NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Great Basin reported after the close of the market Thursday that its second quarter revenues grew 39 percent year over year, in line with preliminary earnings released last month.
For the three months ended June 30, the Salt Lake City-based molecular diagnostics firm reported $728,957 in revenues compared to $525,506 in the year-ago quarter. Continued growth in its customer base and the adoption of the firm's Group B Strep assay drove the increase.
Great Basin said that its total installed customer base increased 126 percent year over year to 260, and that its assay adoption rate grew 18 percent year over year.
The company spent $3.5 million on R&D in Q2 compared to $1.9 million in the year-ago period. This increase was primarily due to increased clinical and regulatory activities related to its Bordetella pertussis test and bacterial stool pathogens panel, as well as ongoing pipeline development.
The firm's SG&A expenses nearly doubled to $4.3 million from $2.2 million. The rise in sales and marketing expenses reflected increases in the company's sales force, higher commissions, and customer acquisition costs. General and administrative expenses grew primarily due to higher legal, accounting, and consulting fees and the costs of hiring additional personnel.
Great Basin recorded a net loss of $20.3 million, or $4.10 per share, in Q2, compared to a profit of $19.2 million, or $1,498.09 per share, in Q2 2015. The company used approximately 4.9 million shares to calculate loss per share in Q2 compared to 12,790 shares used to calculate EPS in the year-ago period.
In Q2 2015, a change in the fair value of derivative liability related to various common stock warrants generated non-cash other income of $24.3 million for Great Basin.
On an adjusted basis, Great Basin’s net loss for Q2 2016 was $9.3 million versus an adjusted loss of $5.2 million in the second quarter of 2015.
During Q2 Great Basin announced that it closed a public offering of 3.16 million units in exchange for $6 million of gross proceeds. It also secured a $68 million funding commitment consisting of $75 million in senior secured convertible notes, with $6 million of gross proceeds immediately available and the remaining $62 million in restricted company accounts and becoming available in February 2017.
Great Basin finished the quarter with about $1.2 million in cash and $13.2 million in restricted cash.
"We continued to make significant strides in executing our strategic initiatives including growing our customer base, expanding use of assays within our customer base, and in meeting our product development objectives," Great Basin CEO and Cofounder Ryan Ashton said in a statement. "Going forward, we're excited about the commercial launch of our Shiga Toxin Direct Test and Staph ID/R Panel, which will double our line of [US Food and Drug Administration]-cleared products and will aid in building our total revenue base, increasing sales-per-customer figures, and reducing seasonality in our revenue stream."