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Colorectal Cancer Test Drives Q4 Revenue Increase for GeneNews

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — Molecular diagnostics company GeneNews saw its fourth-quarter revenues rise sharply year over year after its colorectal cancer test was approved for marketing in New York, the company reported after the close of the market on Tuesday.

For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2012, the Toronto-based firm posted revenues of C$59,630 (US$58,658), up from C$2,840 a year ago. Revenues were derived completely from its ColonSentry gene expression assay for assessing a patient's risk for colorectal cancer.

The sharp uptick in revenues resulted from approval from the State of New York in February 2012 allowing GeneNews' US marketing partner, Enzo Clinical Labs, to market ColonSentry in the state. In a document filed with Canadian regulators, GeneNews said that during the fourth quarter royalty revenues from Enzo totaled C$58,583.

The firm's net loss for the quarter was C$1.1 million, or C$.05 per share, compared to a net loss of C$1.2 million, or C$.08 per share, a year ago.

Its R&D costs increased 30 percent year over year to C$487,000 from C$376,000, while SG&A costs were cut 36 percent to C$474,000 from C$735,000.

For full-year 2012, revenues GeneNews' revenues increased 177 percent to C$280,103 from C$100,806 in 2011. ColonSentry comprised all of its revenues for 2012, compared to C$25,017 in 2011.

Royalty revenues from its Enzo partnership were C$264,933, GeneNews said. In 2012 the company received no milestone revenues, compared to C$75,789 in 2011 from partial payments of then-outstanding amounts from an Asian biomedical consortium on its 2008 contract, the company said in a filing with the Canadian Securities Administrators.

GeneNews had a net loss of C$5.1 million, or C$.28 per share, in 2012, compared to a net loss of C$4.5 million, or C$.31 per share, in 2011.

Its R&D spending was up 12 percent to C$1.9 million from C$1.7 million a year ago, primarily as a result of the completion of a strategic alliance with the Malaysian Ministry of Health for a liver cancer project, the company said.

The firm's SG&A costs rose 17 percent to C$2.7million in 2012 from C$2.3 million.

GeneNews ended 2012 with C$7.8 million in cash and C$807,000 in short-term investments. In December, it raised C$7.6 million in a private placement.

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