Good day, welcome to the ThermoGenesis Holdings conference call and webcast to review financial and operating results for the first quarter that ended March 31st, 2023. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star, then one on your phone. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. If you should need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star, then zero. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to our host, Paula Schwartz of Rx Communications. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. The company's actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that might cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information presented today is time sensitive and is accurate only as of the date of this call, May 15, 2023. If any portion of this call is being rebroadcast, retransmitted, or redistributed at a later date, ThermoGenesis will not be reviewing or updating this material. Participating on today's call are Dr. Chris Xu, Chief Executive Officer, and Jeff Cauble, Chief Financial Officer. I'd now like to turn the call over to Chris. Please go ahead, Chris.
Thank you, Paula, and thank you to everyone for joining the call this afternoon. We appreciate you to take the time to listen in. During the first quarter, we are making progress towards executing our plans to transform from a medical device company to an integrated contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO, for the cell and gene therapy market. In March 2023, we closed a $3 million private placement, which will help support the planned launch of our CDMO business. The goal is to leverage our unique and proprietary automated and semi-automated cell processing technologies, including the CAR-TXpress platform, to manufacture future cell gene therapies cheaper and more efficiently. To that end, we have made significant headway building out a 12-unit ReadyStart cGMP Suites at our 35,500 sq ft facility in Sacramento.
These class seven cleanrooms are designed to meet the highest scientific quality and regulatory requirements that would be ideal for the early-stage companies and institutions developing next generation of cancer medicines, such as CAR T-cell therapies, and to accelerate drug candidates into the clinic quicker and safer. Our goal is to establish solutions for customers in order to streamline the supply chain, increase manufacturing predictability, and manage overall risk. We have begun to market this turnkey solution to early-stage life science cell gene therapy companies who are looking to jump-start their development efforts and scale up in the same facility. We expect the ReadyStart cGMP Suites to be available for lease to customers in the second or third quarter of this year.
As you may know, for over 35 years, ThermoGenesis has pioneered the development and manufacturing of a series of innovative automated technologies and products specifically for the cell banking and cell therapy industry. In fact, ThermoGenesis has been the leading provider of choice for automated cell processing and automated smart cryostorage technologies for some of the world's most important public and private cell banks. Our BioArchive smart cryostorage systems has warehoused close to 90% of all U.S. FDA BLA-approved clinical-grade Cord Blood Units or CBUs, Our AXP System has been used to process well over 1 million samples from well over 100 institutes globally. In addition to our manufacturing know-how in cell gene therapies, the intellectual properties that we have amassed over the years are invaluable.
Driving our shift to a CDMO, in large part, is the continued growth of the industry, focusing on the potentials for personalized cell engine therapies. Since 2017, six autologous CAR T-cell therapies have been approved by the FDA. CAR T-cell therapies were approved as the last line of defense for those patients who did not respond to other therapeutic options. More recently, there have been several CAR T trials that have shown Such therapies can outperform second line or standard of care options, indicating that the applications for CAR T-cell therapy may expand it in the future. Recent reports show that the industry anticipates additional FDA approvals with as many as 10-20 new cell therapies potentially being approved for commercialization annually, starting in 2025.
With more cell therapies, such as CAR T-cell therapies receive FDA approval, the demand for manufacturing of these life-saving therapy continues to grow. As we speak, there are more than 350 U.S. companies alone working in the cell therapy arena and more than 1,000 pipeline assets in clinical development globally, targeting a range of blood and solid tumors. While a majority of these innovative research were driven by small to medium-sized biotech companies and medical research centers, the demand for third-party manufacturer continue to grow. Each of our well-encompassing ReadyStart cGMP Suites will provide a flexible option, enabling small to medium-sized companies to achieve their anticipated milestone faster and more efficiently.
Additionally, our team's strong expertise in regulatory affair and product commercialization will help accelerate the development of our customers' products, allowing them to focus on their science while ThermoGenesis will manage the regulatory and quality compliance associated with running a GMP facility. With ThermoGenesis' strong intellectual property position, cutting-edge technology and manufacturing service expertise, our new facility will have the ability to address the increased demand for cell gene therapy manufacture capabilities. We will remain focused on launching the CDMO service and ReadyStart cGMP Suites to customers in the cell gene therapy field in the next few months. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeff to share the key financial results for the first quarter. Jeff?
Thank you, Chris. A full discussion of our financials is available in our Form 10-Q. I will just take a moment to review key financials for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023. Net revenues for the quarter were in line with the first quarter of last year at $2.6 million. Product mix was slightly different, with higher domestic AXP disposable sales and BioArchive service revenue in the current year. Gross profit for the quarter was $1.1 million, or 43% of net revenue, compared to $900,000 or 35% of net revenues for the first quarter of 2022. The increase was driven by lower inventory reserves in the current year. Selling general and administrative expenses were $1.8 million for this quarter as compared to $1.7 million for the first quarter last year.
The increase was driven by rent and operating expenses for our new CDMO facility, offset by lower personnel expenses. Interest expense was $3.9 million for the quarter, driven by non-cash amortization expenses related to the company's convertible notes. The company reported a comprehensive loss of $5 million, or $4.04 per share, based on approximately 1.3 million weighted average shares outstanding. The company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $5.9 million, as compared with cash and cash equivalents of $4.2 million at December 31st, 2022. This concludes our prepared remarks. Now we'd like to open the call to your questions. Operator?
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Sean Lee from H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking my question. Just I was wondering if you could provide some more color on the CDMO facility. Now that it's almost up and running, how does your pricing compare to similar facilities on the West Coast?
Hi, Sean. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Currently, the entire CDMO demand, the demand for CDMO facilities are pretty high in the entire U.S. . Many of the facility require up to 12 or even more, 12-18 months waiting period. The average pricing for the industry also is quite significant. We are priced ourselves comparably to what's offered in industry with some of the initial promotion, but I think what we offer is a missing capacities that the industry currently is lacking. These facility are very ideal for small to medium sized company. We have seen an influx of companies and visitors exploring these options. Our ads will be coming out this coming week, actually this week, through Science Magazine.
I think even we, with a very comparable pricing to our competitors, it's really the missing capacities that we offer. That's in high demand.
That's great to hear. In terms of capacity then, how many doses are we talking about if all 12 of these rooms are being used?
We intend to use that through a mixture of developing our own manufacturing service and leasing out extra space to outsiders. If we use the entire manufacturer suite for ourselves, we are talking about probably close to 10,000 dose of GMP quality, clinical-ready, cell gene therapy a year.
Okay, that's good to know. My last question is, as you mentioned, I've seen some of your marketing efforts already underway as well. I was wondering whether you've had some of the comments or questions coming from potential customers on the facility or how to improve it.
Actually, the feedback are very positive in a way that in our facility, we have the mixture of high-end ReadyStart cGMP Suite, and also the common lab that can be used to develop the cell therapies, which is a more of a generalized wet lab. Having capacity of both in the same facility is really ideal for the entire industry, for many of the companies. We are actually, as we are aware of, probably the only one in the region or even in the nation that is providing such a combination. People seems to like this.
Okay. That's great to hear. That's all the questions I have. Thanks again.
Great. Thanks. Thanks, Sean.
Thanks, Sean.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Chris Xu for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. We look forward to updating you on our progress during our second quarter 2023 call. Thank you to everyone who participated today and for your interest in ThermoGenesis Holdings. Thank you.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.