Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Stephens Investment Conference here in Nashville. I'm Jacob Johnson, the life science tools and pharma services analyst here at Stephens. Pleased to be joined from the team from OraSure Technologies. This afternoon, we have Ken McGrath, the CFO, and Jason Plagman from Investor Relations. This will be a fireside chat format. I'll pepper them with questions, but if anybody wants to hop in, by all means, just let me know. With that, I will turn it over to Ken and Jason for any prepared comments.
Sure. This is Jason. Before starting, we do have a forward-looking statement, real quick. I'd like to remind everyone that we may be discussing forward-looking statements today. Actual results may differ from those projected in any forward-looking statement we make here. We would refer you to our most recent 10-Q and 10-K filed with the SEC, where we discuss the factors that could cause our actual results to differ. That concludes that.
Thanks, Jason. So I'm Ken McGrath, thank you very much. Definitely look forward to all the questions. As far as OraSure, where we're at, we're continuing to make progress on our three pillars of our strategic transformation. Are strengthening our foundation, and you can think of that as building up our cash and improving our profitability. Elevating our core growth as we make investments, both internal and external, and then accelerating our profitable growth. So our three areas of investments. As far as Q3, some of our highlights, our core revenue grew 7% year-over-year in Q3. We had a higher than expected or anticipated InteliSwab revenue of $50 million in the quarter. We had guided, I think, $35 million or so. We continue to drive our cost savings to improve our profitability.
We had given a target of $15 million of cost savings in Q1. We're on path to exceed that, and continue to find additional cost savings. We generated $37 million of operating cash flow. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter is $225 million. We also highlighted that we got the remaining government payment for our Opus Way facility of another $24 million. We got that, a week or two ago, so in Q4. So we have continued tailwinds for our cash. In addition, our inventory right now is in the $50s, and our AR is in the $50s. Normally, that's in the $30s, so we have some cash tailwinds there as well, to feed us as we invest in the future.
And then we really are now—we're at the stage now where now it's really focusing on growth, both organically and inorganically, and potentially deploying some of that capital to growth opportunities. So I'm gonna pause there.
Thanks for that, Ken. Maybe to start with a little bit of a curveball. I think the one thing you left out from the earnings call is, I heard OTI a lot. So are we supposed to refer to OraSure as OTI going forward?
Yeah. So our CEO, Carrie, will kick me as I'm saying this. So part as you think of when you rebrand a business, we want to brand beyond just OraSure, 'cause we're more than just oral testing. And so in order to rebrand, that's an expensive process, and as a finance person, I don't wanna spend money where I don't have to. And we actually have OTI is also registered, so it's an easy way to change your branding and not cost you a lot of money to do it, safe to say. 'Cause if you do rebrand with a new name, you have to re-register, and it gets kind of expensive, and we'd rather deploy our capital in other ways right now than in branding. So part of it was being cheap.
And it kind of. OTI can be kind of an umbrella for, you know, the OraSure, you know, diagnostics history and the DNA Genotek, kind of molecular and genomic side. You know, that OTI umbrella is the, you know, the parent.
Thanks for that. That was a kind of a snarky question, and actually.
No!
... very interesting answer.
I'm glad people picked up on it.
Yeah.
People picked up on it.
So thanks for that. So actually, following up on third quarter results, you know, as you mentioned, a good revenue quarter flowed through to really impressive EPS and cash flow, and I wanna talk through those items. But I think just to get it out of the way, because it's a large bolus of revenue, is InteliSwab and the COVID testing piece of things. So can you just talk about the current demand trends you're seeing for InteliSwab, and what drove the upside?
Yeah, no, great. So to start with, we have weekly conversations with the government, related to our InteliSwab COVID product and other products. And so we have great relationships with them, and so we partner, and they partner with us. At the end of Q2, I believe we said we had 26 million tests remaining on our original contract, which is a $5 contract. We did about 10 million of those tests in Q3, so now we have 16 million remaining. We think we'll do about 8 million in Q4 and another 8 million in the first half of 2024. In addition to that, there was another government contract that came out, and we got $5.7 million, not units, $5.7 million of that contract that came out.
And that's really the intention is, for folks that aren't familiar with us too much, the government helped fund one of our facilities. They gave us $109 million, the U.S. government, to fund the facility. They did it for... They want to be prepared if there's other pandemics, to have capacity to develop diagnostic testing. And for us, it allows us to build out a facility, to improve on our automation, and then to leverage that in our other product lines. However, we have to be available if the government wants to us to deliver another test, God forbid, another pandemic. We are available to produce 100 million units a year, and they pay fair pricing. So it's not a negative if they were to choose to do that.
