NEW YORK – PerkinElmer on Tuesday reported its fourth quarter revenues inched up less than 1 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Jan. 2, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company posted $1.36 billion in total revenues compared to $1.35 billion in the year-ago quarter. It beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of $1.27 billion.
Its Discovery and Analytical Solutions (DAS) segment grew sales 30 percent to $655 million from $503 million in Q4 2020, while the Diagnostics segment's sales fell 17 percent to $709 million from $852 million a year ago.
On a conference call to discuss the firm's results, PerkinElmer CFO Jamey Mock noted that non-COVID-19-related revenues were up 11 percent year over year while COVID-19-related testing contributed $336 million in Q4. Year over year, however, COVID-19-related revenues were down more than $200 million.
He added that the firm saw strong demand for its COVID-19 PCR tests and extraction kits during Q4, especially in December "as Omicron spread across the globe."
On a non-COVID-19-related basis, its Diagnostics segment's revenues were up 14 percent year over year organically.
Also within Diagnostics, Applied Genomics was down significantly year over year because of the downtick in COVID-19-related sales, Mock said, while immunodiagnostics was down a little more than 20 percent year over year also due to the reduction in COVID-19-related sales.
Lastly in Diagnostics, reproductive health sales grew in the low double digits year over year organically, not including COVID-19 sales, Mock said, driven by market penetration, menu expansion, strong growth in PerkinElmer's lab business, and a "strong contribution" from its Vanadis noninvasive prenatal business.
PerkinElmer CEO Prahlad Singh added that the firm continues to expect a ramp-up of the Vanadis platform this year and commercial test volumes on the system to more than double. He declined to provide specific figures in terms of installations of Vanadis but said that along with shipping the instrument, the firm is validating the platform "across several sites."
Meanwhile, within DAS, growth was led by PerkinElmer's life science business as sales from its pharma/biotech customers grew in the low double digits organically, Mock said.
PerkinElmer posted a profit of $179.2 million, or $1.41 per share, for the recently completed quarter compared to a profit of $380.4 million, or $3.38 per share, a year ago. Adjusted EPS of $2.56 beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of $2.19.
The firm's R&D costs grew 41 percent year over year to $80.3 million from $56.8 million, and its SG&A spending rose 35 percent to $355.2 million from $263.1 million. It had a charge of $3.4 million in Q4 2021 in restructuring and other costs compared to a gain of $3.1 million a year ago.
For full-year 2021, PerkinElmer's revenues increased 34 percent to $5.07 billion from $3.78 billion in 2020 and beat the consensus Wall Street estimate of $4.97 billion.
The Discovery and Analytical Solutions segment sales grew 24 percent to $2.14 billion from $1.72 billion in 2020, while the Diagnostics segment sales were up 42 percent to $2.93 billion from $2.07 billion.
COVID-19-related revenues totaled about $1.6 billion for the year, Mock said.
PerkinElmer had a profit of $932.2 million, or $7.99 per share, compared to a profit of $727.9 million, or $6.49 per share, in 2020. Its adjusted EPS of $11.36 beat analysts' average estimate of $10.79.
Its R&D spending grew 34 percent year over year $275.0 million from $205.4 million. Its SG&A costs also rose 34 percent to $1.23 billion from $917.9 million. It posted a charge of $16.4 million in restructuring and other costs, up from $8.0 million a year ago.
PerkinElmer finished 2021 with $618.3 million in cash and cash equivalents.
For the first quarter of 2022 the firm guided to revenues of between $1.17 billion and $1.19 billion and adjusted EPS of $2.05 to $2.10.
For full-year 2022, it forecast revenues of $4.42 billion to $4.50 billion and adjusted EPS of $6.80 to $7.00. On the conference call Singh said that the firm is assuming COVID-19-related revenues of at least $400 million for 2022.
In early morning trading on the Nasdaq, PerkinElmer's shares were down a fraction of 1 percent at $174.05.