NEW YORK – Quanterix reported after the close of the market on Monday that its fourth quarter revenues rose 46 percent year over year.
The company posted Q4 revenues of $15.9 million, up from $10.9 million in Q4 2018, and beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of $14.2 million.
Q4 product revenues rose 53 percent to $11.4 million in 2019 from $7.5 million in Q4 2018. Service and other revenues rose 26 percent to $4.3 million from $3.4 million in the prior-year quarter.
On a conference call following release of the earnings report, Quanterix CEO, President, and Chairman Kevin Hrusovsky said the rise in earnings reflected strong consumables growth as well as solid uptake of the two new systems the company launched this year, the SP-X and HD-X.
Hrusovsky said Quanterix hit 400 instrument placements by the end of 2019, with the company seeing particularly rapid uptake of its HD-X instrument, an updated version of its original HD-1 analyzer that offers improved temperature control, sensitivity, and multiplexing.
He said the company placed 56 HD-X instruments in 2019, half of which were customer trade-ins of old HD-1 machines.
These trade-ins "hurt short-term margins," Hrusovsky said. "But it is actually going to help long-term margins because the HD-Xs pull through more high margin consumables and eliminate a lot of the field service investments we need in place with the HD-1s."
He said the company estimated that by the end of 2020 its total HD installed base would be around 300 with half of those instruments being HD-Xs.
While Quanterix looks to move into oncology with the release of the SP-X system, neurology remained the main driver of revenues in 2019. Sales of assays and services for research into the neurological biomarker neurofilament light chain (Nfl) were a major revenue driver.
Nfl is potentially useful for diagnosing or monitoring a wide range of neurological diseases including multiple sclerosis, ALS, and Parkinson's. Hrusovsky said that there are currently 134 clinical trials ongoing using the company's NFL assay.
Hrusovsky also provided an update on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the company's business, noting that while it has had a minimal impact on revenue and operations thus far, it could impact instrument placements and consumables sales over the next several months.
The firm's Q4 net loss widened to $11.0 million from $9.3 million a year ago. The firm did not provide a per-share gain or loss figure Q4 2019 or Q4 2018.
Quanterix's R&D spending during the quarter was $4.4 million, up 9 percent from $4.0 million in the year-ago period. Its SG&A expenses rose 32 percent to $14.0 million from $10.6 million the year before.
For full year 2019, Quanterix's revenues rose 51 percent to $56.7 million from $37.6 million in 2018 and beat the Wall Street consensus of $55.0 million.
Product revenues rose 73 percent to $40.5 million in 2019 from $23.4 million in 2018, while service and other revenues rose 33 percent to $16.1 million from $12.1 million in 2018.
Quanterix's net loss for full year 2019 widened to $40.8 million from $31.5 million in 2018. It did not provide an EPS or loss per share figure for either year.
The firm's full-year R&D spending was up 2 percent to $16.2 million from $15.8 million in 2018. Its SG&A spending rose 55 percent to $52.2 million from $33.7 million the year before.
The company ended the year with $109.2 million in cash.