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Twist Bioscience Fiscal Q3 Revenues Grow 65 Percent

NEW YORK – Twist Bioscience reported a 65 percent year-over-year increase in third quarter fiscal year 2021 revenues before the opening of the market on Friday, driven by strength in next-generation sequencing revenues.

For the quarter ended June 30, Twist reported $35.0 million in revenues, up from $21.2 million during the same period last year, beating Wall Street analysts' average revenue estimate of $32.3 million.

In a conference call to discuss the financial results, Twist said that NGS revenues were $18.7 million, up twofold from $9.1 million a year ago. NGS revenues were driven by an expanding pipeline and an increase in the number of applications, including liquid biopsy. Synthetic biology revenues were $14.3 million, up 21 percent from $11.8 million a year ago. Biopharma revenue was approximately $2 million.

By region, US revenues were $ $19.2 million; revenues in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa were $12.7 million; and Asia Pacific revenues were $3.1 million.

Twist CFO Jim Thorburn said that healthcare is now Twist's largest market segment, representing nearly 50 percent of revenues, with $17.4 million, up more than twofold from $8.5 million a year ago and driven by strength in NGS. Industrial chemicals revenues were $8.4 million, a recovering academic market provided revenues of $7.7 million, and agriculture brought in about $500,000 in revenues.

The firm shipped approximately 107,000 genes in the quarter. "Ginkgo [Bioworks] now accounts for less than 10 percent of revenues," Thorburn said, "so we are no longer breaking out that activity."

Twist's research and development expenses for the quarter totaled $19.8 million, nearly double that of $10.4 million in Q3 2020, driven by increased headcount, spending on data storage technology development, and a $1.4 million grant reimbursement. Selling, general, and administrative expenses amounted to $34.5 million, up 53 percent from $22.5 million in Q3 2020, driven by $7 million in increased compensation, $3 million in outside professional services, increased headcount, and expansion into Asia and EMEA.

The firm's net loss for the quarter was $40.0 million, or $.82 per share, compared to a net loss of $28.2 million, or $.67 per share, in the year-ago quarter. Analysts, on average, had estimated a net loss of $.75 per share.

Twist used approximately 49 million shares to calculate per-share loss in the recently completed quarter, compared to about 41.8 million shares a year ago.

The company ended the quarter with $475.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $44.1 million in short-term investments.

Twist raised its guidance for 2021 and is now expecting revenues in the range of $129 million to $132 million. This includes synthetic biology revenue in the range of $54 million to $56 million, NGS revenue in the range of $69 million to $70 million, and biopharma revenue of approximately $6 million. It expects a net loss of approximately $150 million, reflecting "increased investments in our commercial organization," the firm said in a statement.

In morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of Twist were down 6 percent at $115.76.

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