NEW YORK – Co-Diagnostics this week reported that its full-year 2024 revenues declined 43 percent year over year to $3.9 million from $6.8 million primarily due to higher grant revenue in 2023. The firm's 2024 grant revenue was $3.1 million while its product revenue totaled $800,000. The Salt Lake City-based company recorded a full-year net loss of $37.6 million, or $1.24 per share, compared to a net loss of $35.3 million, or $1.20 per share, a year ago. As of Dec. 31, 2024, Co-Diagnostics had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaling $29.7 million. In February, the company said it had withdrawn a 510(k) submission to the US Food and Drug Administration for a COVID-19 assay on its portable PCR instrument and that it would eventually submit an enhanced version of the test.
Burning Rock Biotech reported this week that its fourth quarter 2024 revenues were up 4 percent year over year at RMB 126.0 million ($17.3 million) compared to RMB 121.1 million in Q4 2023. Revenue from the Guangzhou, China-based firm's central lab business was down 23 percent at RMB 39.3 million from RMB 51.3 million for the same period in 2023, reflecting the company's continued shift to providing tests for in-hospital use. That side of the business brought in RMB 43.5 million, up 51 percent year over year from RMB 28.8 million. Revenue generated from pharma research and development totaled RMB 43.3 million in Q4, a 6 percent increase from RMB 41.0 million. The firm reported a Q4 net loss of RMB 81.3 million, or RMB .18 per share, compared to ;a net loss of RMB 162.2 million, or RMB 1.58 per share, for the same period of 2023.
For the full year, Burning Rock's revenues were RMB 515.8 million, down 4 percent from RMB 537.4 million in 2023. Central lab revenue was down 25 percent in 2024 at RMB 175.6 million compared to RMB 232.8 million, while revenue from the firm's in-hospital business rose 19 percent to RMB 224.5 million from RMB 188.7 million in 2023. Pharma services revenues were stable, dropping a fraction of a percent to RMB 115.7 million from RMB 115.9 million. The firm's full-year net loss was RMB 346.6 million, or RMB 3.37 per share, compared to RMB 653.7 million, or RMB 6.38 per share, in 2023. Burning Rock ended the year with cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaling RMB 522.2 million.
Finnish bioinformatics company Euformatics said this week that it has signed a commercial contract with India-based genomics company Bencos Healthcare Solution to jointly develop next-generation sequencing bioinformatics solutions. The collaboration covers the integration of Euformatics' tertiary analysis of NGS data with Bencos' secondary analysis and downstream bioinformatics. Bencos will also use Euformatics' Genomics Hub platform to analyze rare diseases and cancer from its gene panels and whole-exome sequencing data, the partners said.
ERS Genomics has granted a nonexclusive license to Jumpcode Genomics for ERS's CRISPR-Cas9 patent portfolio, enabling Jumpcode to advance the sensitivity and efficiency of next-generation sequencing and expand applications across multiple research and clinical areas. By combining this foundational IP with Jumpcode's patent portfolio, the company can "drive breakthroughs in basic research, infectious disease detection, molecular diagnostics, and oncology," Jumpcode President and CEO Mike Salter said in a statement this week.
Tec de Monterrey and the University of Texas at Austin said this week that they are launching the OriGen Health Research Center, which will leverage Latin America's largest biobank, machine learning, and expert researchers from both universities to improve the understanding of a wide range of diseases in Latino populations. Tec's OriGen biobank contains genetic, clinical, and epidemiological information to which research teams will apply artificial intelligence technologies for large-scale data analyses to develop predictive models and patient-specific treatments, the partners said.
Swedish diagnostics company Devyser said this week that Devyser Genomic Laboratories in Roswell, Georgia, has been accredited by the College of American Pathologists. The accreditation follows an on-site inspection by CAP, during which inspectors examined the lab’s records and quality control procedures.
Bio-Techne said this week that it will open a new customer experience center in Düsseldorf, Germany, to support customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa as well as the company’s long-term regional growth strategy. The new center is scheduled to open in the summer of 2026 and will include a demonstration lab for Bio-Techne's instrument portfolio. It will complement the firm's existing demonstration lab in the UK.
Inflammatix this week announced that it is shipping TriVerity cartridges and Myrna instruments to the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) to help differentiate between bacterial and viral infections and noninfectious illnesses. The JPEO-CBRND will evaluate the viability of the TriVerity cartridges and the Myrna instruments for field use, conducting cybersecurity analyses of TriVerity and determining the system's suitability in a deployed military setting.
The initial shipment is part of a JPEO-CBRND contract worth up to $20.8 million if all options are exercised, and Inflammatix will receive more than $1.2 million for the initial shipment. TriVerity is a rapid blood test that measures the expression levels of 29 genes involved in the immune response associated with acute infection status and illness severity, Inflammatix noted.
Basel, Switzerland-based Roche this week announced that its shareholders approved an increase in dividend to CHF 9.70 ($11.00) per share and nonvoting equity security.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative said this week that its CZ Biohub San Francisco and CZ Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging (CZ Imaging Institute) will form a new biohub focused on life science imaging research. It will be located in Redwood City, California, adjacent to CZI headquarters, and its development will be led by Scott Fraser, who is transitioning to the role of president at the CZ Imaging Institute from his role as CZI's VP of science grant programs. The vision for the new biohub is to develop novel imaging systems to "illuminate the dynamic architecture of living systems, making what was invisible visible, measurable, and understandable," CZI said in a statement. Researchers will develop imaging technologies integrated with molecular analysis methods that can capture biological processes across multiple scales, from individual proteins to whole organisms, CZI added.
Separately, Thermo Fisher Scientific said this week that it has signed a technology alliance agreement with the CZI Imaging Institute to develop new technologies to enable researchers to better visualize human cells, with a particular focus on cryo-electron microscopy. Thermo Fisher said it will build on existing collaborations with professor Holger Müller and his team at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to work with the CZ Imaging Institute to further develop laser phase plate technology for cryo-EM, enhancing cellular biology imaging at high resolution.
Genomize, an Istanbul-based provider of digital solutions for bioinformatics and NGS data analysis, has partnered with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Genomenon to integrate data from Genomenon's Mastermind Genomic Intelligence Platform and Cancer Knowledge Base into Genomize's SEQ Platform. This collaboration will enable Genomize to incorporate both germline and somatic curated data from Genomenon for comprehensive genomic interpretation, the partners said in a statement this week.
Canhelp Genomics this week said it is partnering with Simcere to develop and commercialize Canhelp's Gene Expression Test System for Human Tumor Origin Classification (Canhelp-Origin) test with the goal of accelerating clinical adoption of the test across China for diagnosis and treatment of patients with cancers of unknown primary (CUP).
The Human Cell Atlas and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) signed a partnership this week. In a letter of intent, the two organizations said they plan to collaborate on strengthening ethical frameworks; positioning HCA's data resources in alignment with the principles and guidance of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science; and promoting knowledge exchange, regional collaboration, and training. They also plan to ensure that medical and scientific advances made possible by HCA and other global scientific initiatives are shared equitably across the globe and provide health benefits to all of humanity.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.