THE NUMBERS:
Three-year growth: 75.5%
12-month sales through June: $51.2 million
12-month loss through June: $3.2 million
Recent market value: $95 million
Employees: 155, 90 in OC
Company: medical device maker
SenoRx Inc.’s focus on finding and treating breast cancer has paid off during the past three years.
SenoRx, an Irvine medical device maker, is No. 9 on the Business Journal’s annual list of fastest-growing Orange County-based public companies.
SenoRx makes medical devices used to diagnose and treat breast cancer.
It posted 75.5% revenue growth for the three years ended June 30. The company went from $29.2 million in revenue for the 12 months through June 2007 to $51.2 million for the same period through this June.
The company is growing because it has “the right products and strategy to deliver continuing growth in revenue,” Chief Executive Lloyd Malchow said in SenoRx’s second-quarter news release.
SenoRx’s two major products are Contura, a catheter that delivers radiation to break down cancerous tumors, and EnCor, a device that allows doctors to obtain multiple breast biopsy samples with a single probe insertion.
In April, SenoRx launched SenoSonix, which combines EnCor technology with ultrasound imaging. SenoSonix allows doctors to use the ultrasound technology on laptop computers in both hospital offices and in surgery.
SenoRx also makes consumables, or disposable products that are used by doctors in procedures with EnCor and Contura and need to be replaced frequently. Medical device makers often look to consumables as a major source of revenue and profits.
On a call with investors, Malchow said some slowness in capital equipment revenue was offset by continued consumable growth and margin expansions.
SenoRx concentrates on selling its devices and consumables to cancer centers, which Malchow has said creates “an efficient, consolidated way for us to reach the market.”
The company has a direct sales force of 70 people.
And SenoRx has what it calls a “pipeline of future product opportunities that we think will add to revenue and earnings in years growing forward,” according to Malchow.
But Malchow didn’t give specifics, saying that SenoRx has signaled that it would talk to analysts and investors in greater detail in the current quarter. He did say that SenoRx is “self-funding” the research and development for those devices and products.
Like many of the smaller companies on this list, profits have been somewhat elusive for SenoRx—it lost $3.2 million in the 12-month period through this June.
But SenoRx did post a $668,000 second-quarter profit before charges for stock compensation and litigation expenses. Revenue was up 21% to $13.5 million in the second quarter compared to a year earlier.
And SenoRx’s stock price, after taking a big hit in 2008, has bounced back. SenoRx shares are up about 125% since the beginning of the year with a recent market value of about $95 million.
SenoRx went public in 2007, raising $45 million. It saw its shares rise 30% in its first couple months of trading.
Last year, SenoRx’s shares fell more than 70%, partly due to Wall Street’s crash and also because of an ongoing legal fight with a larger competitor.
SenoRx and its Contura device are tied up in court over patent infringement allegations with Hologic Inc., a Bedford, Mass.-based competitor.
Cytyc Corp., which Hologic bought in 2008, sued SenoRx, alleging Contura infringed upon a patent of a Cytyc catheter used to deliver targeted radiation to a tumor.
SenoRx has said it plans to defend itself and that the litigation is without merit.
A trial date is set for Oct. 13.
SenoRx, which has 90 workers in Orange County and 155 overall, was established in 1998. It originally was based in Aliso Viejo but moved to Irvine in 2008.