So right now, what we do is we actively stay in communications with them. And one thing I've gotten wrong every quarter is predicting COVID testing and COVID revenue, 'cause it does seem to fluctuate. So right now, what we're projecting again is about $40 million in Q4 and another $40 million in the first half of the year, plus another $6 million for next year.
You have gotten it wrong, but it's been too low, which is, you know, not a bad thing in my seat. But on COVID, I think naturally, I think, you know, we've seen that revenue roll off in other spaces. The numbers are sizable for you this year, and I guess into the first half of next year. And I know it's something that's, you know, to your point, it's hard to predict on a quarterly basis, let alone what things look like 12 months from now. But I think it leads to, you know, some variability in estimates of what, how people were thinking about. So is there any way, you know, any way you think about what endemic volumes look like after you get through fulfilling these contracts?
Yeah. What we look for is. So again, for next year, we will be about $46 million or so-
Yeah.
... that's what we've guided towards, roughly-
Yeah.
... for COVID. We don't think it'll be that level, but we don't think it'll be zero. And again, I've been wrong every time, so I probably find the worst person to ask about it. But what we have done is maintain our relationships with the government. So if there is more COVID, we have the ability to ramp up quickly and meet their needs, as well if there's other pandemics. One of the things we work with BARDA and the government to help develop other tests. For example, we've developed an Ebola test where they pay us kind of a cost-plus model, where we develop the test and then it's available to them if they want to bring it forward into the market.
Another encouraging sign is the government sets up these warehouses where they stockpile tests, and they set up one in our hometown in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Not reading too much into that, but I think there's an element of we're a pretty good partner for them. As we joke, we're a little bit of the sweet spot. We're big enough to make a difference in helping them deliver tests, but we're not so big where they're not an important enough customer. So we're in that sweet spot where they like working with us, and so far, knock on wood, we've been great partners and they've been great partners.
That's helpful. Then you mentioned the Opus Way facility and the funding for that. I guess, yeah, that has the potential to support things beyond COVID. So maybe, one, can you just compare that facility to your legacy manufacturing, and then where are you on moving non-COVID tests into that facility?
Yeah. So we have several facilities in our Bethlehem. We're in Bethlehem. We're located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is northeast Pennsylvania. We also have another operation, part of operations in Ottawa, Canada. And one of the things that we've made clear, we've said publicly, is that we're looking at consolidating some of our facilities into this Opus Way facility, to take advantage of the overhead and reduce costs. So, the first move was we re-shored work from Thailand into Opus Way. A lot of people say that doesn't seem intuitive, but it's actually cheaper because of the automation to do it in Bethlehem, in our Opus Way facility than in Thailand. We still have some footprint there, for we need some regulatory reasons, as well as having some spare capacity, but we moved that over.
The other thing we just did, or will be done in the next day or so, is moving one of our warehouses and getting out of it in Bethlehem and moving that to Opus Way as well. And then we still have several other facilities that we're looking at consolidating into Opus Way. So it has capacity to handle the majority, if not all, of our work, and that's what we're trying to take advantage of, and really just leverage the overhead associated with that.
Got it. And then I think the, you know, in addition, the revenue beat, the other thing that was really impressive in the quarter was the profitability that we saw. You know, COVID helped with that, but I would assume the base business margins were probably better too. So any way to frame up what ex-COVID gross margins look like?
Yeah. I'll tell you what we said publicly.
Yep.
I don't wanna say anything that, I haven't shared previously, but...
Yep.
So for margins, we had a 50% margin of non-GAAP. The real driver there was we've had improved profitability with our operations, part of this facility consolidation. Part of it was a reduction in scrap. We've gotten much better at operations in reducing our scrap, as well as improving and leveraging our automation. So that's driven our improvement. And to the point where InteliSwab specifically was below our average margins and gross margins, and now it's above-
Yeah.
... our gross margins, so it's actually accretive to our gross margins. What we are looking forward to and continue to do is, the rest of our business now leverages those efficiencies and those learnings. Leverage it by, A, putting it into our Opus Way facility and leveraging on the overhead, and then, B, leveraging on the automation. A lot of our lines run on the same lines or technology, and we can leverage that, or leverage some of the learnings. For example, in our InteliSwab product, we significantly reduced the packaging expense and the size of the package. That has multiple benefits. One is cost, the other is it's good for the environment, it's less of material, and then the other is it's better for shelf space and retail.
