Skin care helps bring in big revenue increase for ISCO in 2011
The California-based biotech company reported revenue of $1.1m for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2011, reflecting a 110 percent increase, whilst for the twelve month period it reported revenue of $4.5m, reflecting the huge increase mentioned above.
And whilst expenses also increased, there is no doubt the company’s skin care line has proved its worth.
The increases in revenues in both the fourth quarter and for the year were primarily driven by strong sales at ISCO's wholly-owned subsidiary Lifeline Skin Care (LSC).
New skin care initiatives
Lifeline Skin Care launched a number of new sales and marketing initiatives including positioning the brand as the first bio-tech skin care company vested in technology-driven proprietary ingredients in 2011 with promising results.
The skin care line exceeded sales expectations since its initial trial launch, prompting further promotion.
Lifeline carried out the evaluation of the product line originally the year before and with the results, has now seen the benefits and will look to strengthen its general marketing program.
"Sales to date have greatly exceeded our expectations,” said Dr. Ruslan Semechkin, CEO of LSC.
He explained that the initial sales resulted from a very limited product offering made to subscribers of only one of the several newsletters sent out, plus a small direct mailing to interested parties and ISCO's shareholders who had signed up for general corporate information through the website.
Not all plain sailing
While the Company continued to invest in therapeutic projects, development of new technologies, and expansion of products, which aided the skin care growth, it also had to deal with an increase in expenses.
For the three months ended December 31, 2011, development expenses, excluding cost of sales, increased $507,000 or 17 percent compared with the same period of 2010.
For the twelve months ended December 31, 2011, development expenses, excluding costs of sales, increased approximately $3.0m or 26 percent when compared with the prior year period.
The majority of the increase was primarily due to increases in general and administrative and research and development activities.
