NEW YORK – Molecular diagnostics firm Oncocyte said after the close of the market on Tuesday that it brought in $984,000 in revenues for the third quarter, up about 77 percent from the $555,000 it reported a year ago but significantly short of analysts' average estimate of $1.8 million.
Sales of its DetermaRx assay grew 65 percent from the same quarter last year but were nevertheless impacted by the COVID-19 Delta variant on surgical volumes in key sales regions of the US.
In a statement, Oncocyte CEO Ron Andrews said that the company has been heartened by positive signs in metrics used to measure test adoption. Its list of onboarded hospitals grew by 42 facilities during the quarter and its ordering physicians grew by 66 doctors.
"We have now established a solid install base that is poised to grow our sample volume and revenue once early-stage lung cancer surgeries return to pre-pandemic levels," he said.
Oncocyte's Q3 net loss rose to $13.8 million, or $.15 per share, from $6.8 million, or $.10 per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts on average had expected a lower loss per share of $.12.
The company used 91.5 million shares to calculate its per-share loss figure for Q3 2021 compared to 67.2 million shares a year ago.
Oncocyte's R&D expenses rose 19 percent to $3.1 million from $2.6 million in the same quarter last year, reflecting increased investment in clinical studies to support the commercialization of its larger pipeline of tests.
The firm's SG&A expenses rose 27 percent to $8.4 million from $6.6 million. According to the company, this increase was primarily due to personnel and related expenses resulting from the ramp up in sales and marketing activities for DetermaRx, as well as market development investments in preparation for the launch of new products later this year.
In a call discussing the firm's Q3 results, Andrews discussed Oncocyte's recently announced clinical launch of the DetermaIO assay, a predictor of immunotherapy response, through an early-access program.
This test will be joined early next year by DetermaTx, a 500-gene next-generation sequencing assay to guide targeted treatment decisions, and DetermaCNI, a response monitoring assay for early cancers, creating a suite of oncology products that Andrews estimated have a combined $10 billion market opportunity.
"[With] proprietary positions in some of the faster growing areas of molecular oncology, 2022 promises to be a year of rapid expansion of our markets and testing growth," he said.
He also cited the company's progress in cementing IP protection for a new niche in transplant rejection, opened up by its acquisition of Chronix Biomedical earlier this year.
Oncocyte had previously said it was expecting to focus on development of the Chronix Therasure transplant rejection test in Europe only. But on the call Tuesday, Andrews said the plan is now to target both markets and launch an LDT in the US by the end of Q1 2022.
The firm ended the quarter with $43.3 million in cash and cash equivalents.