Quantum SI full spin in Next-Generation Proteomics
Dissecting the last two weeks in the history of $QSI
Company Profile
Quantum-Si is a life sciences company pioneering advancements in Next-Generation Protein Sequencing (NGPS). Founded in 2013 by Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, a prominent figure in biotechnology.
He is particularly recognized for developing and commercializing high-impact technologies in DNA sequencing and other life sciences areas. Some of his most notable achievements include:
Pioneering Sequencing Technologies
454 Life Sciences (founded in 1999):
Rothberg's first major company that revolutionized DNA sequencing by introducing the first high-throughput "next-generation sequencing" (NGS) platform.
Sold to Roche in 2007 for approximately $155 million.
Ion Torrent (founded in 2007):
Developed semiconductor-based sequencing technology, making DNA sequencing faster and more affordable.
Acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2010 for $725 million.
CuraGen (founded in 1991):
Focused on leveraging genomics for drug discovery and development.
Sold its key assets to Celldex Therapeutics in 2009.
In June 2021, Quantum-Si went public through a merger with HighCape Capital Acquisition Corp., a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC).
The company's headquarters are located at 29 Business Park Drive, Branford, Connecticut, United States.
As of December 2024, the executive leadership team includes:
Jeff Hawkins: Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Hawkins brings over two decades of experience in life sciences and diagnostics. In the past, Mr. Hawkins has connections to the world of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), as he led the Reproductive and Genetic Health Business Unit at Illumina ILMN 0.00%↑ , overseeing rapid global growth in next-generation sequencing across emerging markets.
Michael McKenna: Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Michael McKenna has a robust background in biotechnology, particularly in product development and operations. Before joining Quantum-Si, he served as Vice President of R&D at Life Technologies Corporation, another company which later became Thermo Fisher, with connections to the world of NGS.
John Vieceli: Chief Product Officer
Dr. Vieceli joined Quantum-Si in December 2022 and has held leadership roles at top DNA sequencing companies, including Illumina, Omniome, and Pacific Biosciences. His expertise spans bioinformatics, signal processing, and computer subsystems. Not only he worked for Illumina in the past, but also PacBio PACB 0.00%↑ , who themselves acquired Omniome a few years ago in their attempt to have a foot in the short-read NGS market.
Product Line
Quantum-Si's flagship product is the Platinum™ Next-Generation Protein Sequencing platform, designed to enable single-molecule protein sequencing with unprecedented scale and precision. This technology facilitates various applications, including antibody characterization, biomarker identification, protein identification, analysis of protein variants, and post-translational modification (PTM) analysis.
The recent announcement that got everybody excited is that their Instrument Roadmap now includes machines which will have several orders of magnitude (OOMs) higher throughput than the current ones. Their Proteus 1.0 is aiming at 25x the throughput of the current Platinum.
Their Proteus 2.0, which will most probably require a new architecture, is aiming at scaling up to 10 billion reads per cartridge, which is a 5000x theoretical improvement over the current Platinum at 2 Million reads.
Part of the switch in architecture will probably involve switching from fluorescence lifetime to fluorescence color, thus eliminating some of the expensive components from the instrument.
The total Cost of Goods (COGs) would go down on an apples-to-apples comparison, as some of the components of the current Platinum, such as mode-locked laser, high-speed electronics, custom optics, are not cheap to scale. The new instrument adds some other components with the aim that these would be "commercially available" from suppliers.
When it comes to commercial execution of the current products, the company is struggling with traction. Realising it would take longer to achieve their goals, QSI recently made 23% of their workforce redundant (filing with the US SEC on November 25th 2024).
Strategic Positioning
I’ll describe below the ups and downs in valuation that QSI has undergone, and give my opinion on where the company could be headed from now on.