Synthetic biology company Twist Bioscience Corp. (TWST:NASDAQ), which is focused on developing high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, yesterday announced operating and financial results for the second quarter of 2021 ended March 31, 2021.
Twist Bioscience's CEO and Co-Founder Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., commented, "The second quarter of our fiscal year delivered growth across all four areas of our business, with increasing revenue and very strong orders building momentum for the second half of the year...We signed new biopharma partnerships with multiple associated programs and we continue to drive increasing density for our data storage vertical."
"For H2/21 we expect continued growth of our NGS and synbio customer base as we build out the Factory of the Future in Oregon. We intend to advance all programs with our biopharma partners while simultaneously generating data to support out-licensing for our proprietary antibodies. In addition, for data storage, we will continue to pursue innovative engineering and collaborate across the DNA Data Storage Alliance to prepare the market for this novel storage medium," Leproust added.
The company stated that total new orders in Q2/21 increased to $41.7 million, compared to $24.6 million in Q2/20.
During Q2/21, the firm reported total revenues of $31.2 million, versus $19.3 million during Q2/20. The associated cost of revenue was listed as $19.0 million for Q2/21, compared with $13.6 million in Q2/20.
Twist Bioscience posted a net loss of $37.9 million, or $0.78 per share in Q2/21, compared to a net loss of $31.8 million, or $0.85 per share in Q2/20.
The company's CFO Jim Thorburn stated, "We increased our margin to 39%, reflecting the impact of scaling our revenue, leveraging our fixed costs and the benefit of higher NGS product mix...Importantly, the solid results demonstrate excellent execution across all teams at Twist."
The firm touched on several business highlights and advised that in Q2/21 it shipped products to around 1,700 customers, compared to about 1,400 in Q2/20. The company also indicated that "it exercised its right of first refusal which gives a cost-effective option to double manufacturing capacity at the "Factory of the Future" just outside of Portland, Ore."
The company also stated that "it launched the Twist NGS Methylation Detection System, a robust, end-to-end sample preparation and target enrichment solution for identifying methylated regions in the human genome."
Twist Bioscience noted that "it received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), together with Biotia, for the SARS-CoV-2 Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) Assay."
The company provided some forward guidance and stated that for FY/21 it is raising its revenue guidance to $121–129 million. The FY/21 revenue estimates were based upon expectation for Ginkgo Bioworks revenues of $11–12 million, Synbio revenue excluding Ginkgo Bioworks of $43–46 million, NGS revenue in the range of $62–66 million and Biopharma revenue of around $5 million.
The firm added that for FY/21 it anticipates that gross margin will be between 36–38%. Twist Bioscience indicated that for FY/21 it expects to post a net loss in the range of $144–150 million, reflecting the company's increased investments in its operations and R&D efforts.
Twist Bioscience is a fast growing synthetic biology and genomics company based in South San Francisco, Calif. The firm has created and built a disruptive deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis platform that facilitates the industrialization of the engineering of biology. The company explained that "the core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by 'writing' DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development."
Twist Bioscience began the day with a market cap of around $5.1 billion with approximately 48.65 million shares outstanding and a short interest of about 7.7%. TWST shares opened 13% higher today at $117.94 (+$13.64, +13.08%) over yesterday's $104.30 closing price. The stock has traded today between $112.59 and $120.87 per share and is currently trading at $118.85 (+$14.55, +13.95%).
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