ASP Isotopes (NASDAQ:ASPI) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

0:01 Good day, and welcome to the ASP Isotopes Business Update Call. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Shveta Digue, Head of Investor Relations. Shveta, your line is now please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you for joining ASP Isotopes business update call. I am Shweta Vige, head of investor relations at ASPI Isotopes. Joining me today are Paul Mann, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Heather Keesling, Chief Financial Officer and Doctor. Rainer Pretoris, Chief Executive Officer of our nuclear energy subsidiary Quantum Leap Energy. Our remarks today include forward looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today.

0:53 We encourage you to view the forward looking statements disclosures included on Slide two. Additional information on relevant risk factors is described in our filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update forward looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Here's how we'll structure today's call. I'll begin with a corporate overview and our key themes for 2026. I will then walk through each of our product and business segments. Heather will cover our financial performance and capital position. We'll close out our upcoming milestones and EBITDA outlook before opening the line for questions. We are transitioning from a company that has built infrastructure to one that will be delivering commercial product across multiple high value end markets.

1:45 Over the past four years, we've built three emission facilities in South Africa, using our proprietary aerodynamic separation process and quantum enrichment technologies. These technologies span nuclear medicine, electronics, and nuclear energy. Let me walk you through our 2026 plan. First, we expect first commercial shipments of Silicon 28, Iturbeen 176, and Carbon 14 this year. Each of these products serves a different critical end market: electronics, nuclear medicine, nuclear fuels and each has a limited global supply. Second, on radiopharmaceuticals, our business continues to grow, and we're expanding operations beyond South Africa into The United States and other jurisdictions to meet increasing demand for radiotherapeutics.

2:31 Third, our helium and LNG operations at the Virginia gas project are progressing towards nameplate capacity, with drilling now complete approximately four months ahead of schedule. This positions us as a meaningful contributor to global helium supply at a time when approximately 25% to 30% of the world's supply is offline. And fourth, Quantum Leap Energy continues its path towards becoming an independent public company, with the Continental S1 submitted. The key takeaway here is that we are no longer a development stage company, but are a critical materials platform, with revenue potential across all business lines. We have built one integrated critical materials platform, serving three multibillion dollar end markets. In each one, supply chains are constrained, geographically concentrated, or strategically vulnerable.

3:19 And each one, no credible Western alternative exists at commercial scale today. That acquisition we have built is what makes this platform differentiated. Now, medicine, we are at an intersection of two powerful trends: the global shift towards targeted cancer therapies, and a critical shortage of isotopes that make those therapies possible. Utopium-one 176 is the feedstock for Lutetium-one 177, a medical isotope used in targeted therapy for neuroendocrine tumors and prostate cancer. That supply runs predominantly through Russia. We are building a Western alternative. Carbon-fourteen is a separate but equally critical market, a regulatory requirement in pharmaceutical drug development globally, with an acute supply shortage. And through Radius Pharmaceuticals, we close the loop, producing isotopes and delivering finished doses, directed to patients across South Africa and The United States.

4:13 In electronics, we're building a next generation electronic gases company, supplying a semiconductor fabrication facility with delivering a full suite of high purity materials: silicon 28, helium, and fluorinated gases. The semiconductor industry has exhausted what traditional silicon can deliver. The next generation of chips requires isotopically pure materials for superior thermal conductivity, and quantum computing requires input to bit stability. There is no commercial supplier of silicon 28 at scale anywhere in the world today. We are it with three signed purchase orders, and every semiconductor fab on Earth needs helium to operate. We are the most concentrated helium resource in the world. Nuclear fuels to quantum leap energy, nuclear power is back on the global agenda, but the fuel supply chain is not ready. HALEU, LEU plus, lithium-seven, materials next generation reactors depend on, have no secure Western supply chain.

