NEW YORK, Feb. 14 - Human Genome Sciences on Thursday said that bolstered R&D to develop new drugs together with shriveled revenue brought on by the end of the Human Gene Consortium caused net losses to widen in the fourth quarter.
Revenue for the period ended Dec. 31 plummeted to $642,000 from $5.3 million one year because the exclusivity of the genetic information it once licensed expired along with the Consortium, giving customers the green light to hunt for the data elsewhere.
R&D in the quarter shot up to $40.3 million compared with $26.7 in the year-ago period as the fledgling drug-development firm ramped up its effort to develop a product. This helped to drive up net loss to $55.2 million, or $.43 a share, compared with a net loss of $6 million, or a nickel a share, in the fourth quarter of 2000.
As of Dec. 31, HGS had about $1.7 billion in cash.