Breast cancer play Volpara delivers full-year bumper revenue, share price up 5pc

Breast imaging company, Volpara Health Technologies (ASX: VHT), has today released its full year FY21 results, delivering a record revenue of just under NZ$20m.

The Kiwi-based company reported total revenue of NZ$19.7m, a 57 per cent increase compared to the previous corresponding period (pcp).

It also recorded a 55 per cent increase in the all important annual recurring revenues (ARR).

Gross profit margin was above 90 per cent and rising, making it one of the highest on the ASX. This was driven by several factors, including a focus on cost reductions, and scalability of Microsoft Azure—its largest cost-of-revenue expense item.

The key US market

Volpara’s market share in the US is huge.

Around 32 per cent of women screened for breast cancer in the US have at least used one Volpara product in the screening process.

This is a direct result of the investment Volpara has made in its technology, where it focused on expanding its Breast Health Platform.

The platform collects and analyses information to better understand a patient’s breast cancer risk. But what makes Volpara’s platform compelling to clients is its success in integrating the software with other products, creating a suite of tightly integrated products that “talk” to each other.

Data, and having a huge amount of it, is also a key component. The company has access to almost 40 millon images stored on the cloud.

Despite more and more images being uploaded, its cloud costs have only incresed by 1 per cent year on year.

This year’s acquisition of Boston-based CRA Health, a Harvard Medical School spin-out and a leader in breast cancer risk assessment and genetics, has also been a successful one.

Since acquiring the company, Volpara has signed its highest-value contract to date via CRA worth US$400k per year in ARR, with a major US hospital chain.

Its DENSE breast cancer detection trial in the Netherlands is also progressing as planned.

Volpara reported in March that the second round results in Project DENSE have shown that the false-positive rate has been significantly reduced compared to the first round. The study is assessing the Volpara Density software to assess breast density.

What’s ahead

Focus for the coming year is on developing its technology and launching new products.

Volpara will seek to develop its risk assessment products, and build connections with genetics companies to take advantage of the trend towards more personalised care in breast cancer.

It also expects to launch more consumer-facing products later this year such as “Project Thumb”, which allows women easy access to their images.

Volpara has lined up a pipeline of new deals for FY22, and expects another bumper year of approximately NZ$25m to NZ$26m in revenues.

“FY2021 was an excellent year for Volpara. We successfully conducted our second acquisition, of Boston-based breast cancer risk company CRA Health, but we’ve also done a huge amount of work behind the scenes to make the company more scalable: digital marketing through to smarter use of our cloud services through to easier-to-deploy software systems into clinics,” says Volpara’s CEO and Chief Scientist, Dr Ralph Highnam.