Participants

Joshua Young; Head of Investor Relations; Quanterix Corp

Masoud Toloue; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Quanterix Corp

Vandana Sriram; Chief Financial Officer; Quanterix Corp

Matthew Sykes; Analyst; The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Kyle Mikson; Analyst; Canaccord Genuity Group Inc.

Puneet Souda; Analyst; Leerink Partners LLC

Daniel Brennan; Analyst; TD Cowen

Ji Nam Sung; Analyst; The Bank of Nova Scotia

Presentation

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kathleen and I will be your conference operator today.
At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Quanterix Corporation fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call.
(Operator Instructions) Thank you.
Now, I would like to turn the call over to Joshua Young, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Joshua Young

Thank you and good afternoon. With me on today's call are Masoud Toloue, Quanterix's President and CEO; and Vandana Sriram, Quanterix's Chief Financial Officer.
Today's call is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available on the Investors section of our website.
During the course of today's presentation, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions as of today, March 17, 2025. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
To supplement our financial statement presented on the GAAP basis, we have provided certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are used to evaluate our operating performance in a manner that allows for meaningful period-over-period comparison and analysis of trends in our business and our competitors.
We believe that such measures are important in comparing current results with other period results and assessing our operating performance within our industry. Non-GAAP financial information presented herein should be considered in conjunction with and not as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.
Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, set forth in the presentation posted on our website and in our earnings release issued today.
Finally, any percentage changes we discussed will be on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted.
Now, I'd like to turn over to the call to Masoud Toloue. Masoud?

