Teemu Suna
Good afternoon, and welcome to the half-year result webcast of Nightingale Health. Today we have the following agenda.
I will talk first about Nightingale Health in in in brief, summarizing the the technology and our business. Then we go to the business targets of the current fiscal year.
Then we will have a business update of the first half, and then we will go to financial review, and then finally we have Q&A. My name is Teemu Suna, I'm CEO and founder of Nightingale Health, and also interim CFO.
Let's start. Nightingale Health, our mission is to build better healthcare for everyone.
Company is founded 2013, headquartered in here in Helsinki, but we are a global company. We have laboratories in United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and of course here here in Finland.
We serve we serve customers in B2B and B2G segments, and the focus is preventative healthcare and medical research. What Nightingale Health is all about, we our technology is building a global standard that will enable AI-powered preventative healthcare.
The problem in healthcare at the moment that is is that there is no globally standardized clinical-grade way to measure health trajectories and intervention impact. Now because we cannot measure health and health trajectories, the healthcare system is very reactive.
Healthcare system is basically waiting people to get sick, and then tries to do something about it. The reason why it is like this is that we are missing a way to measure health and health trajectories.
Nightingale's solution is that we take one blood sample, we run one test, and we get multi-disease risk detection and tracking. This can be done in in scale, I mean for everyone.
The technology has world-leading proof. We have run more than 3 million samples.
There are more than 900 peer-reviewed publications, and we have multi-market regulatory approvals to be able to serve the healthcare industry, and we are running labs around the world. About 2 years ago, we also started national implementation here in Finland.
The opportunity with Nightingale is that Nightingale will become the globally standardized measurement layer that will power AI-native preventative healthcare applications. Now when AI is coming to all the industries, it will come also to healthcare, but the challenge at the moment is that utilizing the current data in healthcare in electronic health record systems will not work, because the consistency, the data quality, it's not there.
For AI to actually work and the AI applications in healthcare to work, we need standardized data in the background, and this is what Nightingale can bring across the healthcare industry. If we look the solution in a bit more detail, as I said, we take one blood sample.
It can be venous sample, it can be finger-prick sample. Finger-prick sample we collect using our proprietary device, the whole the whole chain comes from Nightingale.
We have like an end-to-end solution to ensure also high quality of the results with the finger-prick samples. We run one test.
The test itself is proprietary and only available from Nightingale. Then as a result, we detect the risk for heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, and everything in one go.
Then, in addition, you get 40, more than 40 clinical biomarkers. Nightingale is not a traditional diagnostic company, because traditional diagnostic companies and the kind of the whole diagnostic industries is basically focused in single biomarkers.
This is very effective approach if you want to diagnose a disease. Prevention does not work like that, because the idea of prevention is that you actually want to lower the risk of developing disease when people are still healthy.
What we do, we quantify the disease risk, and then with that information, with that data, we can build preventative healthcare applications. Why the time for preventative healthcare is is now, the burden of chronic diseases, the cost pressure is accelerating all over the world.
This is like the chronic diseases that are preventable, they represent something like 80% of healthcare costs. Because of this, healthcare prevention is going in mainstream.
There are more and more population-scale programs that try to bring preventative healthcare into reality. Then number three, all the AI applications, as I said, they need objective standardized molecular data to guide prevention.
If you only use different kinds of proxy signals, they work, but the quality of the analysis is not there, repeatability is not there, tracking is not there. There are a lot of challenges in healthcare, particularly in healthcare, when using AI in disease risk detection.
We've been building the company for for more than 10 years already. Building this kind of a company, this is a long-term play.
This is not something that happens overnight. I think it applies to all of the medical device industry, particularly if you have a medical device that you want to roll out in population scale.
Here you can see what Nightingale has been doing in the market entry regarding the market entry over the past 10 years. We started from Finland.
We established the laboratory in Finland in 2015. Then before, like what is the first step before we establish a laboratory, is that we do pilots without a local lab.
Then once we get some comfort with the pilots, we build the local lab. Then we go and get regulatory approvals.
Then based on that, we can win local pilots. Then based on local pilots, we can win local reference deals.
Then based on the reference deals, we can win high-volume deals. Then based on the high-volume deals, we can win broad market penetration.
