Operator
Good afternoon, and welcome to the NeoGenomics first quarter 2026 financial results call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I will now turn the call over to Priya Vedaraman, Senior Vice President of Finance.
Priya Vedaraman
Thank you, Matthew, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to NeoGenomics' first quarter 2026 financial results call.
With me today to discuss the results are Tony Zook, Chief Executive Officer; Abhishek Jain, Chief Financial Officer; and Warren Stone, President and Chief Operating Officer. Additional members of the management team will be available for the Q&A portion of our call.
This call is being simultaneously webcast. You will know that we will be advancing through a brief slide presentation to accompany today's call, and we have also made the presentation available on the Investor tab of our website at ir.neogenomics.com.
During this call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our future financial and business performance, planned future operations, and related expectations with respect to timing and performance, future financial position, future revenue, growth potential, and expected growth drivers, projected costs and capital expenditures, prospects and plans, estimated market size and position, and objectives of management and financial guidance. We caution you that actual events or results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements made during the call speak only as of the original date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Please refer to the information disclosed on the safe harbor statements slide in the deck posted on our website, as well as the information under the heading Risk Factors in our most recent Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K that we filed with the SEC, to identify important risks and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements.
These documents can be found in the Investor section of our website or on the SEC's website. During this call, we also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that involve adjustments to GAAP results.
The non-GAAP financial measures presented should not be considered an alternative to the financial measures required by GAAP, should not be considered measures of liquidity, and are unlikely to be comparable to non-GAAP financial measures provided by other companies. Any non-GAAP financial measures referenced on this call are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in a table available in the press release we issued this afternoon and in the slide deck available in the Investor section of our website.
I will now turn the call over to Tony.
Tony Zook
Thank you, Priya, and welcome, everyone. For those of you who are relatively new to the NeoGenomics story, let me review our investment thesis.
We're a pure-play oncology solutions company, leveraging our strong heritage in hematology with pathologists in community hospitals, where we enjoy a leading 25% share across diagnostics and therapy selection. We believe we're highly differentiated from large reference labs as well as specialty diagnostic companies in two regards: the depth and breadth of our portfolio, and a relentless focus in the community setting.
We believe in the power of our portfolio and see it as a point of competitive distinction and advantage. We reentered the MRD space with RaDaR ST, which we will discuss momentarily, allowing us to address a $20 billion market opportunity, where we will continue to leverage our ambition to be a partner of choice among community practices.
Importantly, we believe we're well poised to deliver consistent double-digit revenue growth. As mentioned, it's our desire to be a partner of choice in the community, from diagnosis to recurrence monitoring.
Our foundation and strength in hematology and diagnostic testing affords us a strong platform for growth. We have and will continue to be purposeful with our portfolio transformation, as evidenced by our product launches enabling our penetration into the $13 billion therapy selection market, and now with RaDaR ST, we've reentered the $20 billion MRD market, both of which are enjoying robust growth, but are still relatively modest in penetration rates.
This portfolio transformation is evident in our selling performance. The five NGS products we launched in 2023 that we have consistently tracked contributed 25% of our clinical revenue in Q1.
With that, let's highlight some of our key performance metrics for Q1. During the first quarter, we again delivered double-digit revenue growth, reflecting our ability to generate consistent and predictable sales.
Total revenue for Q1 was $186.7 million, representing 11% growth year-over-year, exceeding our guidance. Adjusted EBITDA of $9 million increased 27% over the first quarter of 2025, and the adjusted EBITDA margin increased approximately 60 basis points year-over-year.
Our clinical business continued its robust growth, with revenue increasing 14% year-over-year to $171 million. Clinical performance was driven by effective execution of our commercial strategy, enabling volume growth and share gains in all segments of our business.
In this quarter, we again saw an improvement in AUP, which reflected an 8% year-over-year growth, and volumes growing 6% year-over-year. Turning to NGS, revenue grew 26%, well ahead of the NGS market growth rate, driven by strong volume and AUP growth.
Our NGS business now represents about a third of our total clinical revenue. Moving forward, we believe the addition of PanTracer liquid biopsy to the PanTracer family, combined with ongoing investments in our field force size and capabilities, will help us sustain above-market growth for this part of our portfolio.
The momentum with which we exited 2025 continued into the first quarter. As we have shared, we continue to see above-market growth with our non-NGS clinical business, which should continue to grow in the mid-single-digit range as we take share across all modalities.
Importantly, and in line with our overall strategy, our NGS business is scaling at a rate that is three to four times faster than our core clinical business. We're often asked, how do we win in the community setting, and is the growth sustainable?
I'm going to ask Warren to step you through our commercial strategy and give you some insight into our early launch experiences with the PanTracer family and RaDaR ST.
Warren Stone
Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon, everybody. Our primary focus is the community setting, where approximately 80% of patients seek treatment so that they're close to their support structure.
Additionally, most patients live an hour or more from the nearest NCI-designated cancer center. To start, we believe the community oncologists prioritize historic patient management and prioritize certainty over possibility.
