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Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quidel Corporation second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. If anyone has difficulty hearing the conference, please press star zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Ruben Argueta, Fidel's Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ruben Argueta
Ruben Argueta Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. With me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Doug Bryant, our Chief Executive Officer, Randy Stewart, and our Vice President of Finance, Kristen Kaltreiter. Our second quarter 2021 earnings release is now available on ir.quidel.com, our investor relations website. We will also post our prepared remarks on the presentations tab of our IR website following the conclusion of this call on August 5th for a period of 24 hours. Please note that this conference call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements by their nature involve material risk assumptions and uncertainties. In particular, our expectations and assumptions around the COVID-19 pandemic impact and response on our business, results of operations, and financial condition, and that of our suppliers, customers, and other business partners are highly uncertain, continuously evolving, and unpredictable. Many possible events or factors could affect our future financial results and performance. such that our actual results and performance may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of such factors, please review QDEL's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, including the section titled Risk Factors, Registration Statements, and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC. Furthermore, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast, August 2021. Quidel undertakes no obligation to revise or update any statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call, except as required by law. Today, Quidel released financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2021. If you have not received our news release, or if you would like to be added to the company's distribution list, please contact me at 858-646-8023. Following Doug's comments, Randy will briefly discuss our financial results, then we'll open the call to take your questions. I'll now hand the call over to Doug for his comments.
Ruben Argueta
Thank you, Reuben, and welcome to everyone on the call. We really appreciate your time and interest in Quidel. I understand that several of our analysts actually are covering multiple names today. So again, we appreciate you being on this call. And obviously, we'll try to be respectful of your time and be as succinct as possible. I want to start by recognizing the entire Quidel team for their tireless dedication and skill. The past 18 months have been a grueling test of all of our systems and teams, from our R&D and clinical teams, of course, to our production floors, to supply chain, and all other functions, including HR, finance, regulatory affairs, sales and marketing, legal, business development, and international, of course. Not only have they met the pandemic test, they aced it. Our product platforms and offerings have never been more robust. Our productivity is up across the board, and our market penetration is deeper and wider than ever before. From high-complexity labs to healthcare facilities, point-of-care locations, and direct-to-consumers at retail and online, the Quidel name, our branded assays and analyzers, are accessible and sought after. The net effect has been transformational for our company and positions us exceptionally well for long-term revenue and earnings growth. So to all my colleagues at Quidel, I say again, thank you. Turning to the second quarter of 2021, you'll see from the press release that while revenue is down 12% versus the prior quarter, the pace of our business remains impressive with revenues of nearly $177 million. We'll unpack all the numbers in a moment, but what stands out to me as the leading indicators of the quarter relative to our longer-term strategy are the following. We delivered solid 24% growth in our core business. We further broadened our installed base of Sophia analyzers. Demand for our SARS products continued with Quidel shipping over 8 million tests in the quarter across all platforms. And we established a strong beachhead for COVID testing in the retail segment. The implications of each will extend well beyond a single quarter. Please recall that in Q2 of last year, we saw a significant rise in COVID-19 and influenza revenue that largely resulted from the onset of positive COVID-19 cases in North America, the emergence of testing for COVID-19, and the introduction of our Lyra and Sophia COVID-19 testing products. We were early to market with molecular testing and the first to market attention test. Demand was high and competition was limited. By contrast, in 2021, there was essentially no flu season, and the market for SARS antigen testing has become much more competitive. As a result, while demand for COVID-19 tests in Q2 of this year was still present and perhaps stabilized, revenue was lower when compared to the surge orders that we saw in 2020. But if you drill down a bit further, you'll see that the top line numbers assure the underlying strength of our rapid immunoassay business. In Q2 of this year, we sold 6.6 million SARS antigen tests as compared to 3.1 million tests in the second quarter of