In Finland, we have almost completed the entire journey. We are in the high-volume deals with our partner, Terveystalo.
More than 200,000 people have already been measured with Nightingale's technology. However, there is still one step to to go, which is to adopt the technology in in in public healthcare and in the all of the healthcare systems in in a country.
Now what makes this challenging, kind of doing the market entries, is that you have to do the same thing in every country. In Japan, we established a laboratory in 2019.
We are we have made good progress, but it takes years. It's not something that happens very quickly.
However, you can see there that the the pace is accelerating, because the more we have been building different laboratories and market entries, the better we also can package the market entry, the better we can we can make it make it work in the market. Singapore, 2024, establishing the laboratory, and we are already quite advanced over there; UK, 2024 as well, not as far as in in Singapore; and US, 2025.
Now what we believe is that the the market entries will significantly accelerate when we when we move forward. We have several discussions, commercial discussions underway to expand the laboratories also beyond this list of list of countries.
My point is that the current lab rollout model is well standardized, and we are in a good position to to enter continue expansion in these markets and enter new markets. Building all this has taken taken 10 years.
It's not easy, but on the other hand, it creates a very strong moat for for Nightingale. Our business model, we are Nightingale Inside, meaning that we deliver our data to our customers, and then they build the preventative health applications.
This is to enable a very scalable very scalable model and allows us to to run the technology across the world when we are not serving directly the end end customer. The the the business model is very simply price per sample.
Here we have three different tiers. Basically different customers have very different volumes.
In tier 1, we talk about longevity clinics. They typically have very low volumes, but then on the other hand, the unit price can be higher.
Then when we go to tier 3, we have the national screening programs, etc., where we have very big sample numbers. The volume is high, but the unit unit price is low.
Our gross margin structure supports very very well all of the tiers. That puts Nightingale as a growth company, I think, in a very strong position, because when we are offering our services, it has healthy gross margin.
When we build growth, the growth has like a very strong financial foundations. We have multi multiple active pilots and late-state negotiations ongoing across the key segments, and this is basically enabled by multi-country lab availability.
There is absolutely no way to do this business in a way that you try to make the deals and then you build the labs. It just doesn't work that way.
You have to be in the country, you have to be present. There are some differences, for example, in Europe within the European Union.
Of course, the samples can move between the countries. In the big picture, if you look at the global picture, you have to bring the lab lab capacity, the lab capability locally available.
The the market we are looking at here, this is when I mentioned that these chronic diseases are 80% of healthcare costs, this is the this is the largest healthcare market in the world. When I say that, because healthcare is such a massive thing, government in many governments the healthcare budgets are 3 to 5 times larger than the military budgets.
This is like a massive, massive, one of the biggest markets in the in the world. Then cardiometabolic burden to which we are focused, that's the largest preventable global disease burden.
The budgets are already there, spending is already there. What is missing and what has been missing is that how can you make prevention measurable?
Many times we hear people speaking that it's prevention is very problematic because if you, for example, have a lifestyle improvement program, even if you use some some some some drugs, how do you how do you quantify the effect of prevention? I strongly believe that this is the this is the single biggest reason why prevention has not break through before, because this kind of technologies have not existed.
Now with Nightingale, the key thing we can do, we can actually measure the impact of the actions that are being done in in preventative healthcare. Then the opportunity here is that when we standardize the measurement layer, that powers prevention across the whole industry.
Why Nightingale, I mentioned we have been building the company for for more than 10 years already. There's a lot of things we have achieved.
Here is a list of selected benefits to work with Nightingale. We are heavily validated, more than 900 publications.
This number, to our knowledge, it's it's next to none. We are global.
We can actually serve our customers across the world. This is very scalable, this is built for population scale, because our price point is very, very competitive against, for example, clinical chemistry.
In many applications, especially when you go to prevention, we win also with a price point. We are very efficient company when we look when we do like a peer comparison, and now I mean international peer comparison, not local or a Finnish comparison.
In international comparison, running this kind of a global operation is financially very efficient how we how we how we run it. We are independent.
This is also something that maybe people don't think about often. There are not a lot of like status quo independent global assets in this blood testing, because many of the diagnostic industry, many of the players, they are actually connected already to the existing system and then there are very easily some conflicts of interests.