Guidelines drive their decision-making and ensure actionability. With large patient volumes and resource constraints, they choose partners that reduce friction and support confident treatment decisions.
Secondly, our leadership in hematology, where we hold greater than a 25% market share, provides trusted access and creates strong foundation to expand adoption of our broader portfolio. Third, rapid test results directly impact patient outcomes, and our balanced lab network enables industry-leading turnaround times.
The Pathline acquisition strengthened our Northeast presence and grew at 1.5 times our national average, demonstrating the power of local scale to drive service and growth. Finally, our portfolio spans over 500 tests across diagnosis, therapy selection, and MRD, positioning us as a true partner in patient management.
We've developed over 350 interfaces, including the recently announced Epic Aura, which per published third-party research could drive a 20% to 30% increase in test adoption per site. This position is also supported by a broad commercial payer network of more than 300 contracts, also minimizing friction for both providers and patients.
In summary, we simplify the complexity of oncology diagnostics so physicians can focus on delivering the best possible patient care. Turning now to RaDaR ST, our circulating tumor DNA assay with exceptional sensitivity for early detection of molecular residual disease.
In late February, we announced full clinical launch of RaDaR ST, which has detection as low as 1 PPM. The launch targets two approved indications: HPV-negative head and neck cancer and a subset of breast cancer.
In addition, we have submitted to MolDx for reimbursement in two additional cancer indications, which, if granted, would more than double our market opportunity. Early insights from the RaDaR ST launch to date are very encouraging.
Approximately 29% of customers who previously used RaDaR 1.0 have ordered RaDaR ST since launch. Additionally, 34% of RaDaR ST orders received include additional Neo tests.
All test results to date have been delivered faster than our published turnaround times. RaDaR ST represents a very important advancement in MRD testing, and with its clinical launch, we now offer a comprehensive solid tumor solution spanning diagnosis profiling, therapy selection, and MRD.
Looking ahead, we are focused on targeted R&D investments in whole genome sequencing, including our next-generation MRD assay and whole genome solution for heme. The strengthening of our pipeline increases durability and positions us effectively to address future market needs.
Our next-generation MRD platform is progressing well, with data generation expected next year and a potential launch as early as 2028. In parallel, we're advancing our non-clinical portfolio to meet the evolving needs of pharma.
This includes expanding our MRD offerings with an off-the-shelf single-tube AML flow panel designed for broader applications across CLL, B-ALL, and multiple myeloma, as well as enhancing our IHC menu with five new CDx-relevant markers. Turning to our PanTracer portfolio, our integrated solution for solid tumor therapy selection, designed to combine tissue and liquid testing to deliver confident, actionable insights for real-time treatment decisions.
PanTracer Liquid is a non-invasive, blood-based test that analyzes circulating tumor DNA to identify key genomic alterations that inform treatment decisions in patients with advanced-stage tumors. With MolDx reimbursement received, we expect revenue contributions to ramp throughout the year.
The expansion of the PanTracer family with PanTracer Pro turns a very fragmented tumor physician workup into a coordinated and accelerated workflow from a single sample. It fully integrates the therapy selection workflow by combining comprehensive genomic profiling with immunohistochemistry and other auxiliary tests, allowing oncologists to manage the entire cancer diagnostic workflow from a single requisition and sample.
This allows for faster test turnaround and a more timely clinical decision-making. Slide 13 illustrates a typical PanTracer workflow.
After the test requisition is received, the pathology report is reviewed, and ovarian cancer diagnosis is confirmed. The OncoTree then identifies the guideline-relevant add-on tests.
In this case, five medically necessary assays, including the recently launched PD-L1 22C3 FDA for ovarian carcinomas, are included. The slides are prepared, and the test is performed.
The add-on results are reported to the physician by day four, and the NGS results reported on by day eight. As part of our go-to-market strategy, we have expanded our sales force to increase reach and frequency and accelerate penetration in therapy selection and MRD markets.
The commercial expansion, coupled with the only MolDx-approved HPV-negative test currently available, positions us to accelerate adoption. We plan to add roughly 25 sales resources by the third quarter of this year to support the launch and penetration of RaDaR ST in two new indications, which we have submitted to MolDx.
In summary, we are very pleased with our performance, both financially and strategically, in the first quarter, and we're excited for the business levers that are available for us to drive improving and accelerated financial performance in the future. With that, I'll hand over to Abhishek to further discuss our results for the quarter.
Abhishek Jain
Thank you, Warren, and good afternoon, everyone. In my remarks today, I will discuss our first quarter financial results and revised 2026 guidance.
We reported total revenue of $186.7 million, up 11% year-over-year, driven by clinical revenue of $171.2 million, which grew a strong 14%. This performance was driven by healthy underlying demand, with volumes up 6% and AUP increasing 8% as compared to the same quarter last year.
Same-store revenue, excluding Pathline, was $167.9 million, representing 12% growth versus the prior year period, driven by a 3% increase in test volumes and a 9% increase in AUP. Importantly, both clinical test volumes and AUP growth performed at the high end of our expectations, despite the anticipated impact of strategically exiting a high-volume, low-value contract.
