Niagen Bioscience Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Niagen Bioscience (NASDAQ:NAGE) reported third-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Niagen Bioscience Inc. reported a 10% year-over-year revenue decrease to $27.2 million in Q3 2026, with Tru Niagen contributing $23.3 million.

The company maintained a strong balance sheet with $69.5 million in cash, no debt, and $83.3 million in working capital.

Strategic initiatives include the expansion of the Tru Niagen product line, new ingredient partnerships, and the development of NB4168 for pharmaceutical applications.

Recent legal developments include a favorable court ruling in patent litigation, and ongoing litigation expenses impacted the G&A costs.

Looking forward, Niagen Bioscience aims for significant growth in 2027, focusing on product innovation, expanded distribution, and leveraging scientific research for competitive advantage.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Participants are in listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and after today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Earlier today, Niagen Bioscience issued a press release announcing its financial results for the third quarter of 2026. If you have not reviewed this information, it is available within the Investor Relations section of Niagen Bioscience’s website at www.niagenbioscience.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Kendall Knish, Senior Director, Publicity and Public Relations.

Kendall Knish (Senior Director, Publicity and Public Relations)

Good afternoon, and welcome to Niagen Bioscience Inc.’s third quarter 2026 conference call. Joining me today are our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried; Chief Financial Officer, Ozan Pamir; and Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Andrew Shao. Dr. Shao will join for the Q&A. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that today’s call may include forward-looking statements. These statements relate to, among other things, our relationships with major customers, general economic conditions, the market and size of the vitamin, mineral, and dietary supplement market and the intravenous market, our research and development activities, expansion into new markets, business development opportunities, and our expected financial and operating performance.

These statements are based on our current expectations as of today and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of these risks, please refer to our most recent Form 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to update these statements except as required by law. In addition, we may reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in today’s earnings release and presentation, both available in the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, it is now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Rob Fried.

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Rob. It is a pleasure to once again address our investors, partners, and team members today. As Rob discussed, we made progress across the Niagen and NAD platform during the third quarter. Despite the increased competition, our business remains resilient. We generated positive adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow, increased our cash balance to $69.5 million, and maintained a debt‑free balance sheet. Based on the current trajectory across our channels, we expect fourth quarter revenue to improve sequentially from the third quarter.

We continue to view 2026 as an investment year and a springboard for growth in 2027 and beyond. We are directing resources towards strengthening our core business, expanding brand awareness and distribution, scaling Niagen Plus and skincare, and advancing the development of NB4168 while maintaining financial discipline. In the third quarter of 2026, net sales were $27.2 million with Tru Niagen contributing $23.3 million, a decrease of 10% or $2.7 million year over year. Within that channel, sales through our direct‑to‑consumer website grew 13% year over year, or approximately 17% after adjusting for the timing of Prime Day‑related promotions, which occurred in the third quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026. Our distribution revenue reflected the timing of orders from Watsons and the absence of a sizable order from a large healthcare practitioner distribution partner that was received in the prior year quarter.

Watsons remains an important part of our distribution strategy and, based on current order visibility, we expect its contribution to return to prior‑year levels going forward. Our Niagen ingredient business generated $3.8 million in revenue, including $3.4 million of food‑grade Niagen and $425,000 in pharmaceutical‑grade Niagen. Ingredient revenue reflected timing and size of orders from several key partners during the quarter. We added new ingredient partners and expect to add more in the near term. Gross margin was 62.9% in the second quarter compared with 64.5% a year ago. The 160 basis point difference reflects changes in the product and business mix.

Selling and marketing expense was $8.7 million compared with $8.8 million in the prior‑year quarter. While there was a slight decline in absolute dollars, as a percentage of net sales selling and marketing expense was 32% during the quarter compared with 25.8% the year before. We continue to make investments behind our new product launches, in our China cross‑border business, and in growing brand awareness. Research and development expense was consistent with the prior‑year quarter at $1.8 million.

