NEW YORK (360Dx) – T2 Biosystems reported after the market closed on Tuesday that its fourth quarter revenues rose 87 percent year over year, and beat the consensus Wall Street estimate.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2017, the company posted revenues of $1.7 million, compared to $910,000 in the same period the year before. The analysts' average estimate was $1.3 million.
The firm's total revenues also beat its preliminary revenue range of between $1.1 million and $1.3 million announced in January.
Product revenues more than doubled year over year to $1.3 million from $579,000 in Q4 2016, primarily driven by T2Candida Panel and T2Dx Instrument sales. Meanwhile, the company reported research revenues of $325,000, down 2 percent from $331,000 in Q4 2016. The company closed contracts with seven new hospitals during the recently completed quarter, including three new contracts for the T2Bacteria Panel.
In a conference call with analysts after the release of earnings, T2 Bio CEO John McDonough said that of the seven new hospital contracts, four are located in the US and three in Europe.
The company also said that it exceeded the 30,000 high-risk patients with new hospital contracts that it had targeted in Q3, as the newly contracted hospitals will provide T2 Bio with access to an estimated 45,000 high-risk patients.
The firm further said that discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration about potential market clearance of the T2Bacteria Panel remain "positive and productive," and the current timeline suggests marketing clearance could happen in the second quarter. The firm previously stated that it expected the panel to be cleared by the end of Q4 2017, then in January said clearance could come in Q1 2018.
McDonough also noted that if the T2Bacteria test is cleared by the FDA, the firm will see more placements in the US than in Europe. However, McDonough does not expect utilization per box in the US to trend above that of the EU.
Meantime, T2 Bio has concluded preclinical work on the proprietary T2Lyme Panel and the company remains on track to start an FDA clinical trial in the first half of this year.
Costs and expenses, excluding cost of product revenue was $9.8 million, down 16 percent year over year from $11.7 million, T2 Bio said.
The firm did not provide its net income/loss or earning/loss per share for the quarter. The consensus Wall Street estimate was for a loss of $0.43 per share for the quarter.
For the full year 2017, T2 Bio said total revenues rose 15 percent to $4.7 million and beat the analysts' average estimate of $4.35 million. Product revenues doubled year over year to $3.4 million, the company said.
For Q1 2018, T2 Bio anticipates revenues to be in the range of $1.3 million to $1.6 million. It expects first quarter 2018 product revenue to be in the range of $900,000 to $1.1 million. The firm plans to close at least six new contracts in the first quarter, which include at least six new placements of T2Dx instruments.
The firm did not disclose its net income or loss, or earnings/loss per share for 2017. The consensus Wall Street estimate for full-year 2017 was a loss per share of $1.86.
"We are squarely focused on driving the commercial adoption of our product and driving revenue growth of our platform, and testing patients with our products." McDonough said. "We believe the market clearance of T2Bacteria will accelerate the adoption of our instrument platform and drive a substantial number of tests being run at hospitals."
Earlier on Tuesday, T2 Bio announced that it has received a grant worth up to $2 million from CARB-X for bacterial pathogen detection.
In afternoon trading, T2 Bio's was down 5 percent at $5.88 on the Nasdaq.