution could have been better. Is this your answer? Or is there actually more to it in terms of servicing or B2B sales management?
I think it's more on that part, the product piece first of all, rather than the B2B sales piece. Clearly, those are things that we've got to work through. But we have a commercial infrastructure of 450 people. We have good relationships with those customers as well. This is more just actually, there's been some iteration of how we've gone through this process of essentially making sure we develop the right product for the right customer. It goes back to your original question about what is the right product for which end market. And so we're just going to reflect on that. And so we have. And that's why we've made changes to the product and we're relaunching it.
Okay, and you talked about one big customer in Europe and another mRNA customer. Is there a lot of breadth behind that?
Yes. So the other large mRNA player, so you're going to see there as well. And there are other very large, of the top 20 biopharma, the vast majority are there, actually, in evaluating it. So there's only around 50 companies that are making drugs that are applicable for our product that essentially are coming through. So it's a very targeted list, but big spenders. And once you're on and you're linked in, as you well know, you're linked in for a very long time. It's incredibly nice sticky revenue. We're very keen to go and capture it.
Okay. That's great. Thank you. So we've sort of touched on the various different segments. Just circling back to that regional growth then, you saw a big step up in Americas, which you referred to earlier, which would reflect the uptick presumably in clinical and biopharma and other industrial, I suppose. And other regions may have moderated a little, some comps aspect in the Asia PAC, but is there any particular reason why they would have moderated?
So, regionally, Asia Pacific, it's the precise contract is a big part. Just kind of factor that in. I think across Asia Pacific as well, we do have to think about China. So China is a drag on growth for us. Even though it's still growing, it's still a drag on growth. And it is a big chunk of revenue for the Asia Pacific region, right? So in 2024, China was at 8% of our total revenue. So it's about a third, essentially, of Asia Pacific total revenue. So if China is not performing well, it hinders our growth potential. And again, we saw customers added to the restricted list across the U.S., which meant that we had quite large opportunities just taken away from us. So we are looking at China. And to be fair as well, we have seen more competition in China from local nanopore players.
So we have seen that. We believe that we still have the premium product where we've seen those players in other Western-like markets. And really, there's only one, which is Australia. You know we've taken them to court immediately on that. And we are very confident over our position. But in China itself, we have seen those kind of local players. There's a two-tier market where we have the premium product. We believe it'll always be the case, but it's just the reality of the situation. So we are looking at China and how we can improve how we operate there as well.
Okay. But no near-term change in trajectory in China specifically. That could continue to be a bit complex.
No, no, no. No, no. I'm just being, yeah, open with you.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So let's look below the revenue line. I appreciate you haven't given us a huge amount of further color on that in the trading statement. But bigger picture, two big changes that would have affected your cash and your margin would be the shift to the CapEx model, which you made at the start of the year, theoretically, and that would have impacted more through the year. You said it's almost complete in terms of the sales you're making now and the work on your inventories. Can you give us a bit more color on those in terms of the completion of that, of the change in model and how much more there is to come on inventories?
Yeah, absolutely. So the change to the CapEx first approach, you're absolutely right. Just a recap for anybody. So essentially, we used to place devices with customers. There wouldn't be a lease charge, essentially, but it was a quasi-lease. And it would be a free use of the device and they'd only committed to first-year volume, essentially. We've now moved that to selling the device outright, but we told customers in January last year, we went live with it February 5th. So we missed the budget cycles for a lot of these customers as well. So we did see the larger devices, P24 volumes were down year-on-year. We honored any quote tender contract clearly. The project pack, as they were used to be known, was in the system.
We started the year off really about 70%-80% in terms of those larger devices, proportion being project packs, even a bit higher. By the end of the year, it's 100% CapEx now. It was a gradual. It was a bit steep at the beginning, and then it's been gradual. Next year, we'll see. I believe around about 100% CapEx besides where we have, if we win large projects, tenders, population programs where quite often we place the device and end up keeping them. Besides those contracts, yes, nearly 100% CapEx now. That has improved our cash flow around about GBP 20 million a year. We're very happy with how that's happened. I mean, with Gordon and I have discussed this. We did see you're never going to please everybody, Charles.
Yes, customers would have preferred to have a free device for use of a device, of course. I think they've also understood that actually this is the right approach. It makes communication much easier with the customer. It allows transparency on device ownership much easier. It makes the communication with customers that aren't in direct markets, where the only markets where we could have a project pack, much easier. Overall, we're very happy with how it's gone. The commercial teams have done an excellent job handholding the customers through this as well. We're happy with how it's progressed. We talked about the fact that the half year, it delivered a 300-400 basis point benefit to our gross margin as well. I think there's some confusion by some people out there that this is temporary. It's not. It's structural.
