NEW YORK – DermTech reported after the close of the market on Tuesday that its fourth quarter revenues jumped 152 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2019, the La Jolla, California-based developer of genomic melanoma tests posted nearly $1.6 million in revenues, up from $600,000 in Q4 2018.
Assay revenue grew about 16 percent to $500,000 from $400,000 a year ago. Contract revenue skyrocketed 444 percent to nearly $1.1 million in Q4 2019.
DermTech said its Q4 billable sample volume grew 87 percent year over year to 4,905, compared to 2,628 for the same period in 2018.
DermTech's Q4 net loss was $5.1 million, compared to $3.3 million in the year-ago quarter.
DermTech's R&D expenses totaled $600,000 in Q4 2019, up 50 percent from $400,000 in Q4 2018. The firm's SG&A expenses skyrocketed nearly 220 percent to $4.8 million from $1.5 million in Q4 2018.
For full-year 2019, DermTech's revenues rose 38 percent year over year to $3.4 million from $2.4 million in 2018.
Assay revenue rose about 10 percent to $1.4 million year over year, compared to $1.3 million in 2018. Contract revenue for the full year rose 69 percent to $2.0 million, compared to $1.1 million in 2018.
Billable sample volume for the full year rose 24 percent to 13,714 compared to 2018, which DermTech said was primarily due to the performance of the firm's legacy sales managers' ability to expand its customer base.
"We expect sample volume growth to continue as our new sales managers begin ramping up their productivity as we hire additional salespeople," DermTech CEO John Dobak said in a statement. "We anticipate our revenue growth to continue in 2020 due to our recent Medicare coverage and billing policy, and higher commercial payments under our new CPT code."
DermTech's full-year R&D expenses increased 22 percent to $2.5 million from $2.1 million in 2018. The firm's SG&A jumped 141 percent to $15.2 million in 2019 from $6.3 million in 2018.
DermTech’s 2019 net loss widened to $19.7 million, or $2.81 per share, from $10.0 million, or $2.27 per share, in 2018.
The firm finished 2019 with $15.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.
Earlier this month, DermTech raised $65 million through a private placement to a number of undisclosed institutional investors as part of its plan to hire additional salespeople. In addition, the firm published the results of a large registry study in order to drum up payor coverage for its non-invasive pigmented lesion assays for early melanoma detection.