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In Brief This Week: SQI Diagnostics, Chembio, Accelerate, Seegene, Freenome, More

NEW YORK – SQI Diagnostics said this week that it is reducing its workforce to 20 full-time employees from 44 as it refocuses its business on point-of-care tests for respiratory health. As a result, it expects to trim its payroll and cash burn on a monthly basis by half. The firm will now entertain potential offers for the sale of the firm's non-core lab-based instruments, and there will be no changes to SQI's leadership team, it said. 

The Canadian firm will now focus its attention on three POC tests — the Rali-fast Severity Triage POC Test, a multiplexed POC version of the Rali-Dx IL-6 Severity Triage Test to predict which COVID-19 patients will develop a severe inflammatory response; the Tordx Lung Test, which measures up to four biomarkers to predict organ transplant patient outcome; and tests being developed with Owlstone Medical to monitor lung transplant recipients. 


Chembio Diagnostics announced this week that French firm BioSynex has extended a tender offer to acquire the company to April 12 from a previous expiration date of March 28. The offer is for a price of $.45 per share. On March 28, approximately 14,137,808 shares had been validly tendered into and not validly withdrawn from the tender offer, representing approximately 39 percent of the shares outstanding. Chembio has previously warned of possible insolvency and urged shareholders to accept BioSynex’s tender offer. 


Accelerate Diagnostics this week reported a 9 percent year-over-year drop in its fourth quarter revenues, driven by the timing of capital equipment sales. The Tucson, Arizona-based developer of antibiotic susceptibility tests and platforms said that recurring revenues for the three months ended Dec. 31 rose 8 percent year over year. During the quarter it added three contracted instruments and brought five instruments live in the US. It had a net loss of $14.6 million, or $.15 per share, for Q4 2022, compared to a net loss of $22.8 million, or $.34 per share, a year ago. 

For full-year 2022, Accelerate had $12.8 million in revenues, up 8 percent from $11.9 million in 2021 with recurring revenues driving the growth. The company had a net loss of $62.5 million, or $.76 per share, for 2022 compared to a net loss of $77.7 million, or $1.26 per share, in 2021. 

Accelerate ended 2022 with $34.9 million in cash and cash equivalents. 


PreludeDx said this week that its DCISionRT test has been granted Advanced Diagnostic Laboratory Test status by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, effective April 1. ADLT status requires that a test provide new clinical diagnostic information that cannot be obtained from any other test or combination of tests, among other criteria. DCISionRT is used to predict radiation therapy benefit for women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ. It measures protein expression from seven biomarkers and clinicopathologic factors to provide a personalized recurrence risk score after breast conserving surgery alone and with the addition of radiation therapy. According to Laguna Hills, California-based PreludeDx, it is the eighth firm to receive ADLT distinction. 


South Korean molecular diagnostics firm Seegene said this week that it signed an agreement with Israeli diagnostics firm Hy Laboratories (Hylabs) earlier this month for the use of Seegene's syndromic PCR technology by Hylabs. Seegene said it is looking for additional partners for a global network that will use its syndromic PCR technology and develop new tests with it, including on its automated testing platform, One System. 


Freenome said this week that Renown Health has joined its network of partners for the Sanderson Study. The study aims to clinically validate Freenome's multiomics early cancer detection platform, which analyzes tumor and non-tumor signals from a blood sample using machine learning. Freenome plans to enroll approximately 8,000 patients from its clinical study partner network and regional health systems across the US. Earlier this year, Geisinger also joined as a study partner. 


OpGen this week reported that its Q4 revenues were slashed by nearly half year over year to $721,630 from $1.4 million, while full-year 2022 revenues dropped 40 percent to $2.6 million from $4.3 million in 2021. The Rockville, Maryland-based molecular diagnostics developer said that the revenue decline was primarily due to the termination of its FISH product line and the one-off, nonexclusive sale of a portion of its ARES database. The company's Q4 net loss swelled to $10.5 million, or $3.87 per share, from a net loss of $6.8 million, or $6.91 per share, a year ago. Full-year net loss totaled $37.3 million, or $15.27 per share, compared to $34.8 million, or $22.89 per share, in 2021. The company finished the quarter with $7.4 million in cash and cash equivalents. 


Renalytix this week reported that its fiscal Q2 2023 revenues rose 42 percent to $1.2 million from $845,000 in Q2 2022. In Q2, $1.0 million in revenue was related to KidneyIntelX testing, while $200,000 was related to pharmaceutical services, the company noted in a statement. Net loss was $10.4 million, or $.14 per share, compared to a loss of $15.3 million, or $.21 per share, in the prior-year period. The firm finished the quarter with $23.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. 

The firm also reported its half-year 2023 results, saying that revenues for the first half of 2023 increased 69 percent to $2.2 million from $1.3 million in the first half of 2022. Net loss for H1 2023 was $22.4 million, or $.30 per share, compared to $25.4 million, or $.35 per share, in the same period in 2022. 


Diagnostics and genomics firm ProPhase Labs said this week that its 2022 revenues soared 55 percent year over year. The company reported $122.6 million in revenues for 2022, up from $79.0 million in 2021. Most of this increase resulted from diagnostic services, in particular COVID-19 testing. Net income for the year was $18.5 million, or $1.02 per share, compared to $6.3 million, or $.40 per share, the year before. The Garden City, New York-based firm ended the year with $9.1 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $8.3 million in marketable debt equity securities. 


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.