Greetings. Welcome to the QT Imaging Holdings Q3 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Steve Kilmer, Investor Relations. Steve, you may begin.
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, QT Imaging released financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025. A copy of the press release is available on our website. Before we start, I would like to point out that management will make statements during this conference call that include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical facts should be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements, and therefore, these statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results.
All forward-looking statements are based on QT Imaging's current beliefs, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to QT Imaging and relate to, among other things, the QT Imaging breast acoustic CT scanner, including its commercialization, manufacturing, and further development, the evolution of QT Imaging into a scalable imaging platform, the QT Imaging cloud platform and SaaS model, performance of software enhancements, new product development and introduction, product sales growth and projected revenues, QT Imaging's industry and future events. For a list and description of the risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business, please see its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. QT Imaging disclaims any obligation, except as required by law, to update or revise any financial or operational projections, its regulatory outlook, or other forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Any forward-looking statements made on this conference call speak only as of the date of this conference call. Representing QT Imaging today are Dr. Raluca Dinu, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jay Jennings, our Chief Financial Officer. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Raluca.
Thank you, Steve. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our inaugural conference call. On behalf of our board of directors, management team, and everyone at QT Imaging, I would like to thank you for your interest in our company, and for those who are shareholders, we appreciate your support. This earnings call marks an important moment for QT Imaging as we continue to build a new category in breast imaging: safe, volumetric, wave-based 3D imaging that delivers MRI-like information in a clinic and patient-friendly system. Our focus is execution, reliability, and commercial expansion in markets where access to advanced imaging has historically been limited. Medical imaging has come a long way since the moment Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally noticed his wife's hand glowing on a fluorescent screen in 1895. That spark, quite literally, launched the X-ray era and opened a new window in the human body.
Over the decades, innovators keep pushing that window wider. X-rays evolved into CT scans, giving us the first three-dimensional look inside the body. Ultrasound arrived, using sound waves to create real-time moving pictures that transformed obstetrics and everyday diagnostics. Nuclear medicine added the ability to see function, not just structure, revealing how organs actually work. Finally, MRI changed everything, harnessing magnetic fields and radio waves to deliver extraordinary detail, especially for soft tissue like the brain and the breast. Each leap moved medicine from shadows to clarity, from static snapshots to rich information-dense images. It's a century-long story of constant reinvention, and we are now entering the next chapter, where imaging becomes quantitative, intelligent, and truly patient-centric. What do CT and MRI actually do, and how do they work? At the highest level, and without diving into the math, both technologies operate on the same basic principle.
You send beam of energy through the body from many directions, measure how those signals change as they pass through, and use a reconstruction algorithm to reassemble those measurements into cross-sectional images. For CT, the energy source is X-rays. They pass through the body along multiple paths and provide excellent structural detail. Because X-rays are ionizing, repeated scans contribute to cumulative radiation exposure. MRI takes a very different approach. Instead of X-rays, it uses powerful magnetic fields and radiofrequency pulses to collect measurements from multiple angles. Rather than absorbing or attenuating radiation, tissues respond to the magnetic field with a distinct signal pattern. Those signals are then reconstructed into images with far superior soft tissue contrast compared to CT without exposing the patient to ionizing radiation. Everyone has likely seen the difference.
MRI is the gold standard for soft tissue imaging, while CT is unmatched for bone and for contrast enhanced studies that demand speed. What QT Imaging brings to the table is the same reconstruction principle, many beams, many angles, but powered by wave technology with a frequency close to the spoken word frequency, audible frequency, rather than radiation or magnetism. Think of three advantages this wave technology delivers. One, image quality comparable to MRI. Just as MRI provides better detail than CT, our wave-based imaging technology produces MRI-level clarity when it comes to soft tissue contrast. This is a major leap forward without the cost or complexity of MRI. Number two, zero toxicity. Our waves are as safe as traditional ultrasound. As I said earlier, their frequency is close to the audible frequency.
