GPRO May Win New ROW Clinical Accounts
Analysts at Jefferies & Co maintain their "buy" rating on Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: GPRO), while raising their estimates for the company. The target price for Gen-Probe is set to $54.
Jefferies & Co believes that “GPRO continues to take STD market share as APTIMA and TIGRIS remain the assay/platform of choice.” “Talks with industry contacts confirm that GPRO picked up a few key Canadian accounts in late 2009. We expect revenue from these new accounts to somewhat offset weak 1Q flu sales, and contribute ~$2MM - $3MM in additional CT/GC sales through CY10. At present, we believe GPRO's U.S. STD market share exceeds 65% and continues to expand through further customer adoption of the APTIMA Combo 2 assay. Given the expanded test offerings (HPV, PCA3) in Europe and build out of EU based sales force, we expect GPRO will pick up new ROW clinical accounts going forward,” the analysts say.
According to Jefferies & Co, GPRO’s lawsuit against Becton Dickinson (NYSE: BDX) for infringing on several patents relating to automated nucleic acid detection “was at least partly responsible for the Canadian defections, and that it is possible that other accounts could get nervous as well.”
Jefferies & Co has raised its non-GAAP EPS estimate for 2010 from $2.18 to $2.20.