Most encouraging is the ongoing mix shift towards the high-value testing driven by strong performance in our NGS business that was up 26% year-over-year and now represents approximately one-third of our clinical revenue. Our targeted investments in the sales team are delivering tangible results and supporting this continued momentum in our NGS business.
Further, this favorable mix shift towards high-value testing is also contributing meaningfully to drive AUP growth of 8% year-over-year. AUP increase was also supported by our RCM initiatives, including managed care pricing gains and improved pull-through.
Turning to our non-clinical business, we reported $15.5 million in revenue, a decline of 15% year-over-year, primarily driven by expected softness in pharma. Our ODX business delivered double-digit growth that helped partially offset the declines in pharma.
We believe that we are near the bottom for this business and expect to see sequential growth in the back half of the year. Adjusted gross profit improved by $7 million, or 9%, over the prior year, and adjusted gross margin was 46%, down 80 basis points as compared to last year.
As expected, the decline in the gross margin in the first quarter was primarily driven by the dilutive impact of Pathline acquisition and the launch of PanTracer Liquid prior to MolDx approval. Together, these factors represented approximately 150 basis points of headwind in Q1 '26.
In addition, we were impacted by higher freight costs and fuel surcharges due to the geopolitical situation. These headwinds were partially offset by the gross margin expansion primarily driven by AUP increase and lab efficiency.
Looking ahead, we continue to expect gross margin expansion of approximately 100 basis points year-over-year in 2026, driven by our lab of the future initiatives, which include strategic sourcing, digital pathology, lab automation, and platform upgrades. We also expect margin progression to benefit from easier compares in the coming quarters.
Total operating expenses in the quarter were $99 million, a decrease of $2 million, or 2%, from prior year. We plan to make targeted investments in our sales and R&D functions to drive clinical test volumes and higher AUP, while continuing to improve leverage in G&A, which we expect to continue to decline as a percentage of revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA was $9 million, up 27% year-over-year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 60 basis points. This margin expansion was driven by operating leverage in our G&A function that more than offset the headwinds from adjusted gross margin reduction.
Cash used in operations was $8.1 million in the quarter, down from approximately $25.3 million in the same quarter last year. We ended the quarter with total cash of $146 million.
Our goal continues to be free cash flow positive this year. Turning now to our 2026 guidance.
Considering our strong first quarter revenue performance and earlier-than-assumed MolDx approval of PanTracer Liquid in March, we are increasing our full-year revenue guidance to a range of $797 to $803 million, up from $793 to $801 million previously. The key assumptions underlying the midpoint of our revenue guidance are as follows: First, no change in RaDaR ST revenue assumptions, which remains in the mid-single-digit millions.
Second, we expect PanTracer Liquid revenue to be in mid-single-digit millions, following MolDx approval in early March. Third, no change in revenue assumptions for our non-clinical business, which we expect to be down low to mid-single digits year-over-year in 2026.
Regarding the quarterly cadence, we now suggest modeling approximately 9% year-over-year growth in the second quarter, up from 8% to 9% range previously discussed, followed by 9% to 10% growth in the third quarter and above 10% in the fourth quarter of 2026. Turning to gross margin, no change in our guidance, and we expect approximately 100 basis points of gross margin expansion in 2026, driven by a combination of factors we discussed earlier.
We are maintaining and reiterating our full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $55 to $57 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 27% to 31%. As discussed previously, adjusted EBITDA was impacted by higher freight costs and fuel surcharges due to geopolitical environment.
We have taken actions to offset these pressures while remaining committed to our previously communicated adjusted EBITDA guidance. With that, let me turn the call over to Tony.
Tony Zook
Thanks, Abhishek. Reviewing the significant catalysts for the year, I'm very pleased with our progress to date.
We launched RaDaR ST in head and neck and a subset of breast cancers, and received MolDx reimbursement for PanTracer liquid biopsy, and we continue to drive NGS growth well ahead of market growth rates. Looking out to the remainder of the year, we anticipate MolDx reimbursement decisions for two additional RaDaR ST indications, which, if granted, would double the population of patients eligible for this advanced MRD test.
We're also advancing plans to expand our sales force by the third quarter to capture these additional opportunities that are emerging in advanced cancer testing. Taken together, I believe these catalysts form a solid foundation from which to drive future growth.
I'll close by outlining how we're driving accelerated financial performance through disciplined execution across our key business levers. The launch of RaDaR ST and MolDx approval for liquid biopsy have opened up large, addressable markets, and we're focused on driving adoption, alongside continued expansion into new indications and advancement of our next-generation MRD programs.
Commercial initiatives across sales, pricing, and payer coverage are improving access and monetization, while ongoing investments in automation, platform upgrades, and lab optimization are enhancing efficiency and scalability. Together, these efforts position us well for sustained growth in 2026 and beyond.
Thank you for your continued interest in NeoGenomics. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks, and so please open up the line for questions.
Operator
Certainly. Everyone, at this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session.
If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality.
Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from David Westenberg from Piper Sandler.
Your line is live.
David Westenberg
Hi, thanks for taking the question, and congrats on all the growth. I want to focus on the positive here.
The NGS growth has been robust. You've been tracking in the mid-20s for a long time, but you are facing difficult comps.
As we model the durability of the growth algorithm, can you talk about growth predicated on PanTracer Liquid versus tissue? How should we see that mix growth?
Can that help you sustain kind of that 20% range? Then secondly, how do we think about the AUP over the next couple of years as this starts to ramp?
I'll ask one small follow-up.
Tony Zook
Dave, thanks for the question. I'll kick us off, and then Warren can fill in some color as well.
First, on the sustainability of the NGS, I appreciate the question, right? We are showing really good growth in NGS, as we said, 26% revenue growth, and that was driven by 16% volume growth.
If you turn back the hands of time, we closed last year, I think 23% in the quarter of Q4, and we did 22% for the year. At the time, we said we thought that we were able to sustain that at a minimum, if not even beat it with the addition of PanTracer LBx.
We look at where we sit right now, Dave, and we feel very good. The early products that we mentioned before, they're up to 25% of our clinical revenue in the quarter.
Early days of PanTracer are showing really good signs for us. Warren can go into a bit more detail on PanTracer LBx, but even PanTracer Pro, which was introduced in the mid of February, we're seeing it now almost cover 10% of PanTracer volume, which is exciting because it's captured 15% of new users, Dave.
We absolutely do think that it's sustainable, and with the addition of liquid biopsy to the family, we think it can go even further. With that, maybe I'll turn it over to Warren to give a little bit more color on LBx, and then we'll get into the AUP piece.
Warren Stone
You covered a lot of ground there, Tony. I think that the PanTracer family for us, we really look at the category growth overall because the tissue and the liquid get used sort of concurrently, or certainly as a reflex to care and standard TP that might take place on tissue, or as a standalone.
It is really, really versatile, and we're encouraged by the attractive growth that we've seen from the category overall, including liquid. If we look through, you would have seen a graph in the presentation which showed a 16% volume growth, but a 26% revenue growth, and that acceleration in revenue growth is coming because we're moving towards these larger CGP panels.
That's driving the growth, and that's also helping the AUP. To your question on the sustainability to stay above sort of the 20% mark, certainly PanTracer Liquid, but PanTracer family as a whole is going to be a key driver for us.
Then,
Tony Zook
David, on AUP, again, very, very strong performance there. We were up 8% year-over-year, and I would say that's indicative of the strategy, right?
We've been very purposeful saying that we are going to drive growth with that NGS portfolio of ours. Increasing it as a percentage of our business, which is now up to a third of our business, and we're growing it, that's going to have a big contributing factor to AUP.
I would say, as well, about half of it is driven by the great work that the team does behind the scenes on the RCM initiatives. We talk about the 300 contracts, but we look at those contracts all the time, and every opportunity we have to increase price there, direct price increases, and all of those initiatives add up.
We believe the AUP is also sustainable this year, and again, about half of that is driven by mix and the increased volume in NGS, and about half is just the good work behind the scenes. Maybe one final point, just kind of the icing on the cake with AUP, while NGS is the big driver there, Dave, and I know that's how you focused the question, good news is we're seeing AUP increase contributions across all of the modalities.
It's not just NGS that's contributing, it's the portfolio.
David Westenberg
Got it. Actually, that was a really long answer, I'll just hop off.
Thanks so much.
Tony Zook
All right. Good night, Dave.
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question is coming from Tycho Peterson from Jefferies. Your line is live.
Tycho Peterson
Hey, thanks. Maybe one for Abhishek just on the guidance raise.
In the past, you've gotten over your skis with raising guidance to cut later. I guess, why not bank the beat and de-risk the remainder of the year?
Or, conversely, can you point to what's trending more positive? Was it April data points, the new launches, obviously you've talked to.
Maybe get us comfortable that guidance is still conservative and beatable here.
Tony Zook
Sure. Happy to, and then again, I'll let Abhishek jump in on the details.
Relative to the guidance, Tycho, you're right. We want to maintain the philosophy that we've shared with you, right?
That is when we issue our guide, you ask us to only speak with a high degree of confidence, not just with the center point of that guide, but making sure we can get to the upper end of that guide at a minimum, and we've taken those factors into consideration with this guide. What are the positives?
What do we look forwards? Again, 11% revenue, but it was driven by 14% clinical revenue growth.
That is certainly a driver, and the NGS is a driver, of course, to be certain. Based on the middle of that guide, where do we see potential opportunity and where is there some risk?
I would say the opportunity is certainly with the NGS portfolio, with emphasis on PanTracer LBx, getting another quarter of opportunity to drive revenue, getting out in front with commercial payers. If we can plow that field well, we think there is probably upside opportunity associated with the guide relative to PanTracer LBx.
We think that there is potential opportunity as well in our non-clinical business. It's way too early despite the footfall there, which is why we still want to be relatively conservative, but we're seeing early signs that, in fact, we're planning and hitting what we said, which would be kind of that low single-digit erosion on the non-clinical side.
