Great. We are live. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And we are very fortunate to have the team from Cytek joining us today. We have Wenbin Jiang, CEO, and then we have Paul Goodson, head of Investor Relations. Well, thank you so much. And today's session, so we're going to start with a company presentation, and then after that, we will have a Q&A. Wenbin, do you wanna start?
Sure. Thank you, and also thank you, everyone, to be here, to listen to the Cytek story. Hope you will enjoy Cytek more than the beach. Cytek is a cell analysis company. We build the company to support the analysis of immune cells based on our four business pillars, which is the foundation of our solutions. Our business's four business pillars include instruments, applications, bioinformatics, and clinical. Instrument is how our technology is supporting, and the whole company's business started with what we call the Full Spectrum Profiling technology. We build our instrumentation based on the technology we invented 10 years ago. Application is to drive recurring revenue, including reagents based upon the installed base we have built up over the years.
Bioinformatics is to make our users' life easier, to help our users to build panels, analyze data, and manage data so they can spend more time to focus on their areas of interest instead of trying to figure out how to use Cytek instrument, how to leverage our technology solutions. And clinical aspect is about specific applications to drive diagnostic solutions and to drive reagents based on those diagnostic solutions, using the tools we have developed. So far, since we launched our product seven years ago, we have already deployed more than 2,800 instruments in the world across more than 70 different countries, with more than 1,500 customers. Our users have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed papers on top-tier journals, using the technology tools we have pioneered and developed. The company is profitable on the cash-wise.
In the last twelve months, our overall revenue is more than $200 million. Our Adjusted EBITDA is more than $20 million. The company has $278 million in cash. We are buying back our own shares. In 2023, we purchased more than $40 million of our equities. And this year, actually, overall this year, we spent more than $10 million on buying back our stock as well. Even under the stock buyback, we continue to grow our cash. So just continue to generate positive cash flow to support our business, to generate value for our shareholders. Overall, we are a company doing business across the world globally. Today, our revenue is about 50%, actually slightly less than 50%, in the U.S., one-third, 33% in Europe, and about 20% in APAC and the rest of the world.
In terms of the areas we do business, we sell to about 40% in the academic space and close to 60% in what we call the commercial customers, like pharma, biotech, CRO, hospitals, and also distributors. Our products, as I said, are based on these four areas. First is one of the business pillars, as I mentioned, instruments. Our instruments go across analyzers and cell sorters. The cell analyzer, including Aurora, which supports more than 40 different colors or parameters for the data analysis and Northern Lights, from entry to mid-level. Northern Lights also had a clinical clearance to support hospitals and diagnostic solutions for China and Europe. Orion is a tool that leverages automation of the reagent workflow. Then we also have our imaging-based flow cytometry solution, which we call the Amnis.
And as well as Guava, which is a special flow cytometer that does not have the kind of typically, you know, flow cytometer carried through big tanks, right, and the flow for the water. Guava actually doesn't have those. It's based on microfluidic kind of microcapillary technology. Athena is a conventional flow cytometer. It's not a full spectrum. It's conventional, but it's a very compact instrument to support clinical applications only for the China market. Then the reagents, instead of a general catalog type of reagents, we actually focus on certain specific reagents only supporting the spectral data analysis. And as well as the panel, including like eight-color, 14-color, those are specifically for immunodeficiency type of analysis, as well as the 18-color, 25-color high-dimensional cell analysis. These are the areas where we focus on. And in particular, we focus on those panels supporting pharma customers.
As we know, flow cytometry reagents typically for IO applications carry more than 20,000 different categories, which is not an area we are focused on today. We only focus on those reagents that can give us the recurring business with volume so we can support cost-effectively. Service and software are the other two businesses. Overall, today, instruments about 70% of our revenue. Reagents, software, and the services about 30%. The reason why customers coming to Cytek for our full spectral profiling tool or technology is because of the benefits we provide to support our user base. In particular, is the sensitivity our tool can provide, which enable high-dimensional cell analysis with high resolution and high sensitivity. This is in particular important for many applications, and that including to diagnosing rare populations of abnormal cells, which in one particular example is MRD. Right?
As we know, typical MRD with flow has certain problems with regard to the sensitivity and typically about minus 10 to the minus 4. For MRD, normally, you want to go way beyond that type of resolution. One problem previously before Cytek is because you can't analyze the typical kind of parameter you will need to do the diagnostics. So you have to split your samples across multiple tubes. Under that scenario, you won't be able to capture the kind of cells of interest. Now, with Cytek technology, with the high-dimensional cell analysis, we can do the diagnostic studies just from a single tube. That means all the cells can be just from that tube. And in that case, you would not only we don't really need a large amount of samples, don't need to split samples.
