We also generated $4.2 million of positive free cash flow in the quarter, which is the first time the company has been cash flow positive since 2024. We see this as another clear indication that the structural improvements we have made are taking hold. Given our strong start to the year and improved visibility into the balance of 2026, we are increasing the range for our full-year revenue expectations and substantially raising our EBITDA guidance. Raj will walk through that in more detail shortly. Now let us turn to Slide 6 for an update on our performance against our three strategic pillars: commercial execution, operational excellence, and, of course, innovation.
Starting with commercial execution, we are seeing strong momentum across the business. Our increased focus on customer engagement is translating into better forecasting, improved visibility, and stronger order conversion. We are securing more annual and multi-quarter purchase orders, which is improving the stability and predictability of our revenue base. This is a meaningful shift from where we were a year ago and reflects the effectiveness of the changes we have made in our commercial go-to-market approach. That said, our business has a disproportionate number of large orders that can result in quarter-over-quarter performance variation. Large orders tend to align with customer program progression, and as a result, revenue can vary between periods.
What gives us confidence is not the timing of any single order, but the strength and continued expansion of the underlying opportunity funnel. Within TriLink, our portfolio now spans enabling technologies such as CleanCap and Motto, along with custom and catalog mRNA enzymes, oligonucleotides including guide RNAs, and a broad range of nucleotide chemistries, including NTPs. This breadth allows us to participate more deeply across the mRNA and gene therapy workflows. We also recently launched all-in-one IVT kits, which simplify the production of capped RNA and provide early-stage researchers with easier access to our platform. At TriLink, our model continues to work as intended.
We establish relationships early in discovery, embed our technologies in customer workflows, and then grow with those programs as they advance into GMP. Mentions of TriLink technologies in scientific publications remain strong, underscoring their role in customer workflows, which we view as an important leading indicator of future demand. A key highlight in the quarter is the continued adoption of Motto. We now have more than 70 customers using this technology across both large pharmaceutical companies and emerging biotechs. We are seeing growth in new customers, repeat orders, and increasing use across multiple applications.
We also see continued strength in our GMP funnel, with GMP customers expected to grow 22% in 2026, representing nine existing RUO customers transitioning to GMP customers, two of which we have already converted this year. Many of these programs are progressing into later clinical stages, which supports the durability of the demand as a long-term GMP supplier. At Cygnus, we saw growth from our newer DNA quantification and extraction kits, as well as from our MockV product offering. These product lines extend us beyond our traditional HCP franchise into adjacent applications. While still early, we are encouraged by the traction we are seeing as customers look for high-quality analytical tools across their development and manufacturing workflows.
And finally, at Cygnus, our kits continue to play a critical role in the market with a 100% attach rate supporting the safety testing of all 29 of the 29 FDA- or EMA-approved CAR T cell and gene therapies. Now turning to operational excellence. This remains a core focus and a key driver of our improved financial performance. The restructuring actions we implemented last year continue to deliver results, and we now expect to achieve more than $65 million in annual EBITDA savings. These savings span labor, facilities, and controllable spend and are creating a more efficient and scalable cost structure. This is clearly reflected in our margins.
We are benefiting from both cost discipline and a favorable product mix, particularly as higher-margin GMP consumables represent a larger portion of our revenue. At the same time, our operating model is now positioned to absorb incremental volume without significant increases in fixed costs, supporting continued margin expansion as we grow revenue. We are also making progress on our digital and operational initiatives. Our e-commerce channel continues to expand, with more customers placing orders directly through our platform, improving speed and efficiency. In Q1, our website delivered record revenue, reflecting both improved customer engagement and the scalability of our digital platform. Finally, turning to R&D.
Our focus remains on translating innovation into revenue and strengthening our competitive position across our customers’ workflows. At TriLink, we are making strong progress on our enzymes portfolio. Our GMP facility has now been completed, and we expect to launch GMP-quality enzymes this quarter. Early customer engagement has been encouraging, and we see this as an important extension of our capabilities. With Motto, we are building on the strong discovery adoption and expect to launch GMP-grade Motto later this year. We are already seeing customer demand for GMP material to support clinical programs. This is a clear example of how our innovation pipeline feeds future revenue growth.