Unlike existing ultrasound technology, though, where you place a probe on the skin and only analyze echoes, reflected energy bouncing back, our waves actually travel through the tissue, allowing true 3D volumetric reconstruction similar to MRI. 3, 2 independent sources of information. X-rays tell you only how much of the beam makes it through the body. Existing ultrasound tells you how much of the beam gets reflected. Our waves give you both of these, plus a second critical parameter, the speed at which the wave travels through different tissues. Because different tissues alter speed differently, this dual information dramatically enhances our ability to distinguish structures and detect abnormalities. Additionally, QT Imaging reflection configuration is used for high-resolution depiction of tissue interfaces, ducts, proper ligaments, lesion boundaries, as well as for improved lesion visualization, as cancers have irregular heterogeneous reflective signatures. For both transmission and reflection paths, we collect attenuation data.
Each data set QT Imaging collects, transmission, reflection, and attenuation, is unique and rich in biomarkers, which will allow us to move from subjective image interpretation to objective data we can measure. QT Imaging team will focus to generate the clinical validation of the data sets and associated biomarkers. When one thinks about what truly makes the technology valuable in medicine, we look at three things: data quality, physician experience, and patient experience. One, data quality. MRI is today's gold standard in medical imaging. Our technology delivers MRI-plus detail, quantitative, high resolution, and radiation-free. Number two, physician experience. MRI systems are remarkable but extremely limited by infrastructure. MRI systems are extraordinarily difficult and expensive for hospitals to support. They require superconducting magnets cooled to nearly absolute zero with scarce, high-cost liquid helium, specialized RF shielding rooms, reinforced floors, and dedicated high-capacity power and HVAC infrastructure.
Annual service contracts routinely exceed $120,000-$250,000 per unit, with coil repairs, software upgrades, and downtime adding significantly more. Installation of replacement often demands major building modifications that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and disrupt clinical operations for weeks. MRI throughput is limited. Staffing requires highly trained technologists, and many patients cannot tolerate or safely undergo MRI exams. Together, these factors make MRI one of the most operationally burdensome and cost-intensive imaging modalities in the healthcare system. For many women's health centers, MRI simply isn't accessible. Our system removes all these barriers. Three, patient experience. MRI avoids breast compression as it happens in mammography, but the experience is still difficult, navigating magnet safety rules, lying face down, entering a narrow tunnel, enduring loud noise and claustrophobic conditions. Anyone who has had an MRI knows it's far from pleasant. Our system eliminates the stressors.
It delivers high-quality imaging in a calm, comfortable environment without the need for contrast IV. What needs are we addressing? There are several. Mammography is essential, but for women with dense breasts, it isn't enough. Globally, more than 40% of women have dense breasts, a population in which mammography alone is insufficient for reliable detection due to masking effects. Existing supplemental imaging options, MRI and handheld ultrasound, have gaps in access, workflow efficiency, reproducibility, and cost. QT Imaging fills an important gap. It offers MRI-comparable information without the logistical constraints of MRI and avoids the variability and limitation of handheld ultrasound. Importantly, QTscan can help visualize calcium, something MRI does not, adding a clinically meaningful dimension for screening and risk assessment in the future.
For clinicians managing large screening populations or high-risk cohorts, QT provides a scalable, consistent imaging pathway that can be adopted in outpatient and community settings. Here's an important one. MRI does not directly image breast tissue. Because breast tissue is mostly fat, MRI requires IV contrast to visualize cancers indirectly by highlighting abnormal blood vessel patterns. With QT Imaging technology, you see the cancerous tissues itself without IV contrast and without radiation. Of course, we have the data. Side-by-side comparison of MRI and QT images speak for themselves, even to a non-radiologist. Our clinical results confirm what the images suggest. In the form of reader study directly comparing QT scan with standard breast imaging, our results show equivalent and in some cases higher diagnostic performance.
