NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Molecular diagnostics firm Rosetta Genomics reported today a 10 percent drop in third quarter revenues amid lower sales of its urologic and solid tumor testing services.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, Rosetta's revenues declined to $2.2 million from $2.4 million in the same period last year. Sales of its urologic cancer testing services fell 25 percent to $970,000 from $1.3 million, while revenues from solid tumor testing services fell 24 percent to $841,000 from $1.1 million.
The company attributed these drops to a refocusing of its sales efforts on its microRNA-based RosettaGX Reveal assay for the classification of indeterminate thyroid nodules, which was launched at the beginning of the year. Sales of Reveal jumped 70 percent to $282,000 in the quarter from $166,000 in Q2, and represented 13 percent of Rosetta's total clinical testing revenues in Q3.
The company said it expects Reveal revenues of $4 million to $5 million in 2017, and that it expects to process 2,500 to 3,500 Reveal tests throughout the year.
"We remain committed to advancing our strategy to use Reveal to access new accounts to promote our exceptional thyroid offering, as well as our urologic cancer and solid tumor product lines," Rosetta President and CEO Kenneth Berlin said in a statement. "We believe that opening new relationships with Reveal will allow us to bring our solid tumor and urologic oncology offerings to many of these new accounts, thus further accelerating revenue growth."
Rosetta's Q3 net loss widened slightly to $4 million from a year-ago loss of $3.9 million. However, the company’s loss per share for Q3 narrowed to $.19 on approximately 20.9 million weighted average shares outstanding from $.27 on about 14.8 million weighted average shares outstanding a year ago. On an adjusted basis, the company reported a Q3 net loss of $.18 per share.
The company’s Q3 R&D spending climbed 50 percent to $879,000 from $586,000 year over year, primarily due to the timing of acquisition of clinical samples. Rosetta’s SG&A costs fell 3 percent during the quarter to $3.5 million from $3.6 million in the same period 2015.
At the end of the third quarter, Rosetta had cash and cash equivalents totaling $5.4 million, and restricted cash totalling $602,000.
The company’s shares were up nearly 1 percent at $.51 in mid-day trading on the Nasdaq.