NEW YORK – Molecular diagnostics firm Veracyte reported after the close of the market on Tuesday that its first quarter revenues rose 85 percent year over year.
The South San Francisco, California-based firm posted $67.8 million in revenues for the three months ended March 31, up from $36.7 million a year ago, beating analysts' average estimate of $62.3 million.
Veracyte's testing revenues grew about 69 percent to $56 million from $33.1 million a year ago, driven by strong performance of the firm's Decipher urology portfolio. Its Q1 testing volume grew 61 percent year over year to 23,245 tests.
On a conference call discussing the firm's financial results, Veracyte CEO Marc Stapley said that Decipher testing "again outperformed expectations" as the company seeks to gain additional share of a market that it estimates is still only about 20 percent penetrated.
"We believe our continued growth has benefited from key publications, particularly of clinical utility data from a randomized Phase III trial, which were presented at the recent ASCO GU symposium [and confirmed] a key role for the test [in helping] physicians and patients make treatment decisions in the intermediate risk setting," he said.
Product revenues, which include the sales of Prosigna breast cancer prognostic assays and nCounter Flex instruments, were $3.0 million in Q1 2022, a decrease of about 3 percent from $3.1 million a year ago. Veracyte attributed the drop to an approximately 5 percent currency headwind due to a decline in exchange rates. Biopharmaceutical and other revenues spiked dramatically, to $8.8 million, compared to $566,000 in the first quarter of 2021. This was driven primarily by contributions from the firm's recent acquisition, HalioDx.
Stapley also highlighted Veracyte's introduction of its new "Biopharma Atlas" at last month's annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, which the firm hopes will help advance precision oncology discoveries. A pan-cancer database of molecular data related to the tumor microenvironment, the Atlas is modeled on bespoke programs that are already in place with major biopharma partners.
"Of note, we are particularly excited by some of the novel immuno-oncology insights that we are uncovering through our biopharma and academic partnerships," Stapley added.
Veracyte's Q1 net loss was $14.5 million, or $.20 per share, compared to a net loss of $41.9 million, or $.66 per share, in the year ago quarter, beating the consensus Wall Street estimate of a loss per share of $.24.
The company's R&D expenses totaled $9.2 million in Q1, up 74 percent from $5.3 million in Q1 2021. The firm's SG&A spending shrank about 29 percent to $44.7 million from $62.6 million in the year-ago quarter.
Veracyte finished the quarter with $163.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and $749,000 in restricted cash.
The company also increased its 2022 revenue projections to between $265 million and $275 million, from a previous range of $260 million to $275 million. The new range represents year-over-year growth of 21 percent to 25 percent.