NEW YORK – Exact Sciences said Wednesday afternoon that its first quarter revenues were up 6 percent over the same period of 2023, driven by its core stool-based colorectal cancer screening test, Cologuard.
For the period ended March 31, the company reported $637.5 million in revenues compared to $602.5 million in Q1 2023, exceeding analysts' average estimate of $627.4 million.
The firm's cancer screening revenue was $474.8 million, an increase of 7 percent over $443.2 million in Q1 2023. Its precision oncology revenue was $162.7 million, up 5 percent from $155.4 million.
Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy said in a statement that the firm's recent marketing forays have lifted brand awareness and customer satisfaction for Cologuard to what he claimed was an all-time high in the first quarter.
"Since the start of last year, 50,000 healthcare providers chose Cologuard and became new customers of Exact Sciences," he added during a call discussing the firm's financial results.
Although the firm's precision oncology testing growth lagged that of its screening business, Exact reported that a record number of people were tested globally during the quarter with its Oncotype DX breast cancer prognostic test.
"We're making great progress towards increasing Oncotype DX adoption internationally with the number of ordering providers expanding by over 20 percent during the first quarter," Conroy said during the call.
He reiterated that Exact also plans to launch a range of new tests over the next 18 months, including OncoDetect, an in-house developed minimal residual disease test to detect lingering and recurring cancers earlier than existing imaging systems, as well as OncoLiquid a blood-based therapy selection test to complement the firm's tissue-based OncoExtra assay.
Although Exact has already published data from its BLUE-C trial pertaining to the second generation of its stool-based Cologuard test, it has not yet released results for the anticipated blood-based version. Conroy said the firm expects to do so later this year.
He added that the company had planned to be able to share that data this summer but feels like it has the "luxury of time," given the readouts it has seen from potential competitors, and is now extending the trial by several thousand samples.
"We've decided to take a little bit more time and run about 3,000 more samples … and make sure that we collect more data on the specificity and the cutoff to make sure the test is as robust as possible," he said, adding that Exact expects its test will demonstrate performance similar to, or potentially better than, current competitors when that data reads out.
The company's main competitor in blood-based colorectal cancer screening is currently Guardant Health's Guardant Shield, which has been on the market for about two years as a laboratory-developed test, despite some recent qualms around its pivotal trial results.
Exact Sciences spent $110.6 million for R&D in the quarter, up about 17 percent from $95.4 million in Q1 2023. Its SG&A costs were $435.5 million, up 8 percent from $404.3 million.
The firm's net loss was $110.2 million, or $.60 per share, compared to a net loss of $74.2 million, or $.42 per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts, on average, had expected a lower per-share loss of $.47.
The company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents totaling $347.5 million and marketable securities worth $304.6 million.
Exact Sciences maintained its full-year revenue guidance of $2.81 billion to $2.85 billion.
In early morning trade on the Nasdaq, the company's shares were down about 8 percent at $54.51.