NEW YORK – Exact Sciences reported after the close of the market on Thursday that its third quarter revenues were up 15 percent year over year, as rising revenues from its screening and precision oncology businesses countered a drop in COVID-19 testing.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, the Madison, Wisconsin-based molecular diagnostics company reported revenues of $523.1 million, up from $456.4 million a year earlier, and beating the Wall Street average estimate of $502.9 million.
Screening revenues, which include laboratory services for the Cologuard colorectal cancer screening test and Biomatrica products, rose 29 percent year over year to $360.8 million. Screening revenues were up 25 percent excluding the PreventionGenetics acquisition completed earlier this year.
Precision oncology revenues, which include laboratory services from Oncotype DX products, rose 4 percent from a year ago to $151.4 million. Precision oncology revenues were up 9 percent excluding the impact of foreign currency exchange rates and the divestiture or the Oncotype Dx Genomic Prostate Score test, which Exact sold on Aug. 2.
COVID-19 testing revenues fell 64 percent year over year to $10.9 million.
During a conference call following release of the Q3 results, Jeff Elliott, executive VP, CFO, and chief operating officer of Exact, said that 10,000 new healthcare providers ordered Cologuard during the quarter, while Kevin Conroy, the company's chairman and CEO, noted that the more than 150,000 providers that ordered the test during Q3 marked a new record for the firm.
Conroy also highlighted the launch during the quarter of a new collection kit for Cologuard that extends sample stability by 33 percent, giving patients more time to ship their test kits back to the lab. He added that the company expects this extended shipping window will boost the number of Cologuard tests completed in 2023 by 1 percent.
Elliott noted that Cologuard sales grew 25 percent in the quarter even as the company's expenses for sales and marketing declined by 5 percent. He said the company projected that it will screen more than 30 million individuals using Cologuard by 2027.
Access to physicians has been an issue for Exact's efforts to drive Cologuard sales during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the call, Chief Commercial Officer Everett Cunningham said that access is still not back to pre-COVID levels but that the company "is seeing modest improvements."
Looking beyond Cologuard, Elliott also noted the solid quarter for the company's precision oncology business, saying that growth was particularly strong outside the US where revenue was up 26 percent after adjusting for currency effects.
Exact's Q3 net loss narrowed to $148.8 million, or $.84 per share, from $166.9 million, or $.97 per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts had expected a net loss of $1.08 per share for the quarter.
The company's R&D costs for the quarter rose 20 percent to $90.8 million from $75.4 million in Q3 2021, and its SG&A expenses fell 1 percent to $379.7 million from $383.2 million.
Exact ended the quarter with $235.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $433.8 million in marketable securities.
The company raised its guidance for 2022 and now expects revenues of approximately $2.03 billion to $2.04 billion, including screening revenues of $1.375 billion to $1.382 billion, precision oncology revenues of $595 million to $600 million, and COVID-19 testing revenues of $55 million to $60 million. Analysts are expecting total revenues of $2.01 billion for the year.