It's no secret that the stock market has been a pretty bearish place so far this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is down about 7 percent since January and the chart year-to-date looks like a particularly sickening roller coaster ride. But the management at Meridian Bioscience is apparently not getting caught up in all the volatility. The company's shares have risen about 14 percent since January, one of the few companies to show a double-digit gain so far this year. There's some good reasons for that: Meridian's first quarter net sales jumped 18 percent over the first quarter of 2007 and its net earnings shot up 34 percent from a year ago, to a first quarter record of $7.5 million.
Cincinnati-based Meridian is a life science company that employs 400 in developing, manufacturing and selling a broad range of diagnostic test kits that provide quick and early diagnoses of illnesses, particularly gastrointestinal, viral and respiratory infections. Its recent growth has not come from acquisitions, but rather from developing and marketing new products. For example, Meridian recently received clearance from the FDA to market two new rapid-detection tests, one to discover influenza and the other to detect respiratory syncytial virus, a relatively common upper respiratory infection.
Meridian also supplies rare reagents, specialty biologicals and other technologies used by biopharmaceutical companies in their research for new drugs and vaccines. The company sells its products and technologies to hospitals, reference laboratories, research centers, veterinary testing centers, physician offices, diagnostics manufacturers and biotech companies in more than 60 countries.
Executive Chairman William J. Motto says Meridian's growth has come from a demand for quicker, more accurate diagnostic tests worldwide. "There is a continuing shift from conventional testing -- which requires highly trained personnel and lengthy turnaround times for test results -- to more technologically advanced testing that can be performed by less highly trained personnel and completed in minutes or hours," he says.
Logo and Photograph courtesy of Meridian