NEW YORK – Biocept reported after the close of the market on Monday that its third quarter revenues were up more than 150 percent year over year, reflecting the San Diego-based liquid biopsy company's ongoing provision of COVID-19 testing.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, the firm posted $17.5 million in revenues compared to $6.6 million in Q3 2020.
The firm's overall revenues included $16.5 million from the provision of RT-PCR COVID-19 testing, and $826,000 in commercial oncology testing, an increase of about 16 percent compared to $713,000 in oncology test revenue it recorded during the prior year's quarter.
In a statement, Biocept CEO Michael Nall said that test volume for its recently launched assay for cerebrospinal fluid testing, CNSide, was up sequentially. However, the company's overall oncology testing revenue dropped from Q2 to Q3.
After launching CNSide earlier this year, Biocept submitted an initial application for breakthrough device designation to the US Food and Drug Administration. In documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week, the company noted that this initial submission had been denied. However, the firm intends to try again and is now gathering additional data based on feedback provided by the FDA.
Biocept also brought in $34,000 in development services test revenue — a 28 percent drop from the $47,000 seen in Q3 2020 — and $71,000 from sales of products including its Target Selector RUO kits and CEE-Sure blood collection tubes, less than half of the $154,000 it earned in the same period last year.
The firm said it accessioned 154,324 total samples during the third quarter of 2021 compared to 52,542 total samples during the third quarter of 2020. Of these, 152,796 were billable samples compared to 48,109 billable samples in the same period last year.
"As an update on our RT-PCR COVID-19 testing services, we have now received more than 660,000 samples for testing since June 2020," Nall added. "Revenue from COVID-19 testing drove profitability for both the quarter and year-to-date, which in turn supports continued investment in our long-term oncology business," he said.
Biocept's Q3 net income attributable to common shareholders was $427,047, or $.03 per share, compared to a net loss of $4.9 million, or $.37 per share, in the same quarter last year. Biocept used approximately 15.6 million weighted-average shares outstanding to calculate its per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 13.3 million weighted-average shares outstanding in the same period of 2020.
R&D costs for the firm rose 18 percent to $1.3 million from $1.1 million a year ago, primarily due to increases in headcount expenses and material costs associated with investment in CNSide. Its SG&A spending was $5.3 million, up 20 percent from $4.4 million in Q3 2020.
Biocept exited Q3 2021 with $27.7 million in cash and cash equivalents.