NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Veracyte said after the close of the market on Monday that revenues in its third quarter improved 75 percent year over year.
The South San Francisco, Calif.-based company, which went public earlier this month, raising $58 million in net proceeds, reported revenues of $5.6 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, up from $3.2 million in the year-ago period.
Veracyte said that it received 12,417 fine needle aspiration samples in the recently completed quarter, up from 7,052 a year ago, and added that its Afirma Gene Expression Classifier gene expression test for thyroid cancer “continued to be performed at a rate of approximately 20 percent of FNA samples received.”
During the quarter, the company also received positive coverage decisions for the test from insurers Humana and SelectHealth, part of Intermountain Healthcare, it said.
Net loss for the quarter was $6.3 million, or $6.59 per share, compared to a net loss of $4.9 million, or $7.49 per share in the third quarter of 2012.
Its R&D expenses increased xx percent to $2.0 million from $1.7 million a year ago, and SG&A costs rose 44 percent to $6.5 million from $4.5.
Veracyte ended the quarter with $15.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.
Moving ahead, the company anticipates launching a second Afirma test, the Afirma Malignant GEC, in the second quarter of 2014, Veracyte President and CEO Bonnie Anderson said on a conference call following the release of the company’s earnings results. The malignant test, would be used to help guide physicians in determining whether a patient may need surgery, and Anderson said that the test could potentially extend the testing base for the company beyond patients with indeterminate cases of thyroid cancer to those suspected of having the disease.
Other goals for the coming year include doubling the field sales staff to about 16 from its current eight positions and launching Afirma internationally.
“Our strong financial performance … reflects both growing physician adoption and increased payer coverage and reimbursement for our Afirma solution,” Anderson said in a statement. “The results demonstrate increasing recognition of the value our product delivers in helping patients avoid unnecessary surgeries, while reducing healthcare costs.”
In morning trading on the Nasdaq on Tuesday, shares of Veractye were up 6 percent to $12.08 on the Nasdaq.