Lightwave Logic (NASDAQ:LWLG) used its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results call to emphasize continued execution toward commercialization of its Perkinamine electro-optic polymer platform, highlighting progress in reliability work, silicon photonics foundry integration, and a growing set of customer engagements moving through the company’s staged development cycle.
Commercialization focus and polymer platform progress
President and CEO Yves Lemaitre characterized 2025 as an “execution year,” saying the company moved “aggressively from research validation towards structure commercialization.” He said the Perkinamine platform continued to demonstrate high-speed bandwidth, low drive voltage, compact device footprint, and compatibility with silicon photonics and the broader semiconductor ecosystem.
Financial results and liquidity
For full-year 2025, the company reported revenue of approximately $237,000, primarily from licensing and non-recurring engineering (NRE), compared with $96,000 in 2024. Net loss was approximately $20.3 million, or a loss of $0.16 per share, improving from a net loss of $22.5 million, or $0.19 per share, in 2024.
Research and development expense was approximately $11.5 million, down from $16.8 million in the prior year, while general and administrative expense rose to approximately $9.5 million from $6.4 million.
Lightwave Logic also highlighted balance sheet strengthening actions. In December 2025, the company completed a public offering that generated approximately $32.8 million in net proceeds from issuing 11.6 million shares. The company ended 2025 with about $69 million in cash, which Lemaitre said was roughly double the $34.9 million reported at the end of the third quarter. In January 2026, the company exercised the over-allotment option, adding another $4.9 million in cash. Based on the operating plan, management said it believes the company is funded beyond December 2027.
Customer programs: stage-three activity and near-term revenue expectations
Lemaitre said the company’s “design win cycle matured meaningfully” in 2025, with three programs advancing to “stage three” (prototype to final product) during the year. He added that a fourth Fortune Global 500 customer was added to that stage-three list in 2026, while about 15 additional engagements are progressing through stages one and two.
Stage-three work is currently centered on wafer-level tape-outs followed by chip processing and testing, with possible iterative design optimization, according to Lemaitre. He framed this phase as where “real technical programs conversion into commercial agreements begins,” adding that the company is supporting customers within foundry environments.
Management provided several program-level updates:
- Tier-one customer focused on 1.6T transceivers: Lemaitre said this customer is initially targeting 1.6 terabits per second transceivers operating at 200G per lane. In January, the companies launched a full wafer tape-out at a new silicon photonics foundry, and Lightwave Logic expects chips to return in the second quarter of 2026 for processing and testing.
- Tier-one customer pursuing co-packaged optics (CPO) materials: Another customer is seeking a next-generation material suited for CPO packaging that can operate at higher temperatures to enable new packaging processes. Lemaitre said the program was launched in 2025 and is a key priority for the chemistry design team in 2026. He also said a foundry run is planned over the next few months to validate a custom modulator chip design required for CPO.
- Most recently announced tier-one customer: Lemaitre said this customer plans to design and build silicon photonics chips with embedded modulators at a “state-of-the-art” silicon photonics foundry, which would be the first implementation of electro-optic polymer modulators at that foundry.
- Polariton partnership: The company’s longtime customer and partner Polariton continues work toward commercialization of plasmonics, which Lemaitre said has potential to accelerate modulation toward 800G. Lightwave Logic’s role includes supporting prototyping and device packaging reliability programs.
Looking ahead, Lemaitre reiterated that 2026 revenue is expected to be driven primarily by material supply and NRE activity. He said volume production and licensing revenues are not anticipated until 2027 at the earliest, citing rigorous industry qualification cycles and the company’s goal of building “durable, repeatable revenue streams” rather than pursuing short-term revenue opportunities.
Foundry ecosystem expansion and manufacturing preparations
A major theme of the call was expanding the number of foundries able to process the modulator structures required for electro-optic polymer reference designs, which management described as a gating factor for customers already committed to specific foundries.
Lemaitre highlighted a recent announcement involving Silterra and Luceda Photonics: Silterra announced the availability of a high-speed modulator platform based on electro-optic polymer through Luceda’s process design kit (PDK). Lemaitre said Silterra, Lightwave Logic, and Luceda successfully completed a wafer tape-out earlier in 2026, with device characterization and performance validation expected in mid-2026. In the Q&A, he said the tape-out is intended to validate “key design and performance parameters for 200G and 400G modulators” and confirm optimal foundry process and equipment capabilities, with most test results expected by mid-2026.
Management said that with Silterra, GlobalFoundries, and two unnamed partners, Lightwave Logic now has agreements in place with four major foundries, with wafer runs either underway or scheduled for the first half of 2026. Lemaitre added that three additional foundries are under consideration.
On manufacturing, Lemaitre said the company initiated a production ramp-up program in 2025 for its back-end processes performed in Denver, focused on supporting multiple wafer sizes and improving yield, cycle time, and equipment efficiency. The company is also identifying potential industrial partners to outsource this portion of manufacturing for future high-volume production.
During Q&A, Lemaitre said Lightwave Logic intends to proceed with back-end-of-line process and capacity expansion in Denver to support prototyping and final product qualification, while continuing process development to align with semiconductor roadmaps, including migration to larger wafer sizes. He also said the company intends in 2026 to bring one of two external foundry partners to support high-volume manufacturing scale for back-end-of-line processes.
Asked about production volume requirements, Lemaitre said the company is “planning for success” with aggressive assumptions related to potential share gains in 2027 and 2028, and that it has developed models for yield, capacity, and equipment needed to meet its 2027 production targets. He emphasized the importance of being able to ramp quickly after a design win in the AI data center market.
Market context and 2026 priorities
Lemaitre cited third-party market data to frame demand drivers. He referenced LightCounting Research estimates that silicon photonics’ share of the optical transceiver market grew from 10% in 2018 to 33% in 2024 and is expected to become the dominant technology in 2026. He positioned Lightwave Logic’s strategy as enhancing silicon photonics rather than competing with it, arguing that electro-optic polymers can help silicon photonics reach higher bandwidth with lower power per bit.
He also cited LightCounting’s January 2026 report estimating that Ethernet optical transceivers of 100G and above and CPO reached approximately $16.5 billion in revenue in 2025, with projections of about $26 billion in 2026. Lemaitre discussed an accelerating speed roadmap, including expectations for 1.6T transceiver revenue reaching $1 billion in 2026 and 3.2T optics volume production beginning in 2028. He also noted Nvidia’s announced first CPO products, with InfiniBand products entering the market in the first half of 2026 and Ethernet in the second half of 2026.
For 2026, Lemaitre outlined priorities including advancing stage-three programs toward qualification milestones and stage four, converting technical engagements into structured commercial agreements, expanding the electro-optic-polymer-ready foundry ecosystem, continued performance optimization at 200G and 400G per lane and beyond, and operational preparation for a potential 2027 production ramp. He added that while customers control broader transceiver programs and related product timing, the company plans to provide updates through quarterly financial and business update calls, while customer endorsements or announcements would be at customers’ discretion.
About Lightwave Logic (NASDAQ:LWLG)
Lightwave Logic, Inc (NASDAQ: LWLG) is a U.S.-based photonics company focused on the development and commercialization of proprietary electro‐optic polymer materials and devices for high-speed optical communications. The company’s core technology platform centers on organic electro-optic polymers that offer low drive voltage, high modulation bandwidth and integration flexibility, enabling next-generation optical interconnects for data centers, telecommunications and emerging photonic computing architectures.
Lightwave Logic’s product pipeline includes modulators, waveguides and integrated photonic components designed to outperform traditional lithium-niobate and silicon-based solutions in terms of size, power consumption and ease of integration.