There's some risk there, but we think that it's taken into account at this point. I guess the other area of opportunity for us would be even better uptake with RaDaR ST, but again, we're playing this one right down the middle, Tycho, with the single millions in the middle of the guide, and I guess additional indications were to come on board sooner than we thought, that could represent some upside.
We do see some potential risk, which would be on the non-clinical side, that's not a new story to you, but we see the rate of decline of that business beginning to slow and activity beginning to pick up. On balance, we would say there's probably more opportunity than downside against what we've shared with you today.
Does that help?
Tycho Peterson
That does. That does.
Another question is you lap Pathline next quarter, I guess, how do we think about the volume growth as you lap that? You grew volumes 2.8% ex-Pathline.
Is that kind of the right run rate for the business? You're rolling off the big lab contracts.
How do we think about just lapping Pathline?
Tony Zook
I think the most important element, and now I'll ask Abhishek if he can get into his very specific question on the volumes. I've gone to the point, Tycho, I probably look less at the actual volumes associated with just pure Pathline, because I look at more the Northeast, because that was the strategic purpose of having it.
What we have seen is our growth rate in the Northeast region was 1.5 times faster than the other regions, and that's a first for us. We see the strategic benefit of serving those customers coming through.
Our total value associated with Pathline in the Northeast region is absolutely increasing on plan, albeit the actual volumes might be down just a little bit because of the non-oncology, and I'll let Abhishek take some of that.
Abhishek Jain
Yeah. Let me also kind of talk with the overall volume picture there, Tycho, right?
Because we basically guided low single digits for the full year. We came in at about 6% growth for the first quarter, and as per the guidance, what we're saying that the second quarter is going to be flattish year-over-year growth standpoint.
What will start to happen from now onwards that you'll start to see a sequential growth in our volume Q2 onwards. That's the good part, right?
A lot of the revenue growth is going to come from the AUP in our remaining quarters for the year. We are basically trying to kind of absorb exiting this high-volume, low-value contract as we kind of look into Q2 and Q3.
Q3 '25 was the peak quarter for this particular one contract, and that's the reason we'll have those headwinds in Q2 and Q3. Overall pieces from the overall revenue growth standpoint, as Tony pointed out, on the clinical revenue, we are growing a strong 14% in the second quarter, and our guide basically still keeps us about 11% above growth for our clinical business for the rest of the year.
Tycho Peterson
Okay. A quick one, Abhishek.
Maybe just on the convert, you burned $14 million in cash, you have $146 million in cash and $342 million convert due January 2028. Can you maybe just quickly touch on plans for that, and then I'll hop off?
Abhishek Jain
Absolutely, Tycho. We are actually discussing with many of the leading banks on the convert refinancing, and everybody has told me that this has been a good market, 2025, and what we have seen in 2026.
We are feeling that there will not be any challenge in terms of refinancing the convert. We are trying to basically make sure that we're able to get the currency of our stock, which we believe is highly underappreciated, kind of come back to a level where we feel that this is the right time for us to kind of do the refinancing.
In any case, our plan is to get the refinancing done in the second half of the year. We do not want to leave this open for fairly late in the game.
Tycho Peterson
Thanks, Tycho.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Puneet Souda from Leerink.
Your
Puneet Souda
line is live. Hey, guys.
Thanks for the question here. First one, just wanted to see if there was any weather impact in the quarter, and if you're expecting anything in 2Q for that.
Also on the NGS side, how should we think about the ceiling? It's a third of your business.
It's growing rapidly in the community setting. Just trying to understand overall NGS, what's the ceiling there, and I assume that NGS is all of the solid tumors.
Can you clarify the boundaries of NGS, what is included in NGS and what is not?
Tony Zook
Sure. Warren, you'll take a crack at the NGS one,
Warren Stone
and
Tony Zook
on the weather, just to be clear, Puneet, when we issued the guide, as you've rightfully pointed out for the first quarter, we had already indicated what we anticipated to be the weather impact, and it came in pretty much as we expected,
Warren Stone
and so
Tony Zook
we don't see any drag or any issues moving forward through Q2. Relative to the NGS question?
Warren Stone
How we're defining NGS today, Puneet, is simply it's NGS for our heme cancers, and it's NGS for our solid tumor, largely fitting within the therapy selection vertical. At the moment, even though MRD runs on an NGS backbone, we'll probably going to carve that out, the 26% growth that you see, that excludes any MRD.
In terms of the outlook, I'd say we'd be disappointed that if in the midterm this is not north of the 40%, it's sort of how you need to think about that. This is definitely the growth engine of our business.
You can see the trajectory since 2022, and the portfolio that we've added in 2023 and have continued to add is going to continue to fuel that growth in the sort of above-20% mark.
Puneet Souda
Yeah. Got it.
Then just a follow-up on there's obviously a lot of discussions about repeat use of CGP liquid. There's trials, outcomes, other things are taking center stage.
