HTG Molecular Diagnostics Reports Third Quarter 2020 Results

On November 10, 2020 HTG Molecular Diagnostics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HTGM) (HTG), a life science company whose mission is to advance precision medicine, reported its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2020 (Press release, HTG Molecular Diagnostics, NOV 10, 2020, View Source [SID1234570484]).

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Recent Business Highlights

Released HTG EdgeSeq Reveal version 3.0, adding additional software functionalities, including analytic capabilities for use with HTG’s entire RUO profiling assay menu and new RUO oncology applications. HTG EdgeSeq Reveal, originally launched in January 2019, is a web-based biostatistical analysis software suite designed to accelerate customer research by streamlining statistical analysis of samples processed with HTG’s RUO profiling assays.

Entered into a 10-year Commercialization and Distribution Agreement (Master Agreement) with QIAGEN Manchester Limited (QIAGEN), providing the foundation for HTG and QIAGEN to combine their technological and commercial strengths with the goal to offer pharmaceutical companies global development, distribution and commercialization capabilities for companion diagnostic assays developed on the HTG EdgeSeq platform.
"As the impact of COVID-19 placed continued pressure on our core oncology business, including planned studies and laboratory operations of our customers in the third quarter of 2020, we continued to make strategic shifts in our business into areas less impacted by the pandemic," said John Lubniewski, President and CEO of HTG. "We also believe strategic adjustments made over the past several months to lessen the impact of COVID-19 on our business are working. These efforts have focused on customer diversification to include a larger number of smaller and mid-sized biopharma customers and academic medical centers who have shown signs of returning to work more quickly than our larger customers. We are also targeting the large immune response market, which is often a new call point with our current customer base. Immune response target markets include, but are not limited to, autoimmune disorder and infectious disease. The ultimate impact of COVID-19 remains uncertain, but we are seeing positive trends in non-oncology opportunities and believe direct revenue from our core oncology business will begin to recover to pre-COVID levels in the first half of next year."

Mr. Lubniewski continued, "Our product development team continued to perform on our key milestones during the quarter. We have produced our first white paper on technical feasibility for our approximately 20,000 gene whole transcriptome (WTTx) HTG EdgeSeq panel, and we believe we remain on track to delivering upcoming development and commercialization milestones as well. We have positioned ourselves through careful cost savings, strategic initiatives and a continued focus on strengthening our technology to meet demand and to grow when we and our customers are able to return to normal operations."

Third Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights:

Total revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2020 was $1.8 million, compared with $5.4 million for the same period in 2019. The decrease in revenue is a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic requiring the closure of customer facilities or continuing to limit the ability of our customers to operate at pre-pandemic levels.

Product and product-related services revenue was $1.7 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, compared with $4.3 million for the same period in 2019. Throughout the pandemic, HTG’s ability to ship instruments and consumables to customer facilities and the ability of its customers to prepare and ship samples to HTG’s VERI/O laboratory for processing has been limited. In addition to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this decrease reflects a decline in lower margin subcontracted laboratory services revenue when compared with the third quarter of 2019.

Collaborative development services revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2020 was $0.1 million compared with $1.1 million for the same period in 2019, reflecting the completion of remaining procedures under existing arrangements and ongoing sales efforts to identify and contract new programs in this area.

Net loss from operations for the quarter ended September 30, 2020 was $5.2 million, compared with $4.6 million for the third quarter of 2019. Net loss per share was $(0.07) for the third quarter of 2020 compared with $(0.15) for the third quarter of 2019.

Cash, cash equivalents and short-term available-for-sale securities totaled $30.5 million as of September 30, 2020, with current liabilities of approximately $6.0 million and non-current liabilities of $14.5 million.

Conference Call and Webcast:

HTG will host a conference call for the investment community today beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Conference call and webcast details are as follows: