Celera Posts Break-Even Earnings

Celera Corp. (CRA) reported break-even earnings in the third-quarter, compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 6 cents. The company earned a cent in the year-ago quarter.
 
Net revenues for the quarter came in at $40 million as against $45.8 million in the year-ago quarter. Segment wise revenues from lab services were $24.2 million compared to $30.1 million in the year-ago quarter, primarily because of lower reimbursement rates. Revenues from products came in at $10.0 million compared to $10.5 million in the prior year quarter. Revenues for the quarter were primarily from sales of Celera-manufactured products and royalties from sales of RealTime assays used on the m2000 system from Abbott Molecular, a subsidiary of Abbott Laboratories (ABT - Analyst Report). Corporate revenues for the quarter came in at $5.8 million as against $5.2 million in the prior year quarter. The $0.6 million increase was primarily attributable to the inclusion of revenues from one of Celera’s licensees Cepheid (CPHD - Analyst Report) in the reported quarter which was partially offset by lower revenues from other licensees.
 
Research & Development spend in the quarter decreased to $6.2 million from $7.9 million in the year-ago quarter because of the completion of certain research and development projects and associated lower employee-related costs in the corporate and products segments in addition to the termination of the strategic alliance with Abbott. Selling general & administrative expenses for the quarter came in at $22.6 million compared to $25.2 million in the year-ago quarter.
 
Celera exited the quarter with cash and short-term investments of approximately $321 million, compared to approximately 320 million at June 27, 2009.
 
The company expects to incur a loss of 5 cents to 7 cents in the next quarter. Celera forecasts total revenues to be between $163 million and $167 million in 2009.
 
Currently, we are Neutral on Celera.

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