This is proprietary, only available from Nightingale, from the biotechnology to the applications, it's proprietary. We are publicly listed, we have transparent operations, professional governance.
We have massive database, world's largest metabolomics database, regulatory approvals. We are the first team that actually brought omics technology into healthcare.
Then we are already in national nationwide use. I would say there is a lot to like.
All right. Then let's move to the business targets for the current financial year.
We have a single target, it's to increase revenue by at least 50% compared to the previous financial year. We are on track with this.
Our fiscal current fiscal year, the revenue accumul- accumulation is very heavily second with very heavy weight on the second second half. We are reiterating the this target.
In a longer term, no changes here, but what we are building, we are building a global company. We very strongly believe that there is there is a huge market for prevention.
It it has to be done. Governments have to initiate preventative healthcare programs, and in that context, these goals are are feasible.
Then we go to the business update, and I will give a brief update of all of the geographical areas that we are working at the moment. It's been the past half, it has been the key focus, the core focus has been to ramp up the commercial activities everywhere.
I think what we have managed to do and what the team has managed to do across the world is that we have heavily, heavily increased the sales activities. How we build up the revenue is, of course, by selling more.
Why have why we have now started only in the past, only in the kind of in the in the first half of of this fiscal year, well, building up the readiness to really ramp up the commercial operation, it it takes a long time. I think now we are in that position, and what I will share with you today is there's a lot of indications how the how the sales activities are now increasing.
In addition to increasing pipeline, we have done new significant agreements, and we have multiple pilot projects launched. Important thing to remember is that the sales cycles remain long, but then on the other hand, what we now see in the sales and the customer customer feedback, I think the long-term growth prospect is very solid.
In Finland, we have a lot of sales activities ongoing across public sector stakeholders to evaluate how this technology could be adopted across the the public sector field. We are also doing commercial investigations to offer our remote blood testing to to healthcare in in Finland.
Then what we managed to achieve, we have a new strategic agreement with Terveystalo. What this changes is that earlier we were working only in occupational healthcare with Terveystalo.
Now we are moving to all of the Terveystalo's customer segments, which is the volumes we are running with Terveystalo, it's internationally very significant. Then pilots with public sector, we have two pilots in in public sector.
These are very important to demonstrate how the technology also works in the in the public sector side of side of things. Healthcare is like it's pretty much the kind of the problems are the same, but when you move across different systems, then the implementation is also pretty different, and that's why we need to start with piloting also in the public sector.
In United Kingdom, we started last summer to strengthen the UK sales team on the ground, and I think this is now very important to appreciate that this only started last summer. What we managed to do in the first half is we achieved significant increase in sales activities.
We had a lot of engagements with public and private healthcare providers and pharma. First pilot projects are launched, and several negotiations ongoing to initiate new pilots.
Then rest of the Europe that we commercially manage as a separate separate business, we also started in some in in last summer. Again, it's important to appreciate the the readiness to scale this out commercially has not been strong enough, because it doesn't help to run with around the customers if you are not if the product is not not there.
Now based on the feedback, I think the product is there and we have worked very hard to open discussions in more than 10 countries. Now based on the feedback, we are continue to expand the sales activities and the resourcing in in in sales.
Several pilots already ongoing, and this is I think a very good achievement, because the sales cycles are very long. In a relatively short time, we have managed to initiate multiple new pilots, and then some of the projects are moving to product production-stage negotiations.
Given the timelines with this business, I was talking earlier about building the company for 10 years, now putting this timeline in relation to what we've been building, I think the progress is is very strong. In Singapore, we continued the investments to expand commercial team to accelerate the sales.
A very significant update that we did, because we've been working in Singapore already for a while, and as I mentioned, having the right product, like product-market fit, is like essential. Based on the feedback that we got from the market, we actually made a significant report update, updated our product.
Now we have offered the new report, which is the product, and presented it to tens of customers, and now the reception is is very very strong. When I compare the difference in the conversations with the customers, I think the tone is fundamentally different.
Based on this, I think there is a strong long-term growth potential in Singapore based on the market dynamics. It's a it's a very significant health screening market, and then the customer feedback.
Now in Singapore, first clinics are all already ordering services under the updated report. The sample volumes are initially modest, but this is very typical for new markets.
