NEW YORK – Quanterix reported after the close of the market on Monday that its fourth quarter revenues rose 64 percent year over year.
The company posted Q4 revenues of $26.1 million, up from $15.9 million in Q4 2019, and beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of $23.4 million.
Not including grant revenue, Q4 revenues were $21.6 million, up 36 percent year-over-year.
The firm's Q4 product revenues rose 38 percent to $15.7 million in 2020 from $11.4 million in Q4 2019. Service and other revenues rose 28 percent to $5.5 million from $4.3 million in the prior-year quarter.
On a conference call following release of the Q4 results, Quanterix Chairman, President, and CEO Kevin Hrusovsky highlighted the work the company did throughout 2020 on SARS-CoV-2 testing and suggested that it could help the firm accelerate its move into the diagnostics space for indications beyond COVID-19.
He noted that Quanterix had received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for a semi-quantitative serology test for SARS-CoV-2 and a SARS-CoV-2 antigen test.
Quanterix received EUA in January for its SARS-CoV-2 antigen test for use with nasopharyngeal samples and is pursuing authorization for that test with additional kinds of samples including saliva, nasal swabs, and dried blood spots.
Hrusovsky said the company believed measuring SARS-CoV-2 in blood would be "a very significant differentiator," particularly for testing in patients suffering from long-term symptoms.
He said he expected that the experience and ties Quanterix has established with the FDA during the course of the pandemic would help it move not only into more COVID-19 testing but also testing in neurology and other areas where the company has focused its research efforts thus far.
Hrusovsky provided an update on Quanterix's efforts to improve its instrument sensitivity a hundredfold, noting that it had achieved this in pilot instruments and planned to incorporate it into commercial products by the end of 2022. The company has now placed a total of 535 instruments, he said.
Amol Chaubal, Quanterix's chief financial officer, said on the call that the company had recently seen customer activity return to pre-pandemic levels but said it was concerned that new strains of the virus could necessitate new lockdowns that could affect business.
The firm's Q4 net loss was down to $9.8 million from $11.0 million a year ago. The firm did not provide its loss per share gain figure for Q4 2020 or Q4 2019.
Quanterix's R&D spending during the quarter was $6.2 million, up 41 percent from $4.4 million in the year-ago period. Its SG&A expenses rose 34 percent to $18.7 million from $14.0 million the year before.
For full-year 2020, Quanterix's revenues rose 52 percent to $86.4 million from $56.7 million in 2019 and beat the Wall Street consensus of $84.4 million.
Not including one-time license and grant revenue, full-year 2020 revenues were $68.8 million, up 21 percent from $56.7 million in 2019.
Product revenues rose 9 percent to $44.0 million in 2020 from $40.5 million in 2019, while service and other revenues rose 50 percent to $24.1 million from $16.1 million in 2019.
Quanterix's net loss for full-year 2020 fell to $31.5 million from $40.8 million in 2019. It did not provide a loss per share figure for either year.
The firm's full-year R&D spending was up 25 percent to $20.2 million from $16.2 million in 2019. Its SG&A spending rose 17 percent to $59.6 million from $52.2 million the year before.
The company ended the year with $181.6 million in cash and cash equivalents.
In Wednesday morning trading on Nasdaq, Quanterix shares were up 1 percent to $78.10.