Diagnostics is Still a Hot Ticket
The Rayno Life Science Tools and Diagnostics Portfolio is up 12% YTD with big winners Celera up 31%, recently acquired by Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Cardiovascular Systems (CSII) up 32.5%,Exact Scientific (EXAS) up 42%, and GenProbe (GPRO) up 19.6%.
In the news today Alere (ALR $37.93) announced an unsolicited $369M offer for Axis- Shield a Scottish at a 37% premium to yesterday’s price of 335 pence. Dan Leonard an analyst at Leerink Swann was positive saying “the deal is consistent with ALR’s business strategy” and thought that the bid may be raised from 460 pence especially if other bidders like Abbott (ABT) jumped in. Leonard said the deal should be accretive and maintained an Outperform rating.
Also within the Tools/Dx portfolio Abaxis (ABAX), Sequenom (SQNM) and SeraCare(SRLS) were up about 2%.Immucor (BLUD) is holding at $27 after yesterday’s buyout offer which boosted the stock 30%.
| 2010 | Original | Price | Price | % Ret | Price | Price | % Ret | |
| Recomm | Dec’10 | 4/4/11 | 7/1/11 | YTD | ||||
| Abaxis | ABAX | 2/2/09 | 15 | 26.85 | 79 | 28.97 | 27.77 | 3.4 |
| CardioV.Sys. | CSII | 11/5/10 | 7.15 | 11.66 | 63 | 11 | 15.45 | 32.5 |
| Celera | CRA | 3/28/10 | 7 | 6.3 | 18 | 8.25 | acquired | 31 |
| Exact Sci | EXAS | 12/10/10 | 5.6 | 5.98 | 6.8 | 7.42 | 8.48 | 42 |
| GenProbe | GPRO | 2/2/09 | 45 | 58.35 | 29.7 | 67 | 69.79 | 19.6 |
| Illumina | ILMN | 2/2/09 | 29 | 63.34 | 118 | 70.37 | 76 | 20 |
| Immucor | BLUD | 4/5/10 | 20 | 19.83 | 0 | 19.98 | 20.73 | 4.5 |
| Alera | ALR | 2/2/09 | 25 | 36.6 | 46 | 39.42 | 37.35 | 2 |
| MicroFluidics | MFLU | 7/6/10 | 0.77 | 1.34 | 74 | 1.34 | acquired | N/A |
| NeoGen | NEOG | 7/2/10 | 26 | 41.03 | 58 | 42.15 | 45.33 | 10.5 |
| Qiagen | QGEN | 3/15/10 | 21.5 | 19.55 | -9 | 20.4 | 19.07 | -2.4 |
| Quidel | QDEL | 6/16/10 | 12.4 | 14.45 | 16 | 11.98 | 15.3 | 5.9 |
| Sequenom | SQNM | 11/18/09 | 3.75 | 8.03 | 114 | 6.49 | 7.44 | -4 |
| SeraCare | SRLS | 11/18/09 | 2.75 | 4.75 | 73 | 3.7 | 3.77 | -20 |