If you go to CVS or other areas, they don't want big packages. It eats up too much of their retail. So what we wanna do is be able to reduce that, and we cut that in half. Well, we can leverage that learning as well in some of our other products, but that's what we've been doing. Especially, in particular, we're working on some of our other lines of using the same packaging learnings and applying it there.
Okay.
And I'd just add, I think taking a step back, bigger picture, I think, you know, under Carrie and Ken and our leadership team, that's, you know, kind of we've added to over the last 18 months, there's really been a focus on continuous improvement and operational efficiency that the organization's really embraced. And we see a lot of further opportunity for that, of kind of the mindset change and instilling, you know, process tools like Lean Six Sigma throughout the entire organization. And the company and the employees have really embraced it, and we think we're building that muscle memory to continue to drive on that, you know, for years to come.
Thanks for that, Jason. I mean, not to belabor the point, but maybe looking at a different way. You know, pre-COVID, I think this business had 60%-ish gross margins. To your point, Ken, you said 50%, and InteliSwab were above that, so that means the base business, I think, by our math, somewhere in the 40s. But has the mix changed such that maybe 60% is not the right number to get back to, or any way to think about now versus a couple of years ago?
There's definitely some mix change with between-
Yeah.
... molecular and diagnostics.
Yep.
We've said before, molecular has a higher margin than our diagnostics. Also international has taken over a bigger percentage, which has a lower margin-
Yep.
... than our domestic business. So there's definitely been some mix impact there. What we've guided to for next year is mid-40s. The good news is, we have a lot of tailwinds to leverage to drive and improve that gross margin. Again, the facility consolidation, the improvement in automation, are two of them, as well as reduction in scrap overall. So we do have opportunity to continue to improve that. We haven't guided anything beyond that-
Yep.
... but we do have opportunity to improve beyond that.
Okay. And then, just the $15 million in cost savings, can you remind us where, you know, is that coming—how much of that's coming out of COGS or OpEx? Any way to think about that?
It's a mixture of all the above.
Yep.
Literally, it's almost split evenly. What we're doing is operations people have the mindset every day of improving costs, improving x% every day for the rest of your lives.
Yep.
It's just built into an operations person. What we're trying to instill is that same behavior into the OpEx part of the business.
Yep.
The G&A, the R&D, and sales and marketing, taking kind of a Lean Six Sigma process-excellent approach to how we lay out our processes and be able to become more efficient in all areas of the business. So that's something that we've been instilling in the business. We, I think we guided to, we're above the $15 million already.
Yep.
We still have a lot more runway there to drive savings.
Maybe on that, just last comment, like, a lot more runway, like, is the rate of opportunity you're seeing, like, have you tackled a lot of the low-hanging fruit, or are there still some obvious things to do?
There's still some both, a little bit both.
Okay.
You do get to a point. Like we always joke, you go from the fat to the muscle to the bone.
Yeah.
Right? And the fat's easy, the muscle a little bit harder, the bone gets... And the bone, in our analogy, is you have to make clear trade-offs.
Yep.
There may be two pretty good opportunities. We got to pick one over the other.
Yep.
... when you look at cost savings and where to invest. We're not there yet, but we'll eventually get to that point where we make those explicit decisions. But you know, for me, where I get upside is that, when we look at all of our savings and we look at the mentality we're instilling with the team, it's that continuous improvement mindset that's really encouraging-
Yep.
... from the team. Then the way to back into the short answer to the, how much savings is, think of where we are now, and then we said that our core business will be break even operationally from cash flows in Q4 next year.
Yep.
You can almost back into the math at that point-
Yep, yep.
... given the margins that we told people.
Yep. No, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just, you highlighted the cash flow in the quarter, and you hit on two things I wanted to ask about, but so maybe I'll ask you to elaborate a little bit further. But, you know, what drove the cash flow in the quarter, and then kind of accounts receivable, inventory levels seem to be the key areas of additional operating cash flow opportunity.
Yeah. Q3, we had a couple drivers. One was just the business. We started getting more, you know, spitting out more cash from operations, which is a testament to the team's hard work and the operational efficiency. The other was a reduction in scrap.
Yep.
And then there was some reduction in some of our expenses, our OpEx expenses, which drove it. And then just our normal facility consolidations and driving automation. You'll hear that ad nauseam from me. But it's not sexy, but it's important.
Yep.
Right? It's the hard work needs to be done. So that drove it. And then we got a payment in Q3 of, I think, $6 million or so, from the government where they had gone this way, going forward. And we did have a reduction in inventory, I think $14 million-
Yep.
... in Q3, that helped us. Our inventory, I think, is still, it's probably in the high 50s, probably $59 million or so. Our AR is probably $53 million, I think, in that range. Normal runway to think about it is it's normally in the 30s.
Yep.
So there's tailwinds there to generate more cash in the future quarters. As well as we did get another payment a couple of weeks ago, that hits in Q4, of $24 million related to the Opus Way facility. So you take the 225, where we ended in Q3, automatically add on the $24 million-
Yep.
... so now $250 million, and then hopefully we can generate some more. So what it does is, it gives us a good cash position. I joked a little bit on the last earnings call that... I'm not joking, but I like to have $60 million or $80 million around for a rainy day. So that gives us a cash, subtract that from the $250 or $225, and it gives you that amount of cash that we can invest in the business.
Yep.
We could obviously always do more if we wanted to do some financial,
Yep.
Right now, you know, if we wanted to just use our cash that we can invest in the business. You know, you've heard me say this before, you know, we want to be very diligent with our cash. We wanna make sure that we utilize it effectively. So we're being very judicious in how we deploy it. You know, when it comes to external, we, we've said before, we wanna, you know, date before we get married and, you know, look at partnerships and distribution agreements and other areas where we invest it.
That's what we're focused on right now, with our cash. But we do have some good tailwinds of cash ahead of us that allows us to have the time to be disciplined in our approach. We still have a healthy sense of urgency. We wanna grow the business and deploy that capital, but we can do it without being rushing without panicking.
Yep. Now, I wanna come back to capital allocation because it is an impressive cash balance, and in the interim, you know, and high interest rates are good for that, and for other things. But maybe so we've talked about COVID and cost-cutting and cash flow, which is probably maybe a little bit of unfair way to start things off. But they've been highlights, and I think they're important things to talk about. So to get to the rest of the business, you know, there's a variety of offerings in the portfolio. How would you describe the portfolio and the strategy of the business you have today?
Yeah, I look at our portfolio of where we get excited is we are aware with the tailwinds of healthcare and where patients want to be, whether it's on our diagnostic side with the point-of-care testing, where patients can consume healthcare at their own terms, in their own location, or on the molecular side, where it's personalized medicine. And so we're very happy that we're playing in areas where we think healthcare is going. And then really for us, it's really for, like, for example, in the molecular side, it's powering the shift of healthcare. As we get into more personalized medicine, personalized genomics, we want to be able to power that opportunity in the industry.
Whether it's through our collection devices, whether it's through our stabilization chemistries, whether it's through some of our service offerings, we want to be able to participate in that and be able to power that. On the diagnostic side, again, it's really around the point of care offerings that we have to enable individuals to consume healthcare on their own terms. I'll give you an example. Our HIV testing, we partnered with Emory University and the U.S. government for this program called Together Take Me Home. And it's allowed the government and allowed us to get tests, diagnostic tests to otherwise underserved populations. And we've seen great results for that, where they've actually... when I say great, you got to be careful not. I'm not...
But with the results they got from the studies they've done of these tests, they've found a higher percentage of people that were infected. That's not great, essentially, it's not great, but it's good for that they're finding the patients.
Yes.
They're finding out that these channels are very effective in administering healthcare. So it's an example of where point-of-care testing really helps the health system, the healthcare ecosystem, and we're excited to play in those areas, in those spaces.
Yeah, that was really helpful. And so maybe just to unpack a couple of the key franchises. Just first, you know, you highlighted collection kits and molecular solutions. I think that's a business that had some opportunities in recent years, but I think it's had some headwinds more recently due to some large customers. Maybe just describe kind of what's happened in that business, and then how strategic, how core is that business to kind of the core strategy at OraSure?
Yeah, molecular is a really exciting business for us. We think long term, we're very excited about the long term. We're very excited about precision medicine. We're excited where genomics is going and even where proteomics is going.
Yeah.
And we think that's core to long-term healthcare and growth in the area. And we're proudly part of that, and we're proud to power that. Some of our end customers have had some hiccups and a little slowness in the last year or so. The way we've tackled that is to build out our client portfolio and really partner with multiple customers and to become integral with their workflow and their systems. We've announced some partnerships with Quest Diagnostics, with Regeneron, with Grifols, with Ziwig. And they're all different examples in their own way of how we can provide value and work with them and become key members of and partners with them. It allows us to diversify our portfolio of clients as well.
