Earnings Labs

Champions Oncology, Inc. (CSBR)

Q4 2021 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 22, 2021

$5.90

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the Champions Oncology Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Dr. Ronnie Morris, CEO. Dr. Morris, you may begin.

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

Good morning. I'm Ronnie Morris, CEO of Champions Oncology. Joining me today is David Miller, our CFO. Thank you for joining us for our fiscal year-end 2021 earnings call. Before I begin, I'll remind you that I'll be making forward-looking statements during today's call and that actual results could differ materially from what is described in those statements. Additional information on factors that could cause results to differ is available in our Form 10-Q and Form 10-K. Reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed during the call to GAAP financial measures is available in the earnings release. Overall, we had another year of significant progress, successfully expanding our business and core capabilities, while continuing to evolve and deliver on our longer-term strategy. I would like to key in on our strategy as we embark on some exciting and transformational times. Since the inception of Champions, we had a clear appreciation for the value contained within the rare data set that we were building. Our tumor bank and the information we create are unique for several reasons. First, unlike most other tumor models used in research, our models are highly representative of tumors present within a clinical setting. This means that the data sets established using our models provide more accurate and relevant insights. Second, our approach to using a living tumor bank of PDX models means that we have a perpetual source of tumor, allowing for a continuous and a deep level of characterization. Specifically, we can establish multiple drug response data sets from the same tumor or reinterrogate these tumors with newly approved drugs or drug combinations. We can also fully characterize the molecular nature of these tumors using multiple analytical methods. As new technologies emerge or are optimized, such as proteomic analysis, we can acquire…

David Miller

Analyst

Thanks, Ronnie. Our full results on Form 10-K will be filed with the SEC on or before July 29. Overall, we had another year of significant financial progress and success. We continue to grow our revenue in our core research service business, and we're anticipating contribution from newly launched platforms such as Lumin going forward. We currently have more than 75 unique users, and we're looking for that number to grow in fiscal year 2022. Our full year revenue for 2021 was a record $41 million compared to $32 million for 2020, representing year-over-year growth of 28%. Income from operations was $338,000 compared to a loss of $1.9 million in the year ago period. Excluding stock comp and depreciation, we recognized income from operations of $2.1 million compared to a loss of $100,000 a year ago. Turning the focus to the fourth quarter. Revenue increased to approximately $10.6 million compared to $8.8 million in the year ago period, an increase of $1.8 million or 21%. As discussed on our prior earnings call, fourth quarter revenue will be impacted by studies completing earlier than projected and the associated revenue was recognized in the third quarter, leading to the slight decline in quarterly sequential revenue. We recognized a loss of $456,000 for the quarter compared to a loss of $2 million in the year ago period. Excluding stock-based comp and depreciation, we recognized a small fourth quarter gain of $7,000 compared to a loss of $1.2 million in the year ago period. Turning to expenses, excluding stock comp and depreciation. Our cost of sales was $5.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 versus $5 million for the same period last year, an increase of $621,000 or 12%. The increase was primarily due to 2 factors: the first was an increase…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum.

Matthew Hewitt

Analyst

Maybe the first one, David, on the guidance, 10% to 20% in fiscal '22, you just put up 28% growth. I think you've got a pretty nice track record of nearing 20% growth. Is that just conservative? The reason for bringing in the low end there, what would cause growth to, I guess, dip below even the midpoint of the range?

David Miller

Analyst

I think it's a combination of 2 factors. Number one, yes, we generally certainly want to be more conservative. It's still early in the year, so we don't have the full picture in terms of what's going to occur in the second half of 2022. We're certainly going to strive to meet our historical revenue growth percentages. And the second is simply as we continue to grow, hitting those same percentages become a little bit more difficult. Certainly, there's opportunity for us to match our historical revenue growth. Growth from our existing service businesses and obviously, the new opportunities that we're looking forward. So it's obviously being a little bit conservative, but definitely reasonable. And I think if we do 20%, that's also a very nice year as well.

Matthew Hewitt

Analyst

Got it. Okay. And then just a handful of items, but I'm going to kind of go through them here. So first, on the base business, the flow pipeline, so you started booking some deals last year. Have you actually started to record revenues on those? And what is that pipeline looking like? How will those hit starting in fiscal '22, the revenue piece of it?

David Miller

Analyst

Yes. So we started recording -- we certainly started recording some revenue. It's contributing. It's not a very significant factor to our overall revenue. It will become a little bit more in 2022. It's not going to break -- make or break the year. And in terms of the overall pipeline, I don't know, Ronnie, if you want to take it or I can start. Certainly, I think the method has been pretty consistent with our flow revenue business. Certainly, it took a little while for it to get started. It took a little bit longer. We certainly have seen an uptick. It is contributing to our revenue and the pipeline is growing, but it is still a little bit behind in terms of our expectations to where we thought we would be at this point.

Matthew Hewitt

Analyst

Got it. Okay. And then regarding -- kind of moving on to Lumin here. So I think you provided the update, 75 unique license holders. How have those discussions kind of ramped over the course of the year? What kind of feedback are you getting from customers? I think you're probably right now just starting to have the renewal discussions. How are those proceeding? Anything along those lines?

