Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quidel Corporation Third Quarter 2008 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). I’d now like to turn the call over to Mr. John Radak. Please go ahead. John Radak – Chief Financial Officer: Good afternoon, everyone. This is John Radak, Chief Financial Officer at Quidel. Thank you for participating in today’s call. Joining me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Caren Mason. Earlier this afternoon, Quidel released financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2008. If you have not received this news release, or if you would like to be added to the company’s distribution list, please call Shirley Chow with Porter Novelli Life Sciences at 212-601-8308. Please note that this conference call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal securities laws. It is possible that actual results and performance could differ materially from these stated expectations. For a discussion of risk factors, please review Quidel’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC. Furthermore, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast October 22, 2008. Quidel undertakes no obligation to revise or update any statements to reflect events or circumstances after the day of this conference call. I will start today’s call with a review of the third quarter financial report. Then Caren will provide further comments on our strategic business initiatives and developments. Turning to the financial results for the third quarter of 2008, we are pleased with another solid performance of the business during the period, as we posted margin expansion and double-digit revenue growth…

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Crowley with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.

Hi this Matt calling for Steve a couple of quick question if I could. First congratulations on the quarter. Looking at the RSV test, does that imply that you guys are able to bundle, the upper respiratory products and that’s been resonating well or we just want practice strength for the RSV test.

Well, first of all pediatrician, we have a very strong market shares as you know in the POL market especially the pediatrician. So, they are very interested now in adding the RSV test, they have an opportunity with a single specimen to be able to ran both an RSV and flu test by Quidel. So that is working very well for us.

That’s right. And secondly, could you provide a little bit more color on the progression of the bioMerieux partnership I guess, where is it versus your prior expectations and any update on the core development agreement that you guys have discussed in the past?

Yes, we are pleased with the progress with our bioMerieux partnership is that the entire results in Q3. Remember that we really got started with this in May. So we are very happy with progress, we loved what happened in Australia during that continence influenza and our CCs and with our bioMerieux co-branded product. In terms of the core development agreement, we are making progress, our agreed upon pipeline of proposed product for development is close to being finalized, and so, we are hoping to give you a more color on that for sure in the next call if not early in the year as we make our rounds.

Alright. Thank you very much.

Thank you Matt.

Your next question comes from the line of Keay Nakae with Collins Stewart. Please proceed with your question.

Yes good afternoon. John with respect to R&D in the quarter it was flat sequentially I think we are expecting that number to be higher so how should we think about that going forward?

Yeah we had a couple of things one was some clinical studies got moved out in terms of timing of when we ended up starting those. So those will hit in Q4. We also were expecting to going on more of the open R&D positions in Q3 earlier than Q3 but those came on board later in Q3. So we will see an uptick in Q4 for R&D.

Okay. And with respect to your other product line, the past couple of quarters have been positively impacted by sales of your vet product, has that sort of washed out and how should we think about growth in the other product category going forward?

Yeah, I mean, I think mid single digits is a reasonable number for the other product category, the veterinary business performed pretty well in Q3, and so, we are – that business – that segment of our product category will, the big element that will impact the growth rate there will be as we begin to really drive conversion in the FIT market.

Okay. And then, Caren, as far as looking forward new product might launched under the QuickVue brand name next year can you give us a little color there?

As I said earlier where we be, we have a pipeline of product in infectious disease and reproductive health that we are either developing ourselves that we are either potentially sourcing and selling as well as the core development and some deal with bioMerieux . In terms of actually identifying the product themselves and when we can expect them to enter the market we plan to have that ready for sure for discussion, probably I would say we will start talking analyst conference is on early January, but I can tell you that is – we are very pleased enthusiastic at the partnership and we are excited about the opportunity to bring some of those products forward even in 2009.

Okay. And is it too soon in '08 to have any of the products from co-developed with b bioMerieux you commence?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Keay.

Thanks Kay.

Your next question comes from the line of Zarak Khurshid with Caris & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I just want to start maybe with kind of the ubiquitous macro-economic question. How is this challenging environment having an affect on the end-user demand for your products? And is it changing the way your distributors are operating specifically with respect to inventory levels?

As we said in our prepared remarks, we assigned inventory levels at normalized volume for expectations in the flu season as planned. In Q3, we were pleased to see that sales to end-users were very strong. So when you put those two data points together, at this time and with our discussion with distributors as late as last Friday, everyone is continuing, going forward, recognizing that flu knows not macro-economic conditions and that individuals will visit their doctors to make sure that especially in the case of their children, they are getting proper care.

Sounds pretty good. And then with respect to the share buyback plan. It doesn’t look like you purchased any shares in the third quarter. Would you anticipate buying back shares in the fourth quarter?

Zarak, our policy is not to comment on what we are currently doing relative to our share buyback program except to talk about what we disclosed in our SEC filing.

