360Dx Top 30 Rises 2 Percent After Months of Decline

NEW YORK – The 360Dx Top 30 rebounded in October, ticking up 2 percent month over month, following two months of decreases.

The Top 30 still trailed the broader market as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 14 percent month over month, while the Nasdaq increased 4 percent. Meantime, the Nasdaq Biotech Index grew 9 percent.

The Top 30's highest gainers were Renalytix (+52 percent), QuidelOrtho (+26 percent), and Veracyte (+21 percent). The decliners were led by Dermtech (-19 percent), Accelerate Diagnostics (-16 percent), and Bio-Rad Laboratories (-16 percent).

Renalytix's share price gain was driven by the announcement of its full-year 2022 financial results at the end of the month. The firm reported earlier this week that its revenues for the year nearly doubled and that it now has commercial coverage contracts with 28 private insurance and network provider companies. The company also secured Medicare payment authorization for its KidneyIntelX test at a price of $950 per test. The blood-based assay is intended to detect acute and chronic kidney disease.

QuidelOrtho also likely benefited from quarterly earnings news: The company reported preliminary third quarter revenues of between $782 million and $785 million. It said it expects COVID-19 product revenues of $171 million and non-COVID revenue between $611 million and $614 million. Q3 2022 marks the first full quarter since Quidel acquired Ortho Clinical Diagnostics and the firms started reporting as a combined company.

Alex Nowak, a senior research analyst for Craig-Hallum, wrote in a note to investors after the preliminary results that the integration of Quidel and Ortho appears to be "going smoothly, overcoming international headwinds, supply chain normalizing" and that he "continue[s] to await revenue synergies that show us the true potential of this new global diagnostics powerhouse."

Veracyte saw the release of new data last month that may have had an impact on its stock price increase. In an oral presentation at the American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting 2022, the firm unveiled findings from a Phase III trial that a genomic signature derived from the company's Decipher Genomics Resource for Intelligent Discovery database could help determine which men with prostate cancer progression after a radical prostatectomy would benefit from dose-intensified salvage radiotherapy.

At the American College of Chest Physicians Annual Meeting 2022 earlier last month, two abstracts validating the firm's Envisia Genomic Classifier and Percepta Nasal Swab tests in lung disease and lung cancer were presented. The first covered a study of patients with interstitial lung disease where those with a positive Envisia test had a lower baseline lung function, which could indicate that a positive test result may serve as a biomarker for forced vital capacity decline, Lisa Lancaster, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and one of the presenters, said in a statement.

The other study found that Veracyte's Percepta Nasal Swab test may be able to categorize more lung nodule patients as low- or high-risk for lung cancer compared to the standard-of-care approach.

Dermtech and Accelerate Diagnostics both had little news last month to explain the fluctuations in their share prices. Each firm, however, has a relatively low stock price that makes them susceptible to small comparative changes in the market.

Bio-Rad Laboratories, meantime, saw its share price decline after a report about a potential merger with Qiagen. After the report from the Wall Street Journal early last month, the firm's stock price slid as much as 10 percent over the course of the day. The WSJ said the merger could be valued at more than $10 billion.

In a note to investors, Jefferies equity analyst Brandon Couillard noted that the deal "would be a big departure" from Bio-Rad's traditional "focus on lower-risk tuck-in deals." He said he thinks "investors will be concerned about [potential] equity dilution at a discounted valuation, as well as its ability to execute the integration." However, he added that he believes "in the industrial logic of the deal, which would give [Bio-Rad] greater scale and help diversify its growth avenues."

Bio-Rad was also likely impacted by the release of its quarterly financial results last month, as it reported a 9 percent decline in revenues compared to Q3 2021. That decline was primarily due to lower COVID-19-related sales, as well as a $32 million settlement with 10x Genomics that occurred in Q3 2021. Life sciences revenues fell 15 percent, while clinical diagnostics revenues were down 3 percent. The firm also noted that it has seen supply chain challenges that have led to a significant order backlog.

*Abbott paid a dividend of $.47 per share on Oct. 13.

**PerkinElmer paid a dividend of $.07 per share on Oct. 20. 

***Quest Diagnostics paid a dividend of $.66 per share on Oct. 3.