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

Yes. So we haven't had the renewal discussions yet. We're just starting to have those right now. So we don't really have any data on that, but that's clearly something we're looking at very carefully, and we're trying to understand the user base even from the early days. What are they -- what do they like about it? What other -- the functionality would they like to see? So as I think we've said previously in the past, it's still early days. We're still learning a lot about the customer base at that, who is using it, why are they using it. We're excited by the number of users, the number of people looking at the platform. We've also made a lot of upgrades and we continue to make upgrades to the platform. So still early days, optimistic, but we're cautiously optimistic as we continue to understand why people are using it, how they like it and what improvements we can make to make them either use it more or have more users on the system.

Matthew Hewitt

Analyst

Got it. And then maybe last question for me and then I'll hop back in the queue. I think you previously had announced a partnership with BGI Americas. Any update on how that's proceeding? That'll do it.

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

Yes. We -- the partnership just started, so we really don't have much to report on that. I think the important thing about that partnership is that there are many the companies like BGI that produce a lot of data but don't really have a home for that data and don't have a place that they can easily transmit that data to the clients, who request the data in order to analyze it and look at the data. So we see that as the first of many of our users to be able to use outside vendors put the data into our system so they could easily digest the data, analyze it and understand the data.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Christopher Hillary with Roubaix Capital.

Christopher Hillary

Analyst · Roubaix Capital.

Could you give us a use case that you're comfortable sharing on Lumin? And how you see those use cases developing as your product offering continues to grow and mature?

Ronnie Morris

Analyst · Roubaix Capital.

So I'm not exactly sure of your question, but I can give you a couple of specifics about kind of who our users are. And so we have a couple of different types of users currently at this time. We have the bioinformaticians who use it more deeply, who actually want to go and try to analyze and develop and understand on more of a deep level some of the biomarker hypothesis. And then we have the principal investigators or the biologists that are just looking for the causality or the relationships between different characteristics within a tumor or within oncology. So those are kind of our users right now. We have user base that includes both institutions who have taken some seats as well as solo private investigators within a pharma or a biotech company, and that's kind of our user base. So in terms of that, that's probably the best way I could answer that question.

Christopher Hillary

Analyst · Roubaix Capital.

Okay. And then maybe one more, if you wouldn't mind. Could you remind us how your database, how you kind of formed the database? I think it has to do with the primary and secondary kind of ownership of the data rights just as a way for us to continue to appreciate the breadth and depth of your data that these users are accessing.

Ronnie Morris

Analyst · Roubaix Capital.

So the data within our -- the data within our database is a little bit different than the data within Lumin. Lumin is a combination of both our data, from our database as well as many, many public data sets that we have aggregated. In terms of our data that we bring to the table and our data sets, those are derived primarily from our tumor bank, which are derived from the patients where we have a lot of clinical information, and we also have information on treatments that were performed on the tumors within our tumor bank as well as the characterization around those tumors. So it will be the RNA and the DNA sequencing, proteomics and a whole bunch of other levels of characterization.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum.

Matthew Hewitt

Analyst

Just on the exciting news regarding the internal development plan, maybe if you could go in a little bit as far as, I think, you mentioned 6 targets that you've already identified, how many teams do you or people do you have working on these plans? How far through the process do you, I guess, envision taking this? Is this something that, in some cases, maybe you take it all the way through to commercialization? Or in others, are you looking to license this once you've proven a valid target? Just a little bit more color there would be helpful.

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

Yes. Sure, Matt. So we're very excited about this initiative. We've talked about it and thought about it for a long time. We have a couple of teams. Probably, right now, about 10 internal people, some consultants on the outside who are helping us, working to identify the targets and then go in back to our labs and to validate those targets, which is a huge advantage from our perspective to be able to take many, many, many targets, which we have. And go back and actually validate them because that's the key step here. So the range of the possibilities once we have a target are multiple, as I mentioned. Some we see a path where we're going to try to do some of the optimization of a compound ourselves and try to go a little further down the path. Some we think that it makes more sense for us to partner with another entity and kind of co-jointly move that target through the drug development pathway. And some, we think it's just right for outlicensing these targets coming out of our platform. So I think it's a combination approach. A lot of it has to do with the type of target or the type of molecule we're looking for. Some, I think we feel more comfortable doing ourselves. A lot of it have to do with the economics. So there's a lot of variables. Again, as I said before, with some of our other initiatives, this is kind of early stages or early days. I think you can expect to hear some announcements over the next couple of months, maybe next quarter to of some of these targets and how we're dealing with them. But we're excited, and it's kind of early days, and we're just exploring and mining our data and finding some really interesting stuff out there.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Clay Hoffman, a private Investor.

Unknown Attendee

Analyst

For first quarter, do you have any guidance on the revenue yet?

David Miller

Analyst

I mean I think we'll stick with the overall guidance for the year, which is the 10% to 20%. We haven't generally not provided specific quarterly guidance.

Unknown Attendee

Analyst

Okay. And one follow-up. On the targets, would any of them be considered orphan status drugs?

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

No, no. These would not be considered orphan status drugs. No.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Dr. Ronnie Morris for closing remarks.

Ronnie Morris

Analyst

Thank you. I just want to thank everybody for joining our call. We have some really exciting initiatives. As we continue to grow our core businesses, we look forward to the new initiatives, including the SaaS platform as well as our target discovery platform, and we look forward to continuing over the next couple of quarters, giving updates to everybody as we get the news. So thank you for joining, and we'll speak to everybody in 6 weeks. Bye.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.