It ain’t millions and millions yet, but I have to give credit where credit is due - Applied DNA (APDN) just posted their third quarter numbers. We saw their fourth straight increase in sales. They pulled in revenue of $252K. There were no revenues at all for the same quarter a year earlier, since - as you probably know - the company really didn’t get a revenue-bearing product to the market until about a year ago.

My take? It’s proof of life. I’d love to have more (who wouldn’t?), but considering they literally started from scratch not too long ago, I give their progress-to-date a thumbs up.

It’s also worth noting gross margins remained high. Their cost of sales was only $50K last quarter, leading to a gross profit of $202K. Again I’d rather have net profits, but with a positive gross margin we can at least assume more volume will eventually mean profitability.

It’s also worth noting the majority of the expenses booked in this most recent quarter were related to professional fees and the reorganization of its capitalization…converting notes to equity. I’m not one of those people who disregards the bottom line when those kinds of things are booked; a loss is a loss. Again though, it points back to viability…those things won’t last forever.

What didn’t get said in the 10-Q may be even more important. In talking to the people at the company, I learned a big chunk of Q3’s sales were from repeat customers. That’s encouraging, in that it tells me getting this product out the door isn’t going to be a constant battle. The more new customers they add each quarter, the more customers they’ll have coming back with orders in hand, leaving their rain-makers to cultivate more business.

Here’s the 10-Q for Applied DNA. There’s no press release…at least not yet. However, I suspect there will be one tomorrow. I’m going to be publishing an edition tomorrow (Friday) afternoon anyway, so look for some more thoughts on Applied DNA then - maybe with more details from a news release. I just wanted to get you the news as soon as possible.

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