It goes in stages. What we try to do in the in the ongoing half, we are increasing the number of clinics ordering the test and with this improving the the market penetration.
In Japan, we also used made a lot of efforts to strengthen the the sales team, which we succeeded to to do. Based on this, we have now new sales activities ongoing.
We have also similar feedback process that we did in Singapore. We have got good feedback from the customers.
We will implement some updates to the business model as well as to the clinical report, and then these changes will be gradually implemented during the current fiscal year. In the in the ongoing year year year half, and then the results, we expect to see the results in the next fiscal year.
We also initiated expansion of presence in medical research in Japan. Japan is a very special market, otherwise we manage medical research centrally globally from Finland, but Japan is it's a rather special market, and that's why we have now ramped up also local capabilities to to promote the medical research in Japan.
Recurring business in Japan is continuing, and the sample volumes from key customers are continuing. We have negotiations to close more key accounts in the in the in the market, I think due to the improved sales activities, I think we have now also good prospects to to close more accounts.
Then we have already signed new deals with medical research customers, so that I think it's an early validation for the decision to to have like independent medical research sales capability in the Japanese market. In United States, we announced after the after it's after the the first half, we announced in in February that we received the CLEP permit in New York.
This is a this is a big milestone, because this is something you of course need to clear before entering the US healthcare market and running the samples locally. This is the difference to to our previous position.
Of course, we could offer our services internationally, but now having the local capability on the ground makes a huge huge difference. There are some steps still required under the CLEP permit that we need to do, but I think the maybe the the biggest unknown for us has been now we we have now completed.
Now we are starting to we have planned a lot of sales activities for for the current year half. Some of the some of the deals are actually already in negotiation stage, and they are now based on the concept of running the samples in the New York lab.
Then in the medical research market, we with the with the team, we made a big effort aiming to increase the sales activities, ramping up the monthly prospects, and we managed to increase the number by tens of percentages, which is a very strong result. There is strong interest towards multi-omics offering, which is the new offering, and we are continuing the investments into sales resources and activities in the current year half.
We won a significant project in in in Italy. We won a significant multi-omics deal in Denmark, and then of course, several smaller projects ongoing.
The key message is that the the prospect the prospect pipeline is growing and that that we are expecting to to bring also a strong yield in winning the cases. Then we move to the financial review, couple of points regarding the numbers.
The so the revenue increased by 4% compared to to last year in the first half. We are still, as I said earlier, we have strong sales pipeline to support reaching the target of 50% revenue growth.
This is supported by the Aalborg project, because now the revenues from that project, it takes always time before the revenues are recognized from this project, so that's why the current fiscal year is there is a heavy weight towards the the second towards the second half, and this is largely due to the Aalborg project. The but the the order book is is strong, and that's why we are maintaining the the target for the fiscal for the whole fiscal fiscal year that we gave earlier.
Then couple of points regarding the first-half financials. I think there is still the what we have said also earlier, but I reiterate that the revenue growth target can be achieved without much pressure to increase the cash burn.
Now the investments that we have done to the labs and the production capabilities, they can kind of we can have more load to these. We have capacity to run samples, and because we have the capacity, the pressure to increase the cash burn is low, even though the revenue can increase significantly.
The if you wonder the net cash change here, it was impacted by €2 million by renewal of our lease agreement in the in the in the headquarter. All right.
That was it, and we have the last segment with Q&A, and I'd like to ask our Chief Operating Officer, Minna Ranta, to join me on stage, and I think there are some questions we can walk through now.
Minna Ranta
Yes. Good afternoon, Teemu.
Good afternoon, our live audience, small live audience, and good afternoon our audience also online. Let's kick off this Q&A session.
I will be hosting it. We will start with some questions that have come through online, and then we'll also have the opportunity for our audience to ask questions.
Teemu, seems like there has been a lot of things going on during the H1 period. Could you tell me, did the outcomes align with what you were expecting?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. Of course, every time you hope that you can show more in the numbers that we report.
However, putting this in the scale of building the company for 10 years, I'm more looking at the size of the pipeline, amount of the sales activities, the actual things that we are doing all the time. With the long sales cycle, that is the indication that gives the kind of I think the best understanding where the company is going.
When I look at that, I'm actually very pleased. We made a huge, huge change in comparison to a year ago.
