After the market closed on April 6, 2022, HTC Molecular Diagnostics Inc. (HTGM) announced new features of its proprietary HTG EdgeSeq technology. The news caused a rally in the stock as it soared by a huge 39.06%. Thus, HTGM was trending at a price of $1.78 per share in the after-hours while a heavy volume of 2.51 million shares was exchanged.
It seems rebound energy had also a role to play as the recovery came after the stock plunged to a new low of $1.25 in the prior session.
HTGM’s Latest Developments
The company has improved its proprietary technology such that new sample preparations harmonization now enables miRNA and mRNA profiling without needing additional samples. The improved sample preparation protocol for its miRNA WTA (Whole Transcriptome Assay) is thus harmonized with HTP (HTG Transcriptome Panel). Therefore, using a single sample lysate, customers can process a sample with HTGM’s transcriptome panels of 20,000 gene mRNA and 20,000+ miRNA.
Previously, full transcriptome analysis required separate tissue sections and sample preparation processes. With the completion of this harmonization, a single tissue section and one lysis method are expected to be required.
In simple terms, the new development will allow streamlined workflow with crucial samples retention for use in other analyses.
Molecular Diagnostic’s Role and Future
Molecular diagnostics are used in the analysis of biomarkers for multiple ailments including contagious diseases, cancer, and chronic diseases among others. Technological advancement in the field has brought about a huge upsurge in R&D efforts in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, the outbreak of infectious diseases particularly covid-19 has also been a driver in fueled innovations and developments in the field. All the subsets of the field ranging from oncology molecular diagnostics to veterinary molecular diagnostics are deemed to grow substantially in the future. The overall molecular diagnostics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.90% to USD 32.10 billion by 2027.
HTGM’s Outlook
The company’s recently commercialized HTP assay marked a nice chunk of 16% of its 2021 revenue just 5 months after the launch. With the strengthening of its team and the release of its first white paper featuring drug discovery through its proprietary platform on top of the latest development, HTGM is progressing well into 2022.
Conclusion
Increased efficiency, reduced turnaround times, simplified bioinformatics, and sample retention are some of the added benefits of HTGM’s latest development. Hence, the news of this latest feature expansion of its proprietary technology caused the stock to rally big in the after-hours on Wednesday.
