NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Canadian blood-based biomarker development company GeneNews today reported a sharp drop in revenues and a 53 percent rise in its net loss for the first quarter of 2008.
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The company reported Q1 revenues of CDN$294,286 ($288,827USD), a drop of 82.4 percent from revenues of CDN$1.7 million in the first quarter of 2007.
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GeneNews’s first quarter revenue came from an ongoing US$2 million collaboration with an Asian biomedical consortium to test prostate disease biomarkers. Its 2007 Q1 revenue came from a collaboration with Pfizer.
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The company posted a net loss of CDN$2.6 million, or CDN$0.05 per share, versus a loss of CDN$1.7 million, or CDN$.03 per share, in last year’s first quarter.
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Its total operating expenditures decreased over the same period last year — from CDN$3.5 million in Q1 of 2007 to CDN$2.9 million in Q1 of 2008. Its R&D spending fell to CDN$2.2 million from CDN$2.7 million in Q1 of 2007, while its general and administrative costs were also down slightly at CDN$512,560 compared to CDN$593,819 last year.
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The company finished the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of CDN$9.1 million. Based on this figure, GeneNews believes it has sufficient resources to continue into Q2 of 2009.
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GeneNews President and CEO K. Wayne Marshall said the company is on track to commercialize a laboratory-based risk stratification test for colorectal cancer by the third quarter of 2008, which will be offered by the GeneNews clinical reference lab north of Toronto, Canada.