Haemonetics Releases First Quarter Earnings for 2014

Braintree, Mass.-based Haemonetics Corp. has released its fiscal 2014 first quarter earnings, and net revenues were $219.5 million, up 24 percent from the same quarter last year.

The company saw an 11 percent growth in North American plasma disposables revenue, a 17 percent growth in diagnostics disposables revenue, a 12 percent organic revenue growth in China, and $51 million in revenue from Pall Corp. and Hemerus Medical LLC, which were acquired April 2012.

The company’s Orthopat orthopedic perioperative autotransfusion system, which falls under its disposables business unit, was $6.3 million for the quarter, down $1.2 million or 16 percent from the fiscal year 2012 first quarter. According to Haemonetics, recent market trends toward the adoption of tranexamic acid to treat and prevent post-operative blood loss have lessened hospital use of Orthopat disposables. The Orthopat system is indicated for use to salvage red blood cells from blood lost intraoperatively and postoperatively during surgical procedures where the expected rate of processing of salvaged blood and fluid aspirated from the surgical site is less than or equal to 2 liters per hour. The company is preparing for its third quarter 2014 release of the new Orthopat Advance system, which is hoped to be easier to use and therefore gain market share over tranexemic acid. The acid can be taken orally and is administered pre-surgically to control post-surgical bleeding.

“Our customer acceptance trials for Orthopat Advance continue,” Brian P. Concannon, Haemonetics’ CEO and president, said during an earnings conference call. “We will release it in the third quarter, and we are advancing our agency sales model to complement our own selling efforts. However, we’re now seeing a trend that is working against the use of Orthopat disposables; the growing use of tranexamic acid to control postsurgical orthopedic blood loss that obviates the need for transfusion for some orthopedic procedures. Our current year projections for Orthopat disposables revenue have been appropriately tempered.”

Although Haemonetics saw a gross profit of $113.5 million, up $23.4 million or 26 percent in the quarter, the company saw a loss of $7.8 million after operating and other expenses, while last year the same quarter saw a net profit of 9.8 million.

Haemonetics provides blood and plasma products.