More broadly, our portfolio continues to diversify across custom mRNA, kits, and catalog mRNA, complementing our existing CleanCap and oligo product lines. This strengthens our position and reduces reliance on any single product or customer. At Cygnus, in addition to host cell protein assays, which remain the gold standard for clinical and commercial drug product lot release, we now offer an expanded suite of HCP analytical services utilizing advanced mass spectrometry methods and state-of-the-art instruments. These innovative analytical capabilities deliver critical insights to customers throughout drug development and into commercialization, helping ensure their products remain safe and effective. We continue to invest in and expand our IP portfolio across our core platforms, including CleanCap, Motto, and Cygnus assays.
During the first quarter, TriLink received two additional European patents, including one further strengthening protection around our CleanCap technology and methods for synthesizing RNA. In addition, Cygnus was granted a new U.S. patent related to its MVP mock viral particle technology, supporting our assay and analytical capabilities. In summary, the first quarter represents an incredible start to the year. We are executing well across all three pillars: driving commercial momentum, delivering operational discipline, and advancing innovation. The fundamentals of the business are strong, and we believe we are well positioned for continued growth, margin expansion, and cash generation in 2026 and beyond. I will now ask Rajesh to provide details on our first quarter performance and our updated guidance. Rajesh?
Rajesh Asarpota: Thank you, Bernd. Building on Bernd’s comments, the first quarter reflects solid execution across both segments with improving base demand and strong margin flow-through. I will focus on the key drivers behind the quarter, including revenue composition, profitability, and our updated outlook. Let me start with a closer look at revenue on Slide 8. Our business remains well diversified across end markets. Base revenue by customer type was 32% biopharma, 31% life sciences and diagnostics, 4% academia, 7% CRO/CMO/CDMO, and 26% distributors. By geography, base revenue was 60% North America, 25% EMEA, 8% Asia Pacific excluding China, and 7% in China. Turning to Slide 9, our GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest was $6.4 million.
This compares to a GAAP net loss before non-controlling interest of $52.9 million in the prior-year period. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $20.3 million for Q1, exceeding our expectations and improving by more than $30 million year over year. This was driven by stronger revenue, favorable mix toward high-margin GMP and discovery consumables, and high-margin contribution from COVID CleanCap. Basic and diluted loss per share in Q1 was $0.02 compared to a loss of $0.21 per share in Q1 2025. Adjusted EPS was positive $0.01 compared to a loss of $0.08 per share last year.
Moving to the balance sheet, cash flow, and other financial metrics on Slide 10, we ended the quarter with $165.9 million in cash, and $242.9 million in long-term debt following the voluntary $50 million debt repayment during the quarter. We generated $4.2 million of positive free cash flow reflecting improved EBITDA and disciplined capital management. Depreciation and amortization was $11.4 million, net interest expense was $3.9 million, and stock-based compensation, a noncash charge, was $6.7 million for the quarter. Turning to segment performance on Slide 11, TriLink represented 72% of total revenue in the quarter. Excluding COVID CleanCap, TriLink represented 64% of total revenue with base growth of 15%.
TriLink was a primary driver of adjusted EBITDA improvement, benefiting from high-margin product mix and improved operating leverage. The segment generated $17.3 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing an improvement of more than $26 million year over year. Cygnus represented 28% of total revenue, or 36% of base revenue, and continued to deliver strong profitability. Cygnus generated $13.6 million of adjusted EBITDA with margins of 73.8%. Corporate expenses impacting adjusted EBITDA were $10.5 million in the quarter. These expenses include HR, finance, legal, IT, and public company costs. Turning to our updated guidance on Slide 12, our outlook reflects a strong first quarter and increased confidence in the base business trajectory.
We are raising our revenue range to $205 million to $215 million, representing growth of 10% to 16% over 2025. We expect TriLink to grow in the high teens driven by continued strength in GMP consumables and a return to growth in discovery. We do not currently expect additional high-volume COVID CleanCap revenue in 2026; however, we continue to view $10 million to $20 million of annual endemic demand as a reasonable baseline longer term. For Cygnus, we continue to expect low- to mid-single-digit growth, and we view the Q1 softness in China as timing-related.
