NEW YORK, Nov 14 – DeCode Genetics’ third quarter revenues surged 57.1 percent, pushed higher by revenues stemming from its collaboration with Roche, the population-genomics company reported Tuesday.
Revenue for the quarter totaled $5.6 million, compared with $3.5 million for the year ago period.
" This quarter was marked by significant research achievements in our collaboration with Roche resulting in increased milestone revenues,” Kari Stefansson, DeCode’s CEO said in a statement. “I am also confident that new partnerships will become key drivers for our business in the months ahead.”
Under the terms of the collaboration, which dates back to 1998, Roche expects to apply DeCode’s gene-disease association discoveries to the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics.
DeCode spent $11.7 million on research and development in the quarter, up from $9.2 million a year ago. The company said that the increase reflects expanded research in several target discovery areas. Total operating expenses reached $16.1 million, up from $11.5 million in the comparable quarter last year.
The company has $210.4 million in its coffers following a July initial public offering in which it raised $198.7 million.
DeCode is currently in the process of ramping up its genotyping efforts to 12 million genotypes a month, following the recent purchase of 50 ABI Prism 3700 sequencers from Applied Biosystems.
Although its revenue thus far has come solely from drug target discovery collaborations, Stefansson said recently that the company also has plans to market its informatics systems.
Net losses for the quarter narrowed slightly to $7.6 million from $7.9 million last year. On a per share basis, however, the losses narrowed more sharply to 23 cents in the quarter from $3.85, mostly as the result of a large increase in shares outstanding following the IPO.