Oxford Nanopore Technologies (LON:ONT) Chief Financial Officer Nick Keher outlined the company’s progress in expanding beyond its historically research-led revenue base, highlighting rapid growth in clinical and applied industrial end markets, continued investment in regulated diagnostics pathways, and management’s updated expectations for growth and profitability.
Revenue mix and growth across end markets
Keher said research remained the company’s largest revenue category, representing 67% of revenue in the most recent year, with growth of “just over 15%.” He noted that this performance came amid broader disruption in the market, including uncertainty around U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, which he said accounts for around 13% of Oxford Nanopore’s revenue overall.
Clinical represented 13% of revenue and grew 60% in the most recent year, with approximately 85% growth in the Americas, according to Keher. He attributed the acceleration to increased adoption in rare disease, infectious disease, and oncology (including rare blood tumors), as laboratories move from using Nanopore as a reflex option toward frontline testing in some cases.
Clinical strategy: from LDTs to regulated tests
Keher said most clinical revenue today is coming from laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), with some being used as second-line tests but increasing adoption in first-line settings. He positioned rare disease and infectious disease—along with applications requiring quick turnaround times and methylation information—as areas where Oxford Nanopore has a “right to win.”
On the company’s move toward regulated diagnostics, Keher said Oxford Nanopore has brought its AmPORE-TB product to market with CE IVD status and has also obtained CE IVD status for its GridION Dx instrument. He added that in many markets, customers primarily require what he called a “Q line status”—a semi-regulated, locked-down configuration—enabling partners to build regulated assays on top of the platform.
Keher also emphasized partnerships intended to support entry into in vitro diagnostics (IVD), referencing agreements with Danaher (Cepheid) and bioMérieux. He described the infectious disease opportunity as including high-value segments where PCR-based testing may be insufficient, particularly when clinicians need comprehensive metagenomic information quickly to guide treatment decisions.
Methylation and adaptive sampling highlighted as differentiators
Keher argued that Oxford Nanopore’s ability to detect methylation directly from native DNA provides an advantage over conventional methods that take a “deep but narrow” approach and do not capture the full methylome. He described methylation as a biomarker with potential value in multiple settings, including transplantation—where one customer is using methylation as a predictive marker for organ failure—and oncology, where methylation patterns may change as cancers become active.
He also pointed to a 50,000-participant UK Biobank study that he said is helping unlock methylation biology and could drive further interest from both diagnostics developers and pharmaceutical companies.
In oncology, Keher highlighted “adaptive sampling” as a potential driver, describing it as a software-defined approach that can prioritize sequencing of genes of interest. He referenced the company’s Hereditary Cancer Panel and described how adaptive sampling can reduce the need for whole-genome sequencing in certain applications, lowering preparation time and third-party kit costs.
Biopharma and quality control opportunities
Keher described biopharma as an additional high-priority market segment, estimating it at roughly £3 billion to £4 billion. He said pharmaceutical companies have shown interest in Oxford Nanopore for quality control applications, beginning with plasmid sequencing as a verification step in cell biology workflows. He said the company is seeing evaluation activity as customers consider shifting plasmid sequencing away from Sanger-based approaches, citing the ability to view full plasmid information at a competitive time and price point.
He also discussed mRNA vaccine production, saying Oxford Nanopore has signed a contract with a leading quality control provider. In that workflow, he said the company’s sequencing approach competes not only with other sequencing platforms but also with multiple “orthogonal” analytical methods such as HPLC, mass spectrometry, and gels. Keher said Nanopore can directly assess attributes such as weight and modifications, which he framed as relevant to safety and efficacy—particularly in personalized cancer vaccine contexts where testing may be performed per patient.
Additional areas of biopharma interest mentioned included AAV and sterility testing, which Keher said can overlap technically with infectious disease metagenomic workflows.
Updated view on growth versus prior targets
Keher addressed the company’s growth outlook and how it has evolved from prior guidance. He said Oxford Nanopore delivered 24% constant currency growth in 2025 and is guiding to 21%–25% growth for the current year, with a broadly similar expectation for next year. He acknowledged that the company’s earlier aim of over 30% compound annual growth for 2024–2027 is now unlikely.
He attributed the shift to a combination of tougher market conditions and internal execution. He cited the NIH funding environment as a headwind that emerged after the guidance was set, and said China has also been more challenging due to export control restrictions. Keher also said the company conducted a strategic review to understand why top-line growth was not reaching intended levels and made internal changes as part of that process.
On profitability, Keher said the company pushed back its break-even expectations after his arrival in 2024, moving from an earlier aim of 2026 to adjusted EBITDA break-even in 2027 and cash flow break-even in 2028. He said those targets have been reiterated and have not been moved despite slower revenue growth, citing improved margins and cost control, including two rounds of cost reductions last year.
About Oxford Nanopore Technologies (LON:ONT)
Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ goal is to bring the widest benefits to society through enabling the analysis of anything, by anyone, anywhere. The Group has developed a new generation of nanopore-based sensing technology that is currently used for real-time, high-performance, accessible, and scalable analysis of DNA and RNA. The technology is used in more than 125 countries, to understand the biology of humans, plants, animals, bacteria, viruses and environments as well as to understand diseases such as cancer.
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