When you think about the setting you're serving, when do you think you can start to see some benefit from that just given sort of the timing it takes for your test to be recognized by the market you're serving?
Warren Stone
I think interestingly enough, we've already seen some repeat testing on liquid biopsy already. That's encouraging, and I think as the scale continues to grow in the second half of the year as we outlined, we expect to see some repeat testing here as well, which is encouraging.
We also anticipate that as we put more and more patient programs into place to support RaDaR ST, that we can obviously also layer some of those workflows and those applications into liquid biopsy as well. This is certainly part of that growth assumption that you asked about earlier, that will help to continue the momentum.
Puneet Souda
Got it. I'll hop back in the queue.
Thanks.
Tony Zook
Thank you, Puneet.
Warren Stone
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question is coming from Bill Bonello from Craig-Hallum. Your line is live.
Bill Bonello
Hey guys, thanks a lot. I wanted to ask a little bit about the PanTracer Pro program and just kind of how that works and what you're seeing on that front.
Am I understanding this right that somebody checks that box, and then based on what you see in sort of a maybe an AI-driven algorithm along with the pathologists' experience, you make a decision about follow-on tests that should be ordered or what complete set of tests should be ordered? Can you give us you showed a little illustration where you showed one example, but can you give us a sense of comparison in maybe value when physicians are ordering that option versus when they're just selecting a straight-up panel?
Warren Stone
Bill, I think you've outlined the workflow pretty well, but I think coming back to one of the things that we try and do is we try to take friction out of the system. We want to make that sort of ordering experience as easy as possible, and whether you choose to requisition this through a bidirectional interface, a portal, or paper, it's exactly that.
It's a one tick, and that's it. The requisition will arrive in our lab, and again, this is in the therapy selection vertical, there's typically a diagnosis that's taken place already, that's the path report that gets read, and this algorithm then determines based on guidelines and what's medically necessary—this is a key aspect—what additional add-on testing should be performed based on that specific diagnosis.
What add-on testing will vary based on the diagnosis, and the example I shared was ovarian, and we added on five additional tests, including that new PD-L1 for ovarian carcinomas. The system does that automatically.
We then cut the slides appropriately, because the number of slides that you'd cut would be dependent on the number of add-on tests. We will do the testing.
We report out the results for the add-on testing as soon as that is available, and that's typically before NGS. The reason why that's valuable is you can get the first indication around what therapies you may want to put somebody on.
Then once the NGS is available, which is typically three or four days thereafter, we'll submit the NGS results to the physician as well so that they have a complete package, and they can make a more holistic and informed decision from a treatment perspective. In the past, a physician could have done that themselves.
They could have figured out using that ovarian situation, they could have figured out that, "I want PanTracer tissue, and I want these five markers." They could have done that manually, but the reality is, in the community setting, very few actually have They see so many different patients with different indications, they don't know that that well, they would typically send PanTracer in, and then potentially send a second requisition at a later stage to do some add-on testing.
That just takes longer, it exhausts more sample, this really has a lot of efficiencies, and it also does typically result in additional add-on testing, which has a revenue component attached to it, but want to stress it's only what's driven by guidelines and what's medically necessary.
Tony Zook
Is there any Oh, okay. Did you have a quick follow-on?
Bill Bonello
That's okay. Good.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Mason Carrico from Stephens.
Your line is live.
Hey guys, good afternoon. This is Ben on for Mason.
Abhishek Jain
Could you help us
bridge Q1 reported AUP to the underlying core AUP after adjusting for that low-value contract? I believe some remaining volumes of that contract were expected to flow through in the first quarter here.
Abhishek Jain
I will take that one question, Ben. We basically grew our AUP by 8% and year-over-year.
Excluding Pathline, the number was 9%, and if you were to exclude the impact of the high-volume, low-value contract, then I would say that it did not impact the AUP change as much, because the number of tests, they basically became a smaller number, and there was a little bit of growth in the AUP that we have seen as we had progressed in 2025 from Q1 onwards. The impact for the high-volume, low-value test, about a point or so in the overall AUP growth.
Our AUP growth was primarily driven by, as Puneet pointed out, because of the higher mix of our high-value testing, which has been part of our strategy, the NGS growth, as well as the impact of our RCM work that we have done.
Got it. That makes sense.
Then on the two additional RaDaR MolDx submissions, has anything changed there in your confidence or the expected timing of when you could get those decisions? Is prior to year-end the right way to think about those?
Tony Zook
It is, yeah. That's been a consistent assumption that we've shared with you.
We submitted at the close of last year. We anticipate those to be available to us by the close of this year, which is why we're gearing up the sales force in anticipation of being able to address those in the second half of the year.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions.
Abhishek Jain
Sure thing.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Subbu Nambi from Guggenheim.
Your line is live.
Subbu Nambi
Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my questions.
What percentage of liquid biopsy orders today are Medicare versus commercial, and what's the realistic timeline to getting meaningful private payer rates? The reason I ask is the rate $3,289, fully loaded cost to deliver, Is it accretive to gross margin from day one, or is there a scale threshold you need to hit first?
