What happened
This week was one to forget for Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA 10.60%) shareholders. In the Monday-to-Friday period, their investment lost slightly more than 8% of its value on the stock market, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The main culprit was the company's latest set of quarterly results.
So what
On Wednesday Ginkgo, which concentrates on state-of-the-art cell programming, posted revenue of $80.6 million for its second quarter. That was well under the $144.6 million it earned in the same period of 2022, however.
Better news came on the bottom line where the highly specialized healthcare company narrowed its net loss considerably. This came in a bit over $173 million ($0.09), against the year-ago quarter's $669 million deficit.
On average, analysts tracking Ginkgo's stock were on target with their collective $0.09 per-share net-loss estimate. However, they underestimated revenue, as their average forecast was $71.5 million.
Ginkgo essentially has two revenue streams. Its bread-and-butter one is cell engineering in which the company licenses its technology and services to clients for the purposes of developing organisms. In the quarter, the company brought in slightly under $45.3 million from the activity, which was up only a bit from the $44.2 million of Q2 2022.
The second revenue source is what Ginkgo calls "biosecurity." This has lately meant a suite of COVID-19 testing products, and this is where the revenue decline came from. With the coronavirus pandemic apparently easing considerably, biosecurity contributed barely over $35 million to the latest top-line figure; one year ago, that tally was over $100 million.
Now what
Ginkgo proffered selected guidance for full-year 2023. For the period, it anticipates it will book $245 million to $260 million. However, that's well below the consensus analyst estimate of nearly $293 million.
The company did not provide any profitability forecasts.
