NEW YORK – Nautilus Biotechnology on Tuesday reported a net loss of $10.7 million in the second quarter of 2021, up roughly threefold from a net loss of $3.4 million in the year-ago period.
The proteomics startup, which debuted on the Nasdaq in June following a business combination transaction with Arya Sciences Acquisition Corp III, a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Perceptive Advisors, did not post any revenues during the quarter ended June 30.
Nautilus has developed an array-based protein analysis platform combining machine learning and iterative rounds of affinity reagents that the company believes will ultimately enable single-molecule measurements at proteome scale.
During a conference call following release of the results, Parag Mallick, Nautilus cofounder and chief scientist, said the company during the quarter had made advances "in the manufacturing design of our instrument, hardening of our protein analysis workflow and of our key consumables" in support of an anticipated launch of its platform in 2023.
Mallick noted that the company recently submitted its first peer-reviewed publication describing its technology. A version of the paper became available on bioRxiv last month. He said the company plans to submit an additional manuscript this quarter.
Cofounder and CEO Sujal Patel said on the call that Nautilus also aims to submit by the end of the year a paper detailing work from its research collaboration with Genentech using Nautilus' platform to analyze one of the drug company's protein targets.
Patel said the company plans to launch early access of its instrument in mid to late 2022, adding biopharma and academic users. He said Nautilus aims by the end of this year to sign a collaboration agreement with an additional pharma firm, noting that this work would, like the Genentech work, focus on use of the platform to analyze the proteoforms of a particular protein target.
Nautilus's R&D spending in Q2 more than doubled to $6.4 million from $2.8 million a year ago, while SG&A costs rose nearly sevenfold to $4.3 million from $649,000.
CFO Anna Mowry said the increases in spending were driven primarily by an increase in personnel costs as the company accelerated development of its platform and began operating as a public company.
On Monday, Nautilus appointed former Pacific Biosciences executive Karl Voss as vice president of life sciences research and development.
The company ended the quarter with $288.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $84.8 million in short-term investments.
In Tuesday afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, Nautilus shares were down 1 percent to $7.89.