So that margin benefit is here to stay. And actually, that only represented a half year where we only saw half year benefit, well, maybe a half quarter benefit from the CapEx model approach as well. So as we look forward, yeah, this has benefited the cash flow GBP 20 million. It's a 300-400 basis point benefit to the gross margin and probably a bit more. And it's fair to assume that's the top line benefit we've seen as well. As we go into next year, we've gone through our kind of bottom-up budget cycle. We've got names of customers against devices we're going to place throughout the course of the year and across each region. And we're seeing a healthy revival in volume placements as well. We saw that in Q4.
So as we go into next year, all things being equal, we should see volume back, but now at the CapEx approach as well. And that could be another good reason. So our devices and services grew over 30% in the year just gone. And consumables are just shy of 20%. And I'm not surprised to have seen that because of the change, because now people have just bought the consumables they needed in the period that they needed them for. I fully expect that kind of still to grow strongly devices next year because the volumes are coming back. But I think actually given the utilization increases we're seeing, we'll see consumables go up as well.
Okay. So last year, we had volumes down from Ethan Wise. We had prices up, and we had consumables up, but not perhaps as much as it had been or would have been. Now we're moving into a more normal, hopefully moving into a more normalized state for next year.
And a key thing here, Charles, is just IFRS 15 and recognition of revenue. This is a great talk. But when you do the project pack, essentially, you split the revenue and the discount across both the consumables and the device. So if somebody got a project pack and it was $500,000, there would be a weighting of the revenue against the consumables and against essentially the device and a similar discount approach across all of it as well. That would have suggested that the consumable growth would have been maybe higher, essentially. So if we had placed it out as project pack, you'd have seen a switch, essentially, and consumables would have been faster growing than devices. Because we've gone CapEx, it means you've got that device jump instead.
There's a nuance to all of this, which is why when people ask directly, what's the benefit from the pricing, the model changes, it's really complicated and gray. There's a lot of things to back out from it. That's why I'm always looking at just we benefited cash GBP 20 million. We've benefited the gross margin 300-400 basis points. That's where we'll keep it there.
Okay. Let's not spend any more time on that at the moment. Specifically on price, you actually increased, I think, the pricing again this year, right, in the beginning of the year, more sort of inflationary or market-level pricing, mid-single digits-ish, was it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Have you got any sort of further pushback? Is this a new norm?
So if we continue to see inflationary pressures and currency movements like we're doing, we have to adjust pricing in respective markets. That's all we're doing. And I think if I look at what our peers are doing, they're doing the exact same thing. So I think if people think that this is maybe a very British approach to, well, you can't put your prices up, but actually all of our competitors put up their prices every year on their standard ASPs. If people go into volume discounts, that's what they get as well. So I think this is actually us just going what the market norm is rather than. So absolutely, people can go on Twitter and they'll have seen it's not called Twitter anymore.
But there has been kind of, people will kind of go, "oh, there's another 5% in the market," but it's exactly what all the rest of the peers are doing as well. And if they're going in volume discounts, then they don't see that impact quite as hard.
Yeah. And then on the gross margin, you've talked about a 300-400 basis points for just a certain period. You had 59% this year, and it included some one-off headwinds. And you're talking about over 60% by 2027. I mean, that sort of change in that sort of drive effectively in the underlying gross margin, plus the increased utilization as your volumes go up and potentially pricing and more recycling, would that not mean that you've got a lot of levers to get the 60% and actually the sort of the rose-tinted version of 60% could be 65%?
I think you're right that we got a lot of levers. Now, we always said we were always prudent on the guide for gross margin because mix is outside of our control. And there was always a chance that if we grew very quickly in things like the project pack world, then it could have actually been a dampener on gross margin overall. As we sit here today, you're absolutely right. The see-through margin at the half year was more like 61%. And we've still got a lot of recycling to be done on the PromethION flow cell, the percentage of recycled chips that are out there. And that's the biggest driver, Charles. So CapEx approach has definitely helped. Then we've got PromethION recycling as well, which could push it even further. In a rose-tinted world, it's a linear equation. 65% is absolutely achievable.
But I wouldn't want to guide people there because we've got to still deliver some of these things. And we can see it's coming. See-through margin is 61% to exactly what you're saying. So let's get over 62 with still these levers to kind of pull. Yeah, I think we're in a good place.
Okay. And then moving on to cash, you're also ahead on cash. You have already got a reasonably strong balance sheet in terms of the cash flow and moving towards cash flow break even. So any plans on what to do with that additional cash flow that's coming through, or is that just going to drop into the balance sheet until you need it?
