Continued biopharma growth for Pall
The firm – which reported an overall 5.9 per cent increase in revenues for its fiscal fourth quarter – said the contribution from its pharmaceutical business rose to $218m from $200m in the comparable period in fiscal 2011.
Continued strength in the biotechnology market was one reason for the uptick the company said, especially for consumables which pulled in 21 per cent more sales compared with 2011.
Pall said this was partly due to the BLItz and Octet label-free protein analysis instrumentation platforms, which it acquired last December with its takeover of Californian firm ForteBio. Laboratory consumables sales also grew.
Larry Kingsley, president and CEO, said: “We executed a solid fourth quarter. We focused almost exclusively on restoring customer service levels”
Systems sales
But, while strong drug industry demand for certain services and technologies - primarily consumables - drove growth in Q4 other part of Pall's biopharmaceuticals business suffered, notably processing systems which saw sales decline 22 per cent.
In his commentary Kingsley said: "System sales were negative in the quarter as a function of a very large comparison quarter in FY11, our decision to pare certain unprofitable system sales, and lower capital commitment in some markets."
The decline in systems revenue - which was also seen in Pall's food an beverage businesses - is not the first it has reported this year. In the fiscal third quarter, systems sales were down 60 per cent, though this was largely put down to the team dealing with problems at its then-new enterprise resource planning unit (ERP).
In its latest results Pall said it has “recovered from the ERP implementation challenges in the third quarter of FY12."
