Akers Biosciences Inc AKER is expected to report fourth-quarter 2015 earnings results on Mar 30. The company had posted disappointing third-quarter results, wherein its loss of 45 cents per share was wider than the year-ago loss of 23 cents largely due to declining revenues.
Sales of Particle ImmunoFiltration Assay (PIFA Heparin/PF4), the company’s flagship rapid test, plunged 62% to $0.1 million. Revenues tanked 62.6% to $0.2 million primarily because of lower-than-expected stock depletion of PIFA Heparin/PF4 Rapid Assay products at distributor and the absence of licensing revenues following the cancellation of the business agreement with ChubeWorkx Guernsey Limited in May 2015.
Factors at Play
Akers expects to keep incurring losses in the near term owing to escalating operating expenses related to both product development and clinical and regulatory activities. However, the company’s efforts to drive sales of PIFA Heparin/PF4 in the U.S. and overseas through new distribution partnerships are encouraging.
Meanwhile, Akers is rapidly expanding in China, its most growth-focused market after the U.S. In Dec 2015, the company announced that its joint venture – Hainan Savy Akers Biosciences Ltd, a 10000 square foot production facility – was fully operational.
Savy Akers’ primary objective is to commercialize products like BreathScan DKA, the METRON Breath Ketone Test and Ke Tong. Launched during the third quarter of 2015, Akers started selling METRON online through Amazon AMZN and its own portal.
Although these breath rapid diagnostic products hold promise for the future, we believe the PIFA Heparin/PF4 Rapid Assay product has the potential to be the key growth product in the near term. PIFA Heparin/PF4 Rapid Assay is the only rapid test designed to detect Heparin Induced Thrombocytopenia (HIT), which is the development of thrombocytopenia (a low platelet count).
Notably, PIFA Heparin/PF4 Rapid Assay has been approved by China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) for medical use throughout Mainland China. More recently, Akers’ Chinese distributor, NovoTek Therapeutics, received an order to supply the PIFA Heparin PF4/Rapid Assay products to China. The order is valued at approximately $2.5 million and will be supplied in portions throughout 2016. Sales are expected to start before the end of the first quarter of 2016.
Other Expected Releases
Apart from Akers, there are other players from the same space that are yet to come up with their earnings releases. Among these, Diadexus DDXS and Accelerate Diagnostics AXDX are slated to report on Mar 30 and 31, respectively. Both the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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