Alere receives grand jury subpoena from U.S. DoJ

[March 15, 2016]  (Reuters) - Diagnostic test maker Alere Inc, which has agreed to be acquired by Abbott Laboratories, said it had received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking documents relating to its sales practices in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Alere, which makes tests for infections including HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and dengue, said on Tuesday it was in the process of responding to the subpoena, which relates to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Alere's shares were down nearly 6.4 percent at $50 in light premarket trading.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Alere also said it would be unable to file its annual report for 2015 in time and that it continued to expect the Abbott deal to close by the end of the year.

Alere said the delay in filing the annual report was because it was analyzing certain aspects of the timing of revenue recognition, more specifically, revenue cutoff, in Africa and China for 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The company, which generated revenue of about $2.59 billion in 2014, did not specify when it would file the 2015 report.

Abbott said in February it would buy Alere for $5.8 billion and become the leader in point-of-care diagnostic testing, a market that is growing as physicians increasingly adopt rapid tests that speed up treatment.

(Reporting by Rosmi Shaji in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Anupama Dwivedi)

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