Douglas VanOort, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "2009 was a year of significant change and transition for NeoGenomics.  We welcomed several new key members to our management team, added substantially to our sales and marketing and operating capabilities, and established a solid foundation for future growth.  We also entered into a strategic agreement with Abbott Laboratories to exclusively develop and launch three new laboratory developed tests utilizing Abbott's intellectual property, and strengthened our balance sheet considerably.  We believe we are currently in a stronger position operationally and financially than we have ever been and, as we have previously disclosed, we expect to become profitable in the second half of 2010."  

VanOort continued, "Our core genetic testing business performed very well in 2009.  Excluding revenues from the one large customer that in-sourced bladder cancer FISH testing, revenue growth in the rest of our business was approximately 70% in 2009.  We are equally excited about our growth prospects for 2010.  We expect revenue increases to be fueled by the significant investments we made in our sales force in 2009, the addition of the MelanoSITE?„? test and by the addition of at least five other molecular tests that we expect to bring to market this year.   Although we will continue to invest in growth initiatives such as developing the second test under our agreement with Abbott, we expect that our SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue will continue to decline in 2010 as we build operating leverage in our business."

Robert Gasparini, President and Chief Scientific Officer, added, "Prior to the validation of the melanoma FISH test, we conducted several focus groups with dermatopathologists throughout the country.  Because melanoma cases with ambiguous histology tend to be difficult to diagnose and are often litigated, we heard overwhelmingly that a test with very high specificity would add a high degree of confidence in determining a normal diagnosis.  We therefore established our cutoff values in order to maximize specificity and the sensitivity values are a result of this priority.  The initial feedback we have received from the dermatopathology community has been extremely positive leading us to believe this is the right test at the right time in the melanoma diagnostic algorithm.  We also believe that this test will reduce the overall healthcare costs associated with treating suspected melanoma patients and improve the quality of care for those patients with melanoma.  While we were very pleased with the results of our initial validation study, we expect to publish the results of an even larger study in a peer-reviewed journal later this year."

The company also announced that the severe weather in many parts of the country has impacted customer accessions and that it expects to report $8.0 - $8.2 million of revenue in Q1 with net losses of ($0.02) “ ($0.03) per share.

SOURCE NeoGenomics, Inc.