NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Quanterix reported after the close of the market on Wednesday that its second quarter revenues were up 66 percent year over year.
The company posted Q2 revenues of $8.6 million, up from $5.2 million in Q2 2017 and above the consensus Wall Street estimate of $7.9 million.
Q2 product revenues rose 56 percent to $5.2 million from $3.3 million in Q2 2017. Service and other revenues doubled to $3.2 million from $1.6 million in the prior-year second quarter.
"We are continuing to achieve strong momentum, as made evident by our performance in this second quarter, showing steady growth in terms of both product and company revenue," Quanterix Chairman, CEO, and President Kevin Hrusovsky said in a statement. "We are at a pivotal point in our industry, where biomarkers are being recognized as increasingly representing a critical opportunity for accelerating drug approvals and helping to fuel demand for our technology for pharma services and drug development."
On a conference call following release of the results, Hrusovsky noted that product revenues grew 41 percent among the company's academic customers and nearly 70 percent among its pharma customers. Quanterix has placed a total of 216 Simoa instruments to date with roughly 40 added thus far this year, he said. The company offers two version of the Simoa technology, its original HD-1 Analyzer and its benchtop SR-X instrument. The company has sold 48 SR-X instruments since launching the platform toward the end of last year.
Hrusovsky added that consumables usage among its customers is averaging more than $50,000 per year, which he said matches the company's target for the year and indicates high usage of its instruments among its customers.
Revenues were up 132 percent in Asia, a region where Hrusovsky said the company currently has a relatively small presence; up 76 percent in Europe; and up 55 percent in North America, the market that makes up the bulk of Quanterix's sales.
Hrusovsky said neurology continues to be a key focus for the company, with roughly half of the 250 publications using the Simoa technology researching this area. He added, though, that the company is beginning to make inroads into the oncology field.
He said that increased multiplexing would be important for tackling the oncology market, where many researchers are interested in running multiple markers at once. He added that the planar array technology Quanterix obtained through its acquisition of Aushon Biosystems will enable this increased multiplexing.
"We have been working diligently around bringing that Simoa ultra-sensitivity to the planar technology, which we acquired from Aushon," he said. "We are now progressing towards a place where we are moving towards a 10-plex with the Simoa level of ultra-sensitivity."
The firm's Q2 net loss widened to $7.3 million from $6.6 million a year ago. It didn't provide a loss per share figure.
Quanterix's R&D spending during the quarter was down 5 percent to $3.7 million from $3.9 million in Q2 2017, and its SG&A expenses rose 62 percent to $7.6 million from $4.7 million the year before.
Quanterix CFO Joseph Driscoll said that increased sales and marketing headcount as well as stock compensation expenses for new senior hires and transition costs related to the Aushon deal drove the increase in spending during the quarter.
In morning trading on Nasdaq, Quanterix stock was up less than one percent to $15.00.