Compugen Ltd. Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End 2001 Financial Results
TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 2002--Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq:CGEN - news) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and year end December 31, 2001.
Revenues for the year 2001 were $11.4 million, compared to $7.4 million for 2000, with the majority of Compugen's revenues for 2001 resulting from technology licenses and collaborations with Avalon, Kyowa Hakko, Novartis, Pfizer Global Research and Development, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The net loss for 2001 was $15.1 million (including a non-cash charge of $2.6 million for amortization of deferred compensation), or $0.58 per share, compared with a net loss of $13.4 million (including a non-cash charge of $5.7 million for amortization of deferred compensation), or $0.96 per share, for 2000.
For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2001, revenues were $3.1 million compared to $3.4 million for the same quarter in 2000. Included in revenues for the fourth quarter of 2000 was a $1.5 million one-time collaboration fee. The net loss for the fourth quarter 2001 was $4.1 million (including a non-cash charge of $751,000 for amortization of deferred compensation), or $0.16 per share, compared to a net loss of $1.5 million (including a non-cash charge of $982,000 for amortization of deferred compensation), or $0.06 per share, for the corresponding quarter in 2000.
As of December 31, 2001, Compugen had $78.5 million in cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments, and long-term treasury, corporate bonds and cash deposits, a decrease of $1.8 million from $80.3 million as of September 30, 2001 and a decrease of $12.2 million from December 31, 2000.
``We are very pleased by the technological and commercial progress achieved during the past year as we continued to build our company,'' said Mor Amitai, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Compugen. ``We expanded our licensing and collaboration activities by signing agreements with Novartis and Kyowa-Hakko, and added two new additional commercialization vehicles to our business. The first, with Avalon, provides us with participation in the long-term success of our partner, in this case through equity participation. The second, with Sigma Genosys, involves the joint development and marketing of products, in this case co-branded oligo libraries for the discovery of gene function,'' continued Dr. Amitai.
Compugen also announced that in mid-March, Vincent R. Zurawski, Jr., Ph.D will be leaving his positions as CEO of Compugen, Inc., the Company's U.S. subsidiary, and President of the Novel Genomics Division. Erez Chimovits, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales, will assume Dr. Zurawski's corporate responsibilities, and Kinneret Savitsky, Ph.D, Vice President Experimental Biology, will assume his research and development responsibilities. Dr. Zurawski and Compugen intend to enter into an arrangement under which he will continue to provide consulting services to the Company, especially with respect to its diagnostic product development activities.
Year 2001 Highlights
* Technology Licensing and Collaborations
* Novartis -- Novartis AG and Compugen jointly announced an agreement for utilizing Compugen's LEADS platform and DNA Chip Design Services to accelerate identification of drug targets for Novartis. Novartis will use Compugen's technologies to identify and develop innovative therapies.
* Sigma-Genosys alliance -- Compugen and leading life science supplier Sigma-Genosys, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich family, initiated a collaboration for the design, production and commercialization of genome-wide OligoLibraries based on Compugen's proprietary LEADS and DNA Chip Design technologies.
* Avalon -- Compugen and Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. signed a collaborative agreement, which includes the licensing by Avalon of the Gencarta database and query tools, and Compugen's receipt of cash payments and equity participation in Avalon.
* Products
* Commercial launch of Gencarta(TM) -- Compugen launched Gencarta, an annotated genome, transcriptome and proteome database. In addition to the collaboration with Avalon, initial customers include Kyowa-Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd., a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
* Intellectual Property Portfolio
* We continue to file for patent protection with respect to our technologies and discoveries, including genes, proteins and other intellectual property which we believe are both novel and important, and would be difficult to discover or predict without the proprietary analysis and predictive modeling platforms and tools created by Compugen.
Year 2002 Guidance
The following statements are based on the Company's current expectations. These statements are forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially. Except as expressly set forth below, these statements do not include the potential impact of any mergers, acquisitions or other business combinations that may be closed or entered into after December 31, 2001.
* Revenues: During 2002, Compugen expects to continue to enter into alliances and collaborations with new partners, with a primary focus on future participation in the downstream values created through these efforts, and to commercialize certain of its current and new technology platforms and products. Revenue guidance for the year 2002 is in the range of $11-13 million. Thirty to forty percent of this revenue is expected to be provided by existing agreements.
* Gross Margin: Compugen's gross margin on its products and services can vary substantially from quarter to quarter due to differences in product mix. On an annual basis, our guidance for gross margin on our products and services is in the range of 60-70%.
* Research and Development: Compugen continues to pioneer the development of predictive biology, and to use this capability to both develop state-of-the art products for the industry, and to build its intellectual property position. The Company expects to introduce new products and technologies for commercialization to the industry during 2002. In addition, the Company will continue to invest resources in developing new technologies that address bottlenecks in the drug discovery and development process, such as our on-going program in computational chemistry for the discovery of small molecules for use as pharmaceuticals. Indicative of our substantial investments in the future is that we expect that our BioApplications division, which is responsible for the development, marketing and providing of our products and services, would become cash flow positive during 2003, if accounted for on a separate basis. Guidance for total research and development spending in 2002 is in the range of $16-17 million.
* Net Loss and Cash Balance: Guidance on net loss for 2002 is in the range of $17-19 million. Guidance for cash and cash equivalents at year-end 2002 is approximately $60 million.
Conference Call and Web Cast Information
Compugen will hold a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and year-end results on February 13, 2002 at 10:00 am EST. To access the conference call, please dial 888/269-0005 or 866/500-4965 from the US or +972-3-925-5910 internationally. A replay of the conference call will also be available approximately two hours after the completion of the live conference call. To access the replay, please dial +972-3-925-5933. The replay will be available until 11:00 pm EST on February 16, 2002.
The call will also be available via live Web cast through Compugen's Website, located at www.cgen.com, and at www.vcall.com. |
