10x Genomics Lifts 2026 Revenue Guidance to $625-635 Million

10x Genomics (NASDAQ:TXG) raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $625 million to $635 million, up from its prior forecast of $610 million to $630 million, after third-quarter revenue of $150.7 million grew 1% year over year. The company also lifted its year-end shipment target for the new Atera spatial biology platform to roughly 50 instruments, from about 40 previously.

Chief Financial Officer Adam Taich said the revised guidance range represents growth of 4% to 6% over 2025, excluding nonrecurring revenue from patent litigation settlements booked in both years. Strip out those settlements and the comparison holds; include them and the growth rate blurs. That caveat deserves attention before anyone annualizes the pace.

Commercial shipments of Atera began in late September, and customers had visibly deferred instrument purchases ahead of the launch. The company reported the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2026.

What did the quarter actually deliver?

The revenue split tells a story of two businesses moving in opposite directions.

• Consumables revenue rose 5% in total. Single-cell consumables gained 1%, supported by double-digit growth in reaction volumes and demand for Flex Apex. Spatial consumables climbed 16%, driven primarily by Xenium consumables.
• Instrument revenue fell 43%. Chromium instrument revenue declined 23%; spatial instrument revenue dropped 57%.
• Taich attributed both declines primarily to fewer units sold, with spatial customers moderating purchases of Visium and Xenium ahead of Atera.

Gross margin rose to 75% from 67% a year earlier, mainly on lower inventory write-downs and product-mix changes. Operating expenses fell to $129 million from $132.5 million, as lower personnel and lab equipment costs partly offset higher litigation expenses.

The margin gain is real but temporary, as the company itself concedes.

Why will margins fall next quarter?

Taich expects gross margin to decline to the low- to mid-60% range in the fourth quarter as Atera instrument shipments increase. He said Atera instruments and consumables carry higher gross-margin profiles than their Xenium counterparts, yet he still expects overall margins in 2027 to sit below current levels. The reason: next year will likely weight toward instrument placements before consumables revenue ramps.

Higher-margin products, lower blended margin. That arithmetic defines the rollout year, and management did not disguise it.

How fast can Atera ship?

CEO and Co-founder Serge Saxonov said demand was not the limiting factor. Production, installation and customer training capacity will constrain the rollout into next year. He said roughly 50 instruments per quarter was an appropriate way to think about the pace entering 2027.

Two Atera units were included in third-quarter revenue, Taich said.

The company did not disclose Atera backlog or order numbers — a notable omission given the raised target. What it did offer was an adoption claim: Saxonov said nearly all of the world's top 20 biopharma companies had purchased Atera systems or services through Catalyst Research Services, the company's internal lab for running customer samples. He provided no breakdown between system buyers and service users. More than 100 customers booked Catalyst projects in the first five months, he said.

Saxonov also said early interest in Atera's whole-transcriptome capability had exceeded expectations and was the dominant way customers were using the platform so far. He attributed part of that demand to researchers seeking extensive biological data to train artificial intelligence models.

Where does the consumables mix stand?

Saxonov said Flex Apex adoption was moving toward a majority of Chromium reactions, particularly as biopharma customers scale up their use. Apex carries a lower price per reaction, which creates revenue pressure during the transition even as volumes grow. Volume up, price down — the transition dilutes revenue per reaction by design.

Taich said third-quarter spatial consumables performance ran modestly better than expected, and the company's guidance assumes double-digit growth for that category in the fourth quarter. Atera consumables shipments began in the fourth quarter, he said, and Xenium usage remained strong.

What else is in motion?

The company ended the quarter with $576 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, up $94 million from a year earlier and $24 million from the preceding quarter.

During the quarter, 10x Genomics announced Sentira, a cloud analysis platform intended to help researchers process and analyze biological data. Saxonov said its immediate purpose is to ease a data-analysis bottleneck and support use of the company's other products, though it could also create software revenue over time.

The company also announced a collaboration with Fred Hutch as part of its clinical strategy. Saxonov said 10x Genomics is working to establish an internal CLIA lab, targeting a launch next year, and is focused on generating evidence for the clinical utility of its technologies in oncology and autoimmunity.

The guidance went up, the shipment target went up, and the margin went down in the outlook — a trade management has chosen explicitly, and one investors will price quarter by quarter.