Masoud Toloue

Thank you, Joshua.
I'm pleased to report that Quanterix delivered our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth, driven by robust demand for SIMOA sensitivity. In a capital-constrained environment, this performance is a testament to past investments we've made in focusing our business model on multiple vertical markets and recurring revenues.
I am pleased with our team's operational performance in the quarter. We achieved revenue of $35.2 million and our top line grew 11%, driven by capacity expansion in our Accelerator lab, which grew 22% in the quarter. Additionally, our investments in developing testing infrastructure for Alzheimer's disease is just starting as we generate $2.7 million of partner-enabled revenue in Q4.
Our approach to growth has been disciplined, while improving margin and core operating costs.
Our non-GAAP gross margin of 57.7% in the fourth quarter represented an increase of 300 basis points over the previous year, driven, primarily, by higher price and improved operating efficiency.
Our cash usage declined by 31% to $4.4 million in the fourth quarter. Vandana will elaborate more on these results, later in the call.
Taking a step back, I want to talk about how our investments are driving strong returns in the business and how our team's disciplined operating execution is helping us outpace peers.
Over the past two years, we generated a revenue CAGR of 14%, while increasing our recurring revenues from 65% to 80%. We've expanded margins from 35% to over 40%, (technical difficulty) 54%, today.
We've reduced our cash burn by nearly 50%, all the while continuing to invest in R&D to position the company for future periods of high growth.
With this foundation in place, we're in an excellent position to execute our three-year strategy.
Number one, grow menu. We're extending our leadership position in neurology while developing assays tailored for new markets. We launched 20 new assays in 2024, including 13 in neurology, addressing therapeutic areas such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and traumatic brain injury. We also launched ultra-sensitive multiplex panels for therapeutic development of key immunology-related disorders such as obesity, arthritis, and neuroinflammation.
Two, expanding into adjacencies, both organically and inorganically. We're expanding into immunology and oncology market through our SIMOA One platform and our recently announced merger agreement to acquire Akoya Biosciences, which will strengthen and accelerate this effort. I'll talk more about Akoya, in a few minutes.
In 2024, we made progress on our SIMOA One platform, which we expect to launch at the end of 2025 and will further expand our business in immunology. Through SIMOA One, we will increase plexity and sensitivity beyond our current platforms, further extending our lead position.
Assays on this platform will include Code Match technology, which are optically-encoded barcodes and proprietary emission beads that will allow us to (technical difficulty) plex, while maintaining high specificity across the assay in an efficient workflow, with a result in less than three hours.
Finally, number three, translating into diagnostics. We're focused on building the leading global diagnostic testing infrastructure for Alzheimer's disease. We added 12 partners to our network last year and are working to expand this year with 10 new hospitals and reference labs already in active test validation.
In 2024, we launched LucentAD Complete, a multi-marker algorithmic test that combines five biomarkers. It's available today as a laboratory developed test. And we're pleased to report that we're making great progress working in our perspective trials, with plans to submit our package this year to the FDA, under our breakthrough designation.
As I discussed earlier, the importance of making strategic investments into growth and driving high recurring revenues in the business have yielded strong results for Quanterix, over the past two years.
Now, I'll spend a few minutes on how our proposed acquisition of Akoya meets this objective.
We are confident we'll deliver attractive long-term returns to shareholders for three core reasons. One, expanded addressable market. Two, actionable synergies. And three, enhanced scale.
Through this combination, we're expanding Quanterix's research addressable market from $1 billion to $5 billion and our diagnostic segment from $10 billion to $15 billion.
By combining Quanterix, a number-one player in ultra-sensitive detection of proteins in blood, with Akoya, number one in biomarker detections and tissue, we will uniquely position the company to speed up market development of new tissue and liquid biopsies, which we believe will eventually surpass the market size of all other diagnostic tests combined.
Second. We have a clear line of sight, achieving the synergies we've projected. With regard to revenue synergies, starting immediately, upon closing, Akoya will offer their neurobio solutions to our over 1,000 instruments install base. And we will provide our oncology solutions to Akoya's 1,300 instrument install base.
Much of our team, including myself, are intimately familiar with Akoya's platform and its capabilities. And we have owned their instrument for several years. This, coupled with our own organic program with SIMOA One, gives us tremendous confidence we'll be able to hit the ground running on our cross-selling opportunities.
There's also a considerable customer overlap between our companies. We share the same top pharma customers and, generally speaking, half of our teams visit the same customer. We're very much focused on recurring revenues. We executed this at Quanterix and intend to apply the same playbook to the combined company.
With regard to cost synergies, 100% of our $40 million operating synergies will be run rates by 2026. We'll expect $5 million per quarter in the first 12 months and we'll achieve $10 million per quarter by the end of 2026.
Finally, there's a lot of low hanging fruit on the SG&A side we can go after, relatively quickly. Both companies are located in Boston, use identical antibody regions and similar operating infrastructures, which further de-risk footprint consolidation.
Third. We're accelerating scale and profitability. By combining with Akoya, we expect to generate positive free cash flow in 2026, one year faster than we would as a standalone company. The transaction creates a new path for us to grow from a company with approximately $250 billion in revenue this year to one with a $1 billion in revenues, with EBIT margins of 15%, five years, post-close.
This goal reflects the contribution of diagnostics revenues from Akoya and Quanterix, as well as meaningful contribution of revenue from our new SIMOA One platform.
I want to conclude by saying a few words about current market conditions. While there is some degree of market volatility, our view is that good research in important chronic conditions will continue to be supported by private and public sectors alike.
Investments we've made in our business model across multiple markets, namely research, pharma, and diagnostics, using a combination of products and services, continues to uniquely position the company for growth and a path to profitability, while we make investments in high-growth markets for future cycles of value creation.
These efforts have delivered over the last two years and we expect them to continue.
Vandana will provide more detail on our financial performance.