5:07 QLE exists to fix that. Let me take you through our near term milestones for each segment. Let me start with our nuclear medicine update, beginning with our first quantum enrichment plant. This plant uses our proprietary laser based quantum enrichment technology and is currently producing Eterium 176. YTB-one 176 is the feedstock for Lutifium-one hundred seventy seven, the active ingredient in Novartis GluVictor, one of the most important radiopharmaceutical therapies for metastatic prostate cancer. Demand is growing rapidly. Supply today runs predominantly through Russia. We are building the credible Western alternative at commercial scale. We shipped our first Uterbium 176 sample in September 2025. In October 2025, we experienced a brief operational pause, which has been fully resolved.

5:56 The plant is back in operation and emitting products. We believe our plant is capable of emitting approximately one kilogram per year, with approximately two kilograms of indicated customer demand. We're entering this market with demand ahead of our initial capacity. We expect first commercial shipments around midyear or third quarter twenty twenty six. Our carbon plant has been enriching carbon trials and building operational confidence throughout its time in service. Science is not in question. Carbon-fourteen is our near term commercial priority for this plant. Carbon-fourteen is used to trace how drugs metabolize in the body. It is not operational it's a regulation requirement in drug development. Global supply is acutely constrained. We've signed a take or pay contract with a North American customer, minimum of $2,500,000 per year, potential upside to 5,000,000 or more contracted recurring revenue.

6:47 The feedstock is now shipped out of Canada and is being processed in The United States. We expect delivery to South Africa by the end of this month. The concentration of carbon-forty in that feedstock will determine our revenue timing. At 0.5 concentration, we expect to book revenue in Q3. At 1% or higher, we'll book in Q2. And we'll know once we receive it. To be direct, this is a timing issue, not a science issue. The plant works, the contract is signed. PET Labs is our radio pharmaceutical platform, and the business is scaling fast. Revenue grew from $3,900,000 in 2024 to $5,700,000 in 2025, driven by capacity expansion and favorable pricing. Our first Sarcotron is at peak utilization, and our second came online in July 2025. South Africa is no longer a proof of concept. It is a fully operational radiopharmacy, delivering record doses, and the payment we built there is exactly what we are replicating in The United States.

7:41 On U. S. Expansion, we acquired East Coast Nuclear in Florida, our first U. S. Entry, a SPECT focused initially with PET capability planned for 2027. We subsequently acquired a second site in North Carolina, now delivering SPECT services for PET expansion planned 2028. We have an active pipeline of additional radio pharmacy acquisition targets in due diligence. 2026 revenue target is $10,000,000 or more, roughly double that of 2025. Now, let me turn to SILVATION '28 and where we stand on commercial delivery. As top of QPO, Silicon 28 is a key material in the development of solid state quantum computing and advanced semiconductor architectures. By removing the nuclear spin noise present in natural silicon, enriched Silicon 28 provides a pristine environment for qubits, dramatically improving coherence times and overall device performance.

8:32 This unique material advantage is crucial for building scalable, fault tolerant quantum processors that can operate reliably at industrial scale. We have signed three purchase orders, one with a major U. S. Semiconductor company, one with a large global industrial gas company, and one with a large U. S. Buyer. We shipped first enriched samples in August 2025. The measurement is tracking exactly in line with our theoretical calculations. Technology is working precisely as designed. Two customers visited the plant in October and November, and those visits were constructive and collaborative. We jointly agreed to make modifications to the plant for safety, operational efficiency, and long term plant robustness. We're implementing them because we want this plant to run reliably for years, not just for the first batch. We expect to ship the first seven twenty eight product during the second quarter of twenty twenty six.

9:24 We completed the Velogen acquisition on 01/06/2026. Let me explain why Helium is central to our strategy and why the timing of this acquisition matters. We own the most concentrated Helium resource in the world. Qatar averages 0.05% Helium concentration, Russia is 0.06%, and The U. S. Averages 0.35%. Our three state wells average over 3%, and we have seen concentrations as high as 12%. Now, Phase one status. Well drilling is complete, four months ahead of schedule, with flow rates up to 16 times those of earlier wells. We're ramping to nameplate capacity expected in the third quarter of twenty twenty six. At nameplate, Phase one produces approximately 2,500 gigajoules per day of LNG one gigajoule is approximately 1 MMBtu and 58 per day of helium.

