ADAPTIVE BIOTECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition
and results of operations together with our unaudited condensed financial
statements and related notes and the other financial information appearing
elsewhere in this report, as well as the other financial information we file
with the
As a result of many factors, including those factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section of this report, our actual results could differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion and analysis.
Overview
We are advancing the field of immune-driven medicine by harnessing the inherent biology of the adaptive immune system to transform the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Our immune medicine platform applies our proprietary technologies to read the diverse genetic code of a patient's immune system and understand precisely how it detects and treats disease in that patient. We capture these insights in our dynamic clinical immunomics database, which is underpinned by computational biology and machine learning, and use them to develop and commercialize clinical products and services that we are tailoring to each individual patient. We have two commercial products and services and a robust pipeline of clinical products and services that we are designing to diagnose, monitor and enable the treatment of diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions and infectious diseases.
Our immune medicine platform is the foundation for our expanding suite of products and services. The cornerstone of our platform and core immunosequencing product, immunoSEQ, serves as our underlying research and development engine and generates revenue from academic and biopharmaceutical customers. Our first clinical diagnostic product, clonoSEQ, is the first test authorized by the FDA for the detection and monitoring of MRD in patients with MM and ALL and is being validated for patients with other blood cancers. Leveraging our collaboration with Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") to create the TCR-Antigen Map, we are also developing a clinical diagnostic product, T-Detect (previously referred to as immunoSEQ Dx), that may enable early detection of many diseases from a single blood test. We are currently running our first clinical validation study in acute Lyme disease following proof of concept in 2019. Our therapeutic product candidates, being developed under the Genentech Agreement, leverage our platform to identify specific immune cells to develop into cellular therapies in oncology.
Since our inception, we have devoted a majority of our resources to research and development activities to develop our immune medicine platform, which enables the delivery of our products and services for life sciences research, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery customers.
For our life science research customers, we provide two categories of products and services using immunoSEQ, our core sequencing and immunomics tracking technology. First, we provide immunosequencing services, the revenue from which we record as sequencing revenue. Second, we provide certain research customers professional support, for which we may receive payments upon those customers achieving specified milestones. We record these support activities as development revenue.
For our clinical diagnostics customers, we sell our clonoSEQ diagnostic tests, which include our immunosequencing services and are thus recorded as sequencing revenue. In the future, we intend to sell other diagnostics products and services, which we also expect to record as sequencing revenue.
For our current drug discovery collaborator,
Historically, we have sold immunoSEQ as a fee-for-service offering to academic centers and biopharmaceutical customers and further deepened those relationships over time by supporting their development initiatives. These research offerings have comprised the majority of our revenue to date, although our business is pursuing broader opportunities. As we continue to expand the use of our clonoSEQ diagnostic tests, develop and commercialize T-Detect and develop and commercialize therapeutic product candidates with our drug discovery collaborator, we expect our mix of revenue to shift to clinical products and services, which we believe will become our largest sources of revenue.
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Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation
We are actively pursuing opportunities to deepen our relationships with current
customers and initiate relationships with new customers. We have an experienced,
specialty salesforce that is targeting department heads, laboratory directors,
principal investigators, core facility directors, clinicians, payors and
research scientists and pathologists at leading academic institutions,
biopharmaceutical companies, research institutions and contract research
organizations. As MRD assessment becomes standard practice for patient
management across a range of blood cancers, we believe it will be essential for
clinicians and patients to have access to a highly accurate, sensitive and
standardized MRD assessment tool. We are focused on establishing and maintaining
collaborative relationships with payors, developing health economic evidence and
building billing and patient access infrastructure to expand reimbursement
coverage for our clinical diagnostics. We continue to seek expanded coverage of
our clonoSEQ diagnostic test and, in 2019, we successfully expanded coverage
through contractual agreements or positive medical policies with Medicare and
several of the largest national private health insurers in
We generated revenue of
COVID-19 Developments
In
In
For a discussion of the risks presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, including risks to our results of operations and inherent in development of new products and services related to the pandemic, see the "Risk Factors" section of this report.
Follow-On Offering
In
Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We derive our revenue from two sources: (1) sequencing revenue and (2) development revenue.
Sequencing revenue. Sequencing revenue reflects the amounts generated from providing testing services through clonoSEQ to clinical and research customers and from providing sequencing services through immunoSEQ to research customers.
For our clinical customers, we derive revenue from providing our clonoSEQ test report to ordering physicians. We bill medical institutions and commercial and government payors based on tests delivered to ordering physicians. Amounts paid for clonoSEQ diagnostic tests by medical institutions and commercial and government payors vary based on respective reimbursement rates and patient responsibilities, which may differ from our targeted list price. To date, the majority of our clonoSEQ diagnostic test revenue has been received from medical institutions. We recognize clinical revenue by evaluating customer payment history, contracted reimbursement rates, if applicable, and other adjustments to estimate the amount of revenue that is collectible. Until 2019, we did not have reimbursement available to us through any government payors for clonoSEQ.