Vandana Sriram

Thank you, Masoud. Good afternoon.
I will now go over our performance for the fourth-quarter, full-year results and provide our guidance for 2025.
As Masoud described, in the fourth quarter, we continued our record of double-digit growth and margin expansion as compared to the prior year.
Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $35.2 million, an increase of 11% compared to the prior year. Accelerator lab revenue was $8.6 million, an increase of 22%, driven by strength in testing services for clinical trials and custom asset development.
As disclosed earlier, our Lilly collaboration agreement was completed in the third quarter.
Consumable revenue was $17.4 million, flat with the previous year, as customers continue to transition to Advantage PLUS assays. The Advantage PLUS transition is approximately 50% complete and we're on track to have all customers converted to Advantage PLUS consumables by mid-2025.
Instrument revenue was $3.1 million, down 7% but up 29% sequentially. We placed 18 instruments in the quarter, up five instruments from the prior quarter.
Other sales of $6 million include approximately $1.4 million of licensed revenue related to advancing our partner network in Alzheimer's disease diagnostics. For the quarter, we reported $2.7 million of revenue from our diagnostics partners.
Shifting to the rest of the P&L for the fourth quarter, GAAP gross profit and margins were $22.2 million and 63%, respectively, up $2.8 million and approximately 150 basis points compared to the prior year. Non-GAAP gross profit was $20.3 million and non-gap gross margin was 57.7%, up approximately 300 basis points, respectively, compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.
This strong gross margin performance was driven by favorable product mix, strong output, and improved inventory management.
GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $36.9 million, up $3.9 million, and non-GAAP operating expenses were $35.1 million, up $4.2 million over last year. Included in operating expenses is approximately $2.7 million of costs related to our ongoing M&A transaction, as well as the cost of the restatement of our financial.
Cash usage for the quarter was $4.4 million, down $2 million from last year. For the full-year 2024, we reported revenue of $137.4 million, an increase of 12%. This performance was driven by our Accelerator business, which increased 37% to $38 million.
Consumable revenue grew 8% to $69.3 million, while Instrument revenue totaled $10.5 million, a decrease of 33%.
Other revenue totaled $19.7 million, an increase of 32%.
In terms of revenue stratification, our customer mix for the year was approximately 54:46 between pharma and academia.
Within Pharma, sales to diagnostics partners totaled $6 million for the year. From a geographic perspective, our revenue growth was led by North America, which grew 17%. Europe grew 11%, and the Asia-Pacific region was down 6% for the full year.
Full-year GAAP gross profit increased to $83.1 million, up $8.9 million, and GAAP gross margin was down 20 basis points year over year. Non-GAAP gross profit increased to $75 million, also up $8.9 million, and non-gap gross margin expanded 60 basis points to 54.6%.
We ended the fourth quarter of 2024 with $291.7 million of cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities, and restricted cash.
Cash usage for the year was $32 million, up $15 million from the prior year. This included approximately $16 million of investment in SIMOA One and Diagnostics, which is consistent with our plan of investing up to $20 million in these initiatives in 2024.
We are making an update to the non-GAAP financial measures that we report on a quarterly basis. As we add acquisitions to our portfolio, we are adding adjusted EBITA and adjusted EBITDA margins as new metrics.
Please refer to our earnings release and page 13 of the accompanying presentation for a definition of these metrics.
Our adjusted EBITDA was negative $23.6 million in 2024 as compared to negative $19 million in 2023. As noted before, this included $16 million of investment in SIMOA One and Alzheimer's diagnostics, up $7 million from the prior year.
Excluding these investments, we've made real progress towards our goal of achieving profitability through tight execution in our core business, which is allowing us to continue to make these strategic investments.
Turning, now, to guidance for the full-year 2025.
We currently expect to report revenues in a range of $140 million to $146 million, which represents growth of 2% to 6%. This excludes revenue from Lucent Diagnostics testing.1
Masoud touched on some of the market volatility that we're observing in the near term.
While we have minimal direct exposure to NIH spending, about 20% to 25% of our annual revenues are tied to US academic customers. We have assumed that revenues related to US academic customers will be down 10% in 2025, representing a year-over-year headwind of approximately 250 basis points.
Additionally, our Accelerator lab, which is coming off a two-year CAGR of 27%, is expected to have a slower start to 2025, as we see a lower number of large pharma projects in the first half of 2025. Our Accelerator pipeline remains strong and we expect our Accelerator business will pick up pace in the second half of the year.
From a revenue-timing perspective, we expect the first half to be flat to slightly down year over year and ramping in the second half. We expect our first quarter revenue to be down 10% to 15%, driven by the near-term impact of the US academic market and the timing of certain accelerator projects.
Moving on to gross margin. For the year, we expect GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 59% to 63% and non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 53% to 57%.
And, finally, we expect cash usage from our operations to be $35 million to $45 million. This includes approximately $30 million of investment in Diagnostics and SIMOA One.
In terms of allocating capital to deals, we expect to pay $20 million for the upfront and technical milestones related to EMISSION. We will also incur costs related to the Akoya acquisition, which we will identify separately, as those costs are incurred.
We also reiterate our prior comments around achieving REO cash flow breakeven in the $170 million to $190 million revenue range, excluding Diagnostics investment.
With expected investments of $15 million to $20 million, annually, on Diagnostics, we expect that Quanterix will achieve cash flow breakeven in 2027 or 2028. The integration of Akoya and the realization of $40 million of synergies expedites that time frame to 2026.
I will, now, turn it back over to Masoud.

