NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – CombiMatrix reported after the close of the market Wednesday that its fourth quarter revenues jumped 27 percent, driven by sales of its prenatal and miscarriage analysis tests.
The firm reported total revenues of $2.2 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2014, up from $1.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2013.
Sales for its prenatal arrays jumped 37 percent year over year, the firm reported. It said that prenatal test revenue was $364,000 for the fourth quarter, up from $227,000, while revenue from miscarriage analysis array tests jumped 31 percent to roughly $1.1 million from $805,000.
CombiMatrix said that it had record prenatal microarray volume of 1,126 tests in the fourth quarter, a 67 percent increase over Q4 2013.
Its net loss fell to $1.6 million, or $.15 per share, from $7.8 million, or $1.44 per share, in Q4 2013. The 2013 Q4 result includes a charge of $6.4 million related to dividends from issuing Series D convertible preferred stock.
The firm's R&D spending in the quarter dropped sharply to $139,000 from $404,000, while its SG&A expenses increased 9 percent to $2.4 million from $2.2 million.
For full-year 2014, CombiMatrix reported a 25 percent increase in total revenues to $8 million from $6.4 million. Sales of its prenatal tests jumped 35 percent year over year to $1.3 million from $994,000, while sales of its miscarriage analysis tests were up 46 percent to $3.7 million from $2.6 million.
The firm's net loss for the year was $8.7 million, or $.79 per share, compared to a loss of $12.2 million, or $3.11 per share, for FY 2013.
Its R&D expenses for the year dropped to $725,000 from $1 million, and its SG&A spending jumped 28 percent to $11.5 million from $9 million.
"Our entire team is focused on growing this business, improving reimbursement, signing on new customers, and launching new tests," CombiMatrix President and CEO Mark McDonough said on a call following the release of the firm's financial results.
McDonough said the firm saw revenue lag test volume growth due to a decline in average revenue per test, which was attributable primarily to the recurrent pregnancy loss business. "As we have noted in the past, a few payors have chosen not to reimburse for the test despite the growing data supporting its clinical efficacy," he said. "That being said, we've had success on appealing these claims, providing this data upon appeal."
McDonough further noted that CombiMatrix is actively addressing the reimbursement issues as part of its commercial strategy.
In October CombiMatrix presented data showing that chromosomal microarray analysis of more than 4,000 miscarriage analyses yielded a successful result over 85 percent of the time. By comparison, standard karyotyping methods are successful at analyzing miscarriage tissue only about 60 percent of the time.
CombiMatrix finished the quarter with $5.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
The firm has since raised $4.9 million in gross proceeds from a registered direct offering. It said that its current cash position should be sufficient to fund its operations through the middle of 2016.
In Thursday morning trade on the Nasdaq, shares of CombiMatrix were up around 6 percent at $2.03.