CRO giant Quintiles ($Q) posted another $1 billion revenue quarter on the way to a record year, but the company is narrowing its sales projections over ongoing foreign exchange issues.
In the third quarter, Quintiles posted about $1.1 billion in service revenue, a 3.1% jump over the same period last year. Accounting for the impact of a strong dollar relative to other currencies, the CRO's business grew 8.3%. Quintiles' banner product development unit led the way, growing 5% to $810.1 million, while the smaller integrated healthcare segment dipped 2.1% to $283.4 million. On a constant-currency basis, the two businesses grew 9.4% and 5.5%, respectively.
The company's quarterly profits came in at $111.3 million, a 20% jump over the prior year.
Quintiles is now forecasting full-year revenue growth of between 8.6% and 9.2%, narrowing the 8.5% to 9.5% it projected at the end of the second quarter. That puts the CRO in line for about $4.6 billion in 2015 revenue, which would be a company record.
To get there, Quintiles is relying on its nearly $12 billion business backlog, which it says leads the industry. The company booked $1.2 billion in net new business last quarter and plans to keep the momentum rolling through the rest of the year.
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| Quintiles COO Kevin Gordon |
Meanwhile, the North Carolina company is shaking up its C-suite, bringing in Michael McDonnell, chief financial officer at satellite service company Intelsat, to fill the same role starting in December. Current CFO Kevin Gordon is being promoted to the position of chief operating officer.
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