In one multi-reader, multi-case study of more than 100 breasts, the readers mean ROC AUC was 10% higher with QT scan than with a full-field digital mammography. ROC AUC, which is the FDA standard metric for evaluating diagnostic imaging performance, underscores the strength of these results. In a second multi-reader study comparing QT scan with digital breast tomosynthesis, the mean ROC AUC was 0.75 for QT scan and 0.70 for DBT, showing the trend towards higher performance for QT scan. Taken together, the studies confirm that the QT scan performs on par with and in some aspects exceeds today's standard for breast imaging while providing a non-ionizing operator-independent solution that can be scaled across community and outpatient settings.
We also conducted a clinical study comparing QTscan directly with MRI together with Dr. Czarnota's group in Sunnybrook Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada, in patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Across the dataset, lesion measurements show strong concordance between the two modalities. These results show QTscan exceptional image quality and indicate close agreement in quantitative assessment, and overall, the findings confirmed that QT delivers volumetric accuracy comparable to MRI without contrast injection and the logistical challenges associated with MRI. We have also an ongoing QTscan versus MRI study with Dr. Christine U. Lee at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. We will report the results in our future calls. Beyond detection, QT's volumetric consistency and quantitative parameters create opportunities for future imaging biomarkers, longitudinal monitoring, and integration with cloud-based AI tools. The developments would enable risk-stratified care, response monitoring, and better utilization of advanced imaging across health systems.
QT Imaging biomarkers elevate breast imaging from simple detection to true diagnostic and prognostic precision. By applying quantitative thresholds, we enable earlier identification of malignancy and provide robust tools for monitoring therapy response, including predicting pathological complete response and neoadjuvant treatment. These quantitative biomarkers also open the door to personalized medicine by linking imaging signatures with geometric and histopathological data. To summarize, this is the promise of QT Imaging. MRI quality data, ultrasound level safety, dramatically improved accessibility, and a far better patient and provider experience, all delivered through a next-generation safe wave-based imaging platform rich in biomarkers. We have our work cut for us, but we are very excited to move forward. Let's discuss briefly QT Imaging's technology. QT Imaging system uses two independent signals, transmission of speed of sound and reflection. That's amplitude data. Mathematically reconstructs a volumetric data set using proprietary algorithms.
This dual data path approach effectively creates a non-ionizing form of tomographic imaging that has advantages in dense tissue where mammography and handheld ultrasound face inherent limitations. Additionally, we collect attenuation data from both transmission and reflection paths. The system produces 3D volumes of data that allow radiologists to evaluate lesions, architectural distortion, and tissue patterns across coronal, sagittal, and axial planes. Because the patient lies prone and the breast is surrounded by a stable water-based medium, the reproducibility is high, and operator variability is reduced compared to traditional handheld ultrasound. For patients, the procedure is quiet, non-claustrophobic, and does not require compression. For clinicians, the scanner avoids the infrastructure burden of MRI, no cryogens, no dedicated room shielding, and no specialized electrical build-out. All translate to significant cost of ownership reduction.
This positions QT as an accessible solution for supplemental imaging, particularly in markets where MRI access is constrained or cost prohibitive. This brings me to the commercial story behind QT Imaging and why it is a compelling one from an investment perspective before we walk you through the financials. All we have accomplished to date was achieved without any endorsement or recommendation from RSNA or other radiologist societies and without CMS Medicare reimbursement. We have laid the foundation with both hands tied behind our back. As an imaging company, our business model has three core components. First, we sell high-quality capital equipment, much like companies in radiation oncology or advanced imaging. Second, we have a consumable component that creates an attractive razor/razor blade dynamic. Third, we are building our SaaS platform throughout 2026, creating a long-term high-margin software revenue stream tied to advanced biomarkers and cloud-based imaging services.
In our humble view, supported by early interest from sophisticated technology investors. This combination not only delivers meaningful value to patients and clinicians, but also creates a strong, diversified revenue engine. We will report back as we have a firm offering of our Cloud 5 platform, and we test it with our customers. With that framework in mind, let's move into the financials, beginning with our partnership with NXC Imaging. Our United States commercial model is anchored by our partnership with NXC Imaging, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Medical Systems USA, and one of the most established distributors in the radiology equipment market. Through this partnership, QT Imaging gains immediate national reach, established relationship with breast imaging centers, and professional sales and service coverage that would take years and significant capital to replicate internally. This channel-driven approach enables QT Imaging to maintain a lean operating structure while accessing market adoption.
