NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Fluidigm reported after the close of the market Tuesday that its second-quarter revenues increased 22 percent year over year driven by 79 percent growth for its consumables.
The South San Francisco, Calif.-based firm brought in total revenues of $12.9 million for the three months ended June 30, compared to $10.6 million for the second quarter of 2011. The firm surpassed analysts' consensus estimate of $12.5 million.
Instrument revenues were $6.9 million for the quarter versus $6.4 million for Q2 2011, and consumables sales were $5.9 million, up from $3.3 million. Revenues from licenses, collaborations, and grants were $180,000, down from $865,000 year over year.
As of the end of the second quarter, Fluidigm had 565 systems installed at customer locations.
Fluidigm President and CEO Gajus Worthington said in a statement that the sales uptick was driven by single-cell genomics, high-throughput gene expression, and production genotyping applications.
"During the quarter, we saw, as we have in nearly every quarter over the last several years, more important signs that we are really on the right track with our strategic focus on single-cell genomics," Worthignton added on a conference call following the release of the Q2 results. "In particular, our collaboration with the Broad, the single-cell genomics initiative, kicked off publicly and received substantially more interest from the scientific community than we, and I also suspect the Broad, anticipated. We believe that this initiative will, in the medium and long term, be a strong catalyst and stimulant for important science in this area and for the single-cell genomics market generally."
He said that an important part of the firm's strategy was the recent launch of its C1 single-cell auto prep system.
"We've allocated up to 25 systems to the early-access program, which seemed very aggressive to us just a few months ago," said Worthington. "At the rate we are going, it is possible that all those slots will be filled by years' end. I must caution, though, that filling the early-access program slots does not imply revenue for all those systems during this fiscal year. We expect to commence shipment of C1 systems for revenue in late Q3."
Fluidigm posted a net loss of $4.6 million, or $.22 per share, compared to a loss of $7.2 million, or $.36 per share, for Q2 2011. Wall Street expected a loss per share of $.25.
Its R&D spending for the quarter was $4 million, up 18 percent from $3.4 million year over year, and its SG&A expenses rose 21 percent to $9.4 million from $7.8 million.
Fluidigm finished the quarter with $9.9 million cash and cash equivalents and $28 million in short-term investments.
The firm said that it expects its full-year product revenues to grow between 25 percent and 30 percent over FY 2011 product revenues of $40.6 million.
In Wednesday morning trade on the Nasdaq shares of Fluidigm were up 8 percent at $14.82.