In that sense, I think we are in a good position, and now this work we are doing, I'm confident that it will turn into results that then we can report also with these numbers.
Minna Ranta
Great. Thank you.
Let's talk about the deals that you announced last year. The big Aalborg University deal with €2.5 million, what is the current status of that project, and how much revenue was recognized during this first half of the fiscal year?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. The revenue from this project, and this is very typical with these research projects, particularly also same in healthcare, a bit of different dynamics, in research, it usually takes long time to get the samples to our laboratory and then running the samples, returning the results.
Because of these reasons, this revenue is now projected for ongoing year half. In the first half, no revenue recognized from the project.
In healthcare, as I mentioned, the dynamics are a bit different. There it's more about starting to pilot, increasing gradually the numbers.
The slowness has a kind of a different dynamics. That's something that's part of this business, and I think it's rather natural also when looking at the kind of the underlying reasons why it takes time to move the samples, etc.
Minna Ranta
Okay. Thank you.
We can expect some revenue probably this ongoing period. I would like to ask something about the US market, and you mentioned about the laboratory permit in the state of New York.
Can you summarize what it really means, and what can be expected in short and long term from US?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. What the permit means is that you need to have the permit to offer your services to healthcare in the United States.
Now the permit has different steps. The first step was to get the kind of the laboratory approved, which was the biggest unknown for us, because it's always connected to the local rules and regulations heavily.
Now when we have the first step done, then the following steps are more connected to looking at the performance of the individual biomarkers in our platform. This is something we have done across the world.
Now we have much better confidence, because blood is blood everywhere. Then demonstrating the performance, we are not expecting any differences with this.
Of course, we need to go it through carefully, but I think now we are in a more confident state with that. Then what it means, short term, we are now starting to negotiate agreements with our customers, and then in the longer term, I think that's the core of the scaling up the business in the United States.
Minna Ranta
Yes. Also questions about our US partners.
Can you elaborate a bit more what's the status with Boston Heart, for example?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. We have some partners that the deals were based on the concept that they would send the samples to our international labs.
That kind of technically it works, but of course, the scaling up the business model has some limitations. Now because we got the CLEP permit, we are moving with all of the partnerships, we will run them under the New York laboratory, but it still takes a bit of time to proceed with the CLEP approval.
Updates will follow once we move the CLEP approvals to the next stage.
Minna Ranta
Okay. Let's go from the US to Singapore.
You talked about Singapore already a bit, but can you provide us an overview about the collaboration with Innoquest Diagnostics, and is there any notable outcomes so far?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. I think the Singapore, what has happened in Singapore is basically the partnership with Innoquest has enabled us to to provide the technology very broadly in the in the market.
Very important part of this is that Innoquest has the logistics chains to all of the all of the clinics, which is of course like building even though Singapore is a is a small geographical area, but building that kind of a thing up, it takes it it it takes time. Then we managed to provide the product to many customers, we collected feedback, we needed to do some changes with the product, now we have taken the new product to the same customers, and now I think the important point is to compare the feedback before and after.
I think now we are the product-market fit is very encouraging, and now we are it's already in production, the the the new report, and we are now working very closely with many customers to to increase the adoption.
Minna Ranta
That's great. Then back to Finland, Terveystalo has been a Nightingale's customer for a long time already, but now you're expanding even the partnership.
What can we expect out of this extended partnership?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. I think it's a very positive thing that Terveystalo is so convinced of our technology that they want to expand it to all of their processes.
What happens next? In healthcare, all of the sample volumes and scaling up the business, it's always about getting the technology as a part of the existing healthcare workflows.
Now we then work together with Terveystalo to evaluate the different other workflows than the occupational health workflow and then increase the adoption through that. At the moment, we are discussing with them about the new workflows where to utilize Nightingale's technology.
Minna Ranta
Okay. Let's then stay, as you mentioned during your presentation, that there's still something to gain in Finland on the public side.
South Savo and North Karelia wellbeing county collaborations, market is eager to hear how are these pilots going forward, and when are decisions being made about the future?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. In the public sector, is the same question, what are the workflows where you bring the technology, and how you integrate that today with the existing operations?
In North Karelia, we are going to the occupational healthcare for unemployed, they have a very strong case with Terveystalo, we can offer the same services as a part of that workflow. We've been defining the different workflows, how they will adopt the technology.