We really want to be the, you know, the ones that power healthcare. I date myself, so I can't say this, but we're, like, we're the Intel Inside, but everyone that's a lot younger than me looks at me and says, "What the hell is that?" But that's kind of the approach we want to take, where we want to, whether it's collection devices, whether it's stabilization, whether it, you know, you work up and down the value chain, we want to be that one, that one that powers and works with them and works with their workflow.
Yeah. I'm old enough to remember Intels.
You bet.
Yeah, I got it.
Well, make me feel better.
I guess I'm dating myself too. But on the point of the partnerships, so you've announced a variety of these ones, and I'm sure many of them are very interesting, but it's kind of early stages for these, and it's probably not contributing, you know, large revenues quite yet. What would it take for these to become more meaningful? Is there some ramp associated with them? Do you just need to keep stacking these up? How do we think about kind of growth coming back in molecular solutions?
Yes and yes.
Okay.
There is the, there's the typical ramp that you'll see some of these, as these partners are building out their portfolio, and they're growing. But then there is the sheer numbers of it, and we want to duplicate these partnerships throughout the industry, and use them as examples of where we can add value. So it's a little bit of both. I'm purposely not answering your question, I apologize. But there is a little bit yes and yes. It gives us the diversity of different partnerships, and each one of them is a bit unique, and it gives an example of where clients can work with us-
... and hopefully, we can provide value to them. We have examples where we help some of our customers find new patients for their treatments, and we enable and we bring value that way. We have others where we work with their workflow, and allow them to do their process in an efficient manner, and we work with them. So there's different examples of how our capabilities can help them make them better, and hopefully, we're providing value to them.
Yeah, maybe to paraphrase, it seems like what you're saying is you're seeing a number of opportunities, and the feedback you're getting or the opportunity set that's coming across your desk gives you confidence that ultimately there's some growth-
Yes.
...for that business.
He said it much better than I did.
No, no. My job's paraphrasing. And then diagnostics, that business has had a, you know, I think it's probably been overshadowed, but it has been overshadowed probably in some ways by the COVID this year, but that business has been up meaningfully this year. You mentioned the Together Take Me Home. I think that's been a piece of it, but maybe just talk about what's driven that strength in that business this year.
Yeah, we saw a lot of strength in HIV - bless you. We saw a lot of strength in HIV, both domestically and internationally. Part of it's a testament to the ease of use and the effectiveness of our test. But then the partnership that you're talking about for Together Take Me Home, where we partnered with Emory University and the U.S. government, and it demonstrated another channel that can really reach some patients that are sometimes hard to reach. And it's been such a success that I think we said this out loud publicly, that they've increased their order from their original order.
You may remember some numbers we threw out a year ago, where the whole program was $42 million or so over five years, half of that for testing and the other half for other elements of the program. If you figure, you know, that that's about. I think we said 1 million tests over five years, so about 200,000. Well, they've this year, they increased that order, and because they're getting such great results. So they're seeing benefits of the channel, and they're, you know, taking advantage of that channel to reach out to patients. So we're really encouraged by that.
Got it. I guess the one follow-up there. It seems like from what you said, I think anytime you see growth like that, people kind of get worried of like, "Could that go away?" Or, you know, or, "How tough of a comp is that going to be?" It seems like from your commentary, that's revenue that you feel like probably will persist into next year, though it's probably fair to say, you know, don't expect another 40% growth on top of that. It's a tough comp from that perspective. Is that fair?
You said it very well.
Okay. Maybe I'll pause there and see if anybody has any questions. Nope? Okay. I don't know. I guess we have to talk about the macro, just because it's been a, you know, quote-unquote, "unique year" for this space. I think there's been some impact on the molecular services side, but just curious kind of how the year's played out and any impact you've seen from kind of the general macro environment on your business.
Yeah, and you're referring to the end customer in this case for the-
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. There's been a little bit of slowness in some of our end customers on the molecular side. Again, we've our approach to that has been diversifying our client base-
... and looking for other avenues where we can add value. When it comes to the diagnostic side, again, it's leveraging some of the channels that we have, and building out and leveraging those. When you think about where we want to expand and grow as a business, on the diagnostic side, what we want to do is leverage those channels and potentially add more tests to those channels and build from there. On the molecular side, think of it as we want to increase the number of sample types, whether it's saliva, blood-
... et cetera, and the number of analytes. So whether it's genomics, getting into proteomics and other areas, or increasing the value chain and playing in different elements of the value chain. So that's how we think about kind of for us, expanding and growing.
