Oncology-focused healthcare company Novocure (NVCR 3.31%) wasn't much of a cure for anyone's ill finances on Thursday. Its share price dived by nearly 8% on the day after management released its latest set of quarterly results. That decline was notably steeper than the 1.2% dip of the benchmark S&P 500 index.
Novocure's third quarter missed on revenue, but beat on earnings
For its third quarter, Novocure collected total revenue of slightly over $127 million. That represented a year-over-year decline of 3%, and missed the consensus analyst estimate of almost $129 million.
As for the bottom line, the healthcare company's net loss amounted to $49.5 million, or $0.46 per share. While this bettered the average prognosticator forecast of a $0.53-per-share loss, it was nearly double the $26.6 million shortfall in the same quarter of 2022.
Much of that can be chalked up to sales and marketing expenses, which saw a sharp (40%) year-over-year increase. During the quarter, Novocure spent $58 million on such expenditures. Research and development/clinical trial spending, meanwhile, inched up by 3%.
Novocure is a bit of an outlier in the cancer treatment world. It focuses on manufacturing wearable devices that help fight cancer, as opposed to concentrating purely on drugs that attack the disease.
The company continues to innovate with its leading products
In the company's earnings release, it waxed hopeful about its proximate future. It quoted CEO Asaf Danziger as saying, "This quarter, we continued our very successful launch in France and took significant strides in the rollout of our new arrays, which are thinner, lighter, and more flexible than our first-generation product."
