GH reported after the close today. Just finished listening to the call, which was informative (except for the parts when the use industry jargon/abbreviations, where my eyes and ears glaze over slightly)
Revenue was impressive (coming off a small base, I know) coming in a $37 million which is 120% yoy.
I believe last quarter the company had guided to 50-55% growth for the year. They have raised guidance to $145-$150 million, representing 60% to 65% growth over full year 2018. This compares to the company’s previous full year 2019 total revenue guidance of $130 to $135 million.
Draft local coverage determination proposed by Palmetto GBA that will potentially expand Medicare coverage of the Guardant360 assay to over a dozen advanced solid tumor cancer types with guideline-recommended genomic targets, pending final publication
The company also announced they will conduct a 10,000 person study for colorectal cancer screening. This garnered many a question from the analysts, but the company mostly reiterated the study wont begin until sometime in the second half of 2019, and will have more info to share when Q2 results are announced over the summer.
More good news keep coming from Guardant, and they seem to be doing everything they can - increased their salesforce to 60, continue to gather more information and tons of data to support a “blood first” paradigm. I expect progress to continue on Lunar 1 and 2, and eventual FDA approval for pan cancer screening.
I would think the stock would begin to trade up a bit again as investors will get enthusiastic with all the potential this company has.
I’m back in. I called them the gene sequencing end game and started a small position back in November. Then discovered they were calling for a huge slow down in growth and the P/S was outrageous. 6 hour 22% gain as luck would have it.
But after watching and following the company since then I’m thinking that original sentiment was correct. Illumina carried us here and now companies like Guardant are using those advances to produce actual healthcare results.
That’s crazy growth. And a huge huge raise for full year. From just one quarter ago.
Going to be wild but perhaps this is a tornado touching down?
Today’s revenues are hoped to be just window dressing - once FDA approval comes along for pan cancer screening, plus Lunar 1 & 2 eventually come to market it has massive potential. They are just in the baby steps of a massive 30 billion dollar market. All along the way, the keep picking up more and more health care companies who will cover the blood test (faster and less expensive than a biopsy).
I like the next steps towards the colorectal screening. Even though the trial wont even begin until the second half of the year, I think it must demonstrate that the company must have very good data to support this trial.
Any idea if the assays they use are protected? Can anybody run similar tests looking for the same markers or is it is that anybody can run a similar array but are not sure which markers to look for? Is the secret in the informatics software?
I just wonder if others can buy a sequencer and similar arrays “off the shelf” and duplicate what they do
Today’s revenues are hoped to be just window dressing - once FDA approval comes along for pan cancer screening, plus Lunar 1 & 2 eventually come to market it has massive potential. They are just in the baby steps of a massive 30 billion dollar market. All along the way, the keep picking up more and more health care companies who will cover the blood test (faster and less expensive than a biopsy).
I like the next steps towards the colorectal screening. Even though the trial wont even begin until the second half of the year, I think it must demonstrate that the company must have very good data to support this trial.
Matt I know you know this, but just for other people reading who might not. Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 are no where near close to providing meaningful revenue. Lots of studies to be done (read money to be spent), lots of science that needs to be done (money), and lots of time (time) before either of those are a reality. At this point both of those projects are moonshots…as in nobody knows if they are possible so despite spending lots of money and time they might end up fizzling out.
FDA approval hopefully comes along in the next few months. That should move the needle in the near term.
“Any idea if the assays they use are protected? Can anybody run similar tests looking for the same markers or is it is that anybody can run a similar array but are not sure which markers to look for? Is the secret in the informatics software?
I just wonder if others can buy a sequencer and similar arrays “off the shelf” and duplicate what they do”
It is not “protected”, but GH is the first mover. Several other companies, including Foundation Medicine (Roche), can run similar tests sequencing similar sets of genes. But GH is the company that is closest to FDA approval for liquid biopsy.
The “markers” are not secret at all. I think their biggest threat will come from Illumina, whose TruSight Oncology 500 reagent has won FDA breakthrough device designation. Once TruSight Oncology 500 gets FDA approval at the reagent level, I expect a lot of companies/hospitals will develop their in-house liquid biopsy tests easily.
