Bio-Rad Posts 2 Percent Gain in Q2 Revenues

This article has been updated to include comments made during Bio-Rad's earnings call.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Bio-Rad Laboratories reported after the close of the market Wednesday that its second quarter revenues climbed 2 percent year over year as its profit was hit by expenses.

The Hercules, California-based life sciences tools and diagnostics firm reported total revenues of $516.8 million for the three months ended June 30 compared to $506.1 million for Q2 2015.

"During the quarter we had good growth across many of our key life science and diagnostic markets, most notably in our Droplet Digital PCR and process media product lines, as well as sales of diagnostic products for autoimmune testing and blood typing, and quality control," Bio-Rad Executive Vice President and CFO Christine Tsingos said on a call with analysts following the release of the earnings.

The firm also launched several multiplex screening kits for the detection of cancer mutation using the Droplet Digital PCR technology in the quarter, and Tsingos reported that Bio-Rad is making good progress in development related to its single-cell analysis partnership with Illumina. 

Revenues for its Life Science segment were up nearly 6 percent at $180 million for the quarter driven by increased sales for its Droplet Digital PCR and process chromatography products. Its Clinical Diagnostics sales were up half a percent at $333.7 million.

Bio-Rad posted net income of $18.0 million, or $.61 per share, for the quarter, down from $28.4 million, or $.97 per share. The decrease in profit was the result of several expense items totaling around $18 million that included a planned restructuring of its European operations, termination of an R&D project, and legal costs.

The firm's R&D expenses increased 12 percent year over year to $52.2 million from $46.5 million, while its SG&A costs jumped nearly 7 percent to $205.5 million from $192.8 million.

The year-over-year increase in R&D spending reflects additional investment in the firm's digital PCR and cell biology product lines, as well as a one-time expense of $2.4 million for the termination of a small diagnostics development project, Tsingos told analysts. The increase in SG&A spending, meanwhile, was driven by discrete expenses of approximately $10 million for a planned restructuring of Bio-Rad's European operations, as well as more than $3 million associated with various legal matters.

Bio-Rad finished the quarter with $418.7 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $377.2 million in short-term investments.