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Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation For our clonoSEQ coverage under Medicare, we bill an episode of treatment when we deliver the first eligible test results. This billing contemplates all necessary tests required during a patient's treatment cycle, which is currently estimated at approximately four tests per patient, including the initial sequence identification test. Revenue recognition commences at the time the initial billable test result is delivered and is based upon cumulative tests delivered to date. Any unrecognized revenue from the initial billable test is recorded as deferred revenue and recognized as we deliver the remaining tests in a patient's treatment cycle.
For our research customers, which include biopharmaceutical customers and academic institutions, delivery of the sequencing results may include some level of professional support and analysis. Terms with biopharmaceutical customers generally include non-refundable upfront payments, which we record as deferred revenue. For all customers, we recognize revenue as we deliver sequencing results. From time to time, we offer discounts in order to gain rights and access to certain datasets. Revenue is recognized net of these discounts and costs associated with these services are reflected in cost of revenue.
Development revenue. Development revenue primarily represents regulatory or development support services, other than sequencing revenue, that we provide to biopharmaceutical customers who seek access to our platform to support their therapeutic development activities. Additionally, we generate development revenue from the achievement of regulatory milestones. We enter into collaboration and similar agreements with these customers. When these agreements include sequencing activities, we separately classify those activities as sequencing revenue. These agreements may also include substantial non-refundable upfront payments, which we recognize as development revenue over time as we perform the respective services.
We expect revenue to increase over the long term, particularly as the mix of revenue migrates to clinical diagnostics and drug discovery. The pace by which this mix migrates will be determined by the level of customer adoption and frequency of use of our products and services. Our revenue may fluctuate from period to period due to the uncertain nature of delivery of our products and services, the achievement of milestones by us or our customers, timing of expenses incurred, changes in estimates of total anticipated costs related to our Genentech Agreement and other events not within our control, such as the delivery of customer samples or customer decisions to no longer pursue their development initiatives.
Due to the ongoing uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic, we may experience variability in revenue in the near term as restrictions in our customers' abilities to procure samples for their research initiatives change, as customer initiatives evolve and as clinical testing is impacted. For more information, see the section of this report captioned "Risk Factors-The COVID-19 pandemic could adversely impact portions of our business that rely on research and development activities or clinical trials and delay or disrupt our pipeline, which may adversely impact revenue."
Cost of Revenue
Cost of revenue includes the cost of materials, personnel-related expenses (comprised of salaries, benefits and share-based compensation), shipping and handling, equipment and allocated facility costs associated with processing samples and professional support for our sequencing revenue. Allocated facility costs include depreciation of laboratory equipment, allocated facility occupancy and information technology costs. Costs associated with processing samples are recorded as expense, regardless of the timing of revenue recognition. As such, cost of revenue and related volume does not always trend in the same direction as revenue recognition and related volume. Additionally, costs to support our Genentech Agreement are a component of our research and development activities.
We expect cost of revenue to increase in absolute dollars as we grow our sequencing volume but the cost per sample to decrease over the long term due to the efficiencies we may gain as sequencing volume increases from improved utilization of our laboratory capacity, automation and other value engineering initiatives. If our sample volume throughput is reduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or otherwise, cost of revenue as a percentage of total revenue may be adversely impacted due to fixed overhead costs.
Research and Development Expenses
Research and development expenses consist of laboratory materials costs, personnel-related expenses, equipment costs, allocated facility costs, information technology expenses and contract service expenses. Research and development activities support further development and refinement of existing assays and products, discovery of new technologies and investments in our immune medicine platform. We also include in research and development expenses the costs associated with software development activities to support laboratory scaling and workflow, as well as development of applications to support future commercial opportunities. We are currently conducting research and development activities for several products and services and we typically use our laboratory materials, personnel, facilities, information technology and other development resources across multiple development programs. Additionally, certain of these research and development activities benefit more than one of our product opportunities. We do not track research and development expenses by specific product candidates.
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Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation A component of our research and development activities is supporting clinical and analytical validations to obtain regulatory approval for future clinical products and services. Additionally, the costs to support our Genentech Agreement are a component of our research and development activities. Some of these activities have generated and may in the future generate development revenue.
We expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we innovate and expand the application of our platform. However, we expect research and development expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term, although the percentage may fluctuate from period to period due to the timing and extent of our development and commercialization efforts. While the pace and priorities of our research and development initiatives may continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect to continue to increase expenses in both the near and long-term to support our ongoing initiatives, which include our initiatives with respect to COVID-19.
Sales and Marketing Expenses
Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for commercial sales, account management, marketing, reimbursement, medical education and business development personnel that support commercialization of our platform products. In addition, these expenses include external costs such as advertising expenses, customer education and promotional expenses, market analysis expenses, conference fees, travel expenses and allocated facility costs.
We expect our sales and marketing expenses to increase in absolute dollars as we expand our commercial sales, marketing and business development teams and increase marketing activities to drive awareness and adoption of our products and services. However, we expect sales and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term, subject to fluctuations from period to period due to the timing and magnitude of these expenses.
General and Administrative Expenses
General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses, including share-based compensation, salaries and benefits for our personnel in executive, legal, finance and accounting, human resources and other administrative functions, including third-party billing services. In addition, these expenses include insurance costs, external legal costs, accounting and tax service expenses, consulting fees and allocated facility costs.
We expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we increase headcount. Though expected to increase in absolute dollars, we expect these expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term as revenue increases.
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