NEW YORK – Twist Bioscience reported a 62 percent increase in second quarter revenues after the close of the market on Thursday.
For the quarter ended March 31, South San Francisco, California-based Twist reported total revenues of $31.2 million, up from $19.3 million during the prior-year period and beating analysts' average revenue estimate of $28.3 million.
NGS revenues were $17.7 million, more than double $7.7 million in revenues in Q2 2020. Synthetic biology revenues, which include genes, libraries, and oligo pools, totaled $12.9 million, up from $11 million a year ago, while the firm's biopharma revenue was $1.3 million, up from $600,000 a year ago.
The company shipped 90,000 genes during the quarter and recognized $9.2 million in revenue from that product line.
By region, revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa was $10 million. Asia Pacific revenues were $2.7 million, driven by a strong rebound. By end market, healthcare accounted for $16.6 million in revenues, industrial chemicals represented $8.7 million in revenues, and the academic market contributed $5.6 million.
The quarter "delivered growth across all four areas of our business, with increasing revenue and very strong orders building momentum for the second half of the year," Twist CEO and Cofounder Emily Leproust said in a statement. "We signed new biopharma partnerships with multiple associated programs, and we continue to drive increasing density for our data storage vertical."
Twist CFO Jim Thorburn noted that the firm saw a "strong rebound in Asia" and that EMEA now accounts for about a third of the company's business worldwide. Healthcare customers now account for more than half of Twist's revenues. The academic market was basically flat, year over year, but the sector saw "strong order pickup" in Q2. Twist shipped to 1,700 customers in the quarter.
The firm's research and development expenses for the quarter jumped 49 percent to $15.8 million from $10.6 million in Q2 2020, driven by a $1.4 million investment in DNA-based data storage, a $1.4 million investment in its biopharma business, and a $1.1 million increase in core R&D expenses. Its SG&A expenses grew 26 percent to $34.4 million from $27.2 million in Q2 2020, driven by higher stock-based compensation.
Twist's net loss for the quarter was $37.9 million, or $.78 per share, compared to a net loss of $31.8 million, or $.85 per share, in the prior-year period. Twist's earnings missed analysts' average estimate of $.77 loss per share.
Twist used approximately 48.7 million shares to calculate its per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 37.2 million shares a year ago.
The company ended the quarter with $399.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $156.3 million in short-term investments.
Twist increased its full-year fiscal 2021 revenue guidance to between $121 million and $129 million. It expects revenue from Ginkgo Bioworks to be in the range of $11 million to $12 million; synthetic biology revenue, excluding Ginkgo, between $43 million and $46 million; next-generation sequencing revenue between $62 million and $66 million; and Biopharma revenue approximately $5 million.
In early Friday trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Twist were up around 14 percent at $119.00.