- Total sales of 2021 stood at KRW 1.37 trillion, a 22% increase YoY
- Q4 Revenue of KRW 410 billion, up 34% QoQ
- Operating profit held steady YoY at KRW 666.7 billion despite its tripled strategic investments in R&D
- Seegene to make a strategic shift to a ‘molecular diagnostics(MDx) platform company’ and strengthen its product portfolio to meet market demand
SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Seegene Inc. (KQ 096530), South Korea’s leading molecular diagnostics company, today announced full-year 2021 financial results that marked an all-time high record with total sales increasing 22% year-over-year (YoY) to KRW 1.37 trillion (approx. US$1.14 billion). Operating profit held steady YoY at KRW 666.7 billion (approx. US$556 million).
Seegene’s record-high sales were supported by growth in both SARS-CoV-2 product sales and its broader molecular diagnostics portfolio. With a subsequent resurgence of COVID-19 cases after the emergence of the Omicron variant in the fourth quarter of 2021, flu cases began to surge as well during the winter season. This had led to an increase in sales of syndromic assays that can simultaneously identify COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses in a single test.
As a result, Seegene’s the total sales in Q4 reached KRW 410 billion (approx. US$342 million), exceeding market estimates by 7%. Its operating profit outperformed expectations by 9%, finishing the quarter at KRW 199.9 billion (approx. US$166 million). Since last December, Seegene has exported 2.8 million tests to five European nations, 5.1 million tests to Israel, and another four million tests to Brazil.
In addition, sales of Seegene’s non-COVID products further strengthened in Q4. Sales of non-COVID products including other respiratory, HPV and STI assays increased by 33% YoY, showing a robust growth.
The company’s operating profit of KRW 666.7 billion (approx. US$556 million) remained unchanged YoY, while the company increased strategic investment in R&D and human resources. Seegene executed a KRW 75 billion (approx. US$62.6 million) investment in R&D – a three-fold increase from 2020 – adding talented employees from various fields including biology and Information Technology, doubling the employee count in 2021 to approximately 1,100 global team members. Also Seegene expanded the instrument portfolio of company’s own and began to internalize the production of core raw materials including extraction reagent and oligonucleotide and enzymes.
Because of such strategic investments, Seegene is set to transform its assay development process from manual to digital, empowering biology experts around the world to develop their own diagnostic assays. By doing so, Seegene will expand its product portfolio ranging from COVID related assays to non-COVID assays including plants, food, and animals. Indeed in 2021, Seegene had successfully developed indigenous technologies for assay ingredients and enhanced its PCR instruments which will be the foundation for the company’s platform business. The company has previously announced plans to provide a standardized tool for development as it makes a strategic shift to a molecular diagnostics(MDx) platform company, which is a part of the company’s platform strategy.
“Today, fast, accurate and large-scale testing is becoming unprecedentedly crucial to fight against the ever-changing pandemic landscape. Seegene will continue to introduce the best solution that meets the market demand,” said Thomas Bum-Joon Kim, Seegene Chief Management Officer. “We will support mass-testing at public-use facilities such as airports, schools and stadiums by mobilizing our fully automated MDx system, AIOS and movable laboratory MOBILE STATION along with our new diagnostic tests. In addition, we will put more emphasis on expanding our syndromic assay portfolio as well as non-COVID products such as HPV, STI and other diseases to prepare for the endemic era. Our goal is to establish sustainable growth by continuing to build a solid foundation for our future, while transforming the company into an MDx platform company.”
About Seegene, Inc.
Seegene, Inc. was founded in Seoul, South Korea in 2000 and has subsidiaries in the U.S.A., Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and the Middle East. Seegene, Inc. is an in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) company that has been turning innovative technologies into products through its pioneering R&D activities. Seegene owns its original patent technology including DPO™ (Dual Priming Oligonucleotide) for multiple target amplification; TOCE™ for multiple target detection in a single channel; MuDT™, the world’s first real-time PCR technology that provides individual Ct values for multiple targets in a single channel for quantitative assays.; and mTOCE™ multiplex mutation detection technology. With these cutting-edge molecular diagnostic (MDx) technologies applied to diagnostic kits and other tools, Seegene has enhanced the sensitivity, specificity, and disease-coverage per a test of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to unprecedented levels by providing accurate high-multiplex PCR products that target and detect genes of multiple pathogens simultaneously per each fluorescence channel. This feature dramatically saves testing time and cost. Seegene continues to set new standards in MDx through cutting-edge innovations.
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