NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – BioMérieux reported on Wednesday that its first quarter revenues shot up 9 percent year over year driven in part by strong sales of its FilmArray, Vidas, and Vitek product portfolios.
For the three months ended March 31, the Marcy L'Etoile-based company tallied €489 million ($552.2 million) in sales compared to €448 million in the year-ago period. Excluding an approximately €7 million negative currency impact and the previously announced deconsolidation of BioTheranostics, the company reported year-over-year organic growth of more than 11 percent.
By application area, clinical applications rose 10 percent on a reported basis to €392.9 million, while industrial applications rose 4 percent to €86 million. Within clinical applications, microbiology, the largest clinical segment, grew 4 percent to €206.9 million, driven by blood culture products and the Vitek automated microbial identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing products.
Also within clinical, molecular biology rose 40 percent to €80.2 million, driven by €61 million in sales of the company's FilmArray molecular diagnostic products; and immunoassays grew nearly 7 percent to €104.1 million, including more than 9 percent growth in sales of the firm's Vidas platform.
BioMérieux noted that FilmArray product sales grew 55 percent year over year, with the FilmArray Respiratory Panel representing the vast majority of sales, despite a flu season of low intensity. Sales of the other FilmArray panels (Blood Culture Identification, Gastro-Intestinal, and Meningitis/Encephalitis) gained ground thanks to an increase in the proportion of customers using multiple panels, BioMérieux said.
The company also noted that FilmArray international sales accounted for 8 percent of total sales, up from 4 percent in the prior-year period, "an encouraging sign that the syndromic approach to the diagnosis of infectious diseases is being taken up outside the US."
During the quarter, BioMérieux sold its Adiagene business to Finalab. BioMérieux had acquired Adiagene in 2011 along with AES Laboratorie. Adiagene specializes in molecular biology tests for the diagnosis of animal diseases. The company's Adiavet and Adiapure product lines are designed to detect around 30 different veterinary pathogens, and currently generate around €2 million in annual sales.
Also during the quarter, in February, BioMérieux's BioFire Diagnostics subsidiary received US Food and Drug Administration clearance to market the FilmArray Torch for use with the FilmArray Respiratory Panel. The company subsequently received FDA clearance to market the FilmArray Blood Culture Identification, Gastrointestinal, and Meningitis/Encephalitis panels on the platform.