I have the same question for RaDaR ST as well, the impact on gross margin from day one to when it ramps.
Abhishek Jain
Sure, Subbu. Let me take this question for the liquid, because we have not seen all the volumes since our soft launch, I would say, in the second half of the year last year.
We're going to basically push on all cylinders now to push the volume, I'll use PanTracer tissue as a proxy to provide you that fair mix. We basically have between the Medicare and the client bill, the direct client bill, about 40% that we will basically get paid, and then about 10 points of Medicare Advantage, and the other 50 is commercial payers.
To your point, what we believe that we will start to get paid on the 40% that at first pop up on both the client bill and the Medicare. On the commercial, this is a process, right?
As what we have seen, how this process plays out, there will be a time which it will take some time as you start to get the coverage and the policy. My sense is that given the fact that we already have contracts with 300 of these payers, that will definitely give us feet on the table, and we'll be able to push through this one relatively faster, but this will take some time.
Then same for Coming to the RaDaR, the mix is slightly different. I would say that's where Medicare is about 20% to 25%, and then you have Medicare Advantage, which will be 10% to 15%, and then the rest would be commercial and Medicaid, a little bit tail there.
That's where it plays out. The overall payment rate for RaDaR, as in any other competitor that has been this particular space, we're going to be starting to get paid on the Medicare, and then we'll have to start to build the coverage for the commercial payers.
Subbu Nambi
Got it. Thank you so much for that, Abhishek.
Abhishek, just to put all the numbers together, the low contracts that you guys had, the rationalized volumes, were they largely Pathline volumes, or this has got nothing to do with Pathline volumes, these were just other contracts?
Abhishek Jain
No, not Pathline volumes, Subbu, because what I called out that of our overall volumes in 2025, roughly 1.35 million, we basically said that this high-volume, low-value contract was about 3% to 4% of the overall volumes. Pathline was much more smaller, right, from that standpoint.
This was a different contract.
Subbu Nambi
Perfect. Thank you so much, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Dan Brennan from TD Cowen.
Your line is live.
Dan Brennan
Thanks for the questions. Maybe first one just on the guide.
Could you just speak to a little bit for Q2 and for the year, just I think for the year you kind of spoke to it, but just NGS, ex-NGS, kind of what are we expecting for Q2, and how does it look for the full year?
Abhishek Jain
What we're guiding for the full year is $800 million at the midpoint, and for Q2, the revenue growth is going to be 9% year-over-year as compared to the 8% to 9% that we had guided the last time. We're basically adding more dollars in our Q2 because of the MolDx approval for liquid, and that's the reason the guide goes up for the second quarter.
For NGS, what we have basically called out, excluding liquid, we are going to be in line with what we have been in 2025, which is about 22%. That's the part on the NGS.
Now if I were to step back and what Tony was saying, that this is a prudent guide, this basically gives us a high degree of confidence to be able to kind of hit the midpoint of the guide, but at the same time, we believe that we should be able to come in better as compared to the mid-single-digit millions on the liquid. We'll be disappointed internally if we don't actually do better there, there are some upsides there, as well as I would say on the NGS that we have been growing at 25%, 26%, and our guide is basically 22% to 23%.
If we're able to kind of see the similar kind of growth on the NGS, then that would be another upside. Again, my takeaway on this one is that from the guide midpoint standpoint, this is prudent, but it gives us the opportunity to be able to kind of come in ahead if what we're anticipating internally were to go in our way.
Dan Brennan
Got it. So 2Q NGS should be 22, just like it is for the full year.
Okay.
Abhishek Jain
I would say, yeah, that's the guide, yeah.
Dan Brennan
Okay. You called out in the prepared remarks about Epic Aura and the upside that other players maybe have seen, or I forget how you termed the experience, the volume uplift.
Just remind us where you are, what are you seeing so far, what's baked in, and what would get you to see that kind of uplift? What needs to happen?
Warren Stone
Dan, thank you. We went live with our first customer earlier this month, and the beauty of Epic Aura, it allows for a significantly faster implementation with customers.
We're targeting the Epic Aura implementations for therapy selection and MRD, and we've got a robust pipeline of accounts that we're looking to activate with Epic Aura in quarter two all the way through the year. Certainly expecting to see that uptake as the year progresses, and this is one of the key levers in terms of sustaining this high NGS growth rate that we've been talking about, and also will help to drive demand for RaDaR ST as well because the simplified workflow that it'll bring.
Dan Brennan
Got it. Some of the benefit is baked into the guide, it's not like there's potentially upside if you're successful with these account activations.
Is that the right way to think about it?
Warren Stone
I would say that if we're able to accelerate the implementations based on what we put in the guide, there's upside there as well. If the pull-through is as significant as what was articulated in these independent studies that were done, I think there's upside there as well.
We didn't assume that we would see that radical uplift, but there certainly are studies that point to that.
Dan Brennan
Great. Thank you very much.
Warren Stone
Thanks, Dan.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Michael Ryskin from Bank of America.
Your line is live.