We actually also say and on the reagent side, without multiple tubes. So all of those benefits really ensure and our technology, our tools, will be provide the kind of information customer needs and customer needs to focus on. Another aspect of our tool, our technology, is to support harmonization and standardization. This is particularly important for pharmaceutical applications. As the pharma move from early drug discovery to the clinical trial, they typically need to do the clinical studies across multiple labs from different continents. Under that scenario, they want to make sure the data from different labs are effective, are accurate. That also means the tools they need need to provide the same information with for the same sample. So this is a reason why pharma require those harmonization of the tools provided.
Flow cytometer is a kind of tools typically used very frequently in the clinical trial by CRO, by pharmas, and Cytek is the only tool today which can really fulfill the needs with regarding to harmonization and standardization. And so this is another reason why Cytek's tools has been able to drive the application, drive the adoption, and continue to fulfill all the needs among those customers in the pharma and the CRO space. Now, we have also analyzed the more than 2,000 publications to try to understand how our instruments are being used in the academic space to support the applications. Based on all those studies, and as you can see, flow cytometer is really a general life science tools that can support many different type of applications in the cell analysis, which include oncology, vaccines, viral infection, immunology, inflammation, autoimmunity, and many others.
These are the type of areas flow cytometers have primarily been used, but that's not the only things. In fact, due to the full spectral profiling technology we have developed, it is effectively a single-cell spectral analyzer. That means the application can go way beyond what has been used in the typical life science space. It has also been used today in many other areas, for example, like marine biology and environmental sciences, and it has been used, for example, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and to carry studies with regard to the water pollution, so and the white particle pollutions due to the microplastic particles. So this has a wide areas of application, but clearly today we are focusing on how our tools are being used to support the life sciences. Another area, as one of our business pillar we have mentioned is about our bioinformatics.
From here, we have built Cytek Cloud. Cytek Cloud is only two years history, but has already been very well used, welcomed by our customer base. Just in the short two years, we have expanded our user base for Cytek Cloud to more than, today actually, towards the end of last quarter, 12,000, representing about five users per installed base. Our tool has already become a standard workflow within many of our customers because the technology, the tool can automate the panel design, which is important, especially for those high-dimensional cell analysis. Typically, without Cytek Cloud, Cytek panel design tool, researchers, scientists normally take several months trying to build a panel, test the panel, optimize the panel for their studies. Now, with Cytek Cloud, it can get this done in no time because the system, our tool will automate such a design.
So all they need is to input the market they are interested in, the antibody, the protein they would like to look at. The system will automatically design, provide an automated, optimize the panel, for their studies, for their experiment. The system, the Cytek Cloud, also help our user base, our customers, to do the data analysis and the data management. This also is important because with the high-dimensional studies, it generates lots of data, how to manage those data is another aspect. Users would like the company to help build up upon. This is how this bioinformatics system will help. Through Cytek Cloud, through our bioinformatics program, we drive users toward our full solutions, drive them toward our instrumentation as well as our reagents. Overall, the company is committed to generate shareholder value.
Based upon first is we continue to focus on our cost and capital efficiency, as you can see. Our overall gross margin for the business aiming for 60%. We continue to routinely drive to get there. This is based on the company's overall operational efficiency. We continue to maximize our cash flow. This does not mean we don't invest in R&D. In fact, we invest 20% of our revenue into R&D to continue to develop new tools, new technology, new products to ensure Cytek stay ahead of the competition, continue to support our user base, continue to drive new application and new technology to become the company, the vendor of choice when our customers would like to find a solution to help to support them.
And here, one of the aspects in order for us to continue to be able to support them while continue to generally shareholder value is to improve our efficiency. That's how we do and from operation side. And that's how we manage to ensure we continue to drive not only the top line growth as well as the bottom line growth. So profitable growth is what the company is focusing on. And also, through this process, we continue to find growth opportunity. Merger acquisition is another area we continue to drive to throughout the life of the company. We acquired actually four different businesses many years ago. And when we first started, we acquired a company doing the flow cytometry instrument service, which helped us to nail down our first set of customers.
The second business we acquired was Tonbo, a reagent company to help us to jumpstart on the recurring revenue leveraging on our installed base. A year ago, we acquired the Luminex flow cytometry business to help drive our technology toward the imaging-based flow cytometry to support our customers for most tools to support our customers for their studies. And also, through that acquisition, we expanded our service business so we can leverage, deploy more of our field application engineers to support our customers while improve our operation service operation efficiency. And just actually a few weeks ago, we acquired another company in the U.K., a small business, to support our customers on the service side for our European user base. And we'll continue to look for opportunities that help us to drive our business growth and to support our customers.
With that, I will turn to Lou for questions.
Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. Given that we just came out from the Q3 earnings, maybe just talk a little bit about, like, the current operating environment. So you have 70% of your revenue coming out from instruments. But in the past two years, the environment wasn't that good. Lots of, like, cautious spending behaviors. People hesitate to really invest into instruments. So I'm wondering, what do you really see in the market right now? Especially, you have, like, really balanced end market, right? So one from pharma biotech, the other from Acad/Gov. So maybe just share a little bit. What do you see in the market at this point?
That's a great question. You know, one of the nice things about Cytek is we have a broad customer base bridging from pharma, biotech, CRO, hospitals to academic. And also, we have customers, as I mentioned, across more than 70 different countries. Because of this, that it really enables Cytek to weather through kind of up and down in any particular geographic locations. And as you can see, for example, this year, we all know, and, overall, the U.S. environment has been, challenged, especially on the academic side.
But our business in Europe and APAC have been doing very well, growing double digits. And also, one of the areas we have seen is, as when academic is kind of challenged, and our pharma and biotech area, CRO area, have been doing well. Part of the reason for that is, and as I have mentioned about the, harmonization capability of our tools.
You know, all pharmas, yes, when they find it difficult with regarding to, spend the funding source, but they will continue to do research. They will continue to do the new drug development. Then, under that scenario, they will need to continue to spend and on capital expenditures to support, their clinical trials. The kind of features, harmonization features of our tool really drive them toward us, toward Cytek. That enables them to become more efficient, cost-effectively for clinical trial. That's a reason why we continue to see how our technology are being well adopted for supporting pharma and CRO. This is an area of growth for the company. Academic side, and while overall we see in the US, we continue to be challenged, but we do see sequential, improvement from Q3 to Q2.
On the other hand, we actually see great opportunities and growth in an APAC region, of course. When we talk about APAC, we do include China in the whole APAC territories. We all know China has been challenged. Many companies have been talking about this. We are no different. We continue to see some challenges, even though overall, our business in China is kind of flat, better than going downwards for many companies. But we do see great opportunities and growth in other parts of APAC, which is, for example, like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Southeast Asia, which has a new market for us in many Southeast countries, outside of Singapore. This year, we see a great opportunity growth in India as well.
So with our technology with our tools in that many countries definitely and we are seeing lots of opportunities in areas previously do not exist for us.
That's very helpful. I guess like you mentioned in the ag-gov a little bit slower than the market side. I guess like internally do you have like any like do you track any leading indicators to see when we can see a better recovery? Like do you think the new administration right now going to impact that market in 2025 and beyond?
As you know with the new administration definitely new policy is going to impact how business is going to grow. But irregardless how it's going to happen and from Cytek's perspective it's important from a few areas. One is continue to maintain our technology leadership.
That's a reason why we continue to invest and to make sure our technology stay ahead of the competition and to solve customers' needs. The second part is continue to maintain the operation efficiency, operation excellence. This is actually, in fact, very important for profitable growth. Profitable growth means not only about developing new technology, developing top line. You also want to make sure you can be cost-effective in manufacturing the products to support customers. That can ensure you can continue to survive the up and down, right? So irregardless of the environment, we will that's that can enable us to continue to weather through all of those different situations. That's why we continue to feel confident, and we are going to grow, and whether or not and how the policy is going to change, and we can deal with all of those situations.
Got it. I guess, like, switching to the more product side, so flow cytometry, in the past, you mentioned that your market share is about, like, 5%, so wondering, how do you, like, what kind of a strategy that you have, like, really just to scale the market share and then, in this market? Like, how easy, like, how long does it take to really convert customers from, like, using the conventional flow cytometry to your technology, the really the full spectrum technology? Yeah. I, I think first year with regard to, the converting from, conventional to full spectrum, I think the mission is accomplished, in fact, today. And all of our competitors are jumping into full spectrum technology. I don't think there's any research dollars, today, these days, investing in continuing to drive the conventional. And from that aspect, so that part is already, done.
And when users or any customers today are going to buy a new flow cytometer, probably, unless it's limited by certain regulatory needs, for example, clinical regulatory restrictions, they will go to spectrum, okay? And it's when a few years ago, when we first started, when you go to customer, when you went to customer, it's always about conventional versus spectrum. Today, if you go to customer, it's about Cytek spectrum versus someone else's spectrum. It's not about Cytek versus a conventional anymore. So that part of the thing is already done. And the whole industry has been moving toward full spectrum. We have fulfilled that task. And so that's one aspect. Second part is with regard to the market share. And actually, flow cytometry is a complicated area, right?
