Abaxis Inc. (ABAX)

Abaxis, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets, and sells portable blood analysis systems for use in human or veterinary patient-care setting to provide clinicians with blood constituent measurements. Its products include Point-Of-Care Blood Chemistry Analyzer, which performs a panel of 14 tests on human patients and 13 tests on veterinary patients, which is marketed in the human medical market under the Piccolo xpress name and in the veterinary market under the VetScan VS2 name. The company’s products also include Reagent Discs that handle various technical steps of blood chemistry testing automatically; and VetScan HM5, VetScan HM2, VetScan HMII, and VetScan HMT hematology instruments, which offer a complete blood count analysis for veterinary applications. In addition, its products include Orbos Discrete Lyophilization Process that allows the production of active chemical ingredient in the form of a soluble bead as well as involves in flash-freezing a drop of liquid reagent to form a solid bead and then freeze-drying the bead to remove water. The company’s customers for human medical market include military installations, including ships, field hospitals, and mobile care units; physicians office practices; national, regional, and local home care providers; nursing homes; ambulance companies; oncology treatment clinics; hospital labs; and draw stations. Its customers for veterinary market comprise companion animal hospitals; animal clinics with mixed practices of small animals, birds, and reptiles; equine and bovine practitioners; veterinary emergency clinics; veterinary referral hospitals; universities; government; pharmaceutical companies; biotechnology companies; and private research laboratories. The company markets and sells its products through a direct sales force in the United States and through independent distributors. Abaxis, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Union City, California.

For the six months ended 30 September 2006, Abaxis, Inc.'s revenues increased 31% to $41.4M. Net income increased 37% to $4.5M. Revenues reflect higher sales of instruments, reagent discs & kits and other products in North America and Europe. Net income also reflects a rise in interest & other income due to higher average invested balances & realized gains on short-term investments and improved operating margins.