Meridian Bioscience today reported $44.8 million in preliminary revenue for its fiscal first quarter, marking a 1 percent decline from the year-ago period. Preliminary revenues included $34.8 million in sales from its Diagnostic segment, a 2 percent decline from fiscal Q1 2013.
However, molecular diagnostic revenue from Meridian's Illumigene product line increased 15 percent, driven by Illumigene Group B strep and Illumigene Group A strep.
Meantime, revenue for Meridian's Life Science business increased 3 percent to $10 million, while revenue for the company's Bioline molecular business increased 16 percent.
Meridian attributed its overall lackluster results to several factors, including reduced hospital admissions, declining Clostridium difficile incidence rates, shipment delays in its Life Science business, timing of the start of the influenza season, and food test ordering patterns.
Meridian CEO John Kraeutler said that for the rest of fiscal 2014, Meridian is focusing on tests for infectious disease in ambulatory patients, particularly its Illumigene Group B and Group A strep tests, along with tests for influenza and other respiratory diseases. He also said that the company's Illumigene Pertussis test for diagnosing whooping cough "will provide meaningful revenues" once it receives US Food and Drug Administration clearance.
Meridian's Illumigene products use loop-mediated isothermal amplification and run on the company's FDA-cleared Illumipro-10 Integrated Incubator/Reader. Besides the Group A and Group B strep tests, the company also markets FDA-cleared Illumigene assays for C. difficile and Mycoplasma pneumonia.
Singapore office
In a separate announcement this week, Meridian said that its Bioline subsidiary is opening an office in Singapore to support and grow the business in that country and in Asia in general.
Bioline will now provide direct sales, technical support, and training to its existing customers and can also offer same-day delivery to many of its Singapore-based customers. The investment has included the creation of several sales and support positions within the Bioline Singapore office. The new location will also be key to developing future opportunities in the region and providing ongoing support to life science researchers within Asia, Bioline said.
Bioline supplies customers in more than 30 countries worldwide with molecular biology products, primarily PCR reagents, including SensiFAST real-time PCR kits and MyTaq DNA polymerase.