I think we are pretty advanced with both of the wellbeing counties, and there you can expect some news in the coming months how the rollout will proceed. They of course will create a very important reference in the public sector.
Minna Ranta
Yeah. You are working actively in several markets.
Are you planning to expand to any additional markets in addition to those you mentioned?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. Okay.
It's a very good question, because now the markets and the laboratories, and it's important to remember that this is a lot laboratory-driven. Now these different laboratories, what I mentioned, these five laboratories, they have been the laboratories that we have invested up front, because you just have to go there to be able to do any dealmaking.
Now we have a lot of conversations in other markets as well, but there is much closer connection also to dealmaking. It's very likely that when we expand to new markets, there is also significant customer agreement already in place, it's closer to the commercial operation.
This maybe tells a lot about the maturity of the company. Now we start to be more and more in a position that we can go negotiate a deal and bring the lab at the same time, because the customer can validate it.
They can run it in the beginning, they can run the service with one of our international locations, and it's a more natural expansion then with these new locations.
Minna Ranta
Okay. Thank you.
Let's then wrap up. Revenue has increased slightly for this first half, but the fiscal year target is still some way off.
How confident are you in reaching the target?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. We have the order book to make the numbers.
I think it's as convincing as it can be. Of course, there is the question about execution, and there are risks around the execution.
However, we have also a lot of insights with these customers, with Aalborg, with some other projects as well. Because of that, we are reiterating the goal to increase the revenue by 50 50%.
I think the situation is actually pretty good, because you have the orders. Of course, I understand the market is looking at the numbers we report, but the real question to me, do you have the orders?
We have the orders.
Minna Ranta
Great. Final question from me before we go to our live audience, what can we expect from the second half of this fiscal year?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. Heavy, heavy focus to increasing the sales activities.
To get sales, you have to sell. Now I think the product and the kind of the maturity of the company, now we are there.
That's why a lot of effort is being used to increase the commercial activities. It's not only about, okay, let's just hire more sales people.
This kind of a business doesn't work that way. It's more about being smart with the activities, being more targeted, being able to better discuss with the customers and sell the value, offer the value.
It's more about that. That's all the focus is around that.
Then all of the development and our data teams, our software development, everyone is supporting then these pilots and new projects to bring the value to the customers that they are looking to get.
Minna Ranta
Thank you, Teemu. This was the final question, and then we move to our live audience.
Any questions here? Yes, please.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Is the mic on?
Okay. Sami Sarkamies, Danske Bank Markets.
A couple of questions, starting from the second-half outlook. It was already discussed, but just wanted to check if you think the Aalborg contract will be delivered in full during the second half of the fiscal year?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. That is at the moment the expectation, and we are having active dialogue with the customer.
It's also it's not like a one and zero situation, and then our pipeline is strong also outside of the Aalborg deal. We are looking at the big picture, and when putting the pipeline together, we have good confidence that we will reach the target.
Sami Sarkamies
Thanks. Then there were a couple of new deals you announced today, starting from the Italian contract.
What will be the timing of delivery on this one, and can you comment something on the gross margin? Is it similar to the Aalborg contract or better?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. The deal with Italians, it's not multi-omics deal, customer has ordered our NMR platform.
At the moment, the orders with the NMR platform, they have stronger gross margin than the multi-omics deals. There are many reasons for this.
One reason is that in the multi-omics space, we also want to aim to win the market and aim to be very, very competitive with the pricing, because it's an increasing marketplace and it's kind of the competition is strong at the moment. Then for the revenues, usually also the deals that we do with the NMR platform, they have often we can predict a bit better when the revenues will be recognized.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Would it be already in the second half of the year thinking about this Italian contract or...
Teemu Suna
The Italian contract, it's ongoing, but I cannot comment the details more.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Then the other contract was with Terveystalo extension.
Are you expecting more revenues from Terveystalo on the back of this extension?
Teemu Suna
Yes. The question is that now making this kind of a deal doesn't automatically mean that the revenues will start growing.
We need to have the process together with Terveystalo to which clinical workflows they will adopt the technology. That's if you think about from the very practical point of view that as a healthcare provider you have ongoing operation, if you make changes, the timing of the changes, training of people using the technology, maybe also educating the customers.
There are several steps to consider, and that's why making a deal doesn't immediately mean that, okay, now there is revenue. I think what making the deal means is that we are in a very good position to do the expansion, because without the deal there is no conversation about the expansion.
That's why we are very pleased about the deal, and it shows the trust from Terveystalo towards our technology.
Sami Sarkamies
Then wanted to check, you may have said this, but so have you booked revenues from this wellbeing services county deal in Finland already?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. The wellbeing services county deals, they are pilots.
We are not expecting to book revenues from them, and the scope of the pilots is rather limited, and the intention is to demonstrate how the technology integrates into the public healthcare domain as well.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Then moving on to capex, how should we think about capex outlook for fiscal '26?
Is it going to be on similar level than last year? I think you mentioned that you have plans to open new labs.
When will those happen?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. I think expect similar level with the capex.
However, of course, if there is a laboratory expansion in a new country, then there will be capex involved, but it's a very different situation, as I mentioned. Then it's usually a business deal aligned with the potential capex, I would not see additional capex as an concern provided there is a business deal that also takes the revenue up at the same time.
As I mentioned also earlier, Nightingale can build healthy growth, because the gross margin structure, particularly with the NMR technology, is actually very good.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. If you were to open new labs, you would have customers with revenue commitments?
Teemu Suna
Some form of a deal. The deals will be very, very different, but that's the idea that it's not setting up a laboratory before having the customer deals.
These are now going more hand in hand, because we have already built the reference laboratories across the world.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Then final question, you talked about focus on sales activities.
Just curious, how is the funnel looking, and are you expecting to close material deals during the second half of the year in order to grow also next year?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. If I look at the pipeline, definitely we are expecting to close material deal within this half.
Of course, the sales cycles are long, and it's difficult to predict still at this stage of the development. However, if I compare the pipeline size and quality, what it is today and what it was in August, it's fundamentally different, which justifies the expectation that we will close a material deal before the end of the fiscal year.
That's, of course, the target to then build up the revenue growth also in the next fiscal year.
Sami Sarkamies
Yeah. Maybe a follow-on question, when you look at the quality of the pipeline, are we talking about mostly research opportunities or do you also have any medical deals in the pipeline?
Teemu Suna
Both. I would say that the pipeline, earlier it was very heavily research business awaited, and still the revenue business is the part of the business that has a substantial role in the revenue growth.
However, what we have managed to do over the past 6 months in the healthcare pipeline has also changed that quite substantially. Now when I look the two pipelines, there is a equal opportunity from both sides to bring a substantial deal before the end of the fiscal year.
Sami Sarkamies
Okay. Thank you.
Teemu Suna
Thank you.
Minna Ranta
Thank you. It has become the time to end this Q&A session.
Teemu, do you have any final words that you would like to give at this point?
Teemu Suna
Yeah. I think transforming this kind of a company from very strong technology focus and building it for several years, and bringing the products to the market, finding the product-market fit, and then finally moving to becoming a sales organization.
It's not very easy journey, but now when I look the results, especially through the pipeline and the sales, I think we are making strong progress. In 6 months, I think this transformation took very big steps, and I'm expecting that over the current year half, we can make similar progress.
I'm very excited. I'm also very excited when I look at the market.
There is more and more interest in prevention. There is more and more interest in blood testing.
There is more and more thinking around risk detection rather than this biomarker. Thinking beyond the biomarkers that we've been talking for years already.
Then the AI is a huge trend that I believe is very beneficial for us, because if you want to build a good preventative healthcare system powered by AI, what is your data to connect to the risk? If you use only wearable data, well, you are looking at the proxy signals mostly.
If you use some data from the digital data from the Internet, again, it's a proxy signal. If you really want to understand the risk, which is the core of prevention, you need the molecules.
It's molecular. It's an issue of molecular medicine which the algorithms will not solve.
You need the data, and we are one of the most advanced companies in the world to bring that data. I think that's one of the megatrends that I believe can be very positive and beneficial for Nightingale.
Very excited, and we will keep working very hard.
Minna Ranta
Exactly. Thank you.
We will end the session here now, and thank you for following.
Teemu Suna
Yeah. That's it.
We will return in 6 months, and thank you for listening, and have a good day.
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