NEW YORK – Seer reported after the close of market Monday that its Q1 revenues fell 65 percent.
For the three months ended March 31, 2021, the Redwood City, California-based proteomics firm posted revenues of $62,000, down from $177,000 in the year-ago period. The drop was due to a decline in revenue from a Small Business Innovation Research grant.
On a conference call following release of the Q1 results, Omid Farokhzad, Seer's cofounder, chair, and CEO, said that during the quarter the company launched a limited release of its Proteograph proteomics platform, signing multiple customers.
He said that Seer expected to have "high single-digit numbers" of limited-release customers before it launches the platform broadly.
Among the company's limited-release customers is PrognomIQ, the diagnostics firm Seer spun out in September.
"PrognomIQ will be using the Proteograph Product Suite for liquid biopsies across a range of applications including early disease detection and proteogenomics," Farokhzad said, adding that Seer believed PrognomIQ could play a key role in demonstrating the capabilities of the platform in these applications.
Seer has begun research collaborations with four sites, Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute, Discovery Life Sciences, and the Salk Institute.
Farokhzad said that OHSU and the Broad Institute have completed initial evaluation studies using the platform and are now launching larger-scale studies including a project at OHSU looking at proteomic signatures of prostate cancer.
Seer also during the quarter added Kenny Ross, former vice president of manufacturing strategy at Illumina, as Seer's VP of operations and quality, and doubled the size of its Redwood City facility, Farokhzad said.
Seer's net loss in the fourth quarter was $16.4 million, or $.27 per share, compared to $5.5 million, or $.61 per share, in Q1 2020, exceeding the consensus Wall Street estimate of $.20 per share.
The company's R&D expenses in Q1 2021 were $6.2 million, up 47 percent from $4.2 million in Q1 2020. General and administrative costs were up almost sixfold to $10.3 million from $1.8 million in the year-ago period.
Seer ended the quarter with $445.8 million is cash and cash equivalents.
The firm raised $110.5 million in a follow-on public offering of stock in January.
In Tuesday morning trading on Nasdaq, Seer shares were down 6 percent to $30.01.