Bio-Rad Q2 Revenues Jump 14 Percent

Bio-Rad Laboratories reported after the close of the market recently that its second quarter revenues increased 14 percent year over year, driven by growth in both its Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics businesses.

For the three months ended June 30, Bio-Rad tallied net sales of $575.9 million compared to $504.7 million in Q2 2017, beating analysts' consensus estimate of $548.4 million. On a currency-neutral basis, Q2 sales increased 11 percent year over year, the company said.

Life Science segment sales were $217.8 million, up 21 percent year over year, or 19 percent on a currency-neutral basis. Life Science growth was driven by cell biology, process media, digital PCR, and food safety products.

On a conference call to discuss the company's earnings, Bio-Rad Executive Vice President and CFO Christine Tsingos noted that process media was a particularly bright spot, but it benefitted from an easy comparison to the prior-year quarter. Excluding this, currency-neutral growth in the Life Sciences segment was still 14 percent year over year.

Clinical Diagnostics segment sales grew 10 percent to $354.0 million, or 6.5 percent on a currency-neutral basis. Growth in this segment was driven by blood typing, quality control, and immunology product lines. In particular, Tsingos said on the call, the company saw a significant increase in blood typing instrument sales.

Bio-Rad's Q2 net income was $268.0 million, or $8.87 per share, compared to $5.0 million, or $.17 per share, in the year-ago period. Net income in Q2 2018 was significantly and favorably impacted by the recognition on the income statement of changes in the fair market value of equity securities of $286.4 million in the quarter primarily related to the holdings of the firm's investment in Sartorius, the result of new accounting standards that became effective in 2018.