Madison’s Exact Sciences Corp. announced Wednesday that it generated a record $811 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2025, announced a new licensing deal and reported a quarterly loss of $1 million.
The company also said it was trimming some costs, and later told a news outlet it would lay off about 200 employees.
During its quarterly earnings call, Exact Sciences said it entered into an exclusive license agreement with the California biotech Freenome, giving it exclusive rights to current and future versions of Freenome’s blood-based colorectal cancer screening tests.
Investors sent shares of Exact Sciences (EXAS) down by nearly 16% to $39.50 in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq market. Shares had closed Aug. 6 at $46.91.
In midday trading on Aug. 7, the company’s stock price was $41.22, down $5.69, or 12%, from Wednesday’s close of market.
The stock market slide and the layoffs poured rain on news of Exact Sciences’ second quarter revenue of $811 million, an increase of 16% over the same period in 2024. That included screening revenue of $628 million, an increase of 18% over the same quarter in 2024, and precision oncology revenue of $183 million, an increase of 9% over the same period a year ago.
The loss of $1 million, or 1 cent per share, a decrease of $15 million or 8 cents per share, respectively, compared to the same quarter of 2024.
During the call with investors, the company also announced a multiyear plan to save $150 million annually by 2026. Following the call, the company told Madison’s WMTV that 80 people at its Madison headquarters would be let go, and another 120 people working in its finance, human resources, legal and IT departments would lose their jobs over the next several months.
Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy attributed the revenue performance to strong momentum behind the launch of Cologuard Plus, an updated stool test for colon cancer that has been shown to detect more cancers and yield fewer false positives than the original Cologuard.
With Exact Sciences’ expanded partnership with health insurance firm Humana, announced in July, Cologuard Plus is available as an in-network service for eligible Humana Medicare Advantage members nationwide. Humana, the fourth largest private insurer in the United States, has approximately 5.8 million Medicare Advantage members.
Conroy said the company continued to gain momentum across its portfolio of advanced cancer tests, serving more patients and expanding the number of health care providers, health systems and payers who rely on Exact Sciences’ products.
“We delivered our 20 millionth Cologuard result, doubling from 10 million in just three years,” Conroy said. “We are encouraged by indicators of sustainable growth coming from our commercial organization.
“Driven by better coverage, segmentation and targeting enhanced by AI, a record 200,000 providers ordered Cologuard with growth across all segments at record depths.”
Conroy said Cologuard brand recognition has reached all-time highs with top-of-mind awareness matching or exceeding that of colonoscopies.
“The colon cancer screening landscape is shifting towards a Cologuard-first, colonoscopy-when-needed approach,” he said.
As a result of the record quarter, Exact Sciences raised itstotal revenue guidance to between $3.13 and $3.17 billion for the year, an increase of $55 million. This assumes screening revenue between $630- $640 million for the third quarter and between $2.44- $2.47 billion for the year; and precision oncology revenue between $170- $175 million for the third quarter and between $690- $700 million for the year.
Active quarter
The financial performance came during a quarterly period in which Exact Sciences reported more product advancement. Exact Sciences obtained Medicare coverage for Oncodetect, a new test designed to detect molecular residual disease (MRD) across multiple solid tumors.
By the end of 2025, Exact Sciences will have launched three new products, including Cologuard Plus; Oncodetect, a highly sensitive test that detects up to 200 DNA variants, identifying signs of colorectal cancer (CRC) recurrence up to two years earlier than imaging; and Cancerguard, a new test designed to detect multiple cancers in their earliest stages from a single blood draw.
Cancerguard will launch in September, Conway said, but the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has yet to decide whether Medicare will cover it.
The news about the licensing agreement with Freenome was announced shortly before Wednesday’s earnings call. The complete findings from an early study, recently published in JAMA, the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association, showed why Freenome is an attractive partner for Exact Sciences. Its first version test achieved sensitivities of 81% for CRC and 14% for advanced precancerous lesions (APL) at specificity of 90%.
Conway said test results were disappointing for Exact Sciences’ own version of a blood-based colon cancer screening test, but development work on it would continue. In response to a question about the blood data from Catherine Schulte, financial analyst with Baird, Conroy said the Freenome test “is now ours. We’ve exclusively licensed it. We’re very excited about bringing it to a niche in the market that is an important one.”
Conroy also said the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines were clear “that there is a role for blood-based testing and it’s for those patients who are active refusers of screening. Could this ultimately represent a meaningful niche in the market? Yes, we believe it can and we believe we have the relationships with the health care providers, with patients and their trust and with the quality that we’ve delivered over the last 11 years with Cologuard.”
Under the terms of the licensing agreement with Exact Sciences, Freenome will receive $75 million in cash payable by November 2025. Additional potential payments of up to $700 million are based on the achievement of certain milestones for Freenome’s blood-based CRC screening tests, including:
A payment of $100 million upon first-line FDA approval for the first version test; $100 million upon first-line FDA approval for the next-generation test (contingent on meeting performance benchmarks for APL sensitivity and overall CRC sensitivity); and $500 million if the test is rated as a first-line test in the United States Preventive Services Taskforce guidelines or it meets certain payer-contracted coverage requirements.
In addition, Freenome may be eligible to receive royalty rates of up to 10% based on the test’s profitability. If certain criteria are not met, Exact Sciences will have the right to terminate the agreement.
Exact Sciences also committed $20 million annually over the next three years in joint R&D development expenses.
Also during Wednesday’s earnings call, financial analyst Doug Schenkel of Wolfe Research asked Conroy about the licensing agreement. Schenkel said Exact Sciences will be the No. 2 entrant to the CRC blood screening market, and he had a pointed question: “Why shouldn’t an investor now think that you view blood as a threat to Cologuard, given the quick pivot on this data to quickly make a deal with Freenome?”
Conroy said the pivotal guideline group, the United States Preventive Services Taskforce, may not weigh in on this question for a number of years, and he touted the capability of Exact Sciences’ commercial organization.
In the 11 years since Cologuard was launched, Conroy said more 100,000 people were diagnosed with cancer earlier with Cologuard than they otherwise would have been.
“The impact is huge — including over 600,000 people with precancerous polyps, leading to potential prevention,” Conroy said. “And finally, the (CRC) mortality rate since Cologuard was launched has declined 11%.
“So if you want to talk about productivity and R&D,” Conroy said, “we’re happy to have that debate.”
