Seeking Alpha: Can New Management Drive New Growth At Techne?

Techne (TECH) has always been a little different in the realm of publicly-traded life science companies. While the company's headquarters are pretty pleasant once you're inside, the surroundings are a pretty nondescript commercial/light industrial zone. Likewise, it's a little strange to sit down as an analyst with a management team that tells you they will not do road shows or conference calls, and doesn't much care whether they get any attention from Wall Street at all.

None of this is meant as a criticism against the company - management was always unfailingly polite and helpful to me in my analyst days, and the company's stock has generated excellent returns over the past 20 and 10 years. Where there is an issue, though, is in the more recent performance, where Techne has notably lagged other life sciences companies like Thermo Fisher (TMO), Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL) and more specialized/focused companies like Illumina (ILMN).

I'm optimistic about the potential for new management to put Techne on a more growth-oriented footing, not only with an expanded international focus but also perhaps a wider view of the company's addressable market opportunities. While I could see bull-case upside into the low $80s for Techne, that requires a level of transformation that is pretty aggressive. A more probable trajectory suggests Techne is close to fair value today, but still offers good near-real time exposure to life sciences spending.

Please read more here:
Can New Management Drive New Growth At Techne?

Investopedia: Healthy Dividend Growth Ideas In Healthcare

Healthcare has not always been the most fruitful hunting ground for dividend-growth investors. While there are numerous high-quality companies that generate substantial cash flow, many healthcare companies prefer to hang onto their cash for R&D or M&A purposes, or "return" it to shareholders in the form of share buybacks. That said, there are some worthwhile opportunities that dividend-growth investors should seriously consider.

Drugs - The Old Standby 
Within healthcare, pharmaceutical companies have always been dependable dividend-payers and that is still true today. Novartis (NYSE:NVS), AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) are just four prominent examples of above-average dividend yields available in this sector. Novartis is arguably the most attractive today, but AstraZeneca could appeal to those who really look to couple capital growth and dividends, as the market may have overestimated the company's vulnerability to patent cliffs.

Please follow this link for the full column:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Healthy-Dividend-Growth-Ideas-In-Healthcare-NVS-AZN-JNJ-ABT-LNCR-BAX-MDT0316.aspx

A Fistful of Life Sciences

As the whirlwind that is earnings season churns on, a host of life sciences companies have recently reported earnings. Although conditions were not quite as strong in general as a year ago, the sector continues to grow. Here are some of the major highlights and takeaways for investors. 

A SOLiD Plan
Although Life Technologies (Nasdaq:LIFE) is often compared to Illumina, it is actually a considerably larger and more diversified company. True, sequencing is important here (and demand for the SOLiD 4 platform helped boost Genetic Systems growth into the low teens), but other businesses like PCR, reagents and flow cytometry are significant.

The third quarter was pretty good for LIFE, despite some challenging comps. Revenue rose almost 8% (6% on an organic basis), and very tight expense control fueled a 15% improvement in operating income. 


Please click below for the full article:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/A-Fistfull-Of-Life-Sciences-LIFE-ILMN-TMO-WAT-TECH1029.aspx

Thermo Fisher Gets Cool Reception

The movements of stocks immediately after earnings releases can be so visceral and idiosyncratic that sometimes investors are better off ignoring the noise. Such would seem to be the case for life sciences company Thermo Fisher (NYSE: TMO). Although the stock sold off sharply after earnings, the outlook for this company was not all that bad, and Wall Street's overreaction may give patient investors an interesting long-term opportunity.

The Quarter That Was
Thermo Fisher is never going to be confused with the likes of Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN) or Luminex (Nasdaq: LMNX) - Luminex is a more diversified, slower-growing play on global life sciences technology. To that point, sales rose more than 6% this quarter, with organic growth a bit below 5%. While Thermo was hurt by weakness in the healthcare and biopharma sectors, and difficult year-over-year comps caused by the H1N1 flu outbreak last year, the industrial side of the business did well. (Learn more about the healthcare sector; see Investing In The Healthcare Sector.)

For the complete piece, please go to:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/Thermo-Fisher-Gets-Cool-Reception-TMO-ILMN-LMNX-TECH-LIFE-BRKR0729.aspx