NEW YORK — South Korean molecular diagnostics firm Seegene reported on Tuesday a nearly 7 percent year-over-year decline in revenues for the third quarter as lower sales of its infectious disease testing reagents more than offset gains in sales of its PCR equipment.
For the three-month period ended Sept. 30, Seegene's revenues were ₩305.3 billion ($256.0 million) compared with ₩326.9 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Total reagent sales were down 9 percent to ₩257.1 billion from ₩283.2 billion a year ago, with sales of COVID-19 testing reagents falling 11 percent to ₩195.6 billion from ₩219.6 billion. Sales of non-COVID-19 reagents were up 33 percent to ₩34.9 billion from ₩26.2 billion the year before. Third quarter equipment sales, meantime, rose nearly 11 percent to ₩48.2 billion from ₩43.6 billion in Q3 last year.
By region, sales in Europe contributed 50 percent to total revenues; sales in Korea 14 percent; sales in other parts of Asia, Africa, and Oceania 17 percent; sales in North America 9 percent; and sales in Central-South America 9 percent.
Seegene's net income in the quarter dropped to ₩93.2 billion from ₩152.5 billion a year earlier.
Contributing to the lower earnings was an almost threefold jump in R&D spending in the third quarter to ₩20.2 billion from ₩6.9 billion in Q3 2020 as Seegene worked on its assay development process and advanced new technologies for its PCR instruments and assay components. SG&A costs in the quarter rose 55 percent to ₩57.6 billion from ₩37.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Earlier this year, the company unveiled a new modular samples-to-answer system, marking its foray into the molecular diagnostics instrument space.
At the end of the third quarter, Seegene had cash and cash equivalents totaling ₩383.9 billion.