CIPH hits revenue, misses a bit on earnings. Restructuring confirmed. Matt Hogan looking for the exit? Don't know this Acosta fellow; will have to track down his alleged track record. Loss was 31 cents versus consensus of 27. Estimate for revenue was $7.6 million.
>>FREMONT, Calif., Aug. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CIPH - News) today announced financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2005. Ciphergen's total revenue was $7.5 million in the second quarter of 2005 as compared to $8.3 million in the second quarter of 2004. Ciphergen's net loss was $9.0 million in the second quarter of 2005 as compared to $13.1 million in the second quarter of 2004.
As of June 30, 2005, the Company's cash and investments were $23.5 million. Total long term debt totaled $28.4 million, of which $28.3 million was convertible debt. On July 22, Ciphergen entered into a strategic alliance with Quest Diagnostics whereby Quest Diagnostics made a $15 million equity investment in Ciphergen and has agreed to lend Ciphergen $10 million to fund certain development activities; this loan will be forgiven if certain milestones are made.
The Company also announced an increased focus on its emerging proteomic biomarker-based clinical diagnostic business, for which a strategic alliance was recently formed with Quest Diagnostics. The Company believes that it has unique capabilities to discover proteomic biomarkers that can be translated into highly predictive research and clinical diagnostic assays that enable improved understanding of disease pathology, faster pharmacoproteomic-based drug development and the improvement of patient care.
"The recently announced alliance with Quest Diagnostics is an important step towards translating our proprietary biomarker discovery and assay capabilities into commercial clinical diagnostic tests to address unmet medical needs and improve patient care," stated William E. Rich, CEO. "I am pleased to announce the promotion of Gail S. Page to President and COO. Under her leadership, we are integrating and streamlining our operating divisions to focus our resources on biomarker discovery partnerships with key academic and pharmaceutical customers to speed development of diagnostic and theranostic assays and better leverage the Quest alliance."
Ciphergen also announced that it intends to focus its sales efforts on collaborative BDC service projects with key translational research customers in academia and pharma. The Company believes that this increased emphasis on project-scale, collaborative services will expedite the success of its customers with the technology, increase ProteinChip® product and service revenues, while also enabling the Company to reduce its operating expenses. In line with this strategy, a number of organizational changes were implemented at the Company, including steps to reduce headcount by approximately 20% by the fourth quarter. In addition Ciphergen is integrating its divisions into one organization and has promoted Gail S. Page to President and Chief Operating Officer of Ciphergen.
Other Recent Highlights
* Major presence at AACR Annual Meeting. At the American Association
of Cancer Research (AACR) annual conference, there were a total of
44 studies presented that utilized Ciphergen's ProteinChip
technology for biomarker discovery, validation, identification and
assay development across a wide varieties of cancers and therapeutic
strategies. At a special invited session, Dr. Judah Folkman of the
Children's Hospital Boston presented results of work done in his
laboratory and in collaboration with Ciphergen scientists using
SELDI-TOF-MS, suggesting that proteomic analysis of circulating
platelets can potentially be useful for early cancer diagnosis.
* Promising results presented at AUA Annual Meeting. Dr. Daniel W.
Chan and Dr. Zhen Zhang of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, working
in collaboration with Ciphergen scientists, presented results at the
American Urological Association Annual Meeting suggesting that two
protein markers, in combination with PSA levels, may be useful in
predicting risk of recurrence within five years of treatment.
* Agreement signed with National Cancer Institute. In April,
Ciphergen signed a material transfer agreement with the NCI Clinical
Proteomics Reference Laboratory (CPRL) which allows CPRL to evaluate
the ProteinChip System, Series 4000, arrays and software to study
biomarker patterns indicative of ovarian cancer. The CPRL intends
to test archived ovarian cancer samples on assays it has constructed
on Ciphergen's platform.
* Novel Approach Reported to Detect Cancer by Measuring Host Response
Proteins. A Ciphergen study performed in collaboration with
scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine was
published in the International Journal of Cancer which suggested a
novel alternative to searching for highly specific classical markers
coming directly from tumors. This approach utilizes SELDI-TOF-MS to
detect and quantitatively assay for post-translationally modified
proteins formed by the host response to the tumor.
* Introduction of Deep Proteome(TM) Research Services. At the
American Society of Mass Spectrometry Annual Meeting, Ciphergen
announced the introduction of Deep Proteome Research Services
through our Biomarker Discovery Center® (BDC) scientists, making
proprietary Equalizer(TM) protein biomarker discovery technology
available to scientists for the first time. Deep Proteome Research
Services enable scientists to look at low abundance proteins in
various biological samples and significantly improve their biomarker
discovery power. These services are preferentially provided to
Ciphergen's ProteinChip System customers and BDC collaboration
partnerships.
* Biomarker Research Collaboration with Bayer Pharmaceuticals.
Ciphergen will analyze patient samples from one of Bayer's compounds
in a Phase II clinical trial in cancer, with a goal of delivering to
Bayer a biomarker assay that is predictive of drug response. This
agreement expands Ciphergen's business initiative to form
pharmacoproteomic collaborations with pharmaceutical companies to
accelerate and streamline clinical development of new drugs through
the identification of important biomarkers of drug response.
* Patent Issuances. Ciphergen has had seven patents issue in the U.S.
during the first half of 2005; of particular interest, one issued
patent is directed to the detection of multiple diagnostic markers
by SELDI-TOF-MS for the diagnosis of disease, and another is
directed toward methods of using SELDI-TOF-MS to rapidly purify
proteins for applications including protein identification.
Ciphergen currently has 28 issued patents and 109 active patent
families.
* Other Management Changes. James S. Burns, President and CEO of
EntreMed, Inc. has joined Ciphergen's Board of Directors. Mr. Burns
brings to Ciphergen significant experience and accomplishments in
both the pharmaceutical and laboratory products industries,
particularly important to the Company's initiatives to further
penetrate the pharmaceutical industry. Matthew Hogan, the Company's
Chief Financial Officer, has informed the Company that he is
considering pursuing potential alternative career opportunities in
the investment management field. He currently remains as the Chief
Financial Officer of the Company and has made no decision to leave
the Company at this time. In addition, Michael Acosta recently
joined Ciphergen as Vice President, Quality Assurance/Regulatory
Affairs. Mr. Acosta has a long record of ensuring compliance with
regulatory requirements and his primary initial focus at the Company
will in the area of cGMP compliance to facilitate the Company's
biomarker diagnostic development program.<<
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Cheers, Tuck |
