Orgenesis stock climbs after it posts 139% expansion in gross profit for fiscal 2018 on revenue surge

Orgenesis Inc (NASDAQ:ORGS), stock climbed Thursday after the developer of advanced cell therapies, posted a 139% expansion in gross profit to $7.8 million for fiscal year 2018, compared to $3.3 million for the previous financial year.

Revenues for the Germantown, Maryland-based company also increased 85% to $18.7 million in the 2018 financial year compared to $10.1 million for fiscal 2017. Meanwhile, gross margin increased to 42% from 32.5%.

READ: Orgenesis kicks off US expansion of MaSTherCell Global subsidiary with Houston facility

The company also finished with cash and cash equivalents of $16.1 million as of November 30, 2018. It improved its working capital surplus substantially compared to a loss of $9.6 million in the same period a year ago.

Shares in Orgenesis climbed 2.02% to $4.97.

The company’s subsidiary, MaSTherCell Global is a global contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO. Orgenesis highlighted that the fast-growing CDMO segment achieved $4 million in operating profits.

“We are pleased to report strong growth, increased gross profit and solid gross margin improvement in fiscal 2018,” said Orgenesis CEO Vered Caplan in a statement. “Our CDMO segment, Masthercell Global generated $22.6 million in sales, and an operating profit of $4 million on a standalone basis. While we continue to grow Masthercell’s backlog and customer base, one of our key challenges in fiscal 2018 was ramping up to meet the growing global demand.”

Caplan said that to address “capacity constraints” the company recently opened a new 6,458 square feet production wing at its Belgium site to provide Masthercell with five “additional late-stage and commercial-ready clean rooms.”

“In total, we have more than doubled our manufacturing capacity in 2018, which positions us for continued strong growth in 2019. In addition, we recently announced expansion plans into the US,” said Caplan.

MaSTherCell Global Inc is building a new 30,000 square feet manufacturing facility in Houston. With the US expansion, the company, which develops advanced cell therapies, will now have manufacturing facilities in three continents spanning North America, Europe and Asia

MaSTherCell is also backed by Great Point Partners LLC, a healthcare investment firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Shares of Orgenesis were little changed at $4.86.

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive 

Story by ProactiveInvestors