NEW YORK – Lucira Health reported on Thursday after the market closed that its first quarter revenues grew to $90.5 million in revenues from $4.5 million in the year-ago period.
Q1 2022 revenues were the equivalent of 97 percent of its full-year 2021 net revenues, Lucira said, adding the year-over-year increase was driven by demand for COVID-19 testing.
"Our healthy financial results reflect our ability to leverage our infrastructure and scale quickly, which we believe is impressive given our five-quarter commercial history," Lucira CEO Erik Engelson said in a statement. "Our strong financial performance for the quarter was driven by demand for our accurate, untethered molecular test that provides results similar to that of PCR lab tests. Ultimately, while our long-term success is not COVID-19 dependent, we believe the first quarter results demonstrate our ability to achieve strong financial performance at modest testing volumes."
The company posted a net income of $13.1 million, or $.31 per share, in Q1 2022 compared to a net loss of $13.3 million, or $.58 per share, a year ago.
Lucira's R&D spending grew 94 percent year over year to $12.2 million from $6.3 million. Its SG&A costs more than doubled to $13.9 million from $6.1 million a year ago.
The Emeryville, California-based firm exited Q1 2022 with $120.6 million in cash and $1.2 million in restricted cash equivalents.
Lucira said it is withdrawing its previously announced full-year 2022 revenue guidance of $450.0 million "due to the unpredictable nature of future COVID-19 infection rates."
"Visibility into the severity and prevalence of COVID-19 for the remainder of the year is limited," Engelson said. "Our results may be subject to many factors, including cycling COVID-19 peaks, new variants that challenge vaccine efficacy, anticipated seasonality of COVID-19, varying prevalence associated with booster cycles, and timing of global regulatory approvals and testing demand."
Separately on Thursday, the firm announced it has filed for Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for its molecular at-home COVID-19 & Flu test. Lucira said in a statement that it is seeking authorization by Q4 2022. The test received CE marking earlier this week.