NEW YORK – Twist Bioscience reported on Monday morning that revenues for its fiscal fourth quarter 2020 more than doubled year over year.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, 2020, the firm reported revenues of $32.4 million compared to $15.7 million in the year-ago period. It beat analysts' average revenue estimate of $22.7 million.
"We ended our fiscal year with record revenue and orders against the backdrop of a global pandemic and significant uncertainty," Twist CEO and Cofounder Emily Leproust said in a statement. "While we are proud of the new products we introduced to aid in the fight against COVID-19, which complemented our revenue, it was our core synthetic biology and next-generation sequencing (NGS) product lines that drove our overarching success."
On a conference call following the release of the results, Twist CFO Jim Thorburn said the firm's fourth quarter NGS revenues were $20.2 million, synbio revenues $11 million, and biopharma revenues $1.3 million. Revenue from the firm's partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks was $1.8 million, down from $2.8 million in the year-ago quarter, attributable to the timing of Ginkgo's projects.
The company's net loss in fiscal Q4 2020 narrowed to $24.3 million, or $.54 per share, compared to a loss of $31.2 million, or $.96 per share, in fiscal Q4 2019. Analysts had estimated a net loss per share of $.70.
Twist's R&D expenses were $11.7 million, up 11 percent from $10.5 million a year ago. SG&A expenses were $27.2 million, up 11 percent from $24.4 million a year ago.
Revenues for fiscal year 2020 were $90.1 million, up 66 percent from $54.4 million in fiscal year 2019.
NGS revenues were $44 million, up from 21 million; synbio revenues were $43.8 million; and biopharma revenues were $2.4 million. Revenues from Ginkgo were $10.7 million, up from $9.2 million in fiscal year 2019.
By end market, revenues from industrial biotech were approximately $29 million. Healthcare revenues grew to become the firm's largest segment, at $40 million, driven by NGS and gene synthesis. Revenues from the academic market were $19.6 million and agricultural revenues were $1.4 million.
Thorburn said the firm shipped approximately 339,000 genes in fiscal year 2020, up from about 288,000 last year.
Leproust noted that between $5 million and $6 million of revenues came from the firm's original equipment manufacturing strategy, where 13 different companies are selling Twist's NGS and synbio products under their own brand names.
Net loss for the year was $139.9 million, or $3.57 per share, compared to a loss of $107.7 million, or $3.92 per share, in fiscal year 2019.
Twist's fiscal year 2020 R&D expenses were $43.0 million, up 21 percent from $35.7 million a year ago. Full year SG&A expenses were $103.3 million, up 29 percent from $80.1 million in fiscal 2019.
"Over the last year, we delivered on revenue, orders, margin, and product pipeline in a very challenging environment," Thorburn said in a statement. "We have a strong balance sheet and momentum moving into fiscal 2021 and look forward to an exciting year ahead."
As of Sept. 30, 2020, the company had $290.0 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
"We have aggressive plans for growth and expansion in fiscal 2021 and beyond, continuing to build our foundation for sustained success across synthetic biology, NGS, biopharma, and DNA data storage," Leproust said in a statement.
For fiscal year 2021, Twist anticipates total revenues between $100 million and $118 million and a net loss between $136 million and $141 million. For Q1 of fiscal 2021, Twist expects revenues between $25 million and $26 million.
In morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of Twist fell just over 2 percent to $113.28.