It dropped to the balance sheet until we need it. No, no, we're not going shopping. We've got, yeah, we had GBP 302 million in the bank. Look, until we get through breakeven, cash flow breakeven, we're going to be very focused essentially on making sure that's the case. I didn't answer your inventory question, which is a key one as well. At the end of 2024, we had over GBP 100 million of inventory. We've talked about this before, but that's clearly the net number post-provisions. What we're really focused on, that's like a mini equity raise in reality. It was sitting on our balance sheet already that we are really focused on how we can kind of max optimize, is the word, optimize that inventory level.
And we're really happy about how we've kind of made good progress on that this year. So it's one of the reasons why we've kind of delivered the outperformance on cash. We've clearly got the benefit from the new CapEx model, which I think the market had already taken into consideration as well. So as we're looking here, we said we'd be over 100 million as we go through cash flow break even. I think the market may start to believe that now, actually. I'm not sure it did a year ago, Charles, but I think people might start to believe it now.
In the interest of time, we're going to have to move on and keep the pace up. So I'm going to ask about your internal resource allocation. So we've heard that there have been potentially some restructuring internally. What's been happening?
So at the beginning of the year, we took out 5% headcount and a similar number of associated cost or value. That was predominantly towards the SG&A items, actually. There were some R&D cuts as well. But we actually used that opportunity to kind of reallocate capital internally and actually start to kind of build out different teams within commercial, more focused on the clinical applied biopharma space. And we think that's working. And you've seen it in the U.S. in particular. Towards the end of the year, once we'd gone through all, we spent a lot of this year just gone looking at our strategy, evaluating our strategy, evaluating our product portfolio, how we were lined up. And towards the end of the year, November, we made some changes.
So we took some decisions over R&D projects that were going on that when we have these 47 end market opportunities that we're looking at, we have the high priority segments that we've got as well. How many of these R&D projects actually overlapped with the high priority segments we were looking at? And we made some left or right-hand decisions over it. So we did remove, nobody likes doing this, but we ended up removing around 75-80 people from the business in November. And very much that was aligned to the strategic priorities that we saw within the company, particularly from an R&D perspective. And we'll talk through that more in March when it's a more appropriate forum to do, if that's okay.
Okay. Yep. Okay. I did want to touch on sort of recapping guidance. But before we do that, one of the things that everyone's always very interested in is competitive action. So what are you seeing in terms of your competitors in the market? PacBio is talking about flow cell recycling and reducing the cost per genome. We've got Roche, who presumably will start making a big noise in 2026. And Illumina has been talking about Constellation Long Reads for quite a long time now. So are they having an impact? Are you seeing that have any impact on your customer conversations? And are there any other sort of existential threats that you're sort of wary to look out for?
Yeah. So let's take them in order. So PacBio, what we've heard more of was essentially when they started talking about this is a $350 genome, essentially where they're talking about 20x coverage, and they're talking about reusing the flow cell. There was a lot of noise. There was a lot of noise, essentially, like Q3 around all of that. It's died down quite a lot, actually, because I think once actually it's got out there and we've seen the customer reaction to, hang on a minute, 20x, hang on a minute, we've got to recycle this, and we've got to wash it ourselves, actually, it's not had the headline impact that I think people were maybe worried about. Because there's a lot of things that we can kind of talk to. And so we're very comfortable with our position in that debate, essentially on the ground.
For Illumina and what we're seeing there, the most often, so we do go head to head with PacBio in the whole human genome and the rare disease space. However, if people want to scale, we think we can win that argument. And we think our technology, as you'd expect me to say, can do more. So we think we've got a more versatile product as well. So we're comfortable with where we are there. And I think the numbers kind of show that as well, actually. With Illumina, when we're winning business, actually, what we're seeing is we're going on top or converting an Illumina customer to using our technology either as well or instead of. That's the majority of where the growth is coming from.
It's because it's a fantastic technology that works very well for the things it can do, but it can't answer all the questions that our technology can. Yes, Constellation. That long read capability has been out for a while. It's not impacting our ability to convert customers. It's not just one thing. If anybody kind of takes away from this, it's not just the fact we can do a long read genome. It's the fact that we can do it quickly. It's the fact that we can do it debatched. It's the fact that we can give you methylation. All of these factors kind of come together and provide the technology we have and the reason why people want to adopt it. Adaptive sampling, I think, is going to get a lot of interest this year, actually, just to put that out there.
