Interim Report January – March 2021
First quarter in brief
• Net sales rose by 37 percent to SEK 15,723 (11,475) thousand. Organic growth was 21%.
• Gross profit was SEK 15,017 (10,977) thousand.
• Operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) totaled SEK 1,958 (loss: 847) thousand.
• Operating profit totaled SEK 551 (loss: 1,889) thousand.
• Comprehensive income for the period totaled SEK 1,607 (loss: 1,915) thousand.
• Comprehensive income per share, basic and diluted, totaled SEK 0.02 (-0.03).
• Cash flow from operating activities was SEK 3,512 (-1,506) thousand.
• Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period totaled SEK 45,929 (61,641) thousand.
Significant events after the end of the quarter
In April, Genovis and Waters entered into a collaboration to develop efficient methods for biopharmaceutical characterization. The goal of the collaboration is to develop automated workflows for rapid and accurate characterization of critical quality attributes of monoclonal antibodies and other protein-based drugs for bioprocess development, formulation, stability testing and quality control (QC).
Comments from Fredrik Olsson, Chief Executive Officer
We begin 2021 by showing continued growth of 37% for the first quarter compared with the previous year. This means we have shown growth for 26 consecutive quarters (YoY). The first quarter, which is usually a weaker quarter for Genovis, began with subdued customer activity due to COVID-19-related restrictions, but we gradually saw an increase in activity in our main markets, the US and Europe, with Asia also showing continued strong growth.
Despite the sluggish start to the quarter, the core business for enzymes in Analytics shows organic growth of 21% year-on-year. The market for our antibody business in the US continued to be impacted by reduced general diagnostics and restrictions in the university setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April we announced a new partnership with Waters aimed at jointly developing and marketing common workflows for biochemical analysis of proteins and biopharmaceuticals. Waters has a strong position in the biopharma industries, especially within quality control. Waters’ clear strategy of developing robust and user-friendly analytical instruments lowers the threshold for implementing advanced protein analysis. This step paves the way for new users and new application areas in the development of biological drugs. The strategy and approach align perfectly with Genovis’ strategies and goals, so I look forward to combining our unique enzyme technology with Waters' instruments to help our customers in their efforts to develop novel and safer therapeutics.
We will continue our efforts to establish more industrial partnerships to expand our business opportunities moving forward. I see more opportunities to strengthen our customer offering in antibody labelling, glycomics and automation, making complementary technologies and collaborations key components in our growth journey.
Our continued investments in product development are clearly reflected in our pipeline, which is strong and diversified in glycomics, automation and antibody labelling, but also in potential new application areas. This means we have laid a solid foundation for new business opportunities and continued growth moving forward. During the quarter, we expanded and strengthened our research, product development and production teams to take advantage of and implement new business opportunities.
In March, we learned that we received a grant of SEK 2 million from Vinnova for development of a new platform for identification and production of enzymes for protein analysis. The grant will include a dedicated research position and will be carried out in collaboration with the Department of Applied Microbiology at the Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Infectious Diseases at Lund University.
Although our markets continue to be impacted by uncertainty and restrictions for our customers in their work as a result of the pandemic, the increased vaccination rate will hopefully gradually improve conditions in 2021.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all of my colleagues at Genovis who have done a great job helping our customers every day to have access to the innovative products that continuously grow Genovis' business.
For more information, please contact: Fredrik Olsson, CEO, Genovis AB Tel: +46 (0)46 101233, email: fredrik.olsson@genovis.com
ABOUT GENOVIS
Genovis’business concept is to apply its knowledge and imagination to design and provide innovative tools for the development of the drugs of the future. Today Genovis sells several enzyme products known as SmartEnzymes all over the world in innovative product formats that facilitate development and quality control of biological drugs.
The Group consists of Genovis AB and the wholly owned subsidiary Genovis Inc. (USA). Genovis shares are listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market and Erik Penser Bank is the Company’s Certified Adviser, certifiedadviser@penser.se, T: +46 (0)8 463 83 00.
Published reports can be downloaded from the Genovis website:
https://investor.genovis.com/en/financial-reports/
This information is information that Genovis AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, by the contact person set out above, on April 29, 2021.
This press release is a translation of the Swedish original. In the event of any discrepancy between this translation and the Swedish original, the Swedish version shall prevail.