This article has been updated to include second quarter financial data.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — GeneNews reported today an 88 percent drop in second quarter revenues as the Canadian molecular diagnostics company continued to transition to a new billing process.
Separately today, GeneNews announced an agreement to market its tests, including new ones based on its Aristotle early-cancer detection platform, in collaboration with Pittsburgh-based biotech investment and management firm LifeX.
For the three-month period ended June 30, GeneNews' revenues fell to $13,200 from $113,513. The company attributed the shortfall to its move to a new billing process implemented at subsidiary Innovative Diagnostic Laboratory, which required GeneNews to cease and later restart billing.
GeneNews said that invoicing for tests run but not billed during the transition to the new billing process was submitted to payors in the second quarter, and that collections on these amounts will begin to be received in the third quarter.
GeneNews' net loss for the quarter climbed to $2.6 million, or $.02 per share, from $570,341, or $.01 per share, in the same period the year before, while expenses jumped 355 percent to $2.6 million due to the revaluation of warrants, a change in fair value of conversion liability, and an increase in finance costs.
At the end of the second quarter, GeneNews had cash and cash equivalents totaling $716,750.
Meanwhile, the company said that it has partnered with LifeX to increase adoption of its liquid biopsy cancer tests — which include ColonSentry for colorectal cancer — by large, multi-entity healthcare systems, as well as to further develop and market the Aristotle platform. GeneNews noted that it is currently working on a panel for the platform that can simultaneously monitor 10 cancers using a single blood sample.
Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In May, GeneNews said that it had partnered with reference lab AIM Laboratories, under which each company will make its tests available to the other's customer base.