NEW YORK – Biocept said after the close of the market on Wednesday that its fourth quarter revenues more than doubled year over year, driven by 46 percent growth in commercial test volume and 34 percent growth in average insurance reimbursement per patient.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2019, the San Diego-based liquid biopsy test provider tallied $1.8 million in total revenues compared to $859,526 in the year-ago period.
Fourth quarter revenues included $1.6 million in commercial test revenue, $87,000 in development services test revenue, and $108,000 in revenue for Target Selector RUO kits (launched in 2019) and CEE-Sure blood collection tubes.
The company accessioned 1,159 commercial samples during the quarter, a 46 percent year-over-year increase. In addition, Biocept accessioned 1,278 billable samples during the quarter, a 36 percent year-over-year increase.
"While growing revenues, we also benefitted from operating efficiencies, including automation initiatives in our CLIA-certified laboratory," Biocept President and CEO Michael Nall said in a statement. "These efficiencies, combined with higher sample volume, moved us significantly closer to positive gross margin. We have more actions to complete the automation of our lab and we are pleased with the contribution from these efforts so far."
Biocept's Q4 R&D spending dropped 8 percent to $1.2 million from $1.3 million, while its SG&A expenses grew 13 percent to $3.4 million from $3.0 million.
Biocept shaved its Q4 net loss to $5.7 million, or $.20 per share, from $6.0 million, or $1.43 per share, a year ago. The company used approximately 29.1 million weighted shares outstanding to calculate per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 4.2 million shares in Q4 2018. Biocept raised $25.7 million in net proceeds from equity offerings in Q1 and Q4 2019, and $4.9 million from the exercise of common stock warrants in 2019.
For the year ended Dec. 31, 2019, Biocept's revenues grew 67 percent to $5.5 million from $3.3 million in 2018. Full-year revenues included $5.1 million in commercial test revenues, $212,000 in development services test revenues, and $200,000 in revenues for Target Selector RUO kits and CEE-Sure blood collection tubes.
The company accessioned 4,425 commercial samples in 2019, up 35 percent over the prior year, and 4,976 billable samples in 2019, up 28 percent from the prior year.
"A key growth driver throughout 2019 was our decision to focus on prostate cancer, including committing more commercial resources to urologists and urology practices and introducing additional prognostic and predictive biomarker tests," Nall said in a statement. "As the year progressed, we were encouraged that more urologists were using more biomarkers per test for more of their patients."
Also of note for 2019, Biocept launched "the first-and-only liquid biopsy test to evaluate cerebrospinal fluid as well as NGS test panels for lung and breast cancer," Nall added. "We also added a new revenue stream from sales of our Target Selector research-use only kits, further expanded our intellectual property portfolio with new US and foreign patents, and presented compelling data further validating our technology at multiple scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed journals," he said. "So far this year, we have raised net proceeds of $17.5 million from two equity offerings and warrant exercises, positioning us for continued execution on our growth strategy."
The firm's yearly R&D expenses edged up 4 percent to $4.7 million from $4.5 million, while its SG&A expenses dropped slightly to $12.9 million from $13.0 million.
Biocept's net loss in 2019 was $25.3 million, or $1.22 per share, compared to $25.2 million, or $9.01 per share, in 2018. The firm's 2019 per-share loss was calculated using approximately 20.7 million weighted shares outstanding, while its 2018 per-share loss was calculated using about 2.8 million shares.
Biocept finished the year with $9.3 million in cash.