Masoud Toloue

Thank you, Vandana.
Over the past two years, Quanterix has demonstrated strong operational performance building the base. We are executing a three-year strategic plan centered around menu, adjacencies, and Diagnostics that will expand the adoption of our ultra-sensitive SIMOA platform, significantly growing our addressable market.
And, in doing so, we have outlined an accelerated path to scale and profitability.
Operator? Let's start the questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.
(Operator Instructions)
Matt Sykes, Goldman Sachs.

Matthew Sykes

Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions this afternoon.
My first question. You outlined the impact to NIH and academic government, which I understand. I'm just wondering, in terms of the cadence over the year, given the guide you had for Q1 is pretty steep and it seems reliant upon some of these large pharma contracts coming back in the second half in the accelerator lab, one, why were they delayed in the first half? Is it a timing issue? Is it a demand issue?
And, two, what gives you confidence they'll come back in the second half to meet that full-year guide?

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. Hey, Matt.
I think when you look at Accelerator first, you have to take a look at the strong performance over the last year. Accelerator grew, for us, 30%, 37% year on year. Strong two-year CAGR, as well. So it's certainly performed for Quanterix.
When you look at some of the increasing of the size of projects that we got towards the back-half of '24, this became -- we're talking about projects in the million-dollar range and it became partly a timing issue, where we're expecting to see some of these larger projects materialize more on the back-half.
We still have high confidence in what we're seeing with Accelerator. The diversity of customers that we see in the pipeline is even better than last year. And word is getting out there, that we can deliver excellent results in a CapEx-constrained environment.
So, overall ,those are the reasons that give us a more bullish view that Accelerator continues to deliver for Quanterix.

Matthew Sykes

Got it. Thank you for that, Masoud.
And, then, just as my follow-up: you mentioned I think it was 10 hospitals and labs that you've got in the validation phase, right now. Are those signed contracts that you've got? Or could those slip into further quarters? And, if not, when do you expect those to be contributing to revenue, over the course of this year?

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. We have 10 in validation. Some of them are actively in contract phase. And some of them are waiting for validation to be complete, before we sign some of these contracts.
So we expect some of this to contribute to some '25 revenue, over the period. But we haven't provided any breakdown as to how many will provide revenue in Q1 versus Q2 or subsequent quarters.
But I can say that the pipeline looks great. Folks are signing up to use the Quanterix test because of the high sensitivity. We provide a result for all patients, not a subset of patients, based on our sensitivity.
And the multiplex test has garnered a lot of excitement. I think we have 10, right now, that are validating and I would be surprised if we didn't increase that number, as we had, throughout the rest of the year.

Matthew Sykes

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Kyle Mikson, Canaccord.

Kyle Mikson

Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions.
I would love to just ask about the merger. So stock has dropped, significantly, since the announcement, presumably due to the negative sentiment around the deal, maybe some of the NIH and macro stuff as well.
What's the company's response to that? What are investors missing? And, then, how has the Board's view of the merger changed, at all, in light of the reaction?

Masoud Toloue

Hey, Kyle.
Two things. One, clearly, we're in an NIH-pressured environment. And I think the majority of the pressure you see on Quanterix or other companies is exactly (inaudible) tools are indexed to academia and there tends to be or looks like some paralysis in the market on spending in academia. I think that's what you're seeing across the board versus sentiment on the deal.
We're very excited about the deal. This is a value-creating opportunity for the company. I think if you look at Akoya: two words, I'd say reoccurring revenues.
When we looked at, a couple of years ago, all tissue and spatial platforms, Akoya was number 1. It has the highest throughput instrument platform, largest footprint. And when you're looking at an environment where there's capital constraint, you have to go to recurring revenue, as we have in our consumable base at Quanterix, as you have in services.
So we put these two together and we see a real opportunity that 1 and 1 is 4 and not 2. And that's why we think that this is the right thing for the company. And the timing is going to be something that we're going to be able to not only combine and synergize but it's going to be accelerating for us, from a scale and profitability standpoint.

