NxStage, which is a maker of home-based dialyzers as well as models for health care setting use, set a revenue record in its last financial quarter and had noteworthy sales of its home-use dialysis systems.
Revenue for the second quarter of 2013 increased 11 percent to $65.5 million. The same quarter in 2012 showed revenue of $59 million.
The company’s financial report said that “higher revenues were driven by increased adoption of the NxStage System One” model, designed for home use. Home sector revenue increased to $32.7 million for the second quarter of 2013, compared with revenue of $30.7 million for the second quarter of 2012.
“Our results reflect solid progress and early benefit from our strategic growth initiatives, including our new, direct to patient marketing programs,” said Jeffrey H. Burbank, who is NxStage’s founder and CEO. Looking ahead, he said that the company believes its efforts to “further penetrate both the United States and international markets are on track to deliver 15 percent annual revenue growth in 2014 and beyond.”
Although the home sector had the largest percentage increase in revenues, the company’s other sectors also grew: critical care revenue increased to $10.8 million for the second quarter of 2013 compared with revenue of $9.4 million for the same quarter in 2012. In-center revenue (in dialysis centers) increased to $21.2 million for the second quarter of 2013, up from revenue of $18.2 million for the second quarter of 2012.
In late July, NxStage, based in Lawrence, MA, and other partners announced that they would team up on a new filtering device to remove harmful bacteria from blood. That project is part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its goal is to develop an innovative medical filtration device that could save the lives of soldiers—and civilians—by treating them for sepsis. Up to 10 percent of combat wounds result in life-threatening infections that ultimately lead to sepsis conditions, announced Battelle, lead and coordinating partner in the project. Sepsis is also a problem for some patients in hospitals, especially those in septic shock.
DARPA created the Dialysis-Like Therapeutics (DLT) program to develop a portable device that creates a treatment for sepsis. The plan is for a final device that can remove blood from the body, separate harmful “dirty” agents from the blood and return “cleaned” blood to the body in a manner similar to dialysis treatment for kidney failure. Several organizations are working on various aspects of a system that will work in the field.
Subcontractor NxStage will design, develop, and ultimately manufacture and distribute the medical device once it obtains the proper regulatory approvals, after the device successfully passes through clinical trials in both military and nonmilitary settings.
Technology website Gizmodo said DARPA has made significant investments in its DLT effort to date to multiple contractors for the development of key blood purification and diagnostic technologies that could contribute to the device. For example, Harvard’s Wyss Institute is developing a device that accepts blood infused with nanotubules designed to attract harmful bacteria. The nanotubule-bound bacteria are magnetized to stay in the device, and the cleaned blood is returned to the body.
