Millipore 1Q profit jumps 22 percent to top expectations

BILLERICA, Mass.—Millipore Corp., a maker of membranes for sterilizing and filtering antibiotics and beverages, said Wednesday its first-quarter profit rose 22 percent on strong demand for laboratory products.

For the quarter ended March 29, net income grew to $32.6 million, or 59 cents per share, from $26.7 million, or 49 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding one-time charges, profit totaled 80 cents per share in the latest period.

Revenues rgrew 7 percent to $396.2 million from $372 million.

The results beat estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who expected adjusted profit of 78 cents per share on revenue of $387.4 million.

Millipore said its bioscience division performed well across all geographic regions, with growth driven by demand for laboratory water and drug discovery products and services. However, this revenue growth was more than offset by a decline in bioprocess revenue due to reduced purchases by a few of the company's largest North American biotech customers.

Apart from those accounts, Millipore said its other biotech customers are generating double-digit revenue growth and the company expects the division's revenue growth to improve in the second half of 2008.

Shares rose 33 cnets to close earlier at $70.10.