NEW YORK – Olink reported on Wednesday that its Q3 2021 revenues were up 82 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, the Uppsala, Sweden-based proteomics technology firm posted revenues of $20.0 million, up from $11.0 million in the year-ago period.
The firm's service revenue was $15.1 million, up more than twofold from $6.0 million in Q3 2020, while kits revenue was $3.7 million, up 16 percent from $3.2 million in the year-ago period, and other revenue was $1.2 million, down 33 percent from $1.8 million in Q3 2020.
On a conference call following the Q3 results, Olink CEO Jon Heimer noted that the revenue growth, particularly on the service side, was driven by the recognition of revenue from the firm's collaboration with the UK Biobank. The company is in the process of running 56,000 samples from the biobank on its 1,500-protein Explore system, which it expects to complete this year. It plans to run the same samples next year on the recently released expanded Explore platform, which measures up to 3,000 proteins per sample.
He added that the company experienced some "friction" during the quarter including the resurgence of COVID-19 and supply chain issues in certain geographies. In particular, the availability of plastic materials like plates has been a limiting factor, Heimer said, noting that some labs are facing wait times of at least four months for plates. Supply chain disruption also impacted shipment of instrumentation and samples during the quarter, he said.
Olink installed five of its Explore systems during the quarter, bringing it to a total of 21 installed, Heimer said. The Explore platform uses Olink's proximity extension assay technology with next-generation sequencing readout on Illumina's NovaSeq system. The Explore system represented 63 percent of the company's revenue in Q3, up from 53 percent in Q2.
During the conference call, Olink CFO Oskar Hjelm noted that Explore service revenues grew more than twelvefold year over year.
Olink's net loss in the third quarter was $5.5 million, or $.05 per share, compared to $105,000, or $.20 per share, in Q3 2020. It used approximately 119.0 million shares to calculate its per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 22.9 million shares in the year-ago period.
The company's R&D expenses were $4.2 million, up more than threefold from $1.3 million in the year-ago period. Its SG&A costs were up almost twofold to $20.1 million from $7.2 million in Q3 2020.
Olink maintained its previously projected 2021 revenue guidance of between $90 million and $92 million.
It ended the quarter with $140.2 million in cash and cash equivalents.
In Wednesday morning trading on the Nasdaq, Olink shares were down 17 percent to $24.96.