We are substantially raising our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $30 million to $32 million, representing an improvement of $61 million to $63 million year over year, supported by restructuring actions, cost discipline, and favorable product mix. The remainder of our guidance framework we provided on the February call is unchanged. Importantly, we expect to generate positive free cash flow for the remainder of the year, representing a meaningful improvement from 2025. Overall, we are encouraged by the momentum in the business. Improved commercial execution, a more efficient cost structure, and favorable mix are driving meaningful financial progress, and we remain confident in our outlook for 2026.
With that, I will turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.
Operator: Thank you. We will now open the call for questions. To leave the queue at any time, please press 2. Once again, that is 1 to ask a question. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone a chance to join the queue. Thank you. We will take our first question from Matthew Gregory Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Matthew Gregory Hewitt: Well, congratulations on a very nice start to the year. Maybe first up, and real high level, I am just curious what you are seeing from your pharma customers both segmented large versus small, and your expectations for those two groups as the year progresses. Obviously, the funding has improved, and there has been a lot of talk about that. But what are you seeing from a spending perspective for the smaller pharma and biotech group? And then, speaking to China, obviously there is a little bit of an order timing issue there, but it sounds like that is going to pick up.
As a whole, when you look at the year, is China starting to come back, or what are you seeing?
Bernd Brust: Thanks for the comment, Matt. When we look at that group, it is kind of consistent across the board. Big pharma has been very healthy, specifically with some larger discovery orders. Smaller biotech and smaller pharma have been pretty consistent as well. I think the area where we still see the most significant softness is in the academic research world. That is not a huge part of our revenue any longer, but when it comes to pharma and biotech, it is pretty consistently healthy. When you look at our Cygnus business in China, we have one distributor who represents us there. They are a solid company. We are certainly continuing to explore other commercialization options there.
Rajesh and Chanfeng were in China last week for both Cygnus and TriLink. So we look at China for this year probably still as a mid-single-digit growth engine, and I think we should be able to get there. The challenge is a little bit that these are all larger orders, and there is not really any run-rate modeling behind that. But we feel good in general about where that is sitting. On the TriLink front, we really have not done much business in China. It was actually the main purpose for being in China last week. We had some great interactions with customers there.
I think you are going to see some progression happening there over the next months to come. China as a whole, revenue-wise, is not a super critical component of the business, but certainly something we are going to continue to work on enhancing. Thank you very much.
Operator: We will now move on to Matthew Jay Stanton with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Matthew Jay Stanton: Thanks. Maybe to go back to the demand question, just the base TriLink business mid-teens growth year over year. Can you unpack the demand a little bit more of what you saw in discovery versus GMP? I think you said you expect GMP to grow over 20% for the year. Did you see that here in Q1? And then last quarter you sounded pretty upbeat on order trends and funnel activity. How did that trend for the rest of Q1 and into Q2 in terms of future demand indicators? Any color on funnel and order activity as well for discovery and GMP would be helpful.
And then a follow-up on Motto: how is that tracking to expectations with 70 customers, new customers, repeat orders, and the scope to launch GMP in the back half of the year? How meaningful is that, and was that accelerated based on activity levels?
Rajesh Asarpota: Hey, Matt. Thanks for the question. When you look at TriLink, like we said, base grew 15%. While Q1 base growth was strong, as you extrapolate for the balance of the year, there is some variability in larger GMP orders. We characterize the underlying growth in the second half in TriLink to be in the low- to mid-single digits. We remain very positive on the longer-term trajectory as we look for more consistent growth. On the R&D side, Motto is a particular call-out that is starting to get good traction.
We have seen revenues from last year into this year steadily climbing, and as that starts to turn into GMP level in the second half, we should see some more positive growth as these programs get traction toward the end of the year and into next year.
Bernd Brust: On Motto specifically, 70 customers is a pretty big number. The dollar amount is right in line with what we had expected for the whole year, and it is still a fairly small portion of our total revenues, of course, being a newly launched product. But the fact that we have some larger customers already asking for GMP-quality product is pretty unique so early after launch. We are moving quickly on that based on early customer indications. I do not think GMP consumables for Motto will have a material impact in 2026, but if you start seeing demand there, it should set us up for a very nice 2027 for that product line.
