Shares in Cerus Corp. (NSDQ:CERS) fell -18% today after the company missed expectations on Wall Street with its 1st quarter results.

The Concord, Calif.-based company posted a net loss of -$18.7 million, or -18¢ per share, on sales of $7 million for the 3 months ended March 31, for bottom-line loss of -10.7% on sales growth of -7.9% compared with the same period last year.

Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, earnings per share were -18¢, behind consensus on The Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $8 million.

“Coming out of our 1st quarter, we remain optimistic about our growth prospects over the next several years from major markets including the U.S., France and South Africa, but were not able to sign new contracts for the latter 2 geographies by now as we had previously expected. Therefore, though no less confident in our ability to capture this new business in the near to medium term, we believe it is prudent to adjust our 2017 product revenue guidance to a new range of $43 to 48 million dollars,” president & CEO William Greenman said in prepared remarks. “In the U.S., we are seeing increasing awareness regarding the FDA’s pending final guidance on bacterial safety, and are encouraged by the urgency currently being expressed by blood centers to meet hospital demand for Intercept platelets.”

CERS shares were trading at $3.47 apiece today in afternoon activity, down -18.2%.