NEW YORK – Sema4 said Monday after market close that its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 retreated by nearly 10 percent year over year but still beat the consensus Wall Street estimate.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2021, the company posted revenues of $57.8 million compared to $64 million a year earlier and beat the Wall Street consensus estimate of $49.7 million.
Diagnostic test revenue for Q4 2021 was $56.1 million, down 9 percent from $61.6 million in Q4 2020. Other revenue fell by 29 percent to $1.7 million from $2.4 million in the year-ago quarter.
Stamford, Connecticut-based Sema4 went public in July 2021 through a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company CM Life Sciences. The firm is also in the process of acquiring GeneDx from Opko Health for $623 million, which is expected to close before the end of the second quarter.
The firm's net loss in the recently completed quarter narrowed to $40.2 million, or $.17 per share, compared to a net loss of $125.7 million, or $6,287 per share in Q4 2020 and beat the Wall Street estimate of a loss of $.26 per share.
The company used 241.5 million shares to calculate is per-share loss figure in Q4 2021 compared to 19,991 shares in the year-ago period.
Sema4's R&D expenses in Q4 totaled $22.2 million, down 29 percent from $31.2 million a year ago. Its SG&A costs increased 4 percent to $88.6 million during the quarter from $85.1 million in 2020.
Sema4 performed 82,966 diagnostic tests in the quarter, exclusive of COVID-19 tests, 37 percent higher than in Q4 2020. The company announced in December that it would exit the COVID-19 testing business this year.
During full-year 2021, Sema4's revenues totaled $212.2 million, up 18 percent from $179.3 million in 2020 and above the analysts' average estimate of $203.8 million. The firm had expected to book between $201 million and $204 million in revenue last year.
On a conference call Monday, Sema4 CFO Isaac Ro attributed much of the difference between the forecast and result to an uptick in COVID-19 testing due to the Omicron wave late in the year.
For the entire year, Sema4 posted $205.1 million in revenue from diagnostic tests, a 17 percent increase over the 2020 total of $175.4 million. Other revenue grew by 43 percent last year to $7.1 million from $4 million a year earlier.
Net loss for the full year totaled $245.4 million, or $2.27 per share, vs. $241.3 million, or $47,036 per share, in 2020. It missed the consensus Wall Street estimate of a loss of $1.20 per share.
Its R&D spending grew 44 percent year over year to $105.2 million from $72.7 million, while its SG&A costs ballooned 94 percent year over year to $318.7 million from $163.9 million.
As of Dec. 31, the company had $400.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and $900,000 in restricted cash.
Sema4 expects full-year 2022 revenues to be in the range of $215 million to $225 million, not counting any contribution from GeneDx. The firm anticipates testing volumes, excluding COVID-19 tests, to grow by more than 20 percent this year.
Founder and CEO Eric Schadt said on the conference call that the company this month convened a first-ever meeting with its four major health system partners in order to establish a network for sharing ideas for implementing precision medicine as a standard of care. "By bringing these groups together, we aim to foster a learning-based culture across our partners that we think will enable a virtuous cycle as our health system partnerships expand," Schadt said.
Sema4 stock opened Tuesday up nearly 9 percent at $2.88 per share.