NEW YORK – German molecular diagnostics firm Mainz Biomed said this week that its full-year 2022 revenues shrank 8 percent year over year to $529,877 from $577,348. ColoAlert revenues more than doubled to $519,728 from $226,438 while COVID-19 and other revenues dropped to $10,149 from $350,910. Mainz had a net loss of $26.3 million, or $1.86 per share, for 2022 compared to a net loss of $11.5 million, or $1.62 per share, in 2021. The firm's R&D costs increased to $3.7 million in 2022 from $466,689 in 2021 while its SG&A costs grew to $23.0 million last year from $9.4 million a year ago. Mainz finished 2022 with $17.1 million in cash.
Centogene said this week that it has extended its partnership with Takeda, which was originally established in 2015 with Shire Pharmaceuticals (hence acquired by Takeda) and was extended once already last year. Under the one-year contract extension, the Rostock, Germany-based rare disease company will continue to provide fee-for-service genetic diagnostic testing for patients with lysosomal storage disorders such as Fabry disease, Gaucher disease, and Hunter syndrome.
DermTech said this week that it signed a contract that has made its Melanoma Test available to about 3.8 million Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina members effective March 15, expanding the test’s availability to about 126 million people in the US. The La Jolla, California-based skin cancer diagnostics company said its test platform detects melanoma with a greater than 99 percent negative predictive value using an RT-PCR assay to identify expression of LINC00518 and PRAME genes and an add-on assay to identify the presence of TERT promoter mutations.
Freenome said this week that the Institute for Population and Precision Health at the University of Chicago has joined as a study partner for its Vallania multi-cancer early detection study, which began enrollment in 2022.
The company's multiomics platform combines tumor and non-tumor signals with machine learning to detect cancers using a standard blood draw and is currently being validated for detection of colorectal cancer. In the Vallania study, Freenome is now refining the approach across multiple tumor types, enrolling patients at more than 100 sites across the United States.
Theradiag said this week that its first quarter revenues grew 6 percent year over year. For the three months ended March 31, total revenues reached €3.3 million, up from €3.1 million a year ago. Theranostics revenues grew to €1.8 million from €1.4 million while IVD revenues contracted to €1.5 million from €1.7 million. The French IVD firm also said that its full-year 2022 revenues rose 10 percent to €12.2 million from €11.1 million in 2021. Theranostics revenues grew to €6.4 million from €5.8 million, and IVD revenues were up to €5.8 million from €5.3 million. Theradiag had a net loss of €487,000 last year compared to net loss of €767,000 in 2021. The company ended 2022 with €6.4 million in cash, it said.
Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami said this week that it has launched a clinic to assist pediatric patients with rare or undiagnosed diseases and their families. The Undiagnosed Diseases Clinic, occurring monthly, offers eligible patients genetic testing, including whole-genome sequencing, as well as metabolomic testing. Eligible patients usually show several phenotypes and do not have a diagnosis yet. If a diagnosis is determined, children are referred to specialists for future treatment opportunities.
Point-of-care diagnostics firm Nanomix said this week that it secured a $70,000 equity investment from Mike Wickham, managing director of the veterinary laboratory diagnostics equipment supplier Woodley Equipment. Wickham purchased 59,640 shares of common stock at $1.17 per share in the most recent investment, bringing his total equity investments in the company to $570,000. Nanomix said in November that it had inked an agreement for Woodley to help Nanomix develop species-specific ranges for its S1 critical infection panel and distribute Nanomix's eLab system in veterinary markets outside the US.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on 360Dx.