NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) - WaferGen Biosystems announced this morning that its preliminary, unaudited fourth quarter 2015 revenues rose sharply year over year, driven mainly by sales of its existing SmartChip products
The company says it expects its revenues for Q4 2015 to be in the range of $2.3 million to $2.5 million, which would represent an increase of between 43 percent and 55 percent when compared to the $1.6 million it reported for the same quarter in 2014.
The increase marks the third consecutive quarter of revenue growth for WaferGen, primarily driven, the company said, by sales of the its SmartChip products and services, as well as the first two sales of its new ICell8 Single-Cell System, which was launched last fall and is designed to isolate, identify, and process thousands of individual cells.
Wafergen CEO Rolland Carlson said in a statement that initial feedback from potential ICell8 customers has been "overwhelmingly positive," that the company looks forward to "continuing to gain traction in the marketplace for this new platform in 2016."
Early-access users of the product included Genentech, Karolinska Institutet, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, National Jewish Health, and the Broad Institute.
Meanwhile, Carlson said WaferGen expects demand for its base business products will remain strong and to carry into 2016.
The company also shared preliminary revenue estimates for full-year 2015. WaferGen expects total revenue for the year to be in the range of $7.1 to $7.3 million, an increase of 18 percent to 22 percent over to the $6.0 million reported for full-year 2014, but short of its guidance of $7.8 million to $8.2 million.
According to Carlson, the anticipated shortfall is related to a change in the timing associated with certain revenues, shifting them from 2015 into the company's 2016 total revenue guidance.
The new guidance of $12.0 million to $13.0 million in revenues for 2016 represents an increase of approximately 70 percent over the company's full-year 2015 revenues, he added.
In Thursday afternoon trade on the Nasdaq, shares of WaferGen were up 3 percent at $.67.