NXC Imaging benefits from offering a differentiated product like ours with a broad clinical need and a large population of potential users. QT Imaging's present agreement with NXC Imaging states committed deliveries of minimum 40 scanners for $18 million in revenue in 2025, and deliveries of minimum 60 scanners for $27 million in revenue for 2026. As we scale commercially, we are taking a disciplined approach to risk management and revenue expansion. We added a senior executive focused on direct strategic sales. This role gives us immediate access to high-value institutional customers at the highest executive and decision-making levels for leveraging our site biomarker platform while ensuring and delivering additional levels of value to the relationships that matter most, and allows us to pursue opportunities that fall outside NXC footprint. It diversifies our commercial engine, strengthens our pipeline visibility, and provides redundancy at the phase where execution speed is critical.
We announced yesterday that Mr. Satrajit Misra, our new Chief Commercial Officer, joined our team. Satrajit is a seasoned executive with three decades of progressive leadership in radiology, oncology and molecular imaging. Satrajit comes to QT Imaging from the company's strategic partner, Canon Medical Systems USA, where he most recently served as Executive Senior Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. Satrajit will drive commercial scale-up, subscription of high strategic value customers, and clinical partnerships for QT Imaging. Outside the United States, our strategy is to build around scalable regional templates aligned with our global regulatory strategy. The Saudi Arabia program with Gulf Medical announced a few months back serves as the model. Secure regulatory approval, align with national health priorities, develop multi-site deployment programs, and build long-term service and training capacity via the distribution channel. The same framework will guide expansion into additional regions as regulatory milestones are achieved.
The commercial partnership with Gulf Medical provides for a minimum order quantities of 5 QT scanners per quarter, starting in the first quarter of 2026 through the end of 2028, for a total minimum of 60 scanners and revenue more than $33 million. This dual path model, USA channel leverage paired with structured international deployment, creates diversified revenue streams and accelerate global penetration. Regarding regulatory approvals, we already hold FDA clearance in the United States and breakthrough device designation, and we are now advancing two major international approvals. We expect to receive Saudi Food and Drug Authority, SFDA, approval by the end of Q1 or early Q2 2026. In addition, we are progressing towards Conformité Européenne, CE, mark certification, with approval anticipated by the end of 2026. These two milestones will significantly expand QT Imaging's global reach and commercial potential.
Manufacturing and operation readiness are core priorities for the company. We predominantly build our scanners in California at a lower volume together with our contract manufacturing partner, Canon Medical Systems, in Japan. We plan to expand our United States operation to support our future growth. Over the past few quarters, we focused on our United States-based suppliers. Largest majority of our suppliers are from United States. We helped debug the technical issues at the present supplier sites, improve forecasting, and tighten oversight. We also hired the VP of Manufacturing, Mario Garcia, who drives ever-strengthening supplier relationship and stabilize our build processes. With these changes in place, our supply chain is steady, lead times are controlled and predictable, and we are ready to support current and future shipments.
Before I turn the call over to Jay to provide a brief summary of our 2025 third quarter financial results, I would like to share how pleased I am that Jay Jennings joined us as our Chief Financial Officer. Jay brings deep public company experience, strong financial discipline, and an immediate strengthening of our budgeting, forecasting, and operational rigor. His leadership is already elevating our execution as we prepare for the next phase of growth. Jay, please walk us through the Q3 financials.
Thank you, Raluca, and good afternoon, everyone. Q3 was a strong quarter for QT Imaging, demonstrating the strength of our current scanner business and our focus on execution. During Q3 2025, we shipped nine scanners to NXC Imaging, compared to two scanners during Q3 2024, and recorded revenue of $4.2 million in Q3 2025 compared to $956 thousand in Q3 2024. In addition, we shipped another five scanners to NXC Imaging in October for a total of 28 scanners shipped in 2025. We are preparing to ship the remainder of 12 systems in Q4 2025 for a total of 40 systems shipped in 2025. Cost of revenue was $2.4 million in Q3 2025 compared to $351 thousand in Q3 2024, resulting in a gross margin of 43% compared to 63% in Q3 2024.