last year. We saw a significant shift in product demand. We shipped fewer Sophia SARS antigen assays to the professional market and saw significant demand for our QuickView SARS antigen tests, about 4.8 million tests, which weren't available in Q2 2020. Of course, our QuickView tests are priced lower, coming in during the quarter at an average of just under $6 per test, which explains the resulting lower revenue for the category. Quite frankly, we'll accept that gladly because over the course of a year, we've succeeded in democratizing testing and pushing the boundaries of access beyond the professional point of care setting to include retail and at-home testing. We're quite proud of that achievement and believe it's the forward edge of a broader home testing trend that will continue to drive earnings over the long haul. Now let's look at a core business. excluding COVID-19 and influenza assay products. We were up 24%, as I mentioned before, to nearly $92 million as compared to $74 million in the second quarter of 2020 as we began to see a return to normal testing for cardiovascular, strep A, and our microtiter businesses. Growth of our core business is important going forward as we strive to to maximize the utilization of our SOFIA instrument placements, adding new assays, such as our suite of gastrointestinal assays, and expanding into new segments within diagnostics. We envision leveraging our rapidly expanding platforms to broaden our footprint and create a demand funnel for a wide variety of future tests and diagnostic products that can be employed in numerous settings, including hospitals, physicians, offices, urgent care centers, pharmacies, retail, and other institutions. One recent success of note is that we received EUA for our miniaturized artificial intelligence-enabled Sophia Q device. Sophia Q will make access to our Sophia tests easier and more affordable for professional point-of-care customers. Longer term, it could create a retail pathway for our full portfolio of SOFIA tests for influenza, RSV, strep, Lyme disease, and other conditions. So the combination of our expanded installed base and continued demand for our SOFIA and SOFIA II instruments with the expected adoption curve of SOFIA Q positions us favorably to be the brand of choice for addressing future flu, strep, and respiratory disease seasons and whatever else comes along. At the start of the call, I noted the terrific work of our R&D operations and clinical teams. During the quarter, they continue to advance Savannah, our multiplex molecular diagnostic analyzer, which we believe will be our next flagship product. We recently received the CE mark. We are building out our instrument and cartridge manufacturing and expect to launch in Europe in the fall. with U.S. clinical trials expected to begin toward the end of this year. Once approved, Savannah will enable professional customers to analyze up to 12 pathogens plus controls in a single assay run in fewer than 25 minutes. This makes Savannah for testing in hospitals, moderate complexity labs, physician offices, urgent care clinics, and other locations. As I've said before, Customer feedback is fantastic, and I am confident Savannah will be a big part of our quarterly discussions in the future. Let's turn now to the subject that has been a big part of our discussions over the previous five quarters, COVID-19. While we are actively working to expand our diagnostic platforms and product mix in other areas, COVID-19 testing remains a significant near-term opportunity. You've probably seen our announcement with the state of Delaware to provide testing to students and faculty. It is a testing as a service model that we have replicated in other states as well. We also are pursuing a variety of other opportunities with schools, employer groups, selling in select U.S. and ex-U.S. markets, and evaluating other nontraditional markets. While we expect to close more accounts with employers and have several promising partnerships in the pipeline, They involve a good deal of blocking and tackling and are very hard to predict or value, especially when guidance from CDC and the landscape of COVID testing seem to evolve daily. Recently, the warning from public health officials that vaccinated people can become infected and spread the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 appears to be a near-term driver for more masking and testing. especially as schools and offices look to reopen in the fall. Regarding the Delta variant, I can report that preliminary studies confirm that Quidel's rapid antigen tests are effective in detecting the Delta variant. We're continuously monitoring the COVID-19 situation as well as monitoring other circulating strains as the global pandemic continues to evolve. While our ability to pick up the Delta variant positions us to capture market demand for symptomatic, asymptomatic, and at-home testing, at the same time, any uptick in testing to detect the Delta variant will likely be tempered by continued competition and pricing volatility. So I can't give you much guidance on where all of this could go beyond what I've shared in the past, and that is, for the moment, we expect to achieve revenue of $20 to $25 million per month for our SARS-related rapid antigen and molecular diagnostics business. But if there's market upside for testing, I should point out that we do have a premier portfolio of testing solutions and a highly capable sales and distribution team. We are certainly well positioned to compete