On May 11, 2021 Schrödinger, Inc. (Nasdaq: SDGR), whose physics-based software platform is transforming the way therapeutics and materials are discovered, reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2021, and provided an update on the company (Press release, Schrodinger, MAY 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234579682]).

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"We had strong execution across multiple facets of our business during the quarter," stated Ramy Farid, Ph.D., chief executive officer at Schrödinger. "We are continuing to advance our internal drug discovery pipeline and recently selected a development candidate for our MALT1 inhibitor program. Progress on our internal programs, coupled with our collaborators’ successes with molecules we’ve helped discover, are powerful examples that our platform and approach generates high-quality development candidates. We look forward to seeing the full impact of our technology as pharmaceutical, biotechnology and materials companies adopt our platform on a larger scale."

Today the company announced an expanded collaboration with AstraZeneca to deploy Schrödinger’s computational platform to help accelerate drug discovery. The collaboration is an expansion of the agreement announced in September 2019, which was a pilot project across an initial small number of programs. Under the expanded agreement, AstraZeneca will fully deploy Schrödinger’s platform across all its structurally-enabled small molecule discovery programs.

First Quarter 2021 Financial Results

Revenue was $32.1 million for the first quarter of 2021, a 23 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Software revenue was $26.3 million for the first quarter of 2021, an 11 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Drug discovery revenue was $5.8 million for the first quarter of 2021, compared to $2.4 million in the first quarter of 2020.
Gross profit was $16.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, up three percent over the first quarter in 2020. Software gross margin was 78 percent in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 83 percent for the same period in the prior year.
Operating expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were $40.1 million, compared to $27.4 million in the first quarter of 2020.
Other income, which included losses on equity investments, changes in fair value of such investments and interest income, was $23.5 million in the first quarter of 2021 compared to a loss of $2.4 million for the first quarter of 2020. Other income for the first quarter of 2021 included a $24.8 million non-cash gain from the change in fair value of Schrödinger’s equity stake in Morphic Therapeutic. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2021, Schrödinger sold its equity stake in Relay Therapeutics, Inc. for cash proceeds of $15.7 million, which resulted in a non-cash loss of $1.8 million as a result of the fair value based on the share price of the Relay Therapeutics common stock at the sales date.
Net loss, after adjusting for non-controlling interests, was $0.0 million for the first quarter of 2021, compared to a net loss of $13.8 million in the first quarter of 2020.
Recent Business Highlights

Continued revenue growth and strategic execution

Reported 23 percent total revenue growth in the first quarter of 2021, driven by significant increase in drug discovery revenue in addition to continued uptake of Schrödinger’s core technologies including FEP+ and its enterprise solution, LiveDesign, as well as growth in new customers.
Ended the first quarter of 2021 with cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities of $649.0 million, compared to $643.2 million as of December 31, 2020.
Progressed internal pipeline

Selected a development candidate for the company’s MALT1 inhibitor program. Targeting MALT1 is emerging as a potential therapeutic strategy to treat certain relapsed or resistant B-cell lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Continued to advance multiple programs toward IND-enabling studies; subject to completion of the preclinical data packages, the company expects to submit up to three IND applications in 2022, with the first submission to the FDA expected in the first half of next year.
Presented preclinical data on the company’s CDC7 inhibitor program at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Virtual Meeting. The data showed that Schrödinger’s picomolar CDC7 inhibitors were highly selective and inhibited tumor cell growth alone and in combination with several approved and investigational cancer treatments.
Advanced discovery efforts to allow addition of new programs to the company’s internal pipeline in 2021.
Continued investment in Schrödinger’s computational platform

Formed a strategic partnership with NVIDIA to further optimize Schrödinger’s software platform for the NVIDIA DGX SuperPODTM, an enterprise system that can be scaled to enable any organization to reach supercomputing speed and power. Optimizing Schrödinger’s platform for the NVIDIA GPU framework is designed to give customers access to an all-in-one supercomputing solution for in silico drug and materials discovery.
Further expanded the domain of applicability for Schrödinger’s software platform. Recently published research provided rationale for applying Schrödinger’s free energy calculation technology, FEP+, to ion channels using structures generated by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The company’s scientists also published research describing a highly accurate method to predict the binding modes of small molecule inhibitors binding to protein targets with flexible binding sites, which have historically been challenging targets for structure-based drug design. Additionally, Schrödinger scientists co-authored a white paper describing how recent advances in protein production and cryo-EM can rapidly facilitate the structural enablement of drug targets.
Full-Year 2021 Financial Outlook

As of May 11, 2021, Schrödinger continues to expect total revenue to range from $124 million to $142 million, with software revenue expected to range from $102 million to $110 million and drug discovery revenue expected to range from $22 million to $32 million for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Additional details are as follows:

Software revenue growth is expected to be higher in the second half of the year with the majority of second half growth in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Drug discovery revenue is expected to be highly variable quarter to quarter based on the timing of potential milestones related to collaborative agreements.
Schrödinger continues to aggressively fund R&D to advance its technology and drug discovery pipeline. The company expects operating expense growth to be higher than the 42% annual growth rate reported in 2020 and expects software gross margin to be lower than the 81% reported in 2020.
Webcast and Conference Call Information

Schrödinger will host a conference call to discuss its first quarter financial results on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 8:30 a.m. ET. The conference call can be accessed live by dialing (833) 727-9520 (domestic) or +1 (830) 213-7697 (international) and referring to conference ID 3297222. The webcast can also be accessed under "News & Events" in the investors section of Schrödinger’s website, View Source The archived webcast will be available on Schrödinger’s website following the event.