3Q results reflect Serologicals' successful expansion
€167.6 million merger with cell signalling specialist Upstate looks
to have been the right one as its third quarter performance
indicates its increasing presence in the preclinical drug screening
and target validation market.
For the third quarter of 2004, revenues totalled $46.3 million (€36.1 million), up 10 per cent over the same period last year and diluted earnings per share were $0.19 in the third quarter of 2004, an increase of 217 per cent from the prior year quarter of $0.06.
Net income from continuing operations totalled $5.7 million for the third quarter of 2004, an increase of 312 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2003. Serologicals stated that approximately 60 per cent of product sales in the third quarter of 2004 represented patented, exclusively licensed or proprietary products.
The September acquisition of the Upstate Group follows the July purchase of AltaGen Biosciences, the parent company of Sierra BioSource, a leading provider of contract research and development services to the cell culture industry. The acquisitions are within keeping of the companies overall strategy of creating a company, which is one of a handful, focused on the biomedical pipeline from research and drug discovery through biomanufacturing.
Serologicals' significant expansion, which now includes a sales and marketing staff of approximately 120 people worldwide, along with its distributor network, now puts it in a position to compete on an international scale, building a customer base and increasing its global presence.
Commenting on the latest figures, David Dodd, president of Serologicals said: "We saw revenue growth in all business segments for the quarter and year-to-date and continued our focus on expense controls. We did see some pressure on margins in our diagnostic segment during the quarter, primarily resulting from the sales mix."
"We expect to see margins start to improve in the diagnostic business in the fourth quarter due to increased plant utilization at our Livingston, Scotland manufacturing facility, he added."
During the third quarter, Upstate launched four new drug screening services, KinaseProfilerFP, a specificity testing service for the screening of lead compounds against the largest panel of kinases, the PIProfiler, a PI 3-kinase screening service which may be used to identify and evaluate PI 3-kinase lead compounds, the PhosphataseProfiler, PIProfiler, and PathwayProfiler. The KinaseProfiler panel continues to increase and now contains approximately 160 kinases. The number of Upstate screening service customers now number more than 200 screening service customers.
During this month, Upstate expects to complete the expansion of its drug screening facility in Dundee, Scotland. This expansion will expand its drug screening capacity, increasing the available square footage from 11,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet.
In addition, Serologicals' focus on integrating its information systems continued as the implementation of the accounting-related modules of Stress Associated Protein Kinase (SAP) at Chemicon during the quarter was completed. Phase two of the implementation of SAP at Chemicon is expected to be completed in the spring of 2005.