for whatever opportunity presents itself. Last week, we announced that we are transitioning our Beckman B&P business to Beckman Coulter, concluding the ongoing litigation that followed our purchase of the business from Allure in October of 2017. This agreement is a major step forward for both companies. For Quidel, it eliminates an uncertainty, locks in the economic benefit for the duration of the contract, and lets us focus on expanding our core businesses and executing on our longer-term strategy. It eliminates market risk and creates a stable cash flow stream for the remainder the existing BMP supply agreement term. As a reminder, we purchased the asset for $280 million in 2017 to be paid over six years and have now secured annual payments, which effectively are EBITDA, of between $70 to $75 million per year through 2029. So we are quite happy with the outcome and the ROI. It's a win-win for both Quidel and Beckman. Lastly, I'd like to talk about M&A. I can't reiterate enough that with respect to acquisitions, strategic fit is very important to us. We continue to actively look at opportunities within our funnel, or as I said before, tongue in cheek, we're kissing a lot of frogs. The headline here is that our cash position remains strong. We're looking and staying ready to deploy capital to further strengthen our product portfolio should the right opportunity present. So to wrap up, the second quarter of 2021 proved to be another very solid quarter and an important step forward in our long-term game plan. We have fielded a mix of products and partnerships and are benefiting from the tail ends of macroeconomic trends. When we add in the talents and spirit of our team, it gives us every confidence that Quayle will deliver continued growth and success as we advance diagnostics to improve human health. Randy?
Reuben
Thank you, Doug. Good afternoon, everyone. And as Doug stated, we had a solid quarter and we continue to make good, steady progress on executing on our longer-term goals and strategy. As reported, Revenues for the second quarter of 2021 were $176.6 million, compared to $201.8 million in the second quarter of 2020. Foreign currency had a positive impact at $2.8 million in the quarter. The decrease in revenue was due to lower influenza revenues, a shift of SARS product mix, as well as price reductions for some of our SARS products. Influenza revenue was down in the quarter because there was no flu season in early 2021. Influenza revenue in the quarter was $1.6 million versus $18.7 million in the second quarter of last year. Included in the influenza revenue number for this quarter was $300,000 in ABC revenue. This combo product was not yet available in the second quarter of 2020. We will be reporting the Sophia ABC with our flu revenue moving forward. Total SARS revenue in the quarter from all products was $83.4 million, and this compares to $109 million last year. Rapid immunoassay product revenues were $60.1 million in the second quarter of 2021. Within the category, Sophia products were $27.5 million, of which $23.7 million were attributed to Sophia SAR's antigen sales. QuickView product revenue in the quarter was $32 million, of which $28.6 million was attributed to the QuickView SAR stuff. With regard to demand, distributor inventories for Sophia antigen were 62% lower than Q1 2021, and distributor inventory Sophia ABC tests were 11% lower than in Q1 2021. At the end of the quarter, we had very little quick inventory with our distribution partners. For the cardiometabolic immunoassay business, revenue increased 32% and was $71.7 million in the second quarter of 2020, split $36 million for the triage business and $35.7 million to the Beckman BNP business. On the part of triage, growth came from our shortness of breath panel, as well as BNP and other assays. Year-over-year growth was led by the US and China markets. And similar to the performance last quarter, growth came from all geographies. Revenue in the specialized diagnostic solutions category decreased $1.4 million in the second quarter to $10.4 million driven by a decline in sales of our cell culture respiratory products due to a non-existent respiratory season. Our molecular diagnostic solutions category decreased $20.7 million to $34.5 million, and our Lyra SARS-CoV-2 products were $27.2 million of that total. Solana revenues grew to $6.5 million in the quarter, and Solana SARS-CoV-2 assay generated $4 million of the $6.5 million in the quarter. Gross profit in the quarter decreased to $106.2 million, and gross margin was 60% of revenue for the three months ended June 30th, 2021. This compares to gross profit of $148.8 million and 74% gross margin for the three months ended June of last year. The decrease Gross profit and gross margin were driven by a shift in product mix from selling primarily Sophia SARs in the professional segment to selling large volumes of less profitable QuickView and selling proportionally more of the less profitable core products as well. One-time costs associated with expediting product and supply chain challenges added an incremental four percentage points to our cost of sales in the quarter. The majority of these costs are not anticipated to continue into the back half of the year. Based on a projected product mix, we're estimating gross profit margins to be in the mid-60s for the next couple quarters. On the spend side of the business, we continue to invest in R&D and specifically our Savannah platforms. We are also spending in support of our