10:18 60% of Phase one LNG is already contracted, and we expect positive operational cash flow before year end twenty twenty six. Phase two is the transformational step: 34,000 gigajoules of LNG per day and approximately eight ninety five MCF per day of helium, representing roughly 7% of projected global supply. Phase II financing benefits from $750,000,000 of committed debt, dollars $05,000,000,000 from the U. S. DFC and $250,000,000 from Standard Bank, unlocked by a $170,000,000 capital commitment. The US government has designated this facility as critical to national infrastructure. Quantum Leap Energy is our nuclear fuel subsidiary. I want to note upfront we are limited in some of what we can say today because QLE is in the S-one registration process with the SEC.

11:09 Our comments will be consistent with publicly disclosed information. The confidential S-one was submitted in November 2025. The QLE spinout is a 2026 event. I'll ask you to watch for updates as we work through the SEC process. With that, I'll turn the call over to Heather. Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone. I will walk you through our key financial metrics for the year ended 12/31/2025. At this stage, we consider our key metrics to be revenue, cash, and our capital position. Total 2025 revenue was $23,800,000 compared to $4,100,000 in 2024, an increase of 480%. This reflects our full year of radiopharmacy operations in 2025 and the investment in Skyline, which is comprised of $5,700,000 from specialized isotopes and services and 18,100,000 from construction services, which is from Skyline.

12:07 Looking at just product revenue, 2025 was 5,700,000 from our radiopharmacies, an increase of 46% compared to the 3,900,000 in 2024, reflecting our growth in radiopharmacy operations and expansion into The United States. As of 12/31/2025, ASP Isotopes had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $333,000,000 During 2025, the company significantly strengthened its balance sheet, raising over $345,000,000 in total capital through the issuance of common stock and convertible notes. This included $199,700,000 in net proceeds from a stock issuance in October 2025 and $42,200,000 from a private placement of Quantum Leap Energy convertible notes in November 2025.

13:00 We are well positioned for executing our plans. With that, I will hand it back to Paul. Thank you, Heather. Let me walk through our 2026 milestones. The company expects the first enriched silicon-twenty eight product to ship in the second quarter of twenty twenty six. The company anticipates initial Carbon-fourteen commercial shipments around midyear, contingent on the timing of feedstock from our Canadian supplier. And the company expects initial commercial shipments for ETRF176 around midyear or the third quarter of twenty twenty six. The company expects to obtain helium Phase I nameplate capacity during the third quarter of twenty twenty six. And for Radiopharmaceuticals, we expect continued growth of the radiopharmacy operations, and we expect to advance four pipeline assets into Phase I human clinical trials.

13:46 Today, we are sharing a segment level range of how we get to a greater than $300,000,000 EBITDA target in 2021. Starting with electronic gases, we're targeting between $150,000,000 and $300,000,000 This is driven by Silicon 28, Helium, and a broader and rich electronic gadgets portfolio that is building behind them. Demand here is structural, not cyclical. It grows as chips get smaller, data centers scale, and quantum computing moves towards commercialization. There's no credible Western supplier of Silicon 28 at commercial scale today, and we're building that. Natural gas contributes between $100,000,000 and $200,000,000 This is the LNG that comes up alongside the helium in the Virginia gas project. At Wilhelm costs of 35¢ per MMBtu, the economics are compelling.

14:32 This is not our core business, but at this cost structure, the returns are exceptional. On medical isotopes, this should contribute between $40,000,000 and $100,000,000 Iturpium 176 and carbon 14. Both products address acute supply shortages in their respective markets. Iturpium one hundred seventy six supply today runs predominantly through Russia, and carbon 14 supply is equally constrained. We are building the western alternative for both. Radiopharmaceuticals contributes between $40,000,000 and $100,000,000 PET Labs, a business that's already generating revenues, is growing and expanding internationally. It delivers greater than 40% revenue growth in 2025, as far as $10,000,000 in 2026. Taken together, these four segments get us to greater than $300,000,000 in EBITDA in 2031.

