This article first appeared on GuruFocus .
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Total Revenue:$411.5 million, up 23% year over year.
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Diagnostics Revenue:$303.5 million, up 20% year over year.
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Oncology Revenue:$172.6 million, up 28% year over year; volume growth of 32%.
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Hereditary Cancer Testing Revenue:$111.3 million.
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Data and Applications Revenue:$108.1 million, up 33% year over year.
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Insights (Data Licensing) Revenue:Up 29% year over year.
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Adjusted EBITDA:$25.6 million.
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Cash and Marketable Securities:$854.4 million at quarter end.
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2026 Revenue Guidance:Raised to $1.60 billion to $1.605 billion.
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2026 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance:Approximately $65 million.
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Strategic Collaborations:BMS oncology data/models licensing up to $137.5 million over five years; Pathos Alzheimer's collaboration paying Tempus $55 million over five years; combined ~$192.5 million in expected additional Data and Applications revenue.
Release Date: November 02, 2026
For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .
Positive Points
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Total revenue grew 23% year over year to $411.5 million, with broad-based growth across Diagnostics and Data & Applications.
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Oncology unit volume accelerated 32%, marking some of the strongest growth in years, and Data & Applications revenue grew 33%.
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Signed major strategic collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Moderna/Merck, expected to generate $192.5 million in additional Data & Applications revenue over five years.
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Achieved positive adjusted EBITDA of $25.6 million and ended the quarter with $854.4 million in cash and marketable securities.
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Raising full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $1.60-$1.605 billion, reflecting strong momentum and visibility.
Negative Points
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Hereditary cancer testing growth has slowed and faces potential reimbursement headwinds from proposed PAMA rates.
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The pending Personalis acquisition will initially be dilutive, as Personalis is currently losing money on MRD tests.
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Full-scale MRD sales ramp is delayed until unit economics turn positive, expected mid-2027, limiting near-term revenue contribution.
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Clinical trial matching (TIME) business is not expected to scale into a large revenue stream, and the CRO business is being de-emphasized.
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Reinvestment of roughly two-thirds of incremental gross profit may limit near-term EBITDA margin expansion despite strong gross profit growth.
Q & A Highlights
Q: Kyle Mikson of Canaccord Genuity asked about the diagnostics outlook for 2027, specifically how Tempus is thinking about potential PAMA/CLFS headwinds in hereditary testing versus ASP tailwinds in oncology. A: CFO Jim Rogers said Tempus does not anticipate material PAMA impacts on hereditary cancer rates, since hereditary ASPs should rise slightly over time as the rare disease business becomes a larger mix. On oncology, the expanded FDA approval covering tumor-only XT testing takes effect January 1, providing roughly $80 million of oncology ASP uplift in 2027, with a larger increase expected once XF completes the FDA process. CEO Eric Lefkofsky added that hereditary unit growth returned to low double digits in September and October as the business laps last year's volume surge.
Q: Sarah James of Cantor Fitzgerald asked whether CGP volume can hold in the low 20s%, whether data and applications can grow closer to 30% than 25%, and whether 2028 could exceed the long-term 25% CAGR given XT and XF pricing uplift. A: Lefkofsky said Tempus prioritizes durable long-term 25% growth over short-term 30% growth that decelerates, noting that at a few billion dollars in revenue, 25% growth means adding $500 million or more of new revenue annually. He cited oncology sequencing unit growth of about 32%, rising ASPs from ADLT reimbursement and potential FDA approval, and data and applications growing about 33%, while hereditary grows more slowly. He said individual years such as 2027 or 2028 could grow faster, but 25%-plus remains the sustainable target.
Q: Mark Massaro of BTIG asked when Tempus plans to unlock the remaining 85% of its sales force to sell the MRD test once Personalis is acquired, and whether that could happen in the first half of 2027. A: Lefkofsky said the timing depends more on reimbursement than on closing the deal, since Personalis currently loses money on each test and Tempus would inherit that dynamic. He noted rising ASPs are bringing Personalis close to breakeven per test, and approvals in categories such as colorectal cancer could push per-test gross profit positive, likely around mid-2027. Tempus is already adding sales capacity and will dial up MRD selling in 2027, with strong growth expected in the latter half of 2027 into 2028.
Q: Bradley Bowers of Mizuho asked about the competitive landscape for MRD and how Tempus expects to gain market share as the assay is fully rolled in. A: Lefkofsky said the assay is best in class and physicians consistently praise its performance, so the real unlock is deploying the full Tempus sales machine once unit economics support it. He argued Tempus's technology stack, deep hospital integration, and interconnected test portfolio feed directly into MRD adoption, and predicted Tempus will be number one or two in MRD just as it is in solid tumor, liquid, and hereditary profiling, despite Natera's current leadership position.
Q: Ryan MacDonald of Needham asked about the data business pipeline, demand trends, therapeutic area mix, and visibility into 2027 growth targets. A: Rogers said biopharma engagement picked up late last year and is playing out in this year's announced deals, with large multiyear strategic collaborations replacing episodic purchases and improving visibility into 2027, 2028, and 2029. Lefkofsky added that the business has shifted from lumpy deals to long-term subscriptions on the Lens platform, with clients connecting data to private GPU clusters to build models. Rogers highlighted the BMS Alzheimer's collaboration as an important expansion beyond oncology.
Q: Evie Koslowski of Goldman Sachs asked how AI modeling changes customer stickiness in the Insights business and what share of data customers use AI modeling. A: Lefkofsky said the data business has evolved from transactional file downloads to clients doing analytics inside Tempus's Lens environment, and now to building models on dedicated GPU clusters, typically under three-year commitments for 32 or 64 GPUs. Models must stay in Tempus's environment or incur an egress fee, which he described as making the relationships "crazy sticky," with no obvious way for customers to leave at scale.
Q: Subbu Nambi of Guggenheim asked what is driving the 25% year-over-year growth in xF order acquisitions, including any academic versus community or EMR integration dynamics. A: Lefkofsky attributed the strength to macro trends, including concurrent solid tumor and liquid testing for metastatic patients, which can uncover 10% to 20% of therapeutically relevant mutations that either test alone would miss, plus earlier and serial testing. He noted Guardant has also posted strong liquid volume, and said Tempus saw a 300 to 400 basis point uptick in liquid in September that, if sustained into Q4, could mark the first real differentiation between liquid and solid growth.
Q: Daniel Brennan of TD Cowen asked whether consensus EBITDA margins of about 7% in 2027 and 11% in 2028 are a reasonable ramp, and how much of the oncology pricing increase Tempus would drop through to the bottom line. A: Rogers said the framework is unchanged: reinvest roughly two-thirds of incremental gross profit dollars and let about a third drop to the bottom line. He said Personalis's burn will absorb some reinvestment dollars initially, but after a couple of years more gross profit should flow through. Lefkofsky added that Tempus will absorb Personalis losses yet still expects EBITDA improvement, and that the company will not maximize short-term EBITDA given the size of the opportunity.
Q: Daniel Arias of Stifel asked where the clinical trials business might land for the year and whether AI-driven trial matching could inflect over the next year or two. A: Lefkofsky said Tempus pivoted its just-in-time trial matching business, called Time, about a year to 18 months ago toward enterprise deals with large pharma data clients, leveraging a network of more than 1,000 oncologists that generates enrollments. He said the business is now a premium product with a wait list but will not scale into a $1 billion business. He added that Tempus has deemphasized pure CRO work, which is in flux due to AI, leaving that space to others.
Q: A retail investor asked how Tempus can classify growth opportunities outside oncology, including cardiology, nephrology, immunology, and neurology.For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .
