Millipore’s fourth quarter earnings per share were $0.78 per share, compared to $0.56 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.00, compared to $0.95 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Millipore’s Bioprocess division generated organic revenue growth of 4%, while Bioscience division revenues were unchanged from the previous year.
Martin Madaus, chairman and CEO of Millipore, said: “The resiliency of our business model and our strong execution enabled us to deliver excellent financial results in 2009 despite the challenges created by the global economic recession. We generated strong organic revenue growth, double-digit growth in earnings per share, and a 54% increase in our free cash flow. Our Bioprocess Division delivered outstanding performance as a result of strong demand from our biotechnology customers and higher levels of vaccine production. Additionally, our Bioscience Division grew faster than many of its peers due to its high exposure to consumable products and solid levels of spending from academic customers in all geographies.
“We made excellent progress against our goal of accelerating product innovation through internal R&D, partnerships, and strategic acquisitions. Our R&D spending increased by 12 percent in 2009; we successfully launched a number of innovative products; we initiated collaborations with several important technology partners; and we completed four acquisitions. All of these initiatives put us in a strong position and as we look ahead to 2010, we are confident in our ability to deliver attractive revenue growth, margin expansion, and strong cash flow. We expect our Bioprocess Division will benefit from continued demand from our global biotechnology customers, while our Bioscience Division will deliver improved performance as its end markets recover and it sees higher contributions from new products.”
Charles Wagner, chief financial officer of Millipore, said: “The success of our initiative to improve our working capital efficiency was a significant driver of our record $298 million of free cash flow in 2009. We also increased our non-GAAP operating margin by 80 basis points for the full year, while making substantial investments to fund our innovation strategy. The exceptional cash flow performance and margin expansion we have generated over the past five years reflect substantial underlying improvements in our operations and the attractiveness of our consumables-driven business model.”