With regard to the market, since with so many applications, and we have to really look at this through different type of application. Let's say if we split the market in terms of high end, let's say 25 color or 30 color and beyond, or mid end from 10 to 25 color and below 10, which are typically for the clinical type of applications. Then, in the high end, we are dominating, in fact. We have the most of the market share. Cytek, Cytek created that market. We continue to dominate. We are driving that market. So that's not 5%. That's way more than 5%, maybe 50%. And now the second part is 10 to 25. This is the previous high end. Today is no longer the high end. It's basically mid end. That just means there's a different way to address that market.
But this is also an area we can support easily. We can really drive down the cost to support that type of applications. We have products really can do this very cost-effectively. And then we are growing that market, by the way. And initially, it's kind of small, but today, I think in that market, we are not 5%. We're probably more than 5%, but of course, not 50%. But that's also an opportunity for us, for the growth. So the high-end is where we are. It's up to Cytek to defend. We continue to develop new technology to defend our market presence. This mid-end is where our opportunity is that can grow our revenue, grow our market share. And then there's an entry level down up to 10-color. And this is mostly about clinical. And we have our instrument already clinically approved in China.
We have it approved in Europe. This is a market we are supporting. In fact, in China, close to 50% of our business is actually about clinical. So we have done well there. Europe, we just started. We hope we can grow that part of the business on the clinical side. The U.S. is where we need to get our tool clinically approved. This is where we are working on. That's the future opportunity for us.
Great. Well, that's a good switch into the clinical opportunity, right? So you mentioned quite a lot in China. Europe started. The U.S. is also a big opportunity out there. So how do you really think about the growth contribution from the clinical application? Like, you mentioned it's going. You can do, like, MRD. You have approved product in the cell-immunotherapy side. But how do you think about the contribution from the clinical to the top line?
Yeah. There are two parts of the clinical. One is a typical flow cytometry clinical, like a TBNK, right? And that require 510(k) for the FDA U.S. side. Those are the type of applications. There are lots of solutions there and very competitive. And since conventional can do it, our tool can do it. That's not really an area of focus for the company, but we definitely need to get there. And then the second part of the application is actually LDT-based. Of course, we know the U.S. FDA is regulating the LDT as well. But this is where we definitely can see the opportunity. And our technology, our tool, really fits that market very well.
Earlier, I mentioned about the sensitivity our tool can provide that really drives the MRD applications for that market. We have been working with many labs in the world to drive the application adoption of our tool for the MRD. In fact, just a few weeks ago at the ICCS, which is a clinical conference, there were lots of presentations from the top reference labs addressing using full spectrum, that means Cytek's tools, to drive the leukemia type of diagnostic application, in particular the MRD. There's definitely a trend area. We see an opportunity for Cytek. They have been working on using our tool. Of course, we have been helping them to optimize our instrumentation to support their applications. They definitely see how our tool can help them to address the market.
I feel, and this is clearly an area. Cytek technology, Cytek tool, and our solution will be able to support, to help, to drive with regard to clinical applications and clinical to grow the clinical side of the business.
Got it. But do you see, like, any challenges in terms of, like, kind of expanding into the clinical application, especially the U.S.?
As I mentioned, for the U.S., there's lots of discussions. And with regard to LDT, how to regulate LDT. And on one hand, we have been supporting many labs in the U.S. to develop solutions, their solutions to support leukemia MRD, as well as not just leukemia MRD. We also see them using our tool to support other solid tumor type of studies and diagnostics, on the LDT basis.
But on the other hand, clearly, we continue to monitor to see how this LDT regulatory part of the process will evolve. This might be a challenge. It may slow down a little bit. But, regardless, this is an area of opportunity for Cytek. We feel that's what we feel.
Got it. So in the last few minutes, wanted to touch on one of the new, well, kind of product line from you is, which is like the imaging flow cytometry. So you have the ImageStream product. Can you just maybe talk about a little bit about how they differentiate from, like, other single-cell technologies? And then what are really the applications for that specific instrument?
Actually, imaging flow cytometry, actually, Cytek's imaging flow cytometer, we actually can even call it a single-cell microscope. And it provides very high resolution and on a single-cell basis. This is actually how our imaging flow cytometry differentiates from other, similar type of, technology we're talking about and high resolution. One of the applications, and in fact, last year there were already in the U.S., the FDA approved the first gene therapy, which actually is to treat the sickle cell disease. And for that treatment, in fact, our imaging flow cytometry has been used to validate the efficacy of the treatment.
This is the type of applications imaging flow cytometry can be used. Another area on the research side is it can because it's imaging-based, it really helps to look at those RNA-based nanoparticles type of studies. It also helps to look at the interaction between those cells, looking at the structure inside the cells. Those types of information typically a normal flow cytometer is not able to provide, but image flow cytometry is capable of supporting.
Great. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Really learned a lot. I think we're about time. So, well, thanks for joining. Yeah. Thank you.