Veracyte (VCYT) Announces Strategic Realignment, Reiterates Rev. Guidance

Veracyte, Inc. (NASDAQ: VCYT) today announced key business initiatives, including strategic realignments to its corporate structure and new appointments, to advance commercial growth of its three market-leading genomic tests. The company also reiterated its previous 2017 revenue and cash burn guidance.

Veracyte is consolidating its clinical, medical and research and development functions into one department to ensure a strong, consistent focus on addressing unmet customer needs and supporting the sales and marketing team. The new scientific, clinical and medical affairs department will be headed by Giulia C. Kennedy, Ph.D., who has served as chief scientific officer since the company’s founding in 2008. Veracyte has also expanded its sales team to 73 specialists under the direction of eight regional sales directors who will report directly to John Hanna, the company’s chief commercial officer. In addition, the company has appointed Jessica Meng as vice president of marketing. Ms. Meng comes to Veracyte from Genentech where she led marketing for Avastin® in oncology.

“Our company is at a unique moment in time, in which we have market-leading and first-to-market tests in three largely untapped clinical markets,” said Bonnie Anderson, chairman and chief executive officer of Veracyte. “We believe these strategic realignments and new appointments will enable us to more actively manage the dynamics of our business and focus our investments to optimize these significant commercial opportunities.”

Veracyte is reiterating its previous 2017 annual revenue guidance of $71 million to $72 million and its annual cash burn guidance of $25 million to $26 million. The annual cash burn guidance excludes the $1.5 million exit fee for the refinance of its senior secured credit facility. Cash burn is defined as the sum of net cash used in operating activities and net capital expenditures. The company also announced that it expects fourth quarter 2017 reported genomic test volume for its Afirma® and Percepta® classifiers to be approximately 7,100 tests – a 12.5% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2016.

Afirma and Percepta are used to improve the diagnosis of thyroid cancer and lung cancer, respectively, without the need for invasive, risky and expensive surgery. The company’s third product – the Envisia™ Genomic Classifier – is positioned to gain Medicare coverage in 2018 and is similarly used to improve the diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

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