NEW YORK, May 2 – Buoyed by strong sales of its genetic mutation testing kits, Transgenomic’s first quarter 2001 life science revenues rose 66 percent to $7.9 million, compared with $4.7 million in life sciences revenues for the previous-year quarter, the company said Wednesday.
The company computed this revenue increase based on life science product sales alone to reflect the fact that it sold its non-life sciences businesses at the end of the first quarter of 2000. Including all products, the company’s revenues rose 14 percent, from $6.9 million in the first quarter of 2000.
The Omaha, Neb-based company’s expenses for the quarter also rose to $6.3 million from $4.7 million for life sciences in the year-ago period, or $6.1 million in total first quarter 2000 expenses.
R&D expenses rose to $2.1 million from $1.5 million for life sciences and $1.9 in total R&D in the year-ago quarter. Sales, general, and administrative expenses also increased to $4.2 million for the quarter, compared to $3.1 million for life sciences and $3.5 million total in the first quarter of 2000.
“Transgenomic's first quarter results are continued evidence of the validation of our technology as an essential tool for the genomics community," Transgenomic CEO Collin D'Silva said in a statement. "During the quarter, over 35 percent of the units sold specifically for variation detection applications went to existing customers. In addition, sales remain strong into commercial accounts.”
During the quarter, the company installed its 500 th WAVE nucleic acid fragment analysis system for DNA detection, and launched two new platform models for this system.
The company also announced earlier Wednesday that it had signed an agreement to acquire Annovis, a privately held San Diego company, for 1.9 million shares of Transgenomic common stock and $500,000 in cash. Annovis is a producer of producer of nucleic acid building blocks, fluorescent dyes and reagents, as well as oligomimetics, enhanced DNA and RNA molecules that are more stable and bioavailable than ordinary DNA and RNA molecules.
“Synergies between our companies provide us with another growth driver that should enhance our profitability in the near future and aid in our continuing push toward entering new markets by leveraging our global distribution infrastructure," said D'Silva.
Transgenomic said it expected this acquisition to add $6 million in revenue in the remaining quarters of 2001 and more than $12 million of revenue in 2002.
For the quarter, the company posted $1.1 million in losses, or 5 cents per share. This figure narrowed over the $2.8 million in life science losses, and $3.5 million in total net losses for the first quarter of 2000, and beat by a penny Wall Street’s expectations of 6 cents per share, based on a survey of two brokers conducted by FirstCall/Thomson Financial.