Affymetrix shares rise after break-even projection
Reuters, 10/5/2000 15:09
LOS ANGELES, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Shares of Affymetrix Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX) were up 15 percent early on Thursday after the genetic technology firm said late Wednesday it expects to break even or post a profit on a per-share basis before year-end.
The Santa Clara, Calif. company's shares rose $7-15/16 to $60-11/16 on Nasdaq.
"Our goal is to get to break even by late this year. We have been giving that same guidance to analysts since early this year," Ed Hurwitz, the company's chief financial officer, said Thursday.
Analysts on average expect the company to lose 12 cents a share in the third quarter and post a loss of 2 cents a share in the fourth quarter, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
Hurwitz also noted that Affymetrix now expects revenues for this year to "slightly exceed" the company's original guidance of $170 million to $180 million.
The company expects to double its shipments of so-called "GeneChips," which are slides with millions of genetic fragments attached, to 200,000 this year compared with last year's 100,000.
Affymetrix's chip systems are used by researchers to analyze genetic material, including data gathered from the recent mapping of the human genome.
On Monday the company agreed to acquire Neomorphic Inc., a privately-held computational genomics company, in a $70 million stock deal Affymetrix said would help it to speed its commercialization of DNA information.
In addition to its "bread and butter," gene expression business, Affymetrix is moving into the field of genotyping, the use of genetic scanning to identify patterns, and "use management," company president Susan Siegal said during a conference call on Wednesday.
"This is not just about lifesciences, this is about lifestyle choices and consumer markets," she said.
Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service |
