Nov. 13, 2025
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
OraSure has done it again: hit a 52-week low.
Shares (NASDAQ:OSUR) in the Bethlehem-based maker of diagnostic kits for home use touched $2.27 today before closing at $2.28, down 19 cents from Wednesday.
OraSure put out another dreary earnings report last week and no amount of jargon can disguise that. The company is controlled by institutional shareholders who don’t fall for “the three pillars of transformation” chatter from Chief Executive Carrie Eglinton Manner.
The maker of OraQuick, a test for HIV, and InteliSwab, for COVID-19, continues to lose money and revenue keeps falling.
Take a look at the third-quarter statement. Yes, they “delivered $27.1 million of revenue” in the quarter, but that was down 32% from the year-ago quarter.
Reports of a potential cash buyout, and of interest from an activist investor, temporarily pushed shares up this year. The long-term move is the same: down. Down hard.
Five years ago, on Nov. 13, 2020, the shares traded at $13.05, more than five times the current price. On June 3, 2022, the day before Eglinton Manner took over, the shares were at a meager $3.85, but that price looks good compared to today’s $2.28.
The shares have fallen 41% since Eglinton Manner took over.
Something has to give. Can OraSure do something internally to boost the shares? Based on the last few years, that doesn’t seem likely.
Maybe there’s a savior for the company who can make it profitable and keep the local operations in South Bethlehem and Bethlehem Township going.
This decline can’t go on forever, though, and something has to change. The company is trading at a discount to its cash per share, and that’s a bad sign.
OraSure was founded in 1988 as SolarCare, a maker of disposable sunscreen towels. The company has gone through various changes, built a new factory in Bethlehem Township with federal money.
OraSure received lots of federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once that started to drop, the shares fell.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 