NEW YORK – Quidel announced preliminary second quarter results after the market closed Monday, saying that it expects to report a revenue increase in the range of 86 to 87 percent over the prior-year quarter. The firm attributed the increase to demand for its COVID-19-related diagnostic products.
Quidel said it expects revenues for Q2 2020 to be in the range of $201 million to $202 million. The firm's revenues for Q2 2019 were $108.3 million, as previously reported.
Douglas Bryant, president and CEO of San Diego-based Quidel, said in a statement that revenues for the current quarter were stronger than expected and driven by demand for the firm's COVID-19 molecular diagnostic and rapid immunoassay products.
"With the rapid development, [Emergency Use Authorization], and production of over 3 million Lyra SARS-CoV-2 and Lyra Direct SARS-CoV-2 assays, Quidel played a small, but important role in helping our high complexity lab customers with their SARS-2 PCR testing needs," Bryant said.
Quidel also gained EUA for its Sofia SARS antigen assay, and manufactured approximately 4 million antigen assay cassettes in the quarter.
The firm shipped approximately 1,500 Sofia instruments in the month of June, bringing the cumulative total to approximately 45,000 Sofia placements globally, 90 percent of which are in the US, Bryant said.
Quidel expects to issue full financial results for the second quarter in late July.
In an analyst note on Monday, Tycho Peterson at JP Morgan described the results as underwhelming, as Quidel reported manufacturing fewer SARS-CoV-2 PCR and antigen tests than management had previously intimated, and that it reported placing a small number of Sofia instruments relative to its purported manufacturing rate and scale up in production. Overall, Quidel's preliminary results left Peterson and his colleagues "cautious on the outlook, in particular, given growing competition and, ultimately, the potential for a vaccine."
In early Tuesday trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Quidel were down around 5 percent at $222.64.