CRT Capital Group in Stamford, CT is the only company that is covering the company with sell-side research. They came out with a 23 page report on July 18th, 2007 and show $18.6 million dollars of Cash on the Balance Sheet as of Q1-2007 and $6.3 million in total liabilities, with $1.8 from accrued expenses and $4.4 from deferred revenue.
By all means, don't get bogged-down by the Balance Sheet of EXAS. That is not what this company is about. It's all about getting the "Pre-Gen+" colorectal cancer DNA stool test into the ACS formal "guidelines" which are due to be updated. Once in the "guidelines" the Company can then seek Medi-Care reimbursement which will literally become automatic in 21 states. The company has a completed application to CMS and their decision on the application is "pending".
Thanks for the info, paj and landis. Do they really need to be accepted by the ACS guidelines in order to recieve medicare reimbursement? I don't believe that is true because the ACS is not a gov't organization and exas is already done applying to CMS. They are only waiting on a decision, supposedly in May 2008. Stoney, how do you project this stock doubling when the decision from medicare isn't coming until much later? Do you believe that their dna test is good enough to support the stock even without medicare support?
here is the link i was doing my reseach, the company seems having many negative aspect. edit: post the report itself instead of sign up link.
"the specificity results in the Version 2 study were closer to 80%, a performance metric that may not be deemed clinically or commercially acceptable. The blinded study was designed to test the efficacy of technological advances to enhance colorectal cancer detection in stool." This taken from the research report suggests 80% sensitivity to colon cancer is'nt that fabulous. Could get denied by CMS.
To date, although not mandated, all ACS-approved CRC screening tools have been approved by CMS for reimbursement. Inclusion in ACS guidlines DOES lead to mandatory coverage by private payors in 19 states, including California. In otherwords, ACS inclusion FACILITATES reimbursement ( we are talking over 40 million lives for the largest payor for the targeted patient age class ) which is likely to lead to substantial "third-party" payer approval over time. To date, approximately 350 "third-party" payors have informally reimbursed for the test under existing testing billing codes at labs. That having all been said, it is possible that CMS will move to reimburse Pre-Gen+ earlier than an announcement regarding the ACS's decision. The level of reimbursement however remains uncertain.
Wrong. Full results of the multi-center study of the Version-2 test conducted by Stephen Itzkowitz have yet to be released. They are due out shortly. For what it's worth, the FOBT test is in fact in the ACS GUIDELINES and all that test does is find out whether or not there is blood in the stool. It has virtually nothing to do with screening for cancer with any sort of specificity whatsoever, and yet it is in the formal ACS guidelines. Go figure.