NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Bio-Techne this week reported that its revenue for the second quarter rose 17 percent year over year to $154.2 million from $131.8 million, exceeding the average analyst estimate of $146.3 million.
Revenues from the firm's diagnostics business segment fell 4 percent to $23.4 million from $24.3 million in the prior-year quarter. Sales volume in the quarter was negatively affected by continued "push-outs” of orders by original equipment manufacturers "in a very cost-conscious diagnostics industry," the firm said.
Bio-Techne's biotechnology segment posted revenues of $101.4 million, up 18 percent year over year from $86.0 million. The firm said that its advanced cell diagnostics business, acquired in July 2016, grew more than 40 percent year over year.
The company's protein platforms segment revenues were up 37 percent to $29.4 million from $21.5 million in the prior-year quarter.
Its net income was $48.8 million, or $1.29 per share, compared to $7.5 million, or $.20 per share, in the prior-year quarter. Bio-Techne said that its earnings per share experienced a one-time benefit of $.94 because of changes to US tax legislation.
The firm report adjusted earnings per share of $1.02, beating the average analyst estimate of $.92. The impact of recently passed tax legislation positively affected adjusted earnings per share by $.08, the firm said.
Bio-Techne's R&D expenses fell 5 percent to $13.9 million from $13.3 million in Q2 2016, and its SG&A expenses rose 12 percent to $63.8 million from $57.0 million in the prior-year quarter.
At the end of the Q2, the firm had $121.5 million in cash and equivalents and $40.9 million in short-term available-for-sale investments.
Bio-Techne also announced this week that its board of directors has decided to pay a dividend of $.32 per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, payable on March 2 to shareholders of record on Feb. 16.
Abcam and Molecular Devices this week signed a strategic collaboration to develop a wide range of fast and reproducible screening tools for researchers. The initial collaboration will combine proprietary technologies from both companies to create high sensitivity fluorescent ELISA kits.
Analyte Health said this week it is offering IQuity’s IsolateIBS-IBD test as part of their partnership originally announced last month. The test differentiates irritable bowel syndrome from inflammatory bowel disease, distinguishing Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Based on a blood draw, it uses a patent-pending RNA expression analysis and delivers accuracy of greater than 90 percent, according to the two firms.
Immunovia announced this week that Massachusetts General Hospital will participate in PanFAM-1, a multicenter prospective validation study for early diagnosis of familial pancreatic cancer in high-risk individuals. The study is designed to validate Immunovia's blood test, IMMray PanCan-d, and will analyze more than 1,000 individuals over three years across sites in the US and Europe already offering FPC screening programs. The other PanFAM-1 partners to date are Mount Sinai, Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Sciences University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Liverpool, Ramon y Cajal Institute for Health Research, and Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
ThinkGenetic this week announced a partnership with Mapmygenome, a personal genomics company based in India specializing in clinical genomics and molecular diagnostics. Under the terms of the deal, ThinkGenetic users from India will be referred to board-certified genetic counselors at Mapmygenome, which currently has teams providing genetic services all over India.
Mission Bio this week announced the winners of its Custom Panel Grant Program, which will provide two research labs with funding to build a custom single-cell DNA panel on the firm's Tapestri platform and to collaborate with Mission Bio for single-cell mutational profiling. The winner are Joseph Boland and Lisa McReynolds of the National Cancer Institute, and Aaron Viny of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Zymo Research said this week it has teamed up with the Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University and the Portuguese Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of Algarve on the TeaComposition H2O project, an initiative that will link litter decomposition with the microbial communities driving the process. Zymo will provide scientific support and tools to study the microbial properties across the multiple testing sites. The company is donating products, and will provide library preparation, sequencing, and bioinformatics services at a reduced cost.
FDNA announced this week that it has awarded a Centers of Research Excellence grant to the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine at Saint Mary’s Hospital in the UK. The grant provides funding to researchers to advance next-generation phenotyping and facial analysis technology at key sites working on precision medicine.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on the GenomeWeb site.