NEW YORK – Bruker reported after the close of the market Monday that revenues in the third quarter rose 19 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, revenues were $608.9 million, up from $511.4 million in Q3 2020 and beating the consensus Wall Street estimate of $575.2 million.
The company saw a 1 percent positive effect on revenues from currency translation and a positive effect of less than 1 percent from acquisitions.
The company's CALID group, which houses its life sciences and mass spectrometry business, posted 13 percent growth in the quarter with revenues of $194.2 million compared to $171.3 million the year before.
On a conference call following release of the Q3 results, Bruker CEO Frank Laukien said the company saw continued growth in its mass spectrometry and microbiology businesses, with strong sales of its timsTOF mass spec platform and a rebound in other life science mass spec platforms like its MALDI-TOF lines.
Bruker also saw "healthy demand" for its MALDI Biotyper instrument, including "accelerated growth in the US," where the company has seen greater than 50 percent year-over-year order growth, Laukien said. He noted that this uptick was driven by the US Food and Drug Administration clearance at the end of December 2020 of the Biotyper's new Sepsityper module, which enables identification of more than 400 microorganisms from positive blood cultures.
Laukien added that as of June 2021, Bruker had installed more than twice as many Biotypers in Europe than the US, suggesting that the latter market had significant potential for growth.
Bruker's SARS-Cov-2 molecular testing business continued to decline, however, to around $5 million in sales, he said.
Revenues for Bruker BioSpin increased 34 percent to $186.5 million from $152.1 million a year ago, Bruker Nano revenues rose 19 percent to $174.9 million from $147.1 million, and Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) revenues rose 30 percent to $57.0 million from $43.8 million.
Gerald Herman, Bruker's executive VP and CFO, said that for the first three quarters organic revenues were up roughly 13 percent compared to the first three quarters of 2019, providing a comparison to pre-pandemic levels.
The Billerica, Massachusetts-based company reported a profit of $87.1 million, or $.57 per share, in Q3 compared to a profit of $54.3 million, or $.35 per share, a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, Bruker had EPS of $.63, above the consensus Wall Street estimate of $.44.
Bruker's R&D costs were $52.1 million for the quarter, up 8 percent from $48.3 million in Q3 2020. Its SG&A spending was $141.3 million, up 23 percent from $114.6 million in the year-ago quarter.
Bruker ended the quarter with $669.8 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments.
The company raised its full-year 2021 guidance to revenue growth of between 19.5 percent and 20.5 percent and EPS of between $2.05 and $2.09.
In Tuesday morning trading on Nasdaq, Bruker shares were down 2 percent to $79.85.