Original from Gemomeweb 

Berkeley Lights reported on Tuesday an 82 percent increase in second quarter revenues driven by higher consumables and service revenues.

For the three months ended June 30, the Emeryville, California-based cell analysis firm reported $19.3 million in revenues, up from $10.6 million during the year-ago quarter and missing the consensus Wall Street estimate of $19.6 million.

Product revenues were $13.0 million, up 43 percent from $9.1 million a year ago, while service revenues were $6.2 million, a fourfold increase from $1.5 million a year ago.

Direct platform revenues — including instruments, fully paid workflow license agreements, and platform support — were $11.4 million for the quarter, up 51 percent. Recurring revenue — including consumables, annual workflow license or subscription agreements, and service and warranty contracts — was $3.9 million, up 35 percent from a year ago. Joint development agreement and partnership revenues were $3.9 million compared to $100,000 for Q1 2020.

The installed base of Berkeley Lights' single-cell analysis instruments grew to 92 during the quarter, with seven new direct placements.

On a conference call with investors following the release of results, Berkeley Lights CEO Eric Hobbs noted that the firm signed a viral vector development deal with Thermo Fisher Scientific during the quarter and announced a deal to supply services to Bayer in the ag-bio market.

Berkeley Lights will leverage its high-throughput functional screening workflows to screen individual variants of bioactives for Bayer to accelerate discovery of novel traits.

"After evaluating the technology landscape, it became clear that the Berkeley Lights platform is uniquely positioned to enable Bayer Crop Science to deliver on our commitment for world-class innovation and standards in sustainability for farmers, consumers, and the environment," Brianna White, head of trait design and science for Bayer, said in a statement.

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Berkeley Lights' net loss for the quarter was $18.2 million, or $.27 per share, compared to a loss of $12.4 million, or $4.25 per share, a year ago, missing the analysts' average estimate of a $.24 loss per share.

Berkeley Lights used approximately 66.8 million weighted-average shares to calculate the per-share loss in the recently completed quarter compared to about 3.1 million weighted-average shares a year ago. The firm went public in July 2020.

The firm's research and development expenses for the quarter totaled $13.5 million, up 14 percent from $11.8 million a year ago. Sales, general, and administrative expenses more than doubled to $17.0 million from $7.3 million a year ago, driven by costs associated with being a public company. Hobbs noted that the team has more than doubled the size of its business development team this year.

Berkeley Lights ended the quarter with $215.1 million in cash and cash equivalents and $270,000 in restricted cash.

Berkeley Lights CFO Kurt Wood reiterated the company's guidance for full-year 2021 revenues to be in the range of $90 million to $100 million, representing year-over-year growth of 40 percent to 56 percent.

Wood noted that the firm refinanced a $20 million debt facility, extending the maturity to 2025 and reducing interest rates by 250 basis points, and added a $10 million line of revolving credit to provide additional liquidity.

In Wednesday morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of Berkeley Lights were down 15 percent at $36.95.

Source: Berkeley Lights Q2 Revenues Jump 82 Percent, Miss Analyst Estimates | Genomeweb