March 18, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
OraSure and Altai Capital kept up their battle of press releases yesterday, after Altai said the Bethlehem-based maker of medical diagnostic tools has underperformed.
That is hard to deny. Shares of Bethlehem-based OraSure (NASDAQ:OSUR) have been a dud since the COVID-19 pandemic. Altai says it owns a 5% stake in the company and it wants seats on the board of directors. Altai leader Rishi Bajaj contends OraSure has burned through cash and paid Chief Executive Carrie Eglinton Manner millions while investors lose money.
Today, the stock fell 8 cents to $2.90, after touching $2.78 earlier. The 52-week high is $4.22.
Five years ago today, OraSure traded at $10.86. It doesn’t pay a dividend. Investors who bought it back in 2021 have lost more than half of their money.
After the Altai letter, OraSure responded that it is at an “inflection point” and that new products will create value. Based on past statements, I’d be wary, but I don’t own OraSure. Maybe there is hope.
OraSure said it has offered a board seat to a Bajaj associate, but not to Bajaj, saying his approach has been unfocused and vague.
If the company were to be sold, there is no guarantee it would continue as a separate business or stay in Bethlehem. The maker of OraQuick home tests for HIV and InteliSwab, for COVID, could disappear. That would cost this area jobs and money.
OraSure’s headquarters is in south Bethlehem, and its “factory of the future” is in Bethlehem Township, off Brodhead Road.
That factory was built with about $109 million of federal money. Federal funds flowed to OraSure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the stock has fallen, the company keeps ringing up losses and revenue has plummeted.
When the factory opened, I asked an OraSure executive what the “factory of the future” would make in the future. I didn’t get an answer.
A year ago, the company embarked on an — in my humble opinion — ill-conceived stock buyback, trading its best asset — cash — for its own stock, which keeps falling.
Something is going to give. A company can’t keep losing forever before the institutional investors who control it demand a change.
Maybe Eglinton Manner’s moves are going to pay off this year. If they don’t, at some point this nice story about a little company called SolarCare that made sunscreen towelettes and turned into something bigger is not going to have a happy ending.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 