The decrease in the gross margin was due to variability in the weighted average cost of inventory. We have also shipped a scanner manufactured at the contract manufacturer partner with lower margin. Despite the growth in our revenue in 2025, we continued to take a disciplined approach to managing our operating expenses. Research and development expenses were $939,000 in Q3 2025, representing 22% of our Q3 2025 revenue, compared to $925,000 in Q3 2024. Going forward, we expect that our research and development expenses will be at the same % of revenue in the first half of 2026 as we build and deploy our cloud SaaS platform, run clinical trials that are necessary to generate biomarker data, and redesign the QT Breast Scanner to reduce the bill of materials and other costs to manufacture as committed during our recent fundraising.
Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $2.5 million in Q3 2025, representing 60% of Q3 2025 revenue, compared to $2 million in Q3 2024. This increase, which was a result of the required expansion of our corporate infrastructure and targeted commercial investment, was primarily attributable to increases in professional and outside services expenses, employee compensation expenses, and other general business expenses, partially offset by decreases in insurance expense and an increase in the allocation of expenses from STNA to cost of revenue. General and administrative functions, which accounted for $2.1 million of the SG&A expenses in Q3 2025, represented 51% of revenue and are forecasted to decrease as a percent of revenue in 2026 with a target of under 20%. Our operating loss was $1.7 million in Q3 2025, decreasing from $2.3 million in Q3 2024.
GAAP net loss in Q3 2025 was $4.6 million or -$0.47 per share on a basic and fully diluted basis, compared to $3.6 million or -$0.51 per share in Q3 2024. EBITDA was -$4 million in Q3 2025 compared to -$2.1 million in Q3 2024. Excluding stock-based compensation and other non-cash expenses, such as the change in fair value of earn-out liability, adjusted EBITDA was -$1.4 million in Q3 2025 compared to -$2.2 million in Q3 2024. Moving to the balance sheet, as of September 30, 2025, we had cash and restricted cash and cash equivalents of $1.7 million compared to $1.2 million as of December 31, 2024.
The increase in the cash balance was a result of $6.4 million of cash flows from financing activities during the nine months ended September 30, 2025, which includes the $15 million of borrowing from Lynrock Lake, $5 million used to repurchase the Yorkville warrant, and $4.7 million used to repay the Yorkville and Scio debt, partially offset by $5.9 million of net cash used in operating activities, which decreased compared to $8.8 million of cash used in operating activities during the nine months ended September 30, 2024. As part of our reported recent events, in October, we significantly strengthened our balance sheet through an oversubscribed $18.2 million private placement financing, which included anchoring from Scio Capital and participation from other institutional and existing company investors.
In addition, we repaid the $5 million tranche B loan from Lynrock Lake that we used to repurchase the Yorkville warrant during Q3. As a result, our cash and restricted cash and cash equivalents was $12.4 million as of November 10. Accounts receivable was $3.2 million as of September 30, 2025, which we collected during the first week of November. As of September 30, 2025, we had $15.1 million of long-term debt with Lynrock Lake, which included the $5 million tranche B loan that was repaid in October, as well as $3.9 million of related party notes payable. Substantially all of our debt is not due until March 2027. That's it for my summary of our third quarter 2025 results. Please see our Form 10-Q filed earlier today for further details regarding the results.
I'll now turn the call over to Raluca.
Thank you, Jay. Our outlook for 2025, we reaffirm our forecast of 40 scanner sales driven solely by United States channel activity. In 2026, we plan to ship 80 scanners, comprising 60 scanners to be sold in the United States and 20 scanners to be sold in Saudi Arabia for a total revenue of about $39 million.