longer-term initiatives, such as new SOFIA assays that can leverage our large installed base of instruments, next-generation platforms, and SOFIA-Q, to name a few. In the second quarter, R&D expense was $22.6 million, and a large portion of which was focused on Savannah instrument and cartridge development. We're still expecting R&D expense for the full year to be approximately $100 million. Sales and marketing expense for the second quarter increased $10.5 million to $38.1 million, with the biggest driver being higher marketing and advertising spend associated with the launch of our Quick View at-home OTC COVID-19 test. The incremental marketing spend was approximately $6 million higher than it was in the same period last year. We also realized increased travel and meeting costs. Back half of the year, we will continue to invest in our sales and marketing as we develop more partnerships and increase marketing dollars in support of our broad product portfolio, as well as promoting other markets that can significantly broaden our customer base. As it relates to the provision for income taxes for the quarter, We recorded $2.6 million in income tax expense, resulting in an effective tax rate of 12%. The tax provision this quarter is impacted by lower pre-tax earnings for the quarter relative to the anticipated annual pre-tax earnings, as well as tax benefits from excess stock-based compensation. We are currently estimating a full-year effective tax rate ranging between 20% and 21%, and this would exclude any potential impact of legislation, which remains uncertain. As of the end of June, we had $593 million in cash and cash equivalents. In the quarter, the company invested $130 million in capital expenditures, and for the full year, we're expecting to spend approximately $250 million in CapEx, and that of the NIH RADx reimbursement. Also in the quarter, we spent approximately $103 million to repurchase 950,000 shares. Also, relating to capital deployment in April, we made our annual $48 million payment to Abbott for those Lear assets. We have a remaining balance of only $88 million on our deferred and contingent consideration to be paid over the next two years. As Doug mentioned earlier, we announced an agreement with Beckman Coulter on the Beckman B&P business, and I'd like to add a few more details. As consideration for the arrangements, FIDEL will receive from calendar year 2022 through 2029 a minimum annual payment of $70 million with amounts of $17.5 million payable quarterly and a maximum annual payment of $75 million. This additional $5 million payment is dependent on sales volume of the Beckman BMP assay. Such minimum and maximum payments will be prorated for 2021. The minimum payment is not dependent on sales of the Beckman assay. The proration for 2021 is based on the period commencing on the date of the initial transition to Beckman through December 31st, 2021. The initial commercial transition is expected to be completed by the 1st of September of this year. Quidel will continue to provide Beckman services in connection with the business, including continued supply to Beckman of the Quidel antibody used in the manufacture of the BMP assay. The payments under the master agreement are expected to be EPS and cash flow neutral to the existing supply agreement through calendar year 2029. Quidel's reported EBITDA under the master agreement is expected to be similar to the EBITDA derived from the Beckman BMP business prior to entering into the master agreement. The Beckman payments going forward will be recorded as product revenue in Quidel's financial statements. And with that, we conclude our formal comments for today. Operator, we will now open the call for questions.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your touch-tone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by 2. Again, to ask a question, press star 1. The first question is from the line of Alex Nowak with Craig Hallam. You may proceed.
Alex Nowak
Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Jump in between a few calls here. So I may have missed some of this in the prepared remarks, but the kind of first question I have here is, I know COVID's highly variable, and you've got the Delta variant coming back, and you also have the revascular mandates coming back. But when you go to this upcoming respiratory season, what does your glass ball say about flu? Is flu going to come back? What are you hearing out there in the field? All right.
Ruben Argueta
It's basically, just like with COVID, I think unforecastable. We're seeing nothing in Australia. We would have expected that we would see RSV in advance by about a month of season. And in Australia, they have a very, very robust RSV epidemic. I don't mean to smile when I say that, but they had a pretty big outbreak but not followed by flu. So I don't know what that means for us at all, Alex. I will say that we are going to monitor very closely a couple of leading indicators of influenza such that although we do have some inventory of the combo product remaining, we feel like we can, within a three-week period, ramp back up and manufacture the volumes that are required and i won't go through leading indicators just recognizing that every competitor is reading our transcripts just as we are reading so but we're going to try to monitor it very closely our supply chain and manufacturing teams are ready to roll in the meantime we're gearing up for all the other products including our various COVID platforms as well.
