For the year, Cyanotech earned a record $2.5 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a $769,000 profit, or 5 cents a share, in the previous year. Revenues jumped 95 percent, to $8.1 million.For the quarter ended March 31, the company reported a prof it of $780,000, or 5 cents a share, up from $266,000, or 2 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenues totaled $2.1 million, a 71.6 percent increase.
For the year, Cyanotech earned a record $2.5 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a $769,000 profit, or 5 cents a share, in the previous year. Revenues jumped 95 percent, to $8.1 million.
Gerald Cysewski, the company's chief executive, attributed the results to increased demand for its principal product, Spirulina Pacifica, a nutritional supplement.
Cyanotech develops and sells nutritional products made from microalgae grown in ponds.
To keep pace with demand, Cysewski said, the company invested more than $4.2 million during the year in additional manufacturing capacity. It recently sold stock to the public to raise $10 million for expansion and product development.
In January, the company began producing a natural red pigment targeted for the aquaculture industry, which now uses synthetic pigments to give a pinkish color to the flesh of pen-raised fish and shrimp.
It also obtained a license to make and sell a natural bacterial toxin the company believes will be a safe mosquito-control agent when applied to infested waters.