NEW YORK, Jan 30 – Illumina said Tuesday its revenue crossed the $1 million mark in 2000, but expenses rocketed as the company stepped up R&D spending.
For the year, publicly traded Illumina, a maker of microarray technologies, posted revenues of $1.3 million, compared with $474,000 in 1999.
In the last three months of the year, revenues more than doubled to $485,000, compared with $202,000 in the year ago quarter.
Expenses increased nearly four-fold to $24.5 million in 2000, compared with $6.4 million in 1999, due in large part to higher R&D costs, which increased to $13.6 million from $4.1 million. For the quarter total expenses climbed to $7.2 million, compared with $2.4 million in the year ago period.
Based in San Diego, Illumina said it plans to continue increasing its R&D spending.
" Looking forward to 2001, we expect to increase our research and development expenses by as much as 75 percent as we continue to develop our array of Arrays product, build up our SNP scoring capabilities, and accelerate development of several other potential product opportunities," CEO Jay Flatley said in a statement.
Flatley also noted that throughout the fourth quarter the company made technical advances to its BeadArray technology, including increased multiplexing.
Net losses for the year totaled $18.6 million, or $1.37 a share, compared with $5.5 million, or 3.91 a share in 1999. For fourth-quarter 2000, net losses amounted to $4.6 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with $2.1 million, or $1.10 a share, in the corresponding period a year ago.
As a result of its initial public offering, Illumina had $118.7 million in cash and investments at the end of 2000, up from $33.5 million at the end of 1999.