Michael Ryskin
Great, thanks. A couple quick ones.
One is maybe as part of your answer to Dan just now, sort of your comments on growth expectations through the year, both of NGS and non-NGS, sort of what's the implicit contribution from some of the sales force expansion? Just maybe wondering if you could comment on the sales force addition more broadly, is that playing a role in the second half?
Is that more of a '27 benefit? Just how to think about that.
Tony Zook
I think about the sales force as being actually quite productive for us, Michael. I think if you look at the size of our sales force and the size of our spend, we're probably relatively underindexed versus many of our competitors.
We got a sales and marketing ratio probably somewhere around 13%, and if we look to just the oncology, the OSS team, being in the 50s, that is a relatively low number, and yet they have proven to be quite productive, right? The share gains that you have seen with the NGS portfolio is driven in large part by that increased penetration into the community oncology space.
We do see the sales force as one of the levers for us to continue to drive growth. We also see it as an opportunity for us.
You take a product like RaDaR ST, and you see the relatively low market penetration rates, we think we can contribute there. We do see the sales force as an ever-increasing opportunity for us to continue to drive growth, and we will be selective in how we continue to expand and grow that side of the business because we think it is a large revenue driver opportunity for us.
What we always have to balance, Michael, is not overly disrupting the customer relationships that are established as well. We tend to take a kind of a very thoughtful process as to when we add them and how we add them, but they are clearly a growth driver for us, and I don't think we'd be where we are today with 26% growth had it not been for that investment that was made a year ago.
Michael Ryskin
Okay. All right.
Follow-up for my follow-up, just kind of want to make sure I'm doing the math right. We're kind of calculating direct Pathline contribution.
It continues to step down, it kind of stepped down a little bit more this quarter. I heard what you called out on the call in terms of the benefit in the Northeast and the more broad uplift for the portfolio, but just anything specific to call out there?
Do we expect that to continue, or is that the weather impact in the quarter? I'm just sort of taking the Pathline ASP, Pathline volumes.
I'm doing the math right?
Tony Zook
Listen, I'll start us off, and then Warren or Abhishek can jump in. Again, it shouldn't be a surprise that there might have been a slight step-down in the volumes associated with Pathline because we were exiting some of that non-oncology business, and so that certainly had an effect.
Then, of course, we're doing a lot of work here on load balancing. We want to make sure that they don't always have to go through Pathline.
They can be ordered and be run down through Fort Myers or AV. Load balancing comes into play.
That's why, honestly, I don't put a lot of stock into what is directly attributed just to Pathline. It's certainly delivered what we expected in its range of revenue, but growth driver that we see in the Northeast, that is the catalyst.
Warren, you can maybe add a little bit more comment on that.
Warren Stone
The third aspect that I would say that you didn't touch on is the Northeast was probably the area that was most affected by weather in the first quarter. That's the third factor.
You've got weather, the non-oncology business that we have no interest in entertaining, we're stepping out of that business, and then the third dynamic is we're leveraging our lab network to provide the best possible turnaround time and also drive scale where possible. Some of the testing that was historically done in the Ramsey lab, the Pathline lab, has moved to other parts of our network.
Overall, we're very pleased with the development we're seeing so far. That 1 1.5 times market growth in the Northeast is really encouraging, particularly based on some of the trends we're seeing historically.
Michael Ryskin
All right. Thank you.
Tony Zook
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Matson from Needham.
Your line is live.
Mike Matson
Thanks. I thought I heard you guys say that in the NGS business, there's some price benefit.
Obviously, I know that the NGS is growing as a part of the overall mix and driving price, but is there some positive pricing mix happening within that NGS business, and what's driving it?
Abhishek Jain
No, absolutely. On the NGS business, what we have called out that this business grew 26%, 16% of that was driven by volume, and the other 10% came from the increase in the AUP.
As we were discussing, that AUP increase has been on account of some of the RCM initiatives that we have put in place, but at the same time, we are seeing the increase in the CGP panel in the NGS business as we move from the single panel gene test. That is basically kind of quickly moving towards the high-value testing, which is helping us drive the AUPs higher.
Mike Matson
Okay. Then the $20 billion MRD market, when you get these additional two indications covered, and you're at four, and I think you said that would double the available market to you.
What portion of that $20 billion will you be covering?
Warren Stone
Again, this is obviously somewhat subjective, but based on the analysis that we've done, we'll be north of 45% of the market across those four indications.
Mike Matson
Okay. Great, thank you.
Tony Zook
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session.
I'll now hand the conference back to Tony Zook for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Tony Zook
First off, I'd just like to thank everybody for joining us on the call. I'd also like to thank our roughly 2,400 teammates at Neo for their continued hard work and unwavering commitment to our mission.
With meaningful additions to our therapy selection and MRD test offerings during the first quarter, I'm very excited for the year ahead as well as 2027 and beyond, as these high-value tests represent a growing portion of our clinical business. I look forward to our next quarterly update in July, when we report our second quarter results.
Thank you again, and have a great day.
Operator
Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today's event.
You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.