NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Great Basin reported before the opening of the market on Wednesday that its fourth quarter revenues rose 39 percent year-over-year.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, the Salt Lake City-based firm posted revenues of $851,930, up from $611,870 in Q4 2015.
More than 94 percent of Q4 revenues came from sales of C. diff and Group B Strep assays, the company said. C. diff sales increased 14 percent and Group B Strep sales grew 274 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. Great Basin further noted that 34 percent of customer sites were using multiple assays in Q4, up 81 percent from a year ago.
"The fourth quarter of 2016 was a period of significant progress and change for Great Basin," Cofounder and CEO Ryan Ashton said in a statement. "During the third quarter, research and development spending and gross margin inefficiency peaked as we invested in significant menu expansion…. With those efforts either behind us or winding down, we turned our focus to improving operational efficiencies and implementing cost management programs in preparation for 2017. We expect that the changes we made in the fourth quarter — along with the January completion of the clinical trial for our Bordetella Direct Test and the restructuring and reduction plan we announced in early February — will result in further improvements to our operating expenses, burn rate, and gross margins in the first half of 2017."
The firm's Q4 net loss narrowed to $6.2 million, or $14 per share on 440,652 weighted average common shares, from a net loss of $18.9 million, or $39,963 per share on 474 weighted average common shares, in Q4 2015. On an adjusted basis, the firm reported a net loss of $18.25 per share.
The firm's Q4 R&D spending rose 77 percent to $3.9 million from $2.2 million the year before, due to costs associated with investment in menu expansion and two clinical trials which have since been completed. Great Basin's SG&A Q4 costs fell 8 percent to $3.6 million from $3.9 million.
For full-year 2016, Great Basin's revenues rose 42 percent to $3.0 million from $2.1 million in 2015.
Great Basin said C. diff sales rose 25 percent while Group B Strep sales grew 515 percent from 2015. The firm also reported 498 analyzers placed at the end of 2016, up 16 percent from a year ago.
Great Basin's net loss for 2016 widened to $89.1 million from a loss of $57.9 million in 2015. Loss per share narrowed to $789.17 per share from $121,636.91 per share a year earlier as the number of weighted average common shares rose to 111,691 in 2016 from 476 in 2015. Adjusted loss per share for the year was $281.55.
During the year the firm received 510(k) clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration for two new products — a Shiga Toxin Direct Test and a multiplex Staph ID/R Blood Culture panel — doubling the menu on its PCR-based testing platform. Its shares were also delisted from the Nasdaq for failure to meet the exchange's $35 million market value and $1 minimum bid price requirements.
Full-year R&D costs rose 58 percent year over year to $13.4 million from $8.5 million, while SG&A costs for 2016 rose 40 percent to $15.7 million from $11.2 million.
Great Basin finished 2016 with $1.0 million in cash and $47.1 million in restricted cash.
"With the anticipated FDA clearances and subsequent commercial launches of Bordetella Direct Test and Stool Bacterial Pathogens Panel in 2017, we believe that Great Basin has a compelling menu of assays that, along with our no-cost instrumentation model and exceptional ease-of-use, should make us a convincing molecular diagnostics option for a wide variety of hospitals and labs in the US," Ashton added. "We expect to recognize revenue growth from six commercially-available assays beginning in the second half of 2017."