PPD has raised its quarterly guidance after weathering the COVID-19 storm and is immediately making a secondary offering of 38 million shares.
The CRO originally yanked its full-year guidance in the first quarter as the COVID-19 wave crashed down hard on the sector.
In its third-quarter update posted last month, green shoots were appearing as revenue from the CRO crept up by 1.4% to $1.01 billion compared to the second quarter of 2019. It also saw net authorizations of $1.05 billion, representing 12.4% growth over the year-ago period.
Now, PPD says it has revised its third-quarter guidance from revenue expectations of $1.08 billion at the top end of the range on Aug. 4 calculations to $1.18 billion this week.
The CRO said it was doing this as: “The updated guidance reflects better than expected financial performance in both the Clinical Development Services and Laboratory Services segments.
“The stronger performance is driven by higher than expected revenue from studies unrelated to COVID-19 as well as higher than expected indirect and direct revenue from COVID-19 related projects.”
In its third quarter, PPD's growth was both helped and hindered by COVID-19, with its Clinical Development Services unit seeing revenue down to $815.3 million, a fall of 2.2%. It's no surprise it’s down, but with COVID-19 testing its Laboratory Services unit saw revenue jump to $195.7 million, 19.9% growth compared to the three months ended June 30, 2019.
Shortly after announcing its upped revenue guidance, PPD announced a secondary offering of 38 million shares on the back of the good news. It was, however, down nearly 5% after-hours on the offering Monday night.