Chembio Diagnostics restarts its $25M stock offering

Chembio Diagnostics Inc. Wednesday said it was restarting the $25 million stock offering it had halted last week because of stock market declines.

The announcement after the market close sent shares of Chembio tumbling 7.5 percent after market hours to $7.60. Twelve months ago, the stock was trading at $6.

On Monday, Oct. 22, the Medford diagnostics company said it had begun the stock offering, but halted it last Thursday, a day after a more than 600-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

At that time, Chembio said it decided to halt the offering after an assessment by management that "market conditions are not conducive for an offering."

In Wednesday's news release, Chembio, a maker of rapid test results for HIV, syphilis, Zika, Ebola and other diseases, said it plans to use the proceeds from the stock offering to fund its $5.5 million cash acquisition of Berlin-based opTricon GmbH. 

OpTricon  makes handheld test result readers of blood and saliva samples.

Chembio said it also would use the stock-sale proceeds to fund growth initiatives and for general corporate purposes.

Earlier this month, the company said it expects new robots on a production line in Medford to begin production of test kits before year's end.

A company spokeswoman did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.

Wednesday's news release said there was no assurance the stock offering would be completed, or what the terms of the offering would be.

Chembio is scheduled to report its third quarter results on Nov. 8.

By Ken Schachter

kenneth.schachter@newsday.comkschach

Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.