NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Agilent Technologies reported after the close of the market Monday that revenues for its fiscal second quarter increased 6 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Mar. 31, Agilent recorded $ 1.02 billion in revenues compared to $963 million in Q2 2015, and beating the average Wall Street estimate of $983.3 million. Excluding currency effects, its recently divested NMR business, and any other acquisition and divestitures, core revenue growth was 8 percent.
"Agilent delivered another strong quarter," Agilent President and CEO Mike McMullen said on a conference call following the release of results. "All end markets grew, except chemical and energy, and all regions grew, except Japan, led by very strong growth in China."
The firm's Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group reported revenues of $495 million, an increase of 5 percent year on year, with 14 percent growth in the pharma end market attributable to new product growth. Diagnostics and Genomics revenues were up 5 percent to $178 million in the quarter. During the call, DGG president Jacob Theysen said that the firm is "pleased with the take off" of its PDL-1 companion diagnostic for Bristol-Myers Squibb's Opdivo. He added that while crowded, the market has the opportunity "to be as big as the HER2 market," if PDL-1 becomes a companion diagnostic to a first line cancer treatment.
On the call, Agilent officials said the integration of Seahorse Bio, which Agilent acquired in the fall for $235 million, continued to impress. "This is the fastest I've seen us do an integration," McMullen said. "This is moving along really fast and we're already getting some wins. We won a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry deal because of Seahorse so the complementary nature of the portfolios is really starting to work."
The Agilent CrossLab Group posted revenues of $346 million, up 8 percent from the year-ago period. McMullen added that this business saw penetration into Asia.
Agilent reported a net profit of $91 million, or $.28 per share, compared to a profit of $87 million, or $.26 per share, in Q2 2015. Its adjusted EPS was $.44, beating the average analysts' estimate of $.39.
Agilent's R&D spending was flat at $81 million. Its SG&A spending increased 9 percent to $318 million from $292 million in Q2 2015.
Agilent ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $2.14 billion.
Though Agilent officials said upcoming quarters would face "increasingly tough compares," the firm raised its full-year guidance for revenues to between $4.16 billion and $4.18 billion from a previous range of $4.10 billion to $4.12 billion, and adjusted EPS of $1.88 to $1.92 from a previous range of $1.81 to $1.87. Agilent CFO Didier Hirsch added that after reviewing its inventment in sequencing technology firm Lasergen, Agilent would use the cost method of accounting and would not book its share of Lasergen losses. He also said that the firm expected to repurchase $93 million of its shares in the third quarter.
In morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Agilent were up 4 percent at $44.64.