Alex Nowak
Okay, understood. Makes sense. And then actually just on competition, a lot more players have really come online in the market the last 18 months. You've got a variety of different players with varying volumes. So how do you view the competitive environment for COVID testing? But just going beyond that, how do you think the competitive dynamic has changed in the last 18 months for the flow market, the strat market, RSV, etc.? ?
Ruben Argueta
I think we're in good shape, and I would say that I don't believe that the entrance of these smaller competitors will have much of an impact, given the fact that a very high percentage of our Sophia placements are on contract for multiple years, most at three years, for committed volumes for all products, including COVID, influenza, RSV, streps, and others. very high percentage of people that came online for COVID-19 testing enter into longer term agreements that include influenza. So there, I think, I would say in the professional segment, which would include mainly hospitals, urgent care, and larger physician office practices, we're in pretty solid shape. The situation on retail, And employer testing and schools and all that, obviously more fluid. We think that we're in good shape there. We've been doing quite well. But that's where I think the entrance could have an impact if they're going to. But it would not likely be in the traditional setting where most flu testing is done.
Alex Nowak
All right, understood. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, Mr. Nowak. The next question is from the line of Casey Woodring with JPMorgan. You may proceed.
Nowak
Casey Woodring Hi, guys. This is Casey on for Tyco. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe first one, just to follow up on the last question on competitive dynamics, can you talk a little bit about market share on the COVID side? You know, just listening to Becton this morning, I think they sold more than 200 million in antigen tests. That's compared to Sophia, which did $24 million in the quarter. So maybe can you talk about share gain or loss this quarter and then, I guess, before?
Ruben Argueta
First of all, we didn't do $24 million test. And I don't know what, I have no idea what would be sold or whatever. So I don't have an answer. Revenue, I mean.
Nowak
OK. $24 million. Maybe we can talk. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we did it by your question.
Reuben
Yeah, we did 83 million in the quarter, Casey, for all in COVID. I don't know how that compares against competition.
Ruben Argueta
Well, we don't obviously have an international product that would be shipped out of China either.
Nowak
Okay. And then just looking in terms of next year's earnings power, you know, normalizing for COVID, you know, if I look at 2019 of around $3 per share, how does that fare for 2022? You know, what sort of upside is there to that number for the base business?
Reuben
Well, Casey, I mean, we're such a different environment now than we were in 2019 with the installed base increase, everything else. So we really haven't stated an EPS expectation for 2022 off the core business.
Nowak
Okay. And then maybe last one on capacity for me. Are you guys still building towards that, you know, 800 million annual run rate by the end of the year? And is excess capacity or inventory a concern at all, given this quarter's kind of testing run rate?
Ruben Argueta
Yeah, certainly at this moment, Casey, we don't have excess capacity. We're actually trying to ramp up. We've got QuickFu at home to build. We've got Sophia to build across various different products. And of course, we're ramping back up with molecular manufacturing as well. So at the moment, I would put us in the position of having excess capacity. We are bringing on board more equipment beginning this month with an expectation of being online before the end of the year. We do have a home for most of that capacity. But I think it's important for you all to consider, and maybe it's been maybe not explained well enough on our end, but all the capacity that we're talking about has already been paid for. And we are neutral between the two sites, McKellar and Rutherford. And so there is no increase in infrastructure cost per se. What we will have, though, if we choose to increase our manufacturing volume, what we will have is a fungible environment in which we hire more people and we secure more volume inputs in our supply chain in order to manufacture more products. So when you ask the question like that, it implies or, yeah, it does imply that you think that there's some sort of problem with us building capacity. We will have the capacity to compete with larger manufacturers should we choose to do so. And basically it's been funded by COVID. So from our perspective, we got basically increased capacity for free.
Reuben
Plus it gives us a global reach we haven't had in the past.
Ruben Argueta
We can reach whatever we want at this stage based on the ability to manufacture more product should we choose to do so. We're not obligated, obviously. And I wouldn't say that hiring people is an overnight thing, but I think you've seen others in our industry ramp up in terms of their employment base pretty quickly. we feel like in this environment, in this particular county, that we can do that. Got it. Thank you. You're welcome.
Operator
Thank you, Mr. Woodring. The next question is from the line of Jack Meehan with Nephon Research. You may proceed.
Woodring
Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. I wanted to start and talk a little bit about SOFIA. Sorry if I missed this in prepared remarks, but, you know, how many SOFIAs are in the field today, and do you have an estimate for how many are active versus, you know, some that are out of use as COVID has waned?
Ruben Argueta
Yeah, again, first I'll start with a number. That's around 71,000 SOFIA analyzers out there. Most were installed in 2020 with a contract that included the other products. So even if the COVID volume is not as big as it was when they acquired the analyzer, they still will be using the analyzer for things like influenza, strep, to a lesser extent, Lyme. RSV is another big category for us. So we still have a footprint that should pull through more volume. We certainly took a lot of customers away from a couple of key larger players. And we can expect then that that install will be a beautiful asset when we launch other products moving forward. So your point's a good one. The 2020 volumes that they were purchasing running through those SOFIAs are obviously going to be down. But we now have a different business, as Randy said. It's a completely different business than 2019 now because of a number of things. One, a more robust supply chain and manufacturing operation, but as well a much larger asset and customer base into which we're now selling product.
Woodring
Got it. And I just want to understand this dynamic of placing the instruments with the contract for additional tests. Just when I look at the SOFIA revenue in the quarter, $27.5 million, of which about $24 million was COVID. So it implies about $4 million was non-COVID. So, you know, why are customers not utilizing these instruments for other testing? You know, how does the contract work?
Ruben Argueta
But, Jack, I mean, when I say this to you, you're going to go, obviously. There is no flu in Q2. There is no respiratory season in Q2. If this were a normal prior to COVID year, you wouldn't have to ask the question because you would have known that Q2s are low watermark. We don't do much respiratory testing in Q2.
Woodring
Okay. And if You know, just thinking about as you go into the fall, I think there is a view that at least at the point of care, combo testing could become more prevalent. Just if you have a little bit more flu, there could be more demand for that. We are seeing some RSV outbreaks across the country. So I was wondering, you know, today your combo test is flu A, B, COVID. Just the path to adding RSV to that?
Ruben Argueta
Yeah, so we have a program, as you know, to add that. It'll be on the molecular platform, but it'll also be on the SOFIA platform. And your point is a good one that we are seeing a bit of demand for that. In fact, about half of our inventory that we have on hand for the combo assay itself on SOFIA SARS COVID, excuse me, SARS flu, about half of that inventory already shipped. So whether that will be renewed will depend on if there is indeed a flu season, I think.
Woodring
Got it. And last one on Savannah. I think I heard in the prepared remarks, there are now U.S. clinical trials before the end of the year. That was a new update. You know, what are these trials versus what you've already done? And then what does that mean for the timing of the U.S. launch?
Ruben Argueta
Yeah, we've already completed a number of trials. Our issue really is on the 510K products, Jack. It's not on SARS or the respiratory viral panel. So the issue with us right now is that we're competing with automobile and appliance manufacturers for the same sort of chip components, and our third-party manufacturer is struggling to access all the things necessary to create the volumes of instruments at Savannah that we want to have at launch. So right now, I had a pretty lengthy conversation yesterday with our head of R&D. We think we're in good shape to start the 510 trials here imminently. He thinks he has enough instruments. But to actually complete everything that we need to across all of the products that we've already developed, is going to require more and so we're monitoring all that closely we're exercising supply chains we're trying to help out our third-party manufacturer who has a pretty constrained limited number of folks that they normally work with we're trying to help out there we also were engaged in a conversation with federal government a couple days ago during which we said please can you help the industry not us not quite out can you help the industry please to make sure that we get our fair share of what's necessary to build these pieces of equipment that effectively could improve public health. So we'll see what happens there. But that's really what's happening now. I mean, from a scientific perspective, from an assay manufacturing perspective, we're in awesome shape. From an instrument building perspective, we're holding our breath right now, Jack.
