Bio-Rad Laboratories reported after the close of the market Thursday that its second quarter revenues decreased approximately 1 percent year over year.
For the three months ended June 30, Bio-Rad had net sales of $572.6 million compared to $575.9 million in Q2 2018, beating analysts' consensus estimate of $566.2 million. On a currency-neutral basis, Q2 sales increased nearly 3 percent year over year, the company said.
Life science segment sales were $212.4 million, down approximately 3 percent year over year, or flat on a currency-neutral basis. Life Science growth was driven by strong sales in the Droplet Digital PCR, antibody, and food safety product lines, moderated by the process media product line in which sales vary from quarter to quarter, the firm said in a statement. Excluding process media sales, the life science business grew about 8 percent year-over-year on a currency neutral basis.
The firm plans to launch a next-generation integrated Droplet Digital PCR system with four colors, most likely in the fourth quarter, Annette Tumolo, executive VP at Bio-Rad and president of the life science group, said on a conference call to discuss the earnings.
Clinical diagnostics segment sales were up approximately 1 percent to $357.1 million, or 5 percent on a currency-neutral basis. Growth in this business segment was driven by strength in quality controls, immunology, and diabetes product lines.
John Hertia, executive VP at Bio-Rad and president of the clinical diagnostics group, said on the call that the firm continues to see "strong placements" of both the IH-1000 and IH-500 blood typing instruments around the world and "strong reagent pull-through."
During the quarter, Bio-Rad obtained US Food and Drug Administration clearance for an assay to detect Lyme disease. Hertia described Lyme testing as a large and growing market in which there is "a lot of dissatisfaction" with currently available products. "We have a very novel assay design that gives us better sensitivity and better specificity than anything else on the market, and it's a fully automated solution," Hertia noted.
Bio-Rad's Q2 R&D spending increased around 6 percent to $50.1 million from $47.5 million, while its SG&A expenses deceased a little more than 4 percent to $201.3 million from $210.4 million.
Bio-Rad's Q2 net income was $598.8 million, or $19.86 per share, compared to $268.0 million, or $8.87 per share, in the year-ago period.
Adjusted EPS was $1.57, besting the Wall Street expectation of $1.33.
Bio-Rad finished the quarter with $580.7 million in cash and cash equivalents and $406.7 million in short-term investments.
The Hercules, California-based company reaffirmed its full-year guidance of currency-neutral revenue growth of approximately 4.0 to 4.5 percent.
Ilan Daskal, executive VP at Bio-Rad and CFO, also said on the call that the company is "pleased" with the Federal Court's recent ruling upholding a decision against 10x Genomics and the $23.9 million award and injunction related to the firm's Droplet Digital PCR intellectual property. Tumolo noted that the court now has to finalize that order and the firm expects in the next days to weeks to "get the final issuance from the court on what exactly the details of that injunction are."
In Friday morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of Bio-Rad were up 7 percent to $331.18.
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