Kyle Mikson

Alright, got it. Thanks for that.
And, then, for you, Vandana: it sounded like the Diagnostics may (inaudible) in revenue in 2024, with $6 million for the year. Could you just confirm that and how that trended throughout the year?
And, then, the DX revenue to your partners, is that included in the '25 guidance, as it stands today? Or is that incremental?

Vandana Sriram

Yeah. I can take that.
Confirming that $6 million is the revenue that we generated from our diagnostics-enablement partners. We started to call that out from the second quarter onwards. And we've had a steady cadence of anywhere between $1 million to $2.5 million, each quarter, through 2024.
The sales to diagnostics partners is incorporated in our guide. And we would expect similar revenue amounts as we start to add additional partners.
What's not in our guide is direct testing on the Lucent side, which, again, as the market evolves, we'll provide more information on.

Kyle Mikson

Awesome.
And on a related note, could you talk about the SIMOA One launch and how that could impact the results by end market? And, again, like the cadence of (inaudible) academic (inaudible) clears up a little bit.

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. So we expect SIMOA One to launch towards the end of the year, in 2025. Not a super large contributor. But very excited about how this expands the addressable market, specifically around immunology.
And so, Kyle, we've been talking about this platform and our view that with our ultra-sensitive ability to detect these protein biomarkers in blood, we're now, 70%-plus in neurology. And we want to expand the applicability of this platform to immunology and oncology.
That grows our addressable market and by adding additional plex with SIMOA One, we're going to be able to unlock some additional market opportunity. So super excited about the platform.
We should have more information on launch dates and additional specifications, as we head towards the back half. And, yeah, I like, I think this is a super critical time for Quanterix and important, as we really expand Samoa, not just the specialty neural labs but to all labs.

Vandana Sriram

Yeah. And, from a guidance perspective, we expect the instrument to launch towards the end of the year. So the contribution for 2025 is relatively modest. But as we look to 2026 and beyond, we see this as a key growth driver.

Operator

Puneet Souda, Leerink Partners.

Puneet Souda

Yeah. Hi, guys.
A couple of questions, here. Masoud, would love to understand, you're guiding more than $12 million below the street number, which one could argue was already lowered from the NIH IDC impact and other concerns in the market.
Given the uncertainty in the market, could you elaborate how are you thinking about the 2Q and 3Q recovery because a lot of that is still uncertain, across the sector?
You still have a sizable academic exposure. So just how do you get confidence on that to get to the $140 million to $146 million guide for the year?

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. First, I would take a look at Quanterix's performance, over the last year. In a difficult capital environment, Quanterix continues to find ways to grow.
And what we did was, last year, we invested in our accelerator capacity. That accelerator grew 37% for us. We ended up with double-digit growth, as we reported for full-year '24.
I don't think there was another tools player that grew, at all, last year. And so, Quanterix definitely grew in double digits and that was a great success.
This year, I think that if you look at growth, we're going to continue to grow. I think what you're seeing in the guide is that there's a lot of confusion and some paralysis in the academic market. I want to point out that we think it's just that: paralysis.
If you look at NIH and the cuts to indirect, folks don't use indirect budget to buy our platforms or systems. That's direct budget. And so, ultimately, I think this is more of a transient thing. I don't think our exposure, long term, is going to be something that is going to affect us.
But, that being said, there's some paralysis whenever there's indecision and bureaucratic systems, there, making decisions. So we do have baked all of the academic pressure into the guide for the year.
If academic funding is unlocked earlier, that'd be an upside to what we're reporting. If some of the indirect budget cuts were moved to direct, which is where folks use our -- folks use that, that's the budget people use to buy our systems, that would be upside to what we're looking at, here in the guide.
Capital improvement would be upside. And, obviously, in what we're reporting, it doesn't include any DX testing ramp.

