Piper Jaffray Underweight On Meridian Bioscience

Piper Jaffray is out with a research report on Meridian Bioscience

and it has an Underweight rating and a $14 price target on shares. In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray writes, "We are initiating coverage of Meridian Biosciences with an Underweight rating and $14 price target. Meridian recently launched its first molecular diagnostic assay for C. difficile (a bacterial hospital-acquired infection) on its illumigene system, with a building infectious disease pipeline. We believe near-term conversion of Meridian's legacy immunoassay-based C. difficile customers to illumigene will be critical to meet forward expectations; however given the current (e.g. BDX, CPHD, GPRO) and expected competitors (DHR (

), BIM-FP) with broader assay menus and more flexible technologies we see risk to consensus expectations. Additionally, we believe performance will have to improve within 12-18 months to avoid cutting dividend growth (or the dividend outright)." Shares of VIVO closed at $17.21 yesterday.