NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – BG Medicine today said that second-quarter revenues dropped 47 percent year over year due to decreased activity in a project begun a few years ago to develop diagnostic biomarkers for heart attacks.
For the three months ended June 30, revenues dropped to $221,000 from $418,000 a year ago. In a statement, the company attributed the fall-off to lower activity in its High Risk Plaque Initiative aimed at developing biomarkers for predicting heart attacks caused by myocardial infarction or by the rupture of atherosclerotic plaque. The Waltham, Mass.-based firm also cited the absence of other service agreements for the reduction in revenue.
BG's R&D expenses increased 60 percent from $1.5 million to $2.4 million year over year due to an uptick in activity and personnel-related costs related to BG Medicine's internal biomarker discovery development work. Its SG&A costs rose 25 percent to $2.5 million from $2 million on medical education programs associated with the company's galectin-3 product and the costs of being a public company.
The firm went public in February.
BG's net loss for the quarter climbed 30 percent to $4.8 million, or $.25 per share, from $3.7 million, or $1.36 a share, a year ago. The company used 19.2 million shares to calculate its net loss per share in the quarter, compared to 2.9 million shares a year ago when it was privately held.
The firm ended the quarter with $19.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash, and $12.9 million in marketable securities.
BG noted that at least one of its partners is on track to submit an automated version of its Galectin-3 test to the US Food and Drug Administration by the end of 2011.
In morning trading on Nasdaq, shares of BG Medicine were up about 7 percent at $7.16.