Twist Bioscience handily beat quarterly expectations Friday and guided to "solid" sales growth for the upcoming year, leading TWST stock to skyrocket.
For fiscal year 2024 — which is already underway at Twist — the company expects $285 million to $290 million in sales. The company expects sales to climb 16% to 18%. Twist makes synthetic DNA and also sells the tools to "read" DNA, a process known as next-generation sequencing. The company expects both those segments to tack on double-digit growth, with its smaller biopharma segment growing 8%.
Evercore ISI analyst Vijay Kumar noted the environment for life sciences tools companies has been fairly bleak recently. But that doesn't appear to be the case for Twist.
"In an environment where peer life sciences tools (companies) are point to flat to low single-digit growth, Twist's fiscal year 2023 revenue guide implies a solid 17% growth," he said in a note. "This was a front-loaded guide with the first quarter expected to grow 24% and should instill confidence."
On today's stock market, TWST stock soared 25.9%, closing at 24.01.
TWST Stock: Double-Digit Sales Growth
During the fiscal fourth quarter, Twist's sales grew almost 17% to $66.9 million, beating expectations for $63.4 million, according to FactSet. The company also reported a per-share loss of 81 cents, which narrowed by a dime year over year and topped estimates for a loss of 92 cents per share.
Chief Executive Emily Leproust called out SynBio and next-generation sequencing for driving 20% sales growth in fiscal year 2023. SynBio is Twist's synthetic DNA segment.
"Moving into fiscal 2024, we expect the momentum behind our SynBio product group will be bolstered by Express Genes with next-generation sequencing revenue increasing as customers continue to advance development and commercial plans," she said in a written statement.
For the year, Twist expects SynBio sales to climb 16% to 18% to $113 million to $116 million. Twist also calls for 19% to 20% growth from its next-generation sequencing business, hitting $147 million to $149 million in sales. The biopharma segment is projected to bring in $25 million.
Evercore's Kumar kept his outperform rating and 26 price target on TWST stock.
"All in, these were solid numbers," he said.
The news catapulted Twist stock to its highest point since September.
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