NEW YORK ─ Pacific Biosciences on Tuesday reported preliminary revenues of approximately $36.0 million for the fourth quarter, up about 33 percent from $27.1 million in Q4 2020. The company also announced new collaborations with Google, Berry Genomics, and Genomics England.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, PacBio estimated instrument revenues of $16.2 million, up 19 percent year over year from $13.6 million. Consumables revenues are expected to be $15.0 million, up 50 percent year over year from $10.0 million. Preliminary service and other revenues are estimated to be $4.8 million, up 33 percent year over year from $3.5 million.
Estimated Q4 revenues remained just shy of analysts' consensus estimate for Q4 revenues of $36.6 million. For full-year 2021, PacBio estimated approximately $130.5 million in revenues, a 65 percent increase from the year prior and at the midpoint of previous guidance of $128 million to $132 million, but short of analysts' consensus estimate of $131.3 million.
"2021 was a transformational year for PacBio," Christian Henry, the firm's CEO and president, said in a statement. "Importantly, we are also collaborating with more customers than ever before to help us demonstrate the power of HiFi sequencing in numerous applications."
Under the new collaboration with Google, PacBio will tap into Google's genomic analysis, machine learning, and algorithm development tools to improve its variant calls for HiFi sequencing. The partnership is built upon the duo's previous research collaboration, which yielded a recent preprint paper that suggested that Google's DeepConsensus machine learning tool is capable of increasing the yield of HiFi reads by as much as 27 percent per instrument run.
Internationally, PacBio is teaming up with Berry Genomics, a Chinese clinical genomics and life science company, to bring long-read desktop sequencers to the clinical market in China. Under the agreement, PacBio will develop its first long-read desktop sequencing platform with funding and support from Berry. Once the product is out, Berry Genomics will purchase at least 50 systems for use and sale throughout China. In 2019, PacBio and Berry worked together to clear the regulatory authorization of the PacBio Sequel II instrument for clinical use in China.
PacBio is also partnering with Genomics England to help identify genetic variants in patients with unexplained rare diseases. Under the deal, Genomics England — initially created for the UK’s 100,000 Genomes Project for the National Health Service — will use PacBio HiFi sequencing to re-sequence a selection of samples previously analyzed with short-read sequencing technology. The study is intended to identify the operational and clinical benefits of long-read sequencing in investigating genetic mutations associated with rare diseases.
"I expect 2022 to be an exciting year for the company as we leverage the foundation that we've built in 2021 and enter the late stages of development for multiple new sequencing platforms," Henry said.
In early Tuesday trading on the Nasdaq, shares of PacBio were down more than 14 percent at $14.18.