Molecular services, though, I think that face some, like maybe microbiome and stuff, there's some softness in that end market right now.
Yeah. The way we phrase it is that COVID diverted some resources-
Yep.
... and energy from firms. And so what we saw there is firms that were investing in microbiome on the pharmaceutical side and other areas were slowing down some of their investments. So we think it's a temporary, but we think it was related to just reprioritizing efforts within the industry.
Got it. And then, sorry, to go back to diagnostics. International has been another contributor this year, if I'm not mistaken. Can you just... anything to unpack there?
Yeah, I think it's a testament to our product, having an oral HIV device. We've built out some pretty substantial channels internationally, and our device has a very good ease of use. And I think from that perspective, we're seeing the benefits of that, of our offering, and we're seeing that uptick there.
Got it. And then looking ahead, you know, you guys haven't formally guided to 2024, but I think Carrie mentioned, you know, low single-digit growth is maybe a reasonable expectation. And then to your point earlier, you mentioned base business, break-even cash flow by the end of next year. I guess longer term, how do you or how should we think about the growth, and the profitability of this business?
Yeah, so profitability, for when we talk about the core business, cash flow from operations being break even in Q4, the way we're guiding towards that or working towards that is that we don't see a significant revenue growth to drive that profitability. We wanna be able to deliver on our current revenue, get to break even, and then anything above that is upside, and upside to the margin and upside to our cash flows. So I'm probably being conservative there, but that's why we want to approach it from that way when we look at the business, when we drive profitability. From a growth perspective, I would think long term, we want to get our fair share of the market growth, and that's how we position it.
And what we're doing to achieve that both is our existing portfolio, continuing to work through that, as well as strategically making some investments, both internally and externally, to provide, to build off of our portfolio. On the diagnostic side, it's really think about new tests, maybe new technologies on the molecular side. You know, again, it's more about the different sample types, analytes, and maybe expansion in value chain.
Got it. So thank you for that. You kind of front run my next question a little bit, but, but, I'm gonna ask it anyways, and maybe a little bit different way. But you, you have this very healthy cash balance, which, in this environment, it's good with where interest rates are, but it, it's also a good place in general for, for, for stocks in, in, in an uncertain macro. So you're blessed with this cash, to your point, you said, you know, $60 million -$80 million is kinda your rainy day fund, which means you've got, you know, I don't know, call it $200 million, just a little under $200 million to maybe play with. How do you think about that organic, oh, are there any key organic areas of investment?
And then just remind me, like, I appreciate what you just said, but M&A, like, you know, how much of a focus—are you seeing things right now? Like, should we expect something imminently, you know? That's an unfair question, but-
Yeah, I won't answer that question, obviously.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, the team, through the great work of the team, and we have a really great leadership team, has worked hard to build up that cash balance. So it's, it's, you know, it wasn't just handed to the team, but they really worked hard to develop it. That was our strategy from the beginning, where it was, you know, really strengthen that foundation.
Yeah.
And then now let's look at how we deploy that for growth. So what we did is, like every great leadership team would do, we've prioritized where we wanna make our investments. And you can probably guess some of the areas when you think about whether it's infectious disease, whether it's respiratory-
Mm-hmm.
... different areas that we think are priorities. And what we've done now is, after prioritizing that, we both looked internally, where we can develop from our own portfolio and externally. You know, we always say that we have—yes, we have a good chunk of cash, but we don't have unlimited cash.
Yep.
So we wanna make sure that where we deploy it, we deploy it where it's effective as best we can. We are in the envious position of being profitable and having cash, so we are getting solicited from folks with potential opportunities, which is great.
Yep.
Our preference right now is partnerships dating before we get married-
Yep.
... to, you know, to take a few bets along the way. We have a healthy sense of urgency, but that being said, we're not gonna jump at the first thing.
Yep.
I'm purposely avoiding your question.
Yep.
But you could read between the lines that we are healthily looking, right?
Yep.
We have a healthy sense of urgency, but we're not gonna rush or do anything, you know, anything stupid and, you know, make sure we deploy that capital with the best return.
Got it. Any other questions? And Jason, that's all I had, and I think we ran through most everything. So, thank you all so much for being here. Really, enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Jason.