Our longer-term trajectory for 2026 and beyond includes further expanding of QT scanners installed base, growing our cloud SaaS platform, and advancing quantitative imaging capabilities that can support biomarker development, AI analysis, and risk-stratified imaging pathways. To conclude our call, QT Imaging is building a new category in breast imaging, MRI class volumetric imaging delivered in a patient-friendly, accessible, and scalable format. QT Imaging is built on a simple but profound belief. We are here to care for the woman, not only for the organ, honoring her comfort, her experience, and her health with technology designed around her. The technology is validated, the clinical need is clear, and the commercial structure is now in place. With strengthened operations and focused execution, we are well-positioned for the next phase of growth. Thank you so much for your time and continuous support. We will now open the call for questions. Operator?
Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, please press star one on your phone at this time if you wish to ask a question. Please hold while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from Jeffrey S. Cohen from Ladenburg Thalmann. Jeffrey, your line is live.
Hello, Raluca and Jay. Thanks for taking our questions. I have a few. I'll start with the commercial activity. As I understand it, NXC is leading the commercial activities domestically, and then maybe you could talk about are you supplementing that at all, and then talk about your commercial activities OUS. I assume that you're managing all of those OUS. Also wanted to know about training and service, whose task is that?
Jeff, thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for asking the question. NXC Imaging is our exclusive distributor for United States sales, and we do work very well with them. As I said during the call, we have hired also a Chief Commercial Officer. Mr. Satyajit Misra has joined us as of yesterday. Satyajit will be responsible for strategic sales in the United States and globally, where NXC Imaging basically does not have the reach. For example, academic institutions or very high-end hospitals, we're trying to help, and we're trying to supplement the activities of NXC Imaging. Globally, we do have in place the distribution agreement with the Gulf Medical, as you know, and we will start the shipping hopefully by the end of Q1, if not by the beginning of Q2 as we receive our SFDA approval.
Okay, got it. Can you give some update on timing of the up listing? I know the-
Mm-hmm
The split already occurred a couple weeks ago, but I'm curious about the uplisting status.
Yeah. Good point. Thank you so much for bringing this up. As of Friday this week, we would have provided all the data that's needed or that was requested by Nasdaq. We definitely hope that we will be back on Nasdaq before the end of the year, if not earlier than that.
Okay, got it. Can you give us a little color on the coding that's in place in the U.S.? As I understand it thus far, a fair amount of placements are cash currently. Talk to us about the Medicare Category C code and also Category III codes and where we stand in the U.S.
Sure. Great question. Thank you so much. Jeff, as we discussed in the past, today, the code that can be used for QT imaging is an unlisted ultrasound code. We have submitted our application to CMS for new tech APC Category C code, Medicare code, a few months back, and we are waiting for feedback. Hopefully by January 2026, we get our Category C code. November 3rd, we have also submitted our application for a Category III code, which we hope to receive by January 2027.
Okay. The Category C code could become effective in January 2026 with the Category III-
Correct
in a year later.
Correct. Exactly right.
Okay.
Category C code will get replaced by Category III code when it becomes available. You're absolutely right.
Okay. Got it. Could you discuss a little bit about, you mentioned a CE mark in late 2026 or by the end of 2026. Why couldn't you receive that earlier?
A good question, Jeff. We will submit the application at, hopefully by January, February next year. It's quite a lot that we have to do for that. Usually, it takes nine to 12 months to get the approval. Hopefully, we can get that before Q4 next year. To the best of our knowledge and understanding, we should be expecting that before the end of 2026. We'll keep you updated, no doubt.
Okay, got it. One for Jay, just to clarify, pro forma cash, I heard $12.4. I didn't get a clear pro forma debt number today.
Yes. $12.4 is our current cash balance.
The debt?
It's currently at $20.3 million, including accrued interest.
Got it. Okay. I think I had one more. Can you remind us where is the equipment being manufactured today as far as final assembly, and will that be manufactured someplace differently throughout the coming year?
