Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. posted revenue of $30.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, up 25% from the corresponding prior year period. The tally beat consensus by $3.3 million. Clinical sequencing volume grew 41% to 4,539 clinical tests, compared with the fourth quarter of 2019. For the full year, revenue increased 16% year over year to $98.4 million, and clinical sequencing volume topped out at 15,216 clinical tests delivered, up 50%. The results coincided with the launch of the company’s T-Detect COVID, the first clinical T cell-based test to confirm recent or prior COVID-19 infection.
Much of the research on the immune response in patients with COVID-19 has focused on the humoral antibody response. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp., on the other hand, has focused on cellular immunity to measure the T-cell response to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
The importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning continues to be acknowledged by drug development companies. Recently, to help accelerate the discovery of therapies to treat COVID-19, several deals have been forged to deploy those tools.
Partners Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp., which is based in Seattle, and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. have started sharing an open database that details the immune response in COVID-19 patients with researchers and public health officials. The project is analyzing thousands of de-identified patient blood samples submitted from institutions around the world and is dubbed ImmuneCODE.
It’s all hands on deck as government agencies, researchers, startups, biopharma giants, health care workers and payers combine their resources to develop proven COVID-19 therapies that can be ready for market by fall when the pandemic is expected to pick up steam again in the U.S. and other northern reaches of the world.