From the Americas to EMEA to Asia-Pacific, VWR Corp. is scoring increased sales with strong worldwide demand from pharmaceutical and biotech customers, the company says.

Behind much of its sales activity is a global network of more than 30 country-specific e-commerce sites, the company says.

VWR, based in Radnor, Pa., racked up net sales of $1.15 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, up 6.3% from $1.08 billion a year earlier. Although the company doesn’t break out e-commerce sales, they account for more than half of orders, VWR says.

Manuel Brocke-Benz, CEO, said in a conference call with stock analysts last week that sales to “biopharma customers increased high single-digits with strengths in sales to large pharma and biotech customers” in the EMEA-APAC markets, or Europe, Mideast, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions. In the Americas, he added, “we saw continued strong performance in biopharma, up high-single-digits” with growth in sales to large customers of pharmaceutical and biotech products and medical devices. He noted that sales in the Americas to education customers were up in low single digits, with “ongoing strengths in sales to university customers and an improvement in sales to K-12 customers.” Sales to government agencies were up in high single digits, he said.

In sales to industrial customers in the Americas, meanwhile, VWR experienced declines in food-and-beverage and environmental industries, partly offset by increased sales in wastewater treatment and paper-and-pulp industries.

VWR also reported for the second quarter ended June 30:

Gross profit of $323.4 million, up 8.3% from $298.5 million a year earlier;

Net income of $41.8 million, up 128.4% from $18.3 million.

For the first half:

Net sales increased 6.6% to $2.25 billion from $2.11 billion a year earlier;

Gross profit increased 7.5% to $634.0 million from $589.7 million;

Net income decreased 10.2% to $80.6 million from $89.8 million.

VWR is No. 86 in the B2B E-Commerce 300, which ranks companies on their annual B2B web sales.

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