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Bio-Rad Q3 Revenues Up 8 Percent

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Bio-Rad reported after the close of the market Tuesday that third quarter revenues rose 8 percent year over year, thanks largely to an 18 percent increase in sales for its life science business.

"We are pleased with a strong sales performance in the third quarter, in particular, our life science business, with nearly 20 percent currency-neutral growth," said Bio-Rad President and CEO Norman Schwartz in a statement. "Continued investments in our operations have affected profitability for the first nine months of the year, but these investments are necessary to support our growth."

For the three months ended Sept. 30, Bio-Rad reported revenues of $508.7 million compared to $470.0 million in the year-ago period. On a currency-neutral basis, Bio-Rad's Q3 revenues increased 9 percent year over year.

"During the quarter we experienced good currency-neutral sales growth across many of our regions, with North America, Asia Pacific, and China all up double digits," CFO Christine Tsingos said during a conference call recapping the company's earnings. 

The company's life science segment recorded net sales of $178.1 million, an 18 percent year-over-year increase that the firm attributed to increased sales of Digital Droplet PCR and process media products. Life science sales rose 19 percent on a currency-neutral basis.

Sales for its clinical diagnostics segment increased about 4 percent to $327.1 million in Q3, due to growth in the firm's clinical immunology, diabetes, and quality control product lines. On a currency-neutral basis, clinical diagnostics revenues also increased about 4 percent.

The Hercules, California-based firm reported net income of $18.4 million, or $.62 per share, compared to net income of $17.4 million, or $.59 per share, for the same period last year.

Bio-Rad's R&D expenses rose 15 percent to $49.9 million in Q3 from $43.3 million in the same quarter last year. "This increase primarily reflects higher investments in Droplet Digital products for the life science and diagnostic markets, as well as new products for the cell biology market," Tsingos said. 

And the company's SG&A expenses rose nearly 8 percent to $201.5 million versus $187.4 million in Q3 of 2015.

Bio-Rad finished the quarter with $417.9 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $392.4 million in short-term investments.

In response to an analyst question about mergers and acquisitions, Schwartz noted that the firm has "a pretty good book of things that we are looking at and evaluating," and said he hopes that "something will come to pass in the next three to six months."