Idexx Laboratories IDXX
Q3 2010 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Ryan Daniels, William Blair.

Ryan Daniels - William Blair: John, just a quick follow-up question. I thought that was interesting when you talked about the data in growth performance of your clients using Cornerstone being flat to maybe modestly up versus what we're seeing in the rest of industry being down between 3% and 5%. I am curious if you have or if you have considered using that is kind of a marketing pitch for your sales force to get out there and kind of drive the value of your protocols and your innovation.

Jonathan W. Ayers - Chairman, President and CEO: Ryan, in fact, we put that data together for our Cornerstone Users Conference. We had a record number of attendees at that conference over 400, is up 65% year-over-year from 2009. Obviously, the economy didn't help us there, but I think people are more and more interested in learning how Cornerstone can drive that practice growth. So the original infinitive to actually look at that came with marketing in line and then we thought we'd share that with investors.

Ryan Daniels - William Blair: Then a question on ProCyte, obviously it sounds like a very good launch thus far, and I am curious you alluded to this a little bit, but curious if you're seeing any of the hematology business maybe move away from the reference lab to the point of care, or is it just kind of an augmented testing that more of the point-of-care chemistry is also bundled with hematology now whereas before it was not done that way as much?

Jonathan W. Ayers - Chairman, President and CEO: Well, I think the first thing is that ProCyte released the bottleneck for real-time care because of its incredible throughput, and of course, the level of accuracy is unprecedented in hematology. When you're running a blood sample fresh, you aren't in danger of any degradation that happens with the blood cells over time. So I think the first driver that ProCyte will have for our business is more CBCs run with chemistry panels, it's just so easy to do so. I think that also makes our entire VetLab offering more attractive for new customers. It enables real-time care, and we believe real-time care is an important component in the new economy. Gone are the days that consumers will just accept the veterinarian's recommendation regardless of cost. I think they need to see some of the values that they're getting for those recommendations, and one of the benefits of real-time care is it's very obvious today because you have a conservation right at the point-of-care and you have an immediate follow-up plan if there's any kind of issue, and if you don't, you see that what you're getting for your money in doing that testing. So I'm not sure we're seeing that in the numbers yet, we've only placed 154 of these units. It's truly a drop in the bucket in terms of the total veterinary market, but the hypothesis here is that this will be a nice driver for point-of-care testing.

Ryan Daniels - William Blair: Then I guess a quick follow-up there, on the real-time care, I think you mentioned that you've had 1,000 program now and kind of real-time care protocol rebates. Can you give us a feel with what kind of volume increases you are seeing on the consumable side for them and maybe any expectations that rolls out to 5,000 and continues to grow?