15:20 Let me close with a few brief remarks. From a list on NASDAQ, we made a set of commitments, built the technology and proved it works. Without doing that, our science works, our customers are engaged, and our masters ahead of us are defined and achievable. The world needs what we are building, but the platform, the capital, and the team to deliver, I'm confident in what this year holds. Thank you all for your continued interest and support. Operator, we're ready to open the line for questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, please limit yourself to one question at a time. We will now take our first question, which comes from the line of George Gianarcus from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

16:08 Hi, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. Maybe first set of questions just to focus on quantifying some things. So for 2026, you talked about operationalizing several of your assets. So can you help us at least understand a range of revenue that we should expect for the firm for the full year, particularly as you're bringing to life, as we said, helium, natural gas and a few of the isotopes? And also as an add on to that, the $300,000,000 in EBITDA that you discussed, just to be clear, does not include anything regarding QLE? Thank you. Thanks, George. So I'll take, first of all, the range of revenues for the firm for full year 2026 and then regarding the 300,000,000 guidance and and and QLE.

17:03 So, you know, it's it's quite challenging to give you an exact guidance for 2026 given we don't know exactly which month for which quarter that the plants will start up and start shipping in. So let me kind of give you an idea what the annualized number may may look like. So, you know, for the silicon '28, you know, it's gonna be my guess is low single digits millions of dollars, you know. But again, it depends on when it starts up and demand. As I said, we've signed three contracts with customers. There's lots more customers potentially interested. We haven't signed those signed those contracts yet. So a number of uncertainties for 07/28. As I said earlier, we'd expect over $10,000,000 for for PET labs this year.

17:50 For carbon fourteen, which is annualized, the contract is about $2,500,000 a year, and, you know, perhaps they might want as much as $5,000,000 a year. Depending on exactly what month we start up in, you can you can provide that number for for the year. And if you turn it in 176, it's kind of said that we think that plant can do about a kilogram a year at about $20,000 a gram. So that'd be $20,000,000 of annualized revenues. I don't know if we think that's plant starting up around mid year, that kind of time frame, q three. So, again, you can pro form a that for for the year. And, importantly, as we start the plants up and ship our first commercial production, we can tell that tell you that date, and then you can pro form a those those numbers.

18:35 For LNG and helium, you know, we said LNG is about 2,500 gigajoules per day. And, you know, I would assume a price of, you know, 13 to $14 per gigajoule. So annualized, that'd be about, you know, slightly over $12,000,000 a year. And then liquid helium, it was said 58 MCF per day. Now the price says is clearly, you know, right now we're seeing extreme tightness in that market. So if you'd ask me three months ago, I'd have said assume maybe, you know, average price would be a mixture of spot and contract, call it $400 per Mcf, and that gives you kind of $8,000,000 in revenue. But but right now, if we're signing contracts, we could be signing well over a thousand dollars per Mcf, and that's more like $25,000 or $20,000 $20,000,000 a year. So, you know, and obviously our costs are fixed on that business as well.

19:34 So a dollar of incremental helium revenue dropped straight to the bottom line. So there's a lot of operating leverage, a lot of operating leverage there. And then yes, just to confirm the $300,000,000 EBITDA target for 2031 excludes any contribution from QLE, which we expect to spin out this year. Thank you. And and maybe as a follow-up, I wanna ask about your your helium business. Any thoughts on I know you just acquired it, but any thoughts of potentially, monetizing that or highlighting the value to the market in the future? Thank you. Thanks for the question. Yes. So it's a very timely it's good time to be involved in the helium market. You would actually add customers fly to South Africa from Asia to visit us to try and secure helium.

20:24 That that that trip to South Africa wasn't on their wasn't on their travel plans three months ago. You know, we've had a lot of interest from investors who would like to invest specifically in the helium business. I've always said that, you know, our outlook is this is there are four verticals here, and helium is one of them. And so it's obviously a very very fine time for us to try and extract some value from that helium business, and also put a market value on that. So we would certainly look to to doing a market debut listing or spin out or whatever the right terminology is, the right phases for that helium business. I think it'd be a lot of a lot of interest from investors in it right now. Great. Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman from Lucid Capital Market. Your line is open.

