Earnings season for diagnostics and tools companies begins today with GenProbe (GPRO $79.39) after the market close. But the stock is up 13% today on a Bloomberg scoop that the Company has hired Morgan Stanley as an investment banker to seek a buyer. The market cap is $3.8B with a 2011 forecasted Revenue of $582M or 6.5 P/S. Operating cash flow in Q4 2010 was $43.7M and the Stockholder equity was $823M. The Company is a leader in diagnostic tests for screening human blood and other infectious diseases such as chlamydia, HIV, HPV and Flu utilizing proprietary molecular diagnostics platforms. Novartis (NVS) is a major partner with GenProbe so they have a vested interest in any deal and may be a buyer.
Most life science diagnostic companies wete in the green today on the news.
GenProbe was added to our Rayno Life Science and Tools Portfolio on 2/209 at a price of $45 and has appreciated 77%. Other big winners in our portfolio are Abaxis (ABAX), Alera (ALR), Illumina (ILMN) and Neogen (NEOG). In addition two companies in the portfolio were acquired: Celera (CRA) and MicroFluidics (MFLU).