NEW YORK – Meridian Bioscience announced Thursday its preliminary revenues for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 were up 94 percent compared to the previous year, driven largely by an increase in the firm's life science segment.
The company said it expects revenues to be approximately $92 million, up from $47.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Life science revenues are expected to be $62 million, up nearly 400 percent from $12.6 million in Q1 2020. Diagnostic revenues are expected to be $30 million, down 14 percent from $34.8 million in the first quarter of 2020.
The increase in life science revenues was driven by high demand for COVID-19 products and Meridian said it expects the high levels of revenues to continue through the second quarter of FY2021. The firm has provided reagents and consumables for many SARS-CoV-2 tests throughout the pandemic, including qPCR chemistries and enzyme master mixes.
Meanwhile, the diagnostics segment saw improvement at the beginning of the quarter but experienced headwinds as COVID-19 cases surged globally and lockdowns were put back in place. Meridian has developed a molecular test for SARS-CoV-2 to run on its Revogene platform, the company said on its most recent earnings call. Last month, it received $1 million from the National Institute of Health to speed up the launch of the test.
The firm isn't updating its FY2021 guidance at this time, and full financial results are scheduled to be released on Feb. 5.
“Demand for our Life Science reagents continues to exceed expectations and while the Diagnostics segment saw a setback in its recovery during the quarter, its own contribution to the fight begins in the coming week with initial shipments of the Revogene SARS-CoV-2 assay to select customers expected,” CEO Jack Kenny said in a statement.
In early morning trading on the Nasdaq Thursday, Meridian's stock price was up 3 percent to $22.01.