Puneet Souda

Okay. That's helpful.
And, then, maybe, let me ask it a different way. This is really the number one question, here. And I think it's even more relevant today than early January, when you announced the deal. I appreciate the TAM estimates that you're putting out but a lot has happened in the tools since January 9 or 10, when you announced this deal, not just macro uncertainty and NIH IDC cuts.
There have been significant material impact, across the sector and valuations. So just given all of that backdrop and the uncertainty which you're already citing in your own guidance now, which is lower versus the street, simply put, why do you continue to value Akoya the same as you did in early January?
We'd really appreciate more on that. Thank you.

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. One, as I mentioned earlier, we look at not -- we make long-term value decisions, not on short-term swings and market demand. We believe, in the short, mid, and long term, the market for Akoya's products and, particularly, the interface with our SIMOA products are going to deliver compounded returns.
Going back to the three key reasons on why we think this makes sense. As you alluded, we're increasing our addressable market, by combining us, number 1 in blood, with Akoya, number 1 in tissue, we think that that's going to unlock additional markets for us and get our platform and our systems in additional labs.
Second, this $40 million in cost synergies. We talked in the prepared remarks that this is largely de-risked, there'll be operational and run rate by 2026.
And, then, finally, scale and profitability. The transaction is creating a new path for us. We're going from a company that's going to be in the sub-billion dollar-range and we have a goal to get to a billion dollar-range, five years, post-close.
And profitability is a key point of that scale and profitability, where we'll be able to get cash flow positive in 2026, earlier than we would, had we not done the transaction.
So you look at the value creation opportunity here and you pull up the aperture and you look at the whole opportunity and you say this is a value creating event for the company, for investors, and, ultimately, for our customers.
So we continue to be enthusiastic and look forward to closing and bringing the two companies together.

Operator

Dan Brennan, TD Cowen.

Daniel Brennan

Great. Thanks for the questions.
Maybe, just on the first-quarter guide. Sorry, can you -- I don't know if you mentioned it but in terms of the revenue decline that you're baking in, can you just unpack what you're assuming for the academic and government customer base?
And I know you talked a little bit about Accelerator but just wondering if you can walk through a little bit, like what's implied in 1Q for that particular customer base?

Vandana Sriram

Sure, Dan. I'll take this.
It's really the two factors that you mentioned. On the academic side, just like everybody else, we're seeing a lack of decision-making and some of the paralysis that Massoud mentioned. So with that in mind, we've taken our Q1 academic number down, quite substantially.
And, then, in addition to that, on the accelerator side, as you know, we don't have the Lilly collaboration agreement anymore. That's about a headwind of $1.5 million on a year-over-year basis.
But we also have a handful of large-ticket comma projects that are not going to hit in the first quarter but are scheduled for later in the year.
So those are the two things that we've baked into the guide.

Daniel Brennan

Got it.
Maybe, just on the Akoya transaction, just walk us through, again, what needs to happen on the closing process?
And, then, just a follow-up, Masoud, I know there's been a few questions asked but there's some pushback in the market about the Akoya (technical difficulty) -- while, combined, you're very confident in the path forward for an attractive revenue and synergy target. But how would you contest the evaluation that you're ascribing to Akoya?

Masoud Toloue

Hey, Dan. You cut off on your last question. Can you repeat that?

Daniel Brennan

Yes. Sorry. I was just wondering the closing process (technical difficulty) from here.
And, then, secondarily, in terms of the valuation that's being ascribed to Akoya, there's some pushback in the market that you're awarding them too much, given their debt and burn. Just wondering how you would answer that.

