Idexx Laboratories IDXX
Q4 2010 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Ryan Daniels, William Blair.

Ryan Daniels - William Blair: Merilee may be just a quick follow-up question for you as we look to the performance in 2011 I know in the first quarter you gave some detailed color on the margin performance, I looking for a little bit more thoughts on revenue. The reason I specifically I asked about the quarter it looks like it's your toughest year-over-year revenue growth comparison in about three years. So I’m curious will that quarter be a little bit more under pressure versus 7% to 8% and we see that kind of accelerate throughout the year or any visibility do you want to provide there from modeling?

Merilee Raines - Corporate VP, CFO and Treasurer: Ryan I think that, that is a good point and I guess as we would look at the quarterly progression, we might expect that we would see an acceleration in growth as we go through the year.

Ryan Daniels - William Blair: Then John one other things that came out of NAVC was the brachy study and had some pretty interesting data and one of the points there talked a little bit about a lack of consumer awareness about really the value proposition going to the vet and that getting that services. I was hoping may be you could talk a little bit about how your real-time care protocols can add that value and how you are using that marketing to the veterinarians. If that's gaining traction or is that, that you talk to really appreciate the need to show the value to customers this much. Any color there about how that could help your sales going forward will be helpful?

Jonathan W. Ayers - Chairman, President and CEO: That is one of the essential value propositions of real-time care. It's also an essential value proposition of moving to electronic medical records that our Cornerstone and software is uniquely able to do and that is – during the exam the pet owner gets reports that show exactly what they are paying for and we believe this increases compliance meaning it increases the revenue per visit and it also encourages them to come back for the regular exam or follow-up or whatever the additional work that needs to be required with the sick pet and that's a pretty positive experience. As you know, with our Cornerstone customers, they appear to be with the samples that have 300 that we measure, just a random sample of our Cornerstone customers, they appear to be growing faster than the industry. I think that was very consistent with the (brachy) report that was import for the pet owner to see the value, to feel the value, for the value to be palpable to the vet does it, because many of them think vet does it or just about vaccinations and don’t appreciate all the additional medical value of those visits and so these are always to really demonstrate that value.

Operator: Miroslava Minkova, Leerink Swann.

Miroslava Minkova - Leerink Swann: Let me start with the economy and what exactly you're hearing and seeing there. You are guiding to about 1% – you are assuming about 1% improvement in your guidance but it sounds like just looking at your results that you put out today that that's pretty much already there. Your organic growth reaccelerated slightly and the vet practice revenues they are up 3%. Are you assuming that the economy actually gets better as we go throughout the year or it basically stays sort of where we are today? A little bit better than it has been in the last few months.