What happened
Even on an earnings season day when a clutch of companies notched earnings beats, Intra-Cellular Therapies' (ITCI 3.00%) first-quarter beat was notably impressive. Investors liked what they saw in the company's freshly published earnings report, and they traded the stock up by nearly 24%. That absolutely crushed the 0.3% gain of the bellwether S&P 500 index on the day.
So what
For the quarter, Intra-Cellular booked $35 million in revenue, almost double the $15.9 million the company earned in the same quarter last year. Nearly all ($34.8 million) of the former tally derived from the net product revenue of Caplyta, the company's bipolar depression treatment.
Image source: Getty Images.
Caplyta is a relatively new drug on the market, having won Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval last December.
Intra-Cellular has had to ramp up its commercialization efforts in order to sell the product, which is typical with recently marketed medications. Consequently, the company's selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs rose notably over the one-year stretch, to $75.5 million from the year-ago quarter's 52.6 million.
These higher expenses filtered down into the bottom line. Intra-Cellular's net loss deepened to $72.1 million ($0.78 per share), from first quarter 2021's $52.7 million deficit.
However, analysts -- and likely investors -- had been bracing for worse. Prognosticators following the biotech stock were collectively modeling less than $33.7 million on the top line and a far deeper net loss of $0.92 per share.
Now what
It'll be business as usual for Intra-Cellular going forward. Given the successful development of Caplyta, this is obviously fine with investors.
The company quoted CEO Sharon Mates as saying that it is
confident in our ability to deliver continued strong growth and to improve the lives of patients. We continue to advance our pipeline, including our lumateperone programs in major depressive disorder (MDD) and mixed features.
