Brea-based Beckman Coulter Inc. is on schedule to have a profitable heart test back on the market by midyear, according to a regulatory filing by the maker of medical diagnostic products.
Beckman said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week that it expects to submit a reworked troponin test to the Food and Drug Administration in May or June.
The projection comes amid a clinical trial Beckman is conducting, the company said.
“We take a fairly confident view with the progress that we’ve made in the trial to this point,” Paul Glyer, Beckman’s senior vice president of strategy, business development and communications, said at a recent investor conference.
Troponin is a blood test used to detect levels of a protein that signals heart problems.
Beckman is testing troponin on its DxI and Access machines, which it sells to medical testing laboratories and researchers.
The status report is “consistent with (Beckman’s) previous guidance to investors,” analyst Dan Leonard of Boston investment bank Leerink Swann LLC said in a research report.
Beckman recalled troponin last March after regulators said the company made undisclosed changes to the test that resulted in higher readings when run on its DxI machines.
Beckman revised its 2010 profit projection downward and saw a big drop in its shares in the recall’s wake. The company’s stock saw a December spike on word of possible buyout interest. Beckman is said to be looking at advanced offers from private equity firms and corporate suitors.
Troponin is a small part of Beckman’s sales, making up about $60 million of its $3.7 billion in annual revenue. It’s believed to be generating enough in profits and related machine sales to cause the downward revision to Beckman’s 2010 forecast.
Beckman’s scheduled to release results on Feb. 9.
Retaining customers amid the troponin recall has been a concern among analysts.
Beckman’s had “to spend time holding customer hands—and appropriately so,” Glyer told analysts and investors.
The company needs “to get back to the business of having our salespeople focus primarily on winning new business and not defending,” Glyer said. “We like to play more offense than defense.”
Beckman is “moving in that direction, but it will certainly take until troponin is fully cleared before we are able to play a full offensive game,” he said.
Issues stemming from the troponin recall led to the September departure of former chief executive Scott Garrett.
Beckman has said that its board is looking for a permanent replacement for Garrett, although some analysts have questioned whether the company will search for a permanent CEO if it’s up for sale.
J. Robert Hurley is serving as Beckman’s interim boss.
Hurley, who is Beckman’s senior vice president of human resources, played a major role in the company’s $800 million buy of Olympus Corp.’s diagnostic business in 2009 and its integration.
Beckman, which had a market value of about $5 billion last week, is said to be in the advanced stages of a possible sale.
Earlier this month, a Reuters report said that private equity buyers for Beckman were joining forces for potential bids while the field of potential corporate buyers had narrowed.
Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying that Blackstone Group LP and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., both of New York, are joining forces on a Beckman bid.
Additionally, Apollo Global Management, also of New York and Carlyle Group of Washington, D.C., could team up on a Beckman bid.
Some corporate bidders, such as Danaher Corp. —the Washington, D.C.-based owner of Orange’s Sybron Dental Specialties Inc.—were said to have dropped out of the bidding with two corporate buyers remaining.
BECKMAN COULTER INC.
Brea
Business: medical diagnostic, research products
Market value: $5 Billion
Projected 2010 revenue: $3.67 billion, up 12%
Projected 2010 profit: $271 million, flat