Great question. Thank you, Jeff. Today, we are manufacturing most of our scanners in California, but our partnership with our contract manufacturing partner, Canon Medical Systems in Japan, is also working. We have received the first 3 scanners from Japan for the final testing that was done in California. The majority of the manufacturing happens in California at this point in time, and we do plan to expand our manufacturing capabilities in California to make sure that we support the increased number of scanners for next year.
Okay, perfect. Thanks for taking our questions.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jeff.
Thank you. The next question will be from Ben Hamer from Lake Street Capital. Ben, your line is live.
Good afternoon, folks. Thanks for taking the questions. First off for me, just curious on the utilization you're seeing as these new scanners get installed and the clinics ramp up. Is that something that looks fairly similar from one clinic to another, or do they vary quite a bit? How long does it take to get to a steady run rate? Anything you can share on the utilization front and how that ramps?
Ben, what a pleasure to have you with us. Thank you so much for being with us, and thank you so much for the question. Ben, it varies from one region to another. There's some echo. Hopefully, you can hear me. It does vary from one region to another. It takes few months up until we see a steady flow of patients coming in. Some centers report 12-14 patients a day. Other centers report 8-10 patients a day. This is what we see today.
Couple few months as they get ramped up, they kind of steady state at
Correct.
8 or 10 or
Correct.
12 or 14. Got it.
Exactly. Yep.
Perfect. On your visibility into NXC's install pipeline, anything you can share on that front? Well, let's leave it there, and then I'll follow up.
Very good question. They do a great job covering United States. They also have hired additional distributors to better put the feet on the street and make sure that the scanners get into customers' hands. On our end, Ben, we have hired Satrajit to help out with the direct sales too. We altogether as a team move fast. The most important for this company is the speed. We need clinical data. We need to make sure that the sales are happening fast and efficient. We will help from our end, too.
On the direct sales, how does that get handled? How does that show up on the income statement? Do you get full gross margin and then something comes out of sales and marketing, or how does that work mechanically?
First of all, our distribution agreement with NXC Imaging allows us to do direct sales, too. Obviously, we'll do it in total sync with our distribution partner. We will cover the areas where we are complementary. We're not going to go for the same accounts, obviously. We'll help. Every scanner we sell from the direct sales of QT Imaging comes out of the minimum order quantity of NXC. Otherwise, we'll make sure that the pricing and everything else gets to be in sync with NXC then.
Okay, got it. That's helpful. On manufacturing with Canon, I think if I heard you correctly, the first one that went out there was at a bit lower margin. How quickly does it kind of ramp up to the level that you think it can go to in terms of gross margin, wherever that winds up at?
Very good question. Ben, while most of our parts are from United States, we get obviously tariffs because of manufacturing in Japan. That's why the lower gross margin that we're making on the scanners. We're trying to balance our needs to hold the gross margin and deliver as we promised, versus the ramp-up that's happening right now with Canon Japan. It remains to be seen. We will have plan B in place, so we'll make sure that the scanners get shipped from California, in case that these tariffs will linger for much longer.
Okay. That makes sense. Lastly for me, just, I know you provided a bit of color on kind of some of the software stuff and the SaaS platform. Any more color you can share there?
Ben, first of all, we will start connecting everyone, all of our clinical sites and our commercial partners via the pipeline, basically, that IntelliRad or InteleShare will provide. We work collaboratively and first we will put in place the connectivity to the centers and to the clinical sites. Once that is in place, we will definitely assess the pricing of the SaaS platform we're trying to put in place, and we'll report back. For the next few months, we want to make sure that everybody's connected, and we can deliver the next generation, next version of the software, and we start collecting the data to be able to offer the biomarkers in the future.
Got it. Excellent. Well, congrats on the progress, and thanks for taking the questions.
Oh, no. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us, Ben. Appreciate it.
Thank you. That does conclude our Q&A session for today. I will now hand the call back to Raluca Dinu for closing remarks.
Thank you very much to all of you for participating in our call. Thank you for your support, and we look forward to updating you during our next call. Happy holidays and all the best. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.