On January 9, 2020 Castle Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSTL), a skin cancer diagnostics company providing personalized genomic information to improve cancer treatment decisions, reported certain unaudited preliminary performance results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2019 (Press release, Castle Biosciences, JAN 9, 2020, View Source [SID1234552920]). The Company will report its full financial results and other metrics during its fourth quarter and year-end 2019 conference call, which is expected to be held in March 2020. Additionally, the Company expects to provide certain preliminary guidance for 2020 when it reports its final results for the fourth quarter and year-end 2019.
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"We are pleased with our solid execution in 2019, particularly the acceleration in DecisionDx-Melanoma volume seen since our first quarter 2019 commercial expansion," said Derek Maetzold, president and chief executive officer of Castle Biosciences. "We attribute this growth to a combination of ongoing evidence development, which included eight peer-reviewed publications, as well as the early 2019 commercial expansion. As a result of this growth, we executed a second commercial expansion on December 1, 2019. And as of December 31, 2019, we have more than doubled our commercial personnel compared to December 31, 2018. Evidence development continued in 2019, including prospective studies that further support the two intended uses of our DecisionDx-Melanoma test, which we believe contributed to the posting of a draft Medicare Local Coverage Determination (LCD) expansion, as well as the acceptance of our application for a Category I MAAA Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code by the American Medical Association’s CPT Editorial Panel.
"We believe the substantial volume growth in our lead product, DecisionDx-Melanoma, is providing more patients diagnosed with early stage cutaneous melanoma the opportunity to have informed discussions with their doctors and potentially improve treatment decisions. Additionally, we remain on track for the commercial launch of our two additional skin cancer products – our DecisionDx-SCC gene expression profile (GEP) test for use in patients diagnosed with high risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and our skin cancer product for
use in patients with a suspicious pigmented lesion – in the second half of 2020. We believe these two late stage pipeline products will increase our estimated total addressable U.S. market by more than $1.4 billion, for an estimated total addressable U.S. market of $2.0 billion for current and pipeline products."
Fourth Quarter Ended December 31, 2019, Highlights
Delivered 4,480 DecisionDx-Melanoma test reports in the 2019 fourth quarter, compared to 3,270 reports during the fourth quarter of 2018, representing an increase of 37% compared to the same period in 2018.
Delivered 434 DecisionDx-UM test reports in the 2019 fourth quarter, compared to 385 reports during the fourth quarter of 2018, representing an increase of 13% compared to the same period in 2018.
Year- Ended December 31, 2019, Highlights
Delivered 15,529 DecisionDx-Melanoma test reports for the full year 2019, compared to 12,032 reports during the full year 2018, representing an increase of 29%.
In 2019, new ordering clinicians for DecisionDx-Melanoma increased 24% year-over-year. Additionally, total ordering clinicians in 2019 for DecisionDx-Melanoma increased 32% to 3,927, year-over-year.
Delivered 1,526 DecisionDx-UM test reports for the full year 2019, compared to 1,413 reports during the full year 2018, representing an increase of 8%. On a combined basis, overall reports increased by 27% for both DecisionDx-Melanoma and DecisionDx-UM for the full year 2019, compared to 2018.
Year-end 2019 cash and cash equivalents balance was approximately $99 million.
More than 1,000 squamous cell carcinoma patients from 56 U.S. centers enrolled in the DecisionDx-SCC clinical validation and performance studies as of December 31, 2019. The Company reported positive data from the clinical validation cohort study (n=321) in October 2019, and expects to report data from the performance cohort in 2020. Castle expects to launch its DecisionDx-SCC gene expression profile (GEP) test for use in patients diagnosed with high risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in the second half of 2020.
More than 1,000 patients were also enrolled in the clinical development, validation and performance cohort studies for Castle’s GEP test for patients with a suspicious
pigmented lesion as of December 31, 2019. The Company expects to announce data from these studies and launch this GEP test in the second half of 2020.
Castle Biosciences has not completed the preparation of its financial statements for the fourth quarter or full -year 2019. The preliminary, unaudited performance results presented in this news release for the quarter and year-ended December 31, 2019, are based on management’s initial review of the information presented and are subject to adjustment based on the completion of the Company’s end-of-period reporting processes and related activities, including the audit of the Company’s financial statements, as such, any financial information contained herein may differ from the information reflected in our financial statements as of and for the year-ended December 31, 2019. Additional information and disclosures would be required for a more complete understanding of the Company’s financial position and results of operations as of and for the quarter and year-ended December 31, 2019. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed on this preliminary information.