Benzinga | Jan 13, 2022 11:47AM EST

ProPhase Labs Announces Record COVID-19 Testing In Q4 2021; Says Conducted Over 300K Tests; Says Expanded To Over 250 Labs, Up From 50 In Q3

ProPhase Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRPH), a diversified biotech and genomics company, today announces that testing volumes exceeded well over 300,000 PCR COVID-19 tests during Q4 2021.

These record results are significantly greater than the Company's previous record levels of approximately 110,000 tests performed in Q1 2021 due to growth in the Company's diversified and expanding customer base for testing services and increased demand for COVID-19 testing related to the emergence of the Omicron variant.

The Company has significantly expanded headcount to over 250 laboratory professionals (up from approximately 50 laboratory professionals in the past quarter) to meet the increased demand for PCR COVID-19 testing. This increase has facilitated the Company's return to testing results within 48 hours on average from the time of receipt.

Ted Karkus, ProPhase's Chief Executive Officer, commented, "As we previously announced in our Q3 2021 earnings release, our testing volumes for October 2021 had already surpassed volumes for the entire third quarter. While we anticipated this increase to continue throughout Q4 2021, our actual results have significantly exceeded our preliminary expectations due to the continued growth in our diverse customer base, with the emergence of the Omicron variant further contributing to the increase. We are continuing to see these elevated testing levels in Q1 2022, with all-time record weekly testing volumes at present. The current month of January testing volumes will be greater than the record testing volumes for the entire Q1 2021. Although we anticipate our volumes to decrease as we move through the remainder of 2022, we remain confident that our results for each of the next four reported quarters (Q4 2021 through Q3 2022) will show significant year-over-year growth in revenues, earnings and cash flow. We also anticipate that our other operating business segments, Nebula Genomics, Pharmaloz Manufacturing and TK Supplements, will generate solid year-over-year growth as well.

"To meet the challenges of this unprecedented demand for COVID-19 testing, our management team has worked tirelessly to aggressively expand our processing capabilities with the addition of over 200 new laboratory employees in the past quarter. The increase in demand resulted in a temporary increase to our testing turnaround times in mid-December, but our rapid personnel expansion has allowed us to return our testing turnaround times to under 48 hours on average. We believe that these are some of the best turnaround times in the industry at present, particularly for larger volume labs in the New York area. Our laboratory staff is also well organized between full-time employees and temporary staffing. We believe that this will give us the flexibility in the future to quickly and efficiently expand and contract overhead as COVID-19 testing demand fluctuates.

"We continue to expand our customer base, through municipal contract wins, schools, and other high-traffic venues, many of which continue to require either vaccinations or regular COVID-19 testing to gain access. We are also continuing to build a sizable and diverse customer base of independent pharmacies, concierge services and other testing sites that provide significant testing revenues for our diagnostics business," concluded Mr. Karkus.