QuidelOrtho Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jack Meehan: Thanks. Good afternoon. On guidance, I was hoping you could just draw a finer point on first quarter expectations for COVID, flu and the other respiratory. In the CDC data, we have seen this rapid drop off in flu activity. I am not sure what you are seeing in Virena, but I just want to make sure we have the right expectations for those three buckets in 1Q.

Joe Busky: Yeah. Hey, Jack. How are you? Yeah. Given I think I said earlier, the respiratory season did drop pretty quickly at the end of Q4. So we are expecting a fairly light, I will call it, flu season. COVID’s still hanging in there. If you look at the infection rates COVID is still hanging in there, ILI came down flu, but COVID’s hanging in there. And then we have got the government contracts as well. So I think we will have a decent respiratory season in Q1, driven more by COVID than flu and then Q4 is where the rest of that respiratory season is going to go in the guidance.

Doug Bryant: Yeah. Let me just add a little color, because Jack asked about the Virena data and most of the audience doesn’t have access to it. When I look at the chart, I see pretty drastic drop off in positivity rates, but the positivity rates are still higher than they now really would be at this time. So — but to be fair, it did peak, what, the second week in December.

Joe Busky: Yeah.

Doug Bryant: And so it’s been coming down pretty nicely. So I think you are right, though, we should have a reasonable first quarter. It just won’t be the normal

Joe Busky: Right.

Doug Bryant: biggest quarter in the year, I will leave with that.

Jack Meehan: Got it. And then I think Joe and you, Doug, both kind of referenced China to down 27% ex-COVID. Is — how much of this was in the core Lab business versus Transfusion Medicine or legacy Quidel and just what do you expect for the region in the first quarter?

Doug Bryant: Well, just overall patient volumes being down 25% period and I don’t know most Labs, yeah, it’s

Joe Busky: Everything was down.

Doug Bryant: down.

Joe Busky: Yeah. Everything was down, but it was the biggest chunk of it is going to be Labs and Q1 it’s bouncing back. We are seeing nice flow through on the instruments in Q1.

Jack Meehan: Would you expect it to still be down year-over-year, though, in the first quarter?

Joe Busky: It will be up. It will be up.

Jack Meehan: Okay. Last one, if you will humor me, just molecular, is there any granularity you can provide around the forecast just for 2023 for that segment?

Joe Busky: Well, I mean, again, I think, it’s going to be back-end loaded. The growth will be mostly back-end loaded again due to Savanna and the regulatory clearance in the U.S. I think that’s probably the best color I can give you.

Jack Meehan: Okay. Thanks, Joe.

Joe Busky: You got it.

Operator: Thank you. The next question and the final question comes from the line of Casey Woodring of JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Casey Woodring: Great. Hi, guys. Thanks for fitting me in. I guess just on pricing, what’s your expectation for respiratory pricing in 2023 versus 2022 and how should we think about that trending across your different products within those three buckets?