NEW YORK, Oct 24 – Affymetrix said Tuesday that it broke even in the third quarter, beating Wall Street’s expectations by 12 cents a share.
The company reported net earnings of $295,000, or zero cents a share on a diluted basis, compared with a net loss of $5.8 million, or 11 cents a share, for the same quarter a year ago.
Wall Street had expected the company to post a net loss of 12 cents a share, based on a survey of 10 brokers conducted by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Revenues for the quarter increased 89 percent to $55.8 million, up from $29.5 million a year ago.
" The third quarter was a tremendous period of growth and progress for Affymetrix," Susan Siegel, president of Affymetrix, said in a statement.
Total costs and expenses increased 60 percent to $57.7 million in the quarter, due in part to an increase in commercial activities and legal costs stemming from patent litigation.
During the third quarter, Affymetrix entered into several GeneChip array supply agreements with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic customers. At the end of the quarter, Affymetrix had sold over 350 GeneChip systems and over 550 Affymetrix spotted arrayers and scanners.
The company penned agreements with Johnson & Johnson and Schering in the quarter. The company also signed agreements with DeCode genetics and Exelixis.
Affymetrix also entered into a partnership with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to develop a custom GeneChip expression array based on Pseudomonas aeruginosa , a common cause of respiratory infections in cystic fibrosis patients.
The company also granted a commercial use license to Takara Shuzo of Japan that allows Takara to manufacture, use, and sell low and medium density pre-spotted DNA arrays. At the end of the quarter, Affymetrix had over 20 licensees.
During the quarter Affymetrix agreed to acquire Neomorphic and founded a new genomics subsidiary called Perlegen Sciences.