OraSure to Make Presentation at Investor Conference as Stock’s Long-Term Price Decline Continues

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

OraSure boomed during the pandemic. Revenue, much of it from government contracts, jumped.

The federal government even provided money to build a new factory in Bethlehem Township.

The pandemic was declared over in May 2023, a little more than three years after it began.

The share price of Bethlehem-based OraSure topped $19 in August 2020. The closing price Wednesday (NASDAQ:OSUR) was $3.71, less than a fifth of that high. The company will make a presentation Jan. 16 at the Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Perhaps investors will hear something good; details of how to see this are below.

The company prides itself on reaching positive cash flow from operations, and for not having debt. Still, how is it going to make money? Will there be another pandemic, or will the company find products beyond its home tests for AIDS (OraQuick) and COVID (InteliSwab)?

The company put itself up for sale in 2022, and nothing happened. It has made management and business changes, yet continues to muddle along. In June, the company was dropped from the S&P SmallCap 600 Index.

Strategy can be debated, but here is what the stock market tells us. Keep in mind that OraSure does not pay a dividend, so total return is based only on the share price. In this case, total negative return, also known as “loss.”

Maybe there’s a chance for a bounce back in OraSure. Perhaps something good will come out of the J.P. Morgan presentation. Maybe, but the numbers below are sobering.

As noted, the closing price Wednesday was $3.71. The closing price on the last trading day of 2024 was $3.61, so OraSure is up for the year, which is nine days old.

Price at the end of the last trading day in 2023: $8.20.

Price at the end of the last trading day in 2022: $4.82.

Price at the end of the last trading day in 2021: $8.69.

Price at the end of the last trading day in 2020: $10.59.

What it all means is, OraSure share are trading at a little more than a third of the price they were four years ago.

There have been opportunities to get in and get out, making some money, but long-term holders haven’t seen much benefit.

On June 3, 2022, the day before Carrie Eglinton Manner took over as chief executive, the price was $3.85, so it’s down from that day too.

Here’s the statement about the J.P. Morgan presentation from the OraSure website:

BETHLEHEM, Pa., Jan. 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OraSure Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSUR), a leader in point-of-need and home diagnostic tests and sample management solutions, today announced that members of its management team will participate in the 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. OraSure’s presentation is scheduled for Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. PT.

A live webcast and replay of the presentation will be available in the “Events and Presentations” section of OraSure’s investor relations website at https://orasure.gcs-web.com/events-and-presentations.