NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – OpGen reported after the close of the market on Tuesday a 10 percent increase in its first quarter revenues as collaboration revenues more than offset a decline in product sales and lab services revenues.
For the three-month period ended March 31, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based firm's revenues climbed to $846,226 from $771,771 in the same period last year. Product sales fell nearly 14 percent to $633,496 from $734,502, while lab services revenues slid 46 percent to $8,690 from $16,105. Collaboration revenue surged to $204,040 from $21,164 year over year, largely due to OpGen's one-year, $860,000 contract with the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention — signed in October — to supply smartphone-based clinical decision support solutions for antimicrobial stewardship and infection control in low- and middle-income countries.
OpGen's Q1 net loss narrowed to $3.0 million, or $.75 per share, from $5.0 million, or $4.77 per share, in the year-ago period as the number of weighted average shares outstanding rose to 4.1 million from 1.0 million.
R&D spending in the quarter dropped 43 percent to $1.2 million from $2.1 million, as SG&A costs fell 32 percent to $2.1 million from $3.1 million in the prior year period.
At the end of the first quarter, OpGen had cash and cash equivalents totaling $10.3 million.
"We made solid progress with our research and development, operations, and financial activities during the quarter," OpGen Chairman and CEO Evan Jones said in a statement. "We are encouraged by the progress to date with our Acuitas AMR Gene Panel for complicated urinary tract infections and we anticipate continuing progress towards accomplishment of our strategic objectives during 2018."
During the first quarter, OpGen launched the research-use-only Acuitas AMR Gene Panel u5.47, which is designed to detect the five most common bacterial causes of complicated urinary tract infections semi-quantitatively, as well as 47 antibiotic-resistant gene targets, in less than three hours. It also partnered with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on a clinical verification study of the assay in combination with its Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase.
"Following discussion with the US Food and Drug Administration in recent weeks, we are finalizing the clinical trial protocols for our Acuitas AMR Gene Panel u5.47 in vitro diagnostic 510(k) submissions," Jones added. "We continue to anticipate initial filings during the fourth quarter of 2018."