Understood. And then going back to the RSV product, it sounds like that is starting to gain some nice traction. I wanted to maybe get a better sense for what’s driving the strength there? Is it more a function of this new – the features of the test or in which you are taking share from someone else or is it just sort of new opportunity, new market that’s developing for that test?

I think it’s a combination of both. There is no doubt that we are definitely having conversions. We are especially aggressive in the acute care market where we undertake what we call the QV, Quidel value build correlation challenge. And today, we want to count 69% of the time that our product goes head to head versus competitors. So obviously there is some share that we are winning there. On top of it, there is a lot in the literature and a lot that’s going on, discussed recently at the American Pediatric Association Meeting, about the fact that RSV that goes undiagnosed is definitely proving to have consequences for those children later in life, more asthma, a lot more urine infections, et cetera, pulmonary conditions that are tied directly to undiagnosed RC. So you put it all of that together and we see RSV being a real nice growth for Quidel over the years to come.

Excellent. And then lastly, I will jump back in the queue. Qualitatively, can you remind us how the gross margins look on the Clear waived RSV test relative to the flu product and the corporate average?

They are higher than the corporate average and inline with the flu products.

Okay, great. Congratulations on a nice quarter.

Thank you, Zarak.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]. Your next question comes from the line of Un Kwon-Casado with Pacific Growth Equities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon.

Welcome back.

Thank you. Good to be back. I was wondering if your gross margins came in really strong in the quarter. Besides product mix, is there other operational improvements that drove that expansion?

Well, as you know, we have been – a number of our products have been on web manufacturing over both in the third quarter of ’07 and in the third quarter of ’08. So we get a little – that helps us a little bit. But we didn’t have as much volume, the volume from our non-seasonal products in the quarter, so we didn’t get that kind of a leverage. So most of that was product mix.

And then so going forward as far as potential margin improvement is concerned, should we be modeling in operational improvements into your margins or is it going to be largely driven by product mix given that your flu franchise is going fast than the rest of your businesses?

We have lots of initiatives underway in our manufacturing operation to drive efficiencies. The things that is tough to predict going forward is what might happen relative to raw material costs and so forth. But I think we still have opportunities to see some improvement there.

Okay. And then with respect to the flu market, could you talk a little bit about what you are seeing as far as pricing is concerned from your competitors and whether that’s having any pressures on your business?

Our focus is really to sell a value equivalent of the way our tests performs and the confidence that end-users have come to rely on with our product as well as the rather thick volume of proof that we have produced over time and continue to produce. As we speak, more side by side clinical studies are underway, which we will be addressing in the months to come. In each of these studies and the way that we work with distributors and end-users we talk significantly about the performance of our product in clinical studies that are independent side by side as well as what we know that individuals do, for example, laboratorians during the year who like to take a look at our test versus other tests. As a matter of fact, the CDC has in their most recent publication started to address where they thought sensitivity deficiencies were taking place. I am pleased to say that certainly not with the Quidel test. So when it comes to price points, yes, there are always pressure especially by competitors who are focusing on filling plants with products rather than the continuation of producing very aggressive clinical and economic validation for the product such as Quidel is working in getting the ANA to absolutely approve a dual-coding process for our flu tests.

So the take home is that you are not having to come down on pricing to stay competitive for certain contracts?

We never lead with price. But what we will do is when there is opportunities for increased volumes, we will meet those opportunities appropriately.

Okay, got it. And then just lastly, it looks like the international market could present a nice opportunity for upside to your flu business. What percentage of your flu business did that represent last season and this quarter you said 10% and so do you expect that to be relative mix for this year?

Well, I think the 10% is the total international business of our total.

Okay.

Revenues. And so Q3 of ’07, it represented about -- international is about 9% of the business. On a year to date basis, it’s roughly 12, 13%.

Okay. And then could we use the same proportion for your flu revenue in this quarter?

Yes, that’s probably okay to do.

Okay. And so I know that last season or last year for example, you experienced some drag to the growth because of Japan and so is bioMerieux really expanding beyond those geographies or where they are having the most success?

Our success of bioMerieux has really been in the Australian, New Zealand, Southern Hemisphere flu season of course, that’s where we have got real data. We also have some nice orders from the Middle Eastern countries. And so, we really have to get through the season to see but there is focus in Germany and in other European countries as well, which have traditionally looked this influenza testing as an important part of their care.

Great. Thanks very much.

Thanks.

Your final question comes from the line of Keay Nakae with Collins Stewart. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, John I just wanted to ask you about the other net items, about 160k on the income statement?

Yeah, that was a settlement of some assets that we sold, again some non-operating assets.

All right, very good.

Okay.

And this concludes the question-and-answer portion of today’s call. I will turn the call back over to Caren Mason for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much. We appreciate very much your being here this afternoon and for your continued support. We look forward to updating you on our progress again when we report fourth quarter and year-end results. Take care everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.