Cepheid (Cepheid), an in vitro diagnostics company, has reported total revenues of $38.8 million for the first quarter of 2009, compared with the total revenues of $44.8 million in the year-ago quarter. It posted a net loss of $7.4 million, or $0.13 per share, for the first quarter of 2009, compared with the net loss of $1.9 million, or $0.03 per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Business Outlook

For the fiscal 2009, the company anticipates total revenue to be in the range of $164 million to $174 million, loss per share in the range of $0.42 to $0.47 on GAAP basis, and $0.11 to $0.17 on a non-GAAP basis.

“Despite broader economic uncertainty, sales for our Clinical tests continued to grow at a significant rate, running over 79% ahead of the first quarter of 2008, and in large part offsetting the anticipated declines in the Partner and Biothreat businesses,” said John Bishop, Cepheid’s chief executive officer. “Despite the tough sales environment, we placed 95 systems worldwide during the first quarter. Additionally, we achieved an important milestone for Cepheid with the placement of our 1,000th GeneXpert(R) System, highlighting that its ease-of-use and flexibility continue to be compelling.”

“Account utilization of our test menu continued to grow during the first quarter, along with our pipeline of available tests,” continued Bishop. “We recently released our Xpert(R) MRSA/SA-nasal product in Europe for pre-surgical testing, and expect to release our Xpert(R) TB/RIF for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Europe next week. Additionally, I am pleased to announce that we have submitted our Clostridium difficile assay to the FDA for 510(k) market clearance. These product developments further demonstrate that Cepheid is executing well on its vision of providing a broad test menu thereby helping the GeneXpert System to become the molecular testing platform of choice.”