R&D spending can fluctuate with the timing of studies. Going forward, our investments will continue to support targeted research for Tru Niagen and Niagen Plus, as well as the continued pre‑clinical and IND‑enabling development of NB4168. General and administrative expense was $8.2 million, an increase of approximately $1.1 million from the prior‑year quarter, primarily due to higher legal expenses associated with ongoing litigation activity. And finally, net loss was negative $1.2 million, or $0.01 per diluted share, compared to net income of $0.06 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2025. Importantly, adjusted EBITDA remained positive at half a million dollars, and we generated approximately $2.6 million in operating cash flow during the quarter. We ended the quarter with $69.5 million in cash, no debt, and $83.3 million in working capital. We also have $14.6 million of authorization remaining under our $20 million share repurchase program.

Our strong liquidity and debt‑free balance sheet provide meaningful financial flexibility as we continue to invest across the Niagen platform. One of the opportunities afforded by that financial flexibility is NB4168. As we discussed last quarter, NB4168 is a differentiated pharmaceutical asset with the potential for a high therapeutic index. Its composition‑of‑matter intellectual property further supports its strategic value as a pharmaceutical asset. Successful rare disease development can also create value beyond product revenue for qualifying approvals. The FDA’s Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher program may provide a transferable voucher.

Recent agreements to sell two of these vouchers valued them at $203 million and $210 million each. In addition, following FDA’s approval of Acmerza for AT, Shionogi agreed to acquire Intrabio for $2 billion in upfront consideration. Although each program is distinct, this transaction illustrates the strategic value that can be created by an approved therapy addressing a serious rare disease with significant unmet need. These precedents, in addition to the regulatory tailwinds that we are seeing in the rare disease space, reinforce the potential commercial value of NB4168.

We intend to advance the program with financial discipline, invest against defined development milestones, and evaluate partnership and other strategic opportunities as the asset progresses. Our established consumer and food‑grade Niagen ingredient businesses provide the financial foundation for the expansion of pharmaceutical‑grade Niagen through Niagen Plus, the continued development of our skincare portfolio, and the advancement of NB4168. As we close out the year, our spending priorities remain focused on the opportunities we believe can generate the strongest long‑term returns. We expect increased selling and marketing expenses to support our broader brand initiative, expanded retail distribution, new products, and developing commercial channels.

R&D investments are expected to increase to support research across Tru Niagen, Niagen Plus, skincare, and the continued preclinical and IND‑enabling development of NB4168. G&A spending is also expected to increase as we support the legal, operational, and organizational structure required to advance these initiatives and expand the business. Our business continues to generate cash, our balance sheet remains strong, and we are seeing progress across the commercial and development initiatives that will support the next stage of the Niagen platform.

We believe the investments made during 2026 position Niagen Bioscience for continued long‑term value creation for our customers, partners, and shareholders. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up only. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one. Again, we ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Your first question is from the line of Jeffrey Cohen with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Cohen (Analyst)

Hello, Rob and Ozan. So, firstly, I want to ask you about the club channel. Congrats on the Sam’s deal. Could you talk about the number of SKUs that you’ll be offering there? And then perhaps hypothesize about some of the other club channels available and what your thought process is there as far as Costco and BJ’s? Okay, perfect. And as a follow up, Rob, could you talk about this Mass General study a little bit and give us a sense of what types of categories will be studied and give us a sense of total patients, I imagine in the thousands, and give us a sense of duration.

Rob Fried (Chief Executive Officer)

Sure. We’re very excited about this study, which we’re doing with Professor Howard Sesso at Harvard, who previously did the very famous COSMOS study, which was done several years ago in conjunction with Haleon and Mars. They studied Centrum at that point, and it was to great benefit to the Centrum product. We understand that it is difficult to prove prevention, particularly in age‑related diseases, but all age‑related conditions. We’ve already published studies that showed that when you apply these epigenetic clocks that measure biological age versus chronological age, we see a positive benefit on most of those clocks in the people who take Niagen for a period of time. But how do you prove that it prevents a neurological disorder or some other condition? It takes a long time, and many participants. Most of the very, very well‑known and well‑established ingredients in the dietary supplement business, vitamin D, omega‑3, vitamin C, CoQ10, have gone through comparable longitudinal‑type studies.

