On January 05, Berkeley Lights Inc. (BLI) announced the transition of its CEO along with the preliminary FY21 financial updates. This news was not taken lightly by the investors as the stock saw a steep decline after hours. Consequently, the stock was trading at $12.10 apiece in the after-hours session.
In the regular trading session, BLI stock lost 11.29% at its closing price of $16.27 with 1.38 million shares exchanging. Following the announcement, the stock plunged deep after hours to lose a further 25.63%.
The bio-therapeutics and cell-based products developer, Berkeley Lights Inc. was founded in 2011.
BLI’s Leadership Change
As per Wednesday’s announcement, the CEO and board member Eric D. Hobbs has been appointed as the president of its Antibody Therapeutics line. Moreover, BLI has commenced the search for a new CEO. Hence, Dr. Hobbs will transition to Antibody Therapeutics when his successor is appointed. Till then, he will continue serving as the CEO and Board member of the company.
According to the chairperson of BLI’s board, Gregory T. Lucier, the company has seen some transformational developments under Dr. Hobbs’s leadership. These include over a ten-fold increase in revenue, cutting-edge products, and successful IPO completion in 2020.
In conclusion, based on his deep understanding, expertise, and experience, Dr. Hobbs will now focus on growing the largest business line of BLI.
FY2021 Financial Updates
Along with the leadership change, the company also reported its preliminary, unaudited revenue for the full year 2021.
According to this, BLI’s expected revenue for 2021 is between $84.0 million and $84.5 million. While this shows an increase of over 30% year over year, it is below the previous outlook of $90 million.
Furthermore, the full year and fourth quarter complete financial results are expected to be declared in late February 2022.
In addition, according to BLI’s future guidance, the revenue is expected to grow 30% YOY approx. in 2022.
BLI’s Q3 Highlights
On November 4, the company reported its unaudited Q3 financial results for 2021.
In the third quarter of 2021, BLI reported revenue of $24.3 million, showing an increase of 34% year over year.
The company incurred a net loss of $20.4 million in the third quarter of 2021, against $8.6 million in the year-ago period. Subsequently, the net loss per basic and diluted share was $0.30 in Q3 of 2021, compared to $0.16 in Q3 2020.