Woodring
Mm-hmm. Got it. Thank you for all the color. Appreciate it. Sure.
Reuben
Thanks, Zach.
Operator
Thank you, Mr. Meehan. Once again, to ask a question, please press star 1. The next question is from the line of Andrew Cooper with Raymond James and Associates. You may proceed.
Meehan
Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. I was bouncing around, so I hope this hasn't been asked. But what I did want to ask, just on the BNP side with the agreement, are you precluded from selling your version after 2029? What does the pathway look like there? Do we think about a little bit of a cliff because of that, or is it something you can compete with moving beyond 2029?
Ruben Argueta
yeah i appreciate you asking the question because i think they're a little there's a little bit of a disconnect um this whole situation that we've gone through in the last few weeks to resolve this is not nuanced at all it's pretty darn straightforward we make an antibody that is supplied to beckman who puts it in their kit and as part of the agreement they entered into with biosite years ago we sell that product for use on their analyzer. You can question why they would have entered into the agreement in the first place, but at the end of the day, they benefited because they were able to have a BMP assay on their equipment when they didn't have access to the IP related to that particular biomarker. So it was a win for BioCyte. It was a win for Beckman. That agreement was scheduled to end X number of years after the last country was entered into that product. That last country occurred a while ago, which meant that the agreement was meant to expire in 2029. Regardless of whether we settled this litigation or not, it was meant to expire in 2029. So there is no terminal value. There never was. There won't be moving forward, and it doesn't change. We don't have any terminal value now, but we didn't before either. So there is no difference there. So we really don't have an agreement that says we can or cannot make our own BMP, because of course we can. We already do a triage. And it's a big product for us. We also have to put it on our leapfrog product, where as I probably have suggested before, We plan on making all the cardiovascular products, including hyphens, terponin, BMP, and other things, all available on this next-generation platform. So I appreciate the question, Andrew. It's a very good one. There's nothing about this that precludes us from moving forward with our own BMP, other than the one we already have on triage. We could put it on whatever instrument we come up with, including, obviously, there's not a lot of value in making a product for somebody else who already has a BMP, so I don't see us doing that. But for our own next-generation immunoassay analyzer, we will have the cardiovascular products, including BMP. Does that make sense, or do I need to further clarify, Andrew?
Meehan
No, no, that's helpful. That's helpful. I won't ask anything on leapfrog quite yet on this call, but maybe just to sneak one more in, When we think about the pattern we see from ordering and where the demand comes from, I still have been a little bit surprised by molecular versus antigen. And frankly, QuickView, I think, is a different place, especially as we start thinking more about combo products. You know, I know it's sort of unanswerable, but how do you think about maybe a shift in that demand if we do start to see flu pick back up or how that evolves into the back half of the year in terms of QuickView versus Sophia versus Lyra? Just any color you could offer there would be great.
Ruben Argueta
Yeah, that's an excellent question, and you're right. It may not be completely answerable, but what I would say is that if there is a respiratory season, and people feel ill, I think there is reason to believe that there will be demand for influenza testing, RSC testing, but also COVID. I think an influenza season will likely drive a little bit more volume. We said before that we think that there's an underlying floor at $20 to $25 million a month for us. And I don't know whether things have changed as a result, but certainly in the last couple weeks, demand seems to have picked up dramatically. And internally, what we're doing is trying to make a decision about which mix of products makes the most sense. Right now, I would say that in order to sustain a presence in the retail segment, whatever region we launch in, we want to make sure we don't run out. So we are going to preferentially make the QuickView OTC product. We're also going to pursue a combination product that could be useful. Because we're 510K cleared already for an influencer product by QuickView, it should be possible to get that done. So that could be something interesting. So FIA, you've got so many placements out there, and now we're beginning to shift to distributors in this professional segment in a meaningful way, that product. That's a different production line, though, set of production lines, which is now somewhat helpful. So we should be able to meet the demand there. On the molecular side, I can't tell you for sure. I just think that the demand for molecular testing, for us at least, has plateaued a bit. And I would just say there's not a stain on molecular testing necessarily, but it clearly has some disadvantages relative to a test that can tell you that, indeed, you're infectious. So I don't know what that's going to mean for us, but I'm not counting a lot of molecular uptick moving into the fall. And we never saw it in influenza testing. I mean, there's a certain segment of the population of hospitalized patients where you would expect to see molecular influenza testing, but that really hasn't grown much in the last couple of years. Perfect. Appreciate the thoughts.
