Shares of QuidelOrtho (QDEL) rose 3% in intraday trading Wednesday following Jana Partners’ 13F filing, revealing a new position of 1.2 million shares of the company. The shares were held at the end of March.
QuidelOrtho shares are down 47% over the past year.
In February, the board fired Douglas Bryant, QuidelOrtho’s president and CEO, after the company posted dismal results and guidance.
In May, Brian Blaser was named the new CEO and President. Most recently, Blazer served as executive vice president of diagnostic products at Abbott Laboratories.
Shortly after announcing a new CEO with its first-quarter earnings report in May, the company suspended its full-year guidance, which it said would give the new CEO a chance to evaluate the business. After suspending guidance, management indicated to investors that the 2024 guidance model was at or slightly below the lower end of its guidance range for the year.
Wall Street analysts were generally pessimistic about the forecast.
“Overall, while the underlying business delivered a strong quarter in the first quarter, today’s commentary on the 2024 outlook (namely, again crowding out Savannah’s contribution to revenue) served as a negative update, and little information remains on the growth of underlying revenue growth metrics and company profitability profiles. business,” JP Morgan analysts said at the time. “As such, we continue to see the risk/reward skewed to the downside relative to the rest of our coverage and maintain our Underperform rating and 12/24/24 PT at $37.”
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