It is a milestone in major ingredients to reach the next step that they undergo a study such as this. So we’re very excited and pleased that Howard reached out to us to want to do this long‑term study. We’ve committed to it with Harvard, and we are in discussions with numerous other large entities that might want to participate with us. If we do that, we would add perhaps a second ingredient and extend the term and the number of participants. Presently we’re thinking about 5,000 participants.

My expectation is that as it continues to evolve, it’ll be larger than that. And presently we’re thinking about a three‑year term. But I also expect that that may extend further beyond that as well. Andrew, do you have anything you want to add?

Andrew Shao, Ph.D. (Senior Vice President, Global Scientific & Regulatory Affairs)

Sure. Rob, thank you. Just on the outcome measures that we’re considering, it’s a combination of biomarkers. Rob referenced healthy aging biomarkers like biological clocks. We’ll also be looking at measures of intrinsic capacity or resilience using composite measures. We’ll also be looking at frailty, or the risk for entering frailty, using various indices, as well as actually looking at the incidence of or onset of various diseases related to cognitive function, cardiovascular health, diabetes, and so forth.

Jeffrey Cohen (Analyst)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question is from the line of Sean McGowan with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Sean McGowan (Analyst)

Thank you. Hi, Bob. Couple of questions about some of the costs. The SG&A, the G&A line, is there anything in that in this quarter that you would say is, you know, unusual and won’t be repeated, or should we expect the G&A to kind of stay elevated at around this level?

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

There was some litigation expenses, you know, related to some of the lawsuits that we’re in. But, you know, we expect once those are resolved, it will come back up to the normal levels. And it was a relatively heavier quarter because we’re in that certain period of that litigation that requires additional investment. We don’t, you know, we expect going forward it will come down a little bit.

Sean McGowan (Analyst)

Okay. From these levels. And I guess the flip side of that is, did you defer any marketing costs that, you know, might have shown up in the third quarter but are going to be in the fourth quarter or, you know, what should we expect there?

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. For our brand campaign that we launched, that launched in October. So any kind of creative work that we did during Q2 are going to be recognized in Q3 and Q4.

Sean McGowan (Analyst)

All right, thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question is from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Be sure to unmute yourself on your device locally.

Susan Anderson (Analyst)

Oh, sorry, guys. I was on mute. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess I wanted to follow up on the new lower cost NR salt form. I guess I’m curious, is that going to just be for the ingredients business, or is this form also going to be used for the supplements business?

Rob Fried (Chief Executive Officer)

Hi, Susan. Thank you for the question. Yeah, I mean, as you know and many know, we have all forms of nicotinamide riboside patented at this point and many other molecules that are not nicotinamide riboside per se. We had previously licensed these salt forms and now we’ve acquired the patents outright. NR chloride, which is the salt form that we’ve used for these years, will continue to be important to us. It’s very well researched and regulated, approved through regulatory bodies around the world, and works extremely well.

This new salt form, which is malate, also works very well. In all the studies that we’ve done, the salt simply dissolves away once it’s exposed to liquid. And we do expect to make it available to some of our ingredient partners in the long term. We also expect to integrate malate into our Tru Niagen portfolio of products—not so much in the short term, but certainly eventually in certain territories where there’s regulatory approvals. It is very effective and it is more cost efficient. So we expect it will reduce our cost of goods in some way in 2027 and in a significant way after that.