Meehan
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, Mr. Cooper. The next question is from the line of Brian Weinstein with William Blair. You may proceed.
Cooper
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. This is Brian. Thanks for taking my questions. Just first, I want to understand the dynamics in the core business a bit better here, you know, pretty flat sequentially in that low $90 million range. Anything to call out there? And then how should we be thinking about growth in the core business moving forward, especially in the non-COVID rapid amino acid line?
Ruben Argueta
It's up 20. It's not flat. It's up 24% over the prior year quarter. It's up 24%.
Nowak
I'm sorry, sequentially.
Ruben Argueta
94 of sequentially. Yes, sir, sequentially. Well, yeah, because Q2 is always sequentially down.
Reuben
Remember due to the, yeah, lower respiratory. We always see Q2 as really the low quarter of the four.
Ruben Argueta
In a business like, just to be helpful, in a business that has a large portion that's tied to a season, it's almost not meaningful to look sequentially. Because you could say the same thing next quarter if you wanted, and you go, why is Q3 so much bigger than Q2? Well, it's because people are going to start buying respiratory products.
Cooper
And then you have the same thing again before.
Ruben Argueta
Why did it get up again? Well, it's just because we're heading into the season, right? So that's all you're seeing there. There's nothing more than that.
Cooper
Okay. Appreciate that. And then on Savannah, I think you guys are targeting somewhere around $300 million for that product in its third full year following launch. So just have something to give about that ramp and any color on utilization expectations would be appreciated.
Ruben Argueta
Sure, I am very comfortable with the ramp provided I get supply of boxes. And I mentioned earlier, I think when Jack was asking a question, that we're worried a little bit about the inputs into the production scheme. And our suppliers, our manufacturers are doing a great job, but they can only make as many instruments as they can get the parts for. Notwithstanding that, any delays there, which we're going to try to minimize, of course, but notwithstanding any sort of delay, I'm pretty comfortable with the way we've ramped this. The good news is the assay development team is actually exceeding expectations, doing a fantastic job. The, you know, we're running assays on our own people, and the Savannah instrument performed extraordinarily well. The curves look terrific on the assays. And we're pretty confident, to be honest with you. But, you know, except for I got to get instruments.
Reuben
Yeah, go ahead.
Ruben Argueta
I'm sorry.
Cooper
Sorry about that, Randy.
Reuben
Go ahead, please.
Cooper
No, that's all right.
Reuben
I was going to say, yeah, and we obviously are rolling out those next five or six assays over the next 12 months as well.
Cooper
Yep. And just to squeeze in more on M&A, can you just refresh us on what you're looking for? You know, you previously talked about digital health capabilities and some infrastructure. Any change to that?
Ruben Argueta
No, that's certainly interesting to us. And, again, as I said in my prepared remarks, it's more about fit. And can I leverage the asset I'm acquiring? Can I leverage my own infrastructure such that one plus one is more than two? And I'm not a big fan of science projects. I like to see revenue and margin. And I like to see that we think that we can grow it. I'm not interested in something that flattens us out.
Operator
so that limits the number of things that we think limits the number of frogs that are going to turn into our friends okay appreciate the answers guys thank you sure of course thank you mr weinstein that is all the time we have today please proceed with your presentation or any closing remarks
Ruben Argueta
Well, thanks, everyone, for your support. And, of course, you're interested in Coydell. I do realize that so many of you have so many names you're covering today. And I've been reading some of the reports on a daily basis, and I'm thinking, oh, my God, it feels like you guys must be in school. You've got to do a project every night. So I'll hang up real fast so you can go write your report. And I'm happy to take questions here in the next couple of hours as we need to. Thanks again, everybody.
Operator
Goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Goodbye.
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