In the competitive environment, Illumina, clearly, I'm sure you noticed, Element in the last week have also launched another high-throughput instrument to go into that segment, just as Roche are about to come into it as well. And it's in a part of the market where we aren't really operating. So in that really mega high-throughput arena, that $2 billion is basically the value of it as well. And you're going to get some of the biggest companies in the world now duking it out, essentially, in that segment. We are trying to avoid that completely because we think the pricing aspects of it, it's going to be very difficult to play. It's not our sweet spot. We've just got to focus on those end market high-priority segments where we combine richness of insight, speed, long read capability, where we know that the competitors can't do that.
So we focus on those end market segments. We can continue to grow, take share, and build it out. We've just got to do that. So I think you're right. We're going to hear more from Roche this year. No doubt it'll impact our share price, as it always has done when people announce these things. But the market's beginning to realize it's just not the same Nanopore. And so it's not the same capability. It's not the same technology. And my concern is, what does this do to pricing more than anything? So what does it do to price in the whole human genome space, given the fight that you're seeing between Ultimate, Element now, Roche, PacBio, and Illumina? And does that bleed into other segments as well? Because it might well do, but we just need to kind of continue to beat the drum of differentiation.
And that's why we think we can win.
Okay. That's very clear. So finishing off really on recapping the guidance, you've targeted over 30% revenue growth 2024-2027, which does imply now a bit of acceleration in 2026 and 2027. You've talked about gross margins over 62% by 2027 with OpEx growth of 3%-8%. So that leads you to your EBITDA break even by 2027 and cash flow break even by 2028. So in light of everything you've seen in the second half, some of the challenges and some of those opportunities, has your confidence of hitting those targets improved or got more nuanced?
Yeah. So that question, all I'd say, first of all, is I'd put those in reverse order about how you talked about them. Key one is cash flow break even in 2028. Key thing is actually EBITDA break even in 2027. And what we always said is that the way we how we would get there is strong, above 30% CAGR, top-line growth, above 62% gross margin, and a controlled cost base in that 3%-8% range. But we also did say, if ever we weren't growing as quickly at the top line, we would look to modulate the cost base. And you can look in the 2023 results where we kind of put the guidance out, use the exact wording.
As we sit here today, absolutely, the implied step up on the revenue growth means that if I look at a normal distribution curve, it's moved a little bit over to the risk level. However, given what we've done on the cost base and given what we've done on the gross margin in particular, actually, the key thing is how we get to that break even in 2027 and how we kind of deliver that cash flow break even in 2028. We absolutely can deliver over 30% growth a year, but we have to reflect on the fact that we have seen a tougher market environment with this impacted this year in particular with the U.S., but also we haven't executed as well as we should have done as well.
That comes down to having the right products for the right end markets, launching them in the right way, and capitalizing on them in the right way as well. So key thing is we're absolutely committed to EBITDA break even in 2027, cash flow in 2028. We think that'll give valuation support and brings back the destiny of the company into our own hands in particular. We're absolutely targeting to grow over that 30%. We think we can show that we can deliver that greater than 62% gross margin. And if things aren't going to plan on any of those metrics, we can think about how we get there in different ways.
Okay. Understood. So a couple of quickfire. We've got two minutes, if that's okay with you, Nick, and a couple of questions from investors. In particular, the first, you obviously have got a new CEO starting in March, and presumably, he'll be sort of conducting some sort of review on the business. Do you think we're going to get an update from him as early as the first half results?
He'll definitely be at the first half results, but I wouldn't want to speak for him, Charles, because Francis is his own man. If he thinks it's the right time to give that update, he'll give that update. If he doesn't, he doesn't. I just wouldn't want to speak for him and put his name down to do something without his yeah, he can do that himself.
Yeah. Okay. And then in terms of next news flow that investors should be looking out for, clearly, you've got your results in March. Could we get more color on the biopharma side on those clinical contracts? We've been talking about them for a while. We can see they're happening from the revenues, but can we get announcements, do you think?
I think the biopharma piece, what we're finding is getting announcements is harder than we would like, given the secrecy of the market we're playing in. So I don't want to promise it. I've already had egg on my face a couple of times over that, to be honest with you. I think we're just going to have to show it in the numbers instead, and on the clinical side of it, I shouldn't say, but hopefully, we can talk to some of those kind of marquee customers that are kind of looking to collaborate with us and take on the technology. Because there are quite a few, and we're hoping to be able to kind of that they will want to make noise about this as much as we do as well. It's a different environment in the clinical space relative to the biopharma piece.
So maybe we can there.
Okay. Well, that would do, Nick. We'd take that. Okay. We're at the top of the hour. Thank you to everyone who's attended this. Any questions, comments, please do drop me a line. Nick, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate that. I know you've had a busy JPM and got another few busy weeks, so appreciate you making the time for this chat.
No. Thank you for doing it, Charles. We really appreciate it as well.
I'll close the conference now then. We'll call now.