Twist Bioscience: AI-Drug Discovery Flips the Growth Switch
Fourteenth straight quarter of record revenue, triple-digit order growth outlook, and a 200% two-month stock run.
TWST · Earnings Call · 2026-08-03
AI at the core
Twist Bioscience is no longer just a DNA synthesis company; it has pivoted into an AI-enabled drug discovery platform. On its fiscal Q3 2026 call, CEO Emily Leproust declared: “we are seeing that opportunity mature into a durable growth engine” — Emily Leproust, CEO · 2026-08-03 — a stark contrast to just a few quarters ago when AI drug discovery was an emerging experiment. The company now guides to triple-digit percentage order growth for fiscal 2026 and expects the same again in fiscal 2027, citing a funnel that keeps expanding. Emily explained: “very, very strong confidence that triple-digit percentage growth that we see in AI-enabled drug discovery that we know we're going to be able to deliver in 2026” — Emily Leproust, CEO · 2026-08-03. This is not just optimism; CFO Adam Laponis added that order patterns have fundamentally changed: “we've seen a change in the order pattern, where we are seeing just big chunky orders” — Adam Laponis, CFO · 2026-08-03.
We do not optimize for a single quarter. Instead, what we're doing is we are focusing on building a stronger company every quarter.
Operational moat and execution
The company's competitive moat now extends beyond the silicon chip into a self-reinforcing infrastructure of automation, software, and customer experience. A tangible proof point is the formal launch of Complex genes — sequences previously impossible to synthesize at scale. During early access, customers ordered more than 1,800 such constructs, and the majority were delivered in 12 days. This capability expands wallet share and differentiates Twist from competitors. Paddy Finn highlighted the leverage: "That matters because it's one thing to produce a complex sequence once in an R&D environment. It's something entirely different to manufacture thousands of highly complex constructs repeatedly at commercial scale."
The numbers confirm the inflection
Revenue hit a record $118.4 million, up 23% year-over-year, the 14th consecutive quarter of sequential and year-over-year growth. The company raised full-year guidance by $12 million at the midpoint. Total Revenue is on an unmistakable upward path. Gross margin expanded to 52.8%, and management reiterated its commitment to adjusted EBITDA breakeven in Q4. The market has responded emphatically: the stock is up more than 200% in the last 90 days. This momentum is supported by a strategy that has clearly shifted from a toolmaker to an end-to-end partner in drug discovery. As Emily noted, "We've moved to the next level of providing a solution." The groundwork laid over years is now paying off, and the company's trajectory — from AI drug discovery to Molecular residual disease — positions it for continued expansion. The question is no longer whether the pivot works, but how far it can scale.