Susan Anderson (Analyst)

Okay, great. And then just one follow-up question on the skin care product. I guess on the ingredient side, it sounds like the partnership with one of the big beauty players is going to come out early in 2027, I guess. Do you expect any more agreements next year? And then I think you said that you did or you’re going to roll out NanoClouds to Amazon. Curious if it’s already been done, if there’s any early reads there. And then I’m just curious your thoughts on sales from the skincare business.

Do you think it’ll end up being bigger on the ingredient side or do you think your own skincare products will end up being bigger in sales? Thanks.

Rob Fried (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah. The research that we’ve done thus far on skin care is extremely exciting. The reason why nicotinamide riboside works so well is because when a cell is under physiological stress, it opens up a pathway specifically looking for nicotinamide riboside. And that pathway is called the NR kinase pathway. In certain cell types, there is a high concentration of these NR kinase enzymes. Skin cells are one of those. It’s also true, by the way, in muscle, heart, brain, kidney, but skin cells in particular.

One large cosmetics company actually did their own independent study—that was Estée Lauder; a division of Estée Lauder did a study—and compared it head to head with another ingredient, niacinamide, and showed that it compared in that study extremely favorably. And you know, niacinamide is a very, very popular ingredient in the cosmetic space. So we have very high hopes for nicotinamide riboside, or Niagen, in the ingredients business. But we did release our own product, NanoClouds, and we also have conducted several of our own studies which have been extremely positive, and we’re very, very enthusiastic. We have shown that Niagen, applied directly to the skin in combination with some liquid form, does penetrate the skin, does penetrate the skin cell, and does elevate NAD levels. Indeed, it even gets straight through to the blood and has systemic benefits beyond just the skin. So we realize we have something very, very exciting here.

The early sales of NanoClouds have been very, very strong. We’re excited about that. And more importantly, the people we’ve surveyed—the people who have purchased it and taken it—they are already telling us that they see dramatic benefits. We haven’t yet launched it on Amazon. We sent the large shipment to Amazon, but it takes them about two weeks for them to get it through their distribution system. So I think it will be available on Amazon probably within the next few days. In the long run, I’m hopeful that our own brands will be bigger than the ingredient business, somewhat like the dietary supplement segment of our business. But we are getting quite a bit of interest from numerous companies already, so it’s hard to say at this point.

OPERATOR

The next question is from the line of Ram Selvarju of HC Wainwright. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Ram Selvarju (Analyst)

Thanks very much for taking my questions. With respect to the Niagen+ at-home injection kit, can you just give us a general description of the characteristics of the injection device and how this compares to potential competing products in that segment, particularly with regard to overall level of convenience, and maybe frame this with respect to how you envision the product ultimately being positioned just from an overall aesthetic and patient convenience standpoint?

And then the second is, with respect to 4168, are you thinking about, at this juncture, pursuing appropriate kind of independent financing arrangements in order to support clinical development? And do you think that there’s a possibility that we might see meaningful progress on this front over the course of 2027? You know, for example, with respect to the completion of IND-enabling studies. Thank you.

Rob Fried (Chief Executive Officer)

Let me start with the second one first. Yes, we do expect to complete IND-enabling studies in 2027, hopefully even the first half of 2027. We’ve done some very early preclinical work. As you know, 4168 is distinct from nicotinamide riboside chloride. We think clearly biosuperior, much greater bioavailability, and the early signals are excellent, which have been consistent with previous studies that we have done. So we are very enthusiastic about it and we do expect to make dramatic progress in 2027.

It is very possible that there will be some sort of a joint venture or a separate financing arrangement on the NAD Pharmaceuticals in 2027. We just want to maximize shareholder value there. We know we have a tiger by the tail. The two published phase 2 clinical studies on Niagen for ataxia-telangiectasia showed, quote, remarkable results. And we know that 4168 is biosuperior. So we think from a science standpoint it is relatively… And because it’s a separate molecule and a different molecule, we think that the economic upside is extremely appealing.

