NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Veracyte said after the close of the market on Tuesday that revenues for its fourth quarter rose 51 percent year over year.
The South San Francisco, Calif.-based firm recorded $6.8 million in revenues for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2013, up from $4.5 million in the year-ago fourth quarter. In a statement, Veracyte President and CEO Bonnie Anderson said, "We saw increases in fine needle aspiration sample volumes and cash collections during the fourth quarter, which is traditionally our strongest quarter."
The firm received 14,059 thyroid nodule fine needle aspiration samples in Q4 2013, up from 9,303 in Q4 2012.
Veracyte posted a net loss of $5.9 million, or $.42 per share, for the fourth quarter, compared to a net loss of $4.8 million, or $7.27 per share, in Q4 2012.
The company used 13.9 million shares to calculate its loss on a per-share basis for the recently completed quarter, compared to 665,306 shares a year ago. Veracyte went public in late October, raising $58 million in net proceeds.
Its R&D spending was up 12 percent to $1.9 million during the quarter, compared to $1.7 million a year ago, while its SG&A costs increased 38 percent year over year to $7.3 million from $5.3 million.
For full-year 2013, Veracyte's revenues climbed 89 percent to $21.9 million from $11.6 million. Anderson attributed the uptick to growing physician adoption of the company's Afirma Thyroid FNA Analysis test, along with increased payer coverage and reimbursement for the firm's Afirma Gene Expression Classifier.
Veracyte said that the total number of fine needle aspiration samples for the year was up to 49,670 from 25,890 in 2012. Afirma GEC tests were performed at a rate of about 20 percent of fine needle aspiration samples received, it added.
The company's net loss for the year was $25.6 million, or $6.15 per share, compared to a net loss of $18.6 million, or $28.68 per share, in 2012. The per-share figure for 2013 was calculated using 4.2 million shares, while the per-share figure for 2012 was based on 650,333 shares.
Veracyte upped its R&D spending 18 percent to $7.8 million in 2013 from $6.6 million in 2012 and increased its SG&A spending 50 percent to $24.6 million in 2013 from $16.4 in 2012.
It finished 2013 with $71.2 million in cash and cash equivalents.
The company gave guidance of between $38 million and $43 million in revenues for full-year 2014, and said it anticipates fine needle aspiration volumes of between 76,000 and 83,000 samples.
"We look forward to accelerating growth in 2014, primarily through additional payer coverage decisions for our GEC and expansion of our sales force," Anderson said. "In May, we plan to commercially launch our new Afirma Malignancy Classifiers, which are currently in the pilot stage at select sites, to further enhance our Afirma offering. We are also on track in advancing product development efforts for our next clinical indication in pulmonology."