Operator: We will move next to Justin D. Bowers with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Justin D. Bowers: Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Can you talk about the funnel and how that is shaping up? Any metrics around growth there and RFPs over the last few quarters or months? And what are you seeing in terms of decision timelines—any change in velocity?
Bernd Brust: Let me give a high-level comment, and then I will let Rajesh add details. On the GMP front, the funnels continue to be good. We pointed out earlier that we have nine or so new discovery customers that are moving into clinical trials. Two have already started this year, and we expect the remainder to start over the balance of the year. That funnel is fairly easy to manage because it has a long outlook, so we have a pretty good grasp on what is happening there, and it is good growth for the remainder of this year. On the larger discovery orders, velocity has been great—faster than we had expected.
Customers that we were expecting to buy later in the year bought earlier in the year. Hopefully, that is a good indication around them accelerating their experiments and further growth moving forward. The challenge is that the average sales cycle there is two to three months. With GMP, we know in advance what is going to happen. In the large discovery segment, we do not quite grasp yet what is going to happen in Q3 and Q4 given the shorter sales cycle. The trajectory has been great. We see no reason why that should not continue based on what we are seeing so far this year.
Rajesh Asarpota: Maybe on discovery, if you segment those under $15 thousand and greater than $15 thousand orders: under $15 thousand are predominantly academic and early-stage research, and that segment is still recovering but consistent with the broader funding environment. We did see modest growth there in Q1. Greater than $15 thousand discovery orders are dominated by biopharma and biotech development programs, and those are seeing really healthy growth like Bernd said.
Operator: We will move on now to Subhalaxmi T. Nambi with Guggenheim. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Subhalaxmi T. Nambi: Thank you for taking my question. How did the CDMO customer orders perform in the quarter, particularly for Cygnus? And when we think of Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. and look at leading indicators, where should investors lean? Smaller biotech working on biologics, cell and gene therapy companies, or the broader bioprocessing end market?
Bernd Brust: On CDMO, for TriLink that business is fairly steady. We have a couple of great programs in there. It is still a small part of our business. As we shared last year, we restructured that organization a bit to control our costs. The programs that are there are doing well, but given the small base, there is lumpiness. We do not break out CDMO specifically within Cygnus. As for leading indicators, I would go with your last suggestion: the whole bioprocessing end market. Health across the board is getting much better. The weakness we still see—though it is a small part of our business—is in the academic and smaller research world.
Operator: We will move on to Matthew Moriarty Parisi with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Matthew Moriarty Parisi: Hi. This is Matthew Parisi on for Paul Knight. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my question. As a percentage of revenue, APAC decreased pretty meaningfully in the quarter compared to the fourth quarter. What drove that change, and is that a trend that we should expect for the rest of 2026? And then, how has engagement been with the new mRNA builder on the website?
Bernd Brust: On APAC mix, my guess is that is largely through Cygnus. There is not a lot of TriLink activity in that part of the world.
Rajesh Asarpota: On Cygnus and APAC, we talked about China, and we also saw some softness in South Korea. Importantly, the current softness we saw in the first quarter is really distributor ordering pattern and not end-customer driven. We typically have good line of sight to end demand, and that is not impacted. This is purely a timing issue, so we do not see any significant shift for the balance of the year, and we feel good about recovering the demand. On the mRNA builder and e-commerce, engagement has been great, though it is early days.
We saw the highest increase in online activity this quarter, and total e-commerce revenue is still under 10% of the business, so there is a long runway. We have seen our first non-contact orders coming through, and we are optimistic it will be a big driver, especially as the academic world bounces back, allowing us to serve those customers efficiently.
Operator: Star 1 on your keypad now. We will now move on to Analyst with Stifel on behalf of Daniel Arias. Your line is open.
Analyst: Hey, guys. This is Rohan on for Dan. Last year you were pretty adamant that high-volume CleanCap visibility was near zero without binding purchase orders, and today you have pinned the COVID-19 revenue at exactly $14.3 million. What specifically changed in your forecasting methodology or customer contracts that allows for this level of precision now? And you raised the midpoint of adjusted EBITDA guidance by $12 million or so while only raising revenue by $5 million. Aside from the restructuring savings, how much of this change is driven by higher-margin mix from Motto or the GMP enzymes versus pure cost cutting?
