NEW YORK – Biocept reported after the close of the market on Wednesday that its third quarter revenues nearly doubled year over year on strong growth in the number of commercial samples received.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, the San Diego-based company posted $1.5 million in revenues compared to $761,591 in Q3 2018.The number of commercial samples received in the recently completed quarter grew 66 percent year over year, it said.
Biocept President and CEO Michael Nall said in a statement that the revenue growth was driven by the firm's "focus on segments of the liquid biopsy market where our Target Selector technologies and testing platform can help the most patients, namely patients with lung, prostate, and breast cancers."
Lung cancer testing was a major driver in the commercial volume growth, and the company continues to gain traction in the uro-oncology space "where our blood-based testing is used by urologists to monitor patients with rising prostate-specific antigen … levels as well as in the post-surgery setting to identify patients at risk for cancer recurrence," Nall added.
Further, Target Selector testing for breast cancer contributed to commercial volume growth in Q3 2019 as clinicians are using Biocept's blood-based assays for the initial profiling of patients' biomarkers and to reprofile patients with cancer recurrence in order to select the most appropriate treatment, he said.
Last month, Biocept published full analytical validation data for the Target Selector approach and described a wild-type suppression method the firm calls "switch blocker."
During Q3 2019, Biocept reduced its net loss to $5.7 million, or $.25 per share, from a net loss in Q3 2018 of $6.7 million, or $2.42 per share. Biocept used approximately 23 million shares to calculate per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 2.8 million shares a year ago.
Its R&D costs grew about 9 percent to $1.2 million from $1.1 million a year ago, while its SG&A spending was relatively flat year over year at $3.2 million.
Biocept exited Q3 2019 with $6.5 million in cash and cash equivalents.
Subsequent to the end of the quarter, the company filed a preliminary prospect to offer $13.8 million in securities. At the end of Q3 2019, it said that received a warning letter from Nasdaq that it was not in compliance with a listing requirement calling for a minimum bid price of $1 per share.