21:16 Hey guys, thanks very much for taking my questions. A lot of exciting milestones that you're hitting this year. Wanted to ask about the first commercial shipments of silicon 28 that you have coming this year. It sounds like some of these customers have already been testing your silicon. Can you give us a sense of what they're doing with it and potentially what the timeline might be for these to turn into larger orders? Great. So thanks for the question. So we shipped some samples of silicon 28 to customers or to a customer. Well, arguably, it representing two customers, but to one customer, to to test that silicon 28. There aren't many labs in the world. We think there probably two that can measure silicone 28, the kind of purity we need to measure it to. We have one. That particular customer has another, and so we tested it.

22:10 You know, the the the samples looked like they were well, they were our measurement our our analytics and our analytics measured exactly the same measurements, is exactly we wanted. You can't buy a standard for silicon 28, so we're having to invent the process, you know, as we're doing it. And so that confirmed, first of all, our analytics were correct and that the enrichment was going exactly in line with our theoretical calculations. That was that was encouraging as well. Right now, you know, we've signed three three contracts to customers, and, but we had a lot of interest from other customers. The customers we signed right now are more for the quantum computing side. So looking at 99.995% isotopically pure.

22:55 There's a lot of interest as well from lower enriched products, maybe 99.9 or 99.99. More for, you know, normal computing or next generation semiconductors, so so faster semiconductors. Semiographers can transmit heat better than current semiconductors can. So, you know, we'd expect as we go into production to get more interest in those from those customers. I would expect quantum computing to remain very much a niche market with you know, lower levels of enrichment for for advanced semiconductor, be much much larger market. But we're in discussions with all those customers today. Some of them have float but many of many of them have flown out to visit our plants in South Africa, and, you know, we're very excited to be to to service them.

23:42 Okay. That that's really helpful. Thanks for that. And then, Paul, if I could ask about Euterbium. Nice to see there's a lot of demand there. It sounds like particularly you indicated pretty strong demand in non Russian supply. Curious if you're seeing non Russian ytterbium starting to be contracted at a premium price. And then it also sounds like you've got line of sight to production of one kilogram, but potentially demand for two kilograms or more. Is is there, you know, a strategy to get production up to that two kilogram level? Yeah. So, you know, we're actually you know, the the reason to clear spot price or market price for your terbium, it's all done customer to customers. You you can't log on to your Bloomberg screen and see a forward curve or a futures curve for ytterbium or or what the market's paying for it. So, you know, we're in the marketplace that, you know, typically, Russian ytterbium one seventy six trades between 20 and $35,000 a gram.

24:48 You know, our plan is to try and charge $20,000 a gram. So actually priced at a slight discount to to Russia. We would like to be a reliable, low cost supplier of these very valuable isotopes. However, we still pick up an exceptionally high gross margin. So, you know, so so the the the the geography of the customer as well as the price never comes into question with the customer. And then in terms of the second part of your question is to expanding the plant from one kilogram to a larger quantity. So right now we are procuring the equipment for the continuous vessel. You know, we've got one item left left to procure. We're expecting that arrive during the second quarter, and that then we can start increase increasing the processing of throughput for the plant. Right now, we're processing for about sort of three hours a day, three to four times a week. That's not how you produce a commercial large quantity product.

25:40 So the continuous vessel should allow us to process twenty four seven for about three months, and that's where we get to really large, large scale. And expect us to build a second vessel and a second plant straight away. And we're already procuring equipment for the second plant, so we can expand our capacity from one kilogram to two kilograms. And that's that's work in progress right now. Okay. That that's really helpful. Thank you very much. And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Paul for some final closing remarks. Thanks for your interest, in our company. 2026 is a transformational year for the company. It's a lot lot going on, a lot to happen, and we look forward to reporting on these events as many happen over the next several months and becoming a a major supplier of isotope and critical materials to the world, by the end of this year. So thank you all for your interest. If you have any questions, please contact our investor relations department, and they'll be sure to answer them. Thank you very much.

26:46 This concludes today's ASP Isotopes business update call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.