And one more: with GMP enzymes launched in Q2, how much of the 2026 guidance raise is contingent on this launch, and do you have any preorders in place?
Bernd Brust: I think that is a misunderstanding. We shared last year that we expect COVID in 2026 to be between $10 million and $20 million, and we expect that to be the same number moving forward as a baseline. We received orders, and $14.3 million is the revenue that came in. We do not expect any other orders for the rest of the year. We did not say we would not have any further COVID-related orders in 2026—we said that for 2025.
Rajesh Asarpota: On EBITDA, in Q1 we saw EBITDA disproportionately tied to revenue. We are seeing great benefits from our commercial strategy focusing on high-value customers and programs. We have improved price discipline and managed the longer tail of lower-value transactions. That, coupled with a favorable mix on higher-margin GMP and higher-value discovery orders, is improving the quality of revenue and EBITDA flow-through. On top of that, our operating expenses are tracking to plan, and the cost reset from the restructuring is fully embedded and continuing to deliver savings.
Bernd Brust: It is fair to say there is a little risk in some of our lower-margin service businesses that are project-based. If you see some softness there, it will not impact our margins in a material way. Product mix is a material driver of why we are seeing such strong EBITDA performance.
Rajesh Asarpota: On GMP enzymes, zero percent of the revenue guidance raise is contingent on the launch. We had assumed this would happen. We have orders in hand for GMP enzymes. We are running our engineering runs at the moment and expect to start delivering GMP orders toward the end of this quarter into early next quarter.
Operator: We will now move on to Matthew Richard Larew with William Blair. Your line is open.
Matthew Richard Larew: Hi. Good afternoon. With the new team in place, the focus has been on restructuring, rightsizing, and improving operational health, and the business clearly has turned a corner as markets improve. You mentioned being over in China recently to talk about TriLink—some new business development opportunities—as well as benefits from the website in terms of record sales and new product launches upcoming. As you think about shifting the organization’s trajectory from restructuring and rightsizing to attacking new growth opportunities, what areas are the highest return or more near-term things that you can do as the market recovers and customers, fingers crossed, continue to spend more?
Bernd Brust: Great question. First, I would like to thank the team we put together last summer. They combined focus on restructuring with a parallel focus on how we commercially grow this business again. On the product front, you saw a great example from our R&D team with the launch of Motto and the strong response to that product. On the commercial front, the restructured organization is bringing these products to customers effectively, with more than 70 customers in place already. The restructuring has happened in parallel with the commercial effort, and that is why you are seeing results.
As for where we see the biggest wins, clearly there is a lot of uptick with big pharma, small pharma, and biotech in large discovery. Our commercial teams are seeing a lot of interaction there. The bet is that much of that effort leads into future GMP activities as these programs enter clinical trials—that is our model: seed discovery consumables that convert into GMP consumables. Geographically, we have focused the majority of our time between North America and EMEA. You will start seeing an increased shift toward Asia. There are opportunities we have not captured yet. It is a little early to talk specifics, but that is an area we will lean into.
Operator: And our final question will be from Matthew Gregory Hewitt with Craig-Hallum. Your line is open. Mr. Hewitt, you may want to check your mute switch. Your line is open.
Debra Hart: With Matt not on the line, why do we not turn it back to Bernd for some closing remarks?
Bernd Brust: Thank you, Debra. I will keep this short. Thanks, everybody, for taking the time today to listen to our Q1 results and for the great questions. We feel great about where the business is heading. When we came in last year and brought changes forward, that always leaves some concern for instability, and we really have not seen any of that. I have commented on positive momentum in the market, specifically in pharma and biotech, which is our bread and butter. It was a great Q1; we feel absolutely solid about the remainder of this year, and we feel great about the market.
On Asia, there is opportunity for us rather than downside because our exposure is not that great there yet. All in all, we feel great about the business, appreciate your support, and look forward to speaking again in about three months.
Operator: Thank you. This brings us to the end of today’s meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.
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Maravai (MRVI) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool
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