BioM¨¦rieux reported today that its third quarter revenues grew 7 percent year over year driven in part by strong growth in its molecular biology clinical applications.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, the Marcy l'¨¦toile, France-based in vitro diagnostics firm recorded revenues of €579.7 million ($666.3 million) compared to €540.0 million in the year-ago period. Organic growth, at constant exchange rates and scope of consolidation, was 9 percent year over year.

Revenues for the clinical applications business, which includes microbiology, molecular biology, and immunoassays, rose 8 percent to €473.5 million from €439.8 million a year ago.

Within clinical applications, microbiology rose 3 percent to €243.1 million from €236.2 million in Q3 2017, mainly fueled by growth in its BACT/ALERT blood culture product line and, to a lesser extent, by the installation of laboratory systems.

Molecular biology sales increased 33 percent to €120.4 million from €90.5 million in Q3 2017, with 38 percent growth in FilmArray molecular syndromic testing products. BioM¨¦rieux noted that the FilmArray installed base grew to 7,600 units and sales of all panels rose steadily.

However, the company also noted that Palmetto GBA, a Medicare administrative contractor, issued a final local coverage determination during Q3 reducing coverage of multiplexed molecular tests for the diagnosis of respiratory infections in outpatients, a decision that may affect use of the company's FilmArray respiratory panels for outpatient diagnosis in the US.

Revenues from immunoassay clinical applications fell 2 percent on a reported basis to €103.3 million from €105.9 million a year ago The firm attributed the decrease to continued price pressure on its procalcitonin assays in the US and declining sales of manual rapid tests. However, the company saw strong sales of its Vidas range in the Russia-Middle East-Africa and Asia-Pacific regions.

Meanwhile, revenues for the industrial applications business grew 6 percent to €106.1 million from €100.3 million in Q3 2017.

BioM¨¦rieux said that sales of reagents and services accounted for approximately 90 percent of total revenues in Q3, representing a year-over-year increase of almost 10 percent.

BioM¨¦rieux also announced that it may eventually increase its previously announced minority stake in Suzhou Hybiome Biomedical Engineering, a Chinese firm that develops and manufactures a range of automated immunoassay analyzers that have been cleared by the China Food and Drug Administration.