And over the last few months seems to have gotten even more appealing. The rare disease market, as you’ve seen, the value of these vouchers has gone up. There was one that sold for $210 million recently, and the price for these drugs has seemed to have elevated in the last couple years. And you’re also seeing Congress put forth initiatives to expedite the process of getting rare diseases approved, which should reduce cost and reduce time. So we know we have a great opportunity there and we will make great progress in 2027.

Whether or not we actually make a finance deal, if it’s a great one, we’ll do it. Ozan, do you want to add anything to that?

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

And just to add to that, you know, we will be, as Rob said, we’ll finish the IND-enabling studies in ’27 and early ’27 and do a first-in-human study. But this is all studies that we can very easily afford, and we think that we can create more value for our shareholders in this early stage, and we’ll evaluate transactions as they come along. With regard to the first question, which was about Niagen+, you know, the product that we’ve been offering on our own telehealth website, niagenplus.com, is a powder-based vial that needs to be constituted by the end user and then refrigerated. We recently announced a liquid-based vial which significantly facilitates the process. It’s a syringe comparable to what you’re seeing in the peptide community at this point in time. It’s not yet developed as a pen, which you see frequently in the GLP-1 space.

We are working on a pen, but that may take maybe a year, maybe slightly less than a year. But at this point the experience is fairly simple at this point in time. And we’ve now, as you know, put out two good clinical studies on the efficacy and safety of Niagen as an injection. Thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question is from the line of Bill Deselem of Titan Capital Management. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Bill Deselem (Analyst)

Thank you. First of all, would you please discuss the new ingredients partners that you added in the third quarter and then expand upon your comment in the press release about additional partners anticipated in Q4? And then, separately, I’d like some more detail on an update on the China cross-border, please.

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

I’m happy to take those, Bill. Thanks for the question. So the customers that we added during the quarter are—it’s a range. There’s CMO customers we added and there are other—it’s mostly international customers we’ve added to our portfolio. They are starting out small, but we do have decent expectations for them. Can you repeat the second question? Second part question.

Bill Deselem (Analyst)

Trying to cross-border sales with China?

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, they continue to show strength. It is an area of focus and growth for our company. We haven’t broken out those sales in the past, but they are going according to our expectations.

Bill Deselem (Analyst)

Would you talk a little bit more about the momentum that you are gaining there?

Ozan Pamir, CFA (Chief Financial Officer)

The way maybe I can describe it is that we expect it to be more than two to three times compared to last year.

Bill Deselem (Analyst)

And ultimately, long term, are you continuing to believe and feel that this has meaningful or material potential for the business, or is it now dwarfed with some of the opportunities that you see in skin care, etc., not even to mention the biopharma product?

Rob Fried (Chief Executive Officer)

Not just China, but Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are also tremendous opportunities for us right now. We know that the market is very knowledgeable in China and there’s great interest solely based on our success in Hong Kong, but really where that home run gets hit is when we finally get Blue Hat approval. And in order to get Blue Hat approval in China so you can sell in-country, a couple of things have to happen. Procedurally, scientifically, we have to slightly change our manufacturing process and we probably have to do a separate toxicity study.

So it could be a year away for that. But when that happens, we think that the market for Tru Niagen in mainland China is extremely big. It’s probably bigger than the U.S. market for Tru Niagen. There’s demand and there’s interest, and in the meantime we just are continuing to grow this cross-border business. There are partners—we have a deal with HH, which sells through their Swiss brand also cross-border into China and does quite well. And there are others that have expressed interest in doing ingredient deals with us so that they could sell cross-border into China.

But all four of those countries represent significant upside opportunity.

OPERATOR

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Wesley Yu for closing remarks.

Wesley Yu (VP, Finance)

Thank you, Connor. There will be a replay of this call beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. The replay number is 1-833-461-5787 and the replay ID is 1-98389474. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to updating you again next quarter.

OPERATOR

This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.