SQNM earnings beat estimates (actual loss -.22, average street estimate was loss of -.42)...
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Wednesday November 1, 7:01 am Eastern Time
SEQUENOM Reports Third Quarter Financial Results
Quarter's Highlights Validate Strategy, Commercial and Technical Leadership Position
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- SEQUENOM(TM), Inc. (Nasdaq: SQNM - news) today reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2000. Net revenues were $2.8 million, compared to $26,000 for the quarter ended September 30, 1999. The nine-month period ended September 30, 2000 reflected revenues of $6.3 million compared to $81,000 for the same period in 1999. Revenues for the quarter were largely derived from MassARRAY(TM) system and consumable sales and assay validation and design services provided to our collaborators.
SEQUENOM's total costs and expenses for the quarter were $10.5 million compared to $7.8 million in operating expenses for the third quarter of 1999. For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2000, total costs and expenses were $33.5 million, compared to $16.1 million for the same period in 1999. The increase in expenses during the quarter was primarily driven by an increase in sales and marketing costs with the commercial launch of the MassARRAY system in December 1999, expansion of the in-house high throughput genotyping facility in San Diego, and continued growth in product development efforts. On September 30, 2000, the Company held cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaling $141.2 million.
The net loss for the quarter was $5.4 million, or $0.22 per share on a diluted basis. This compared to a net loss of $7.6 million and pro forma diluted net loss per share of $0.48 for the third quarter of 1999. For the nine months ended September 30, 2000, net loss was $25.4 million, or $1.08 per share on a pro forma diluted basis, compared to a net loss of $15.4 million, or $1.03 per share on a pro forma diluted basis, for the same period in 1999.
Highlights during the quarter included:
-- Commercial collaboration with Incyte Genomics.
SEQUENOM will use its MassARRAY technology to confirm and validate the
100,000 gene-based SNPs from Incyte's LifeSeq Gold gene database and
then use the validated SNP information to develop and exclusively
market 100,000 SNP assays. The SNPs will be further validated for
medical utility using SEQUENOM's proprietary population genetics
approach. SEQUENOM will market its genotyping solutions and
proprietary SNP assay portfolios to the pharmaceutical and life science
partners and subscribers of Incyte, and the two companies will jointly
commercialize downstream products.
-- System sales: validation of MassARRAY system by genomics avant-garde.
SEQUENOM continued to place MassARRAY systems during the quarter with
sales to Hitachi, Ltd., Genetics Institute (a wholly owned subsidiary
of American Home Products Corporation), Genaissance Pharmaceuticals and
two systems at Integrated DNA Technologies.
-- Major cardiovascular disease collaboration with the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center.
SEQUENOM and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the
nation's largest cardiovascular research institute, will seek to
discover associations between SNPs and cardiovascular disease.
SEQUENOM will analyze UT Southwestern's SNP candidates using its
automated assay development and MassARRAY technology, and then screen
validated SNPs against UT Southwestern's bank of more than 3,500 DNA
samples linked to cardiovascular disease with detailed clinical data.
The collaboration also gives SEQUENOM access to UT Southwestern's bank
of 3,500 DNA samples to validate cardiovascular gene targets discovered
using SEQUENOM's population genetics approach.
-- National Cancer Institute (NCI) doubles level of collaboration.
Early in the quarter, SEQUENOM announced the completion of a project
with the NCI in which the Company developed more than 9,000 assays to
confirm and validate SNPs within a reference population. It was the
largest SNP assay design and validation project in the industry and was
completed using SEQUENOM's automated assay development and MassARRAY
technology. As a result of the project, the NCI contracted with
SEQUENOM for an additional set of 10,000 SNP assays for confirmation
and validation.
-- Expansion of SNP assay portfolio as value-added, high margin products.
SEQUENOM expanded its assay portfolio to over 400,000 assays using its
assay design software and MassARRAY technology. MassARRAY customers
will use the assays to validate SNPs, analyze their characteristics in
individuals and populations, and determine their medical utility. The
portfolio contains assays for most SNPs from the public domain and a
large portion of validated assays of gene-based SNPs from SEQUENOM's
collaborations with Incyte, The SNP Consortium, the NCI, UT
Southwestern and Gemini Genomics.
-- Validation of population genetics approach.
SEQUENOM's population genetics approach is based on a proprietary DNA
bank with 16,000 samples representative of the U.S. population and is
part of its novel health-based concept to identify SNPs of medical
utility. The Company has validated the efficiency of its approach by
screening genetic markers with known and unknown medical utility. As
SEQUENOM builds its intellectual property portfolio from select leads
discovered and validated through in-house programs, it will provide
access to customers to initiate programs for new diagnostics, drug
development and therapeutics.
``Sixteen commercial system placements in the nine months since our commercial launch and the recently announced strategic collaborations are clear indicators of our commercial and technical leadership position in the SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) analysis market,'' said Toni Schuh, Ph.D., SEQUENOM's President and CEO. ``Entities such as Incyte Genomics, the Sanger Centre, The SNP Consortium, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Cancer Institute are leading the genomics revolution, initially in the public and private sector efforts to map the human genome and discover SNPs, and now by partnering with SEQUENOM to translate that data into medical and commercial utility.''
Webcast of Conference Call
SEQUENOM's management will hold a conference call to discuss third quarter results and milestones today at 10:00 am Eastern Time. A live webcast is available at videonewswire.com and through a link that is posted on SEQUENOM's website at www.sequenom.com. A telephone replay of the conference call also will be available for 24 hours at 800-633-8284 or 858-812-6440, reservation #16615901. The webcast will be available on SEQUENOM's website through November 8, 2000.
About SEQUENOM, Inc.
SEQUENOM is a post-genomics company translating information generated from the map of the human genome into practical applications by offering a comprehensive genotyping technology to determine the medical relevance of genetic variations. SEQUENOM's distinct competitive advantage is a SNP analysis solution consisting of its highly accurate and robust MassARRAY system, an automated assay development process and assay database, the ability to analyze hundreds of samples in a single reaction and a proven health-based concept for genetic marker validation. As a leader in SNP analysis, SEQUENOM offers its powerful technology to customers in diagnostics, pharmacogenomics, drug development and agricultural biotechnology, while using the MassARRAY technology with a novel scientific strategy for in-house programs to identify the medical utility of SNPs. SEQUENOM is headquartered in San Diego, California with offices in Hamburg, Germany and Boston, Massachusetts. |
