Seer Cuts 2026 Outlook to $13.5–14.5 Million as Funding Doubts Bite

Seer lowered its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to $13.5 million to $14.5 million on Tuesday's earnings call, down from its prior range of $16 million to $18 million. The proteomics (large-scale protein analysis) company cited constrained research funding and lingering uncertainty from an activist campaign, even as third-quarter revenue rose to $4 million from $3.1 million in the second quarter.

CEO and Board Chair Omid Farokhzad said academic and government funding constraints have lengthened purchasing timelines. Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer Charles Endweiss added that an activist campaign and subsequent acquisition proposals prompted some customers to seek assurances before committing to purchases.

The distraction is now resolved, at least formally. Seer announced on October 29 that a special committee had completed its review and that the company would remain an independent public company. Endweiss said several late-stage opportunities are now expected to close later than planned.

What does the quarter's arithmetic show?

Third-quarter product revenue was $2.8 million, driven by Proteograph instrument and consumable kit sales. Service revenue contributed $1.1 million; related-party revenue added $0.1 million. Endweiss attributed the sequential gain to higher instrument shipments and new customer agreements.

Gross profit came in at roughly $1.9 million, a 47% gross margin, down 130 basis points from the second quarter. Endweiss said margins will continue to vary with the mix of instrument, consumable and service revenue. At scale, the company still targets long-term gross margins of 70% to 75%. Ambition, evidently, is not the constraint.

Operating expenses fell to $16.5 million from $21.5 million a year earlier, helped by research and development spending dropping to $6.4 million from $10.8 million. Net loss narrowed to $13.7 million from $18.2 million.

Seer ended the quarter with approximately $198 million in cash, equivalents and investments. For the first nine months of 2026, it used roughly $34.5 million in operating cash and reported about $34.8 million in negative free cash flow. Farokhzad said existing capital is sufficient to reach cash flow breakeven under the current operating plan, which assumes revenue growth, improving margins and spending discipline.

Can the sales model build repeat business?

Seer concentrates its commercial efforts on funded research programs that generate recurring consumable purchases, including biopharmaceutical companies and population-scale studies. Farokhzad said the company has signed several new large pharmaceutical customers this year, each purchasing instruments and consumables.

Endweiss said consumable pull-through (recurring kit purchases per installed instrument) was relatively flat sequentially. Established customers kept buying, some in multiple consecutive quarters, though orders remain tied to individual research projects.

The sales cycle is improving, modestly. Farokhzad said it has shortened to about six months from a high single-digit number of months, as fewer customers require proof-of-concept studies. He also said Seer is discussing projects involving more than 10,000 samples and expects to announce one such customer within weeks, with an initial order of a couple of thousand samples.

For 2027, Farokhzad expects a year of growth but offered no guidance. He also said Seer intends to pass some cost savings to customers through lower prices.

What did the science and the lawyers deliver?

Farokhzad highlighted preliminary results from Singapore's PRECISE-SG100K population health study, where researchers used Proteograph alongside Thermo Fisher Scientific's Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometry technology. Across 9,658 plasma samples, the workflow quantified approximately 8,800 protein groups.

He also cited an independent study in Clinical Proteomics comparing seven plasma preparation approaches. Proteograph XT, paired with an Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer, identified an average of roughly 6,060 proteins per sample and showed a 1.9% rate of missing protein measurements.

Seer is courting AI-driven research customers as well. Farokhzad pointed to preliminary work by Korea University researchers combining Proteograph-enabled measurements with an AI approach using both identified and unidentified spectral signals. The results showed improved cancer classification performance compared with models using only identified peptide features.

On intellectual property, staff at the International Trade Commission recommended granting the exclusion and cease-and-desist orders sought in an action Seer and Brigham and Women's Hospital brought against Nanomics. Farokhzad said Nanomics stopped defending the investigation; the commission's final determination is expected by year-end.

Through September 30, Seer had repurchased approximately 13.5 million shares for about $25 million under board authorizations totaling $50 million, leaving roughly $25 million available. The company, known for the Proteograph Product Suite of engineered nanoparticle technology, consumables, automation and software, now must convert settled governance into settled customers.