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. Dan, you cut off again. But I think I got the scope of your question. Please let me know if I missed anything.
One. We're planning on closing in Q2. And so, both Akoya and Quanterix will have a shareholder vote. And, then, at that point, we expect, after the shareholder vote -- a successful shareholder vote -- we've began working towards many of the $40 million and operating synergies that we filled out.
On the value, we continue to believe that if you look at precedented transactions, based on where Akoya is, that this was an attractive opportunity to both our shareholders and the Akoya shareholders.
On the larger opportunity. I think one key important point to recognize this year, in this environment, it comes down to reoccurring revenues. Quanterix has developed a core focus and competency on two things: increasing reoccurring revenues through assays and services.
When you look at Akoya and the work the team has done, they have the highest throughput system and largest footprint in the market. So in a capital-constrained environment or an environment where there continues to be instrument pressure, you want to focus on those reoccurring revenues.
We have a model that's worked. We plan on taking that model and deploying it to the combined company. And when we do that and when we achieve the 40 million, plus cost energies; when we pull in our run rate to cash flow positive in 2026, we're growing. We have a faster path to profitability.
And that's a value crater for our combined shareholder base. So I think when you look at, point in time -- I think you had a question about valuation -- if we looked at point-in-time valuation in our business and what we do, that'd be fairly short-sighted.
We can't make decisions on one-month or two-month swings or value windows. Otherwise, we'd be a trading company. We're generating value in developing a high-growth company. And we're excited about this transaction.

Operator

(Operator Instructions)
Sung Ji Nam, Scotiabank.

Ji Nam Sung

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions.
I just have a few clarification questions. Just on SIMOA One, you touched on the market opportunities, in immunology. Was wondering if you think that the existing SIMOA HD users could potentially adopt SIMOA One, as well? Or do you think this will potentially replace some of the SIMOA One install base, trigger in a replacement cycle of some sort?

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. That's a great question.
Where our focus, Sung Ji, has been on SIMOA One is that, as I said earlier, SIMOA and all labs, not just specialty neuro abs.
With SIMOA One, we've been very focused, from an assay perspective, on expanding into immunology and oncology applications. So day one of our product launch, you're going to see immunology menu.
We're going to be expanding our addressable market by going after new customers in our immunology base; going after both research, large pharma, and accelerator projects that need higher plex.
They need greater sensitivity and they need fast turnaround time. And so, our focus has been this additional market versus a replacement cycle of the existing base.
We believe that our existing base will continue, based on the system that we currently have, to deliver in neurology. And, then, there might be some overlap of some of our neuro customers needing some additional sensitivity for some other applications.
But it's largely the immunology and oncology where plex of more than four has been asked of us. And we plan on delivering.

Ji Nam Sung

Got you. Great.
What's your underlying assumption, in terms of [OUS] or ex-US growth for the company, this year?
Last quarter, I think you touched on, also, the Ultra-DX [NMPA] approval in China and things like that. So curious what you, guys, are seeing outside of the US and Europe and Asia-Pac, in general?
Thank you.

Vandana Sriram

Yeah. Outside of the US, our expectation is basically low double-digit to high single-digit growth.
We normally don't pair out Asia versus Europe, separately, but our expectation would be all of those markets would grow somewhat aligned with what we expected in 2024.
Against that, the headwind, really, is the decline in the US academic market and some of the US pharma projects that have the timing slip that we talked about, in Accelerator.

Ji Nam Sung

Got you.
And, then, if I could squeeze one more in. You talked about the paralysis you're seeing in the academic segment in the US. I just wanted to clarify: are you actually seeing -- are there anecdotes that you're seeing on the ground? Or are these just the assumptions, based on what's happening in the macro environment?

Masoud Toloue

Yeah. What we're seeing, Sung Ji, is more -- some confusion in the academic market on budgets, on timing, on hiring, on capital purchases.
And, obviously there are some days you hear that things are moving forward and some days, it's a couple of steps back. It's just a lot of confusion.
We're seeing some of this with our own customers. We're seeing it with other customers, in the broader market. But I just want to reemphasize that this is, we think, transient.
And, longer term, Quanterix has a very strong and tested model around the accelerator, where we're going to continue our high-value projects in clinical studies with pharma; additional clinical trial work that we expect will ramp more in the back half of the year.
In the academic side, we think that because we're more direct, as opposed to the indirect, there could be scenarios where additional funding goes to chronic disease areas.
And Quanterix would be a beneficiary of that. So, overall, I do think that this is transient, based on some of the conversations we're having.
And Quanterix is well positioned for continuing to grow as a company.

Operator

That's all the allotted questions we have for today.
Thank you, everyone, for joining.
You may now disconnect.