How to profit from catastrophe

For a handful of businesses thriving amid the global financial meltdown, risk is the currency of trade. Here, a woman plays a large board game similar to Monopoly, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, Dec. 16, 2005. (Claro Cortes IV/Reuters)

DAILAN, China – For most companies, risk is something to be managed, avoided and contained.

But for a handful of businesses thriving amid the global financial meltdown, risk is the currency of trade. Take Qiagen for example. A Swiss biogenetics company that develops and sells genetic testing products, it’s grown by 20 percent annually, even through the economic crisis.

That growth, the CEO says, has come from taking calculated risks — many of which have paid off. Among the payoffs: developing a new, reliable and fast test for the H1N1 flu strain, with results available within 40 minutes (hours ahead of other test products). The company also sells test kits for avian flu, HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV), the precursor to cervical cancer and is continuing research on emerging diseases. In other words, Qiagen’s business is partly to be on the cutting edge of diseases that could wreak havoc on the world’s population. If there’s an emergent pandemic threat, their research teams likely will be developing a test to sell to hospitals and public-health agencies in affected areas and around the world.

“We have bet on one application area, genetic applications,” Qiagen CEO Peer Schwartz said in an interview. “We were just looking at a way to get to a critical mass very quickly and not have to depend on outside financing.”

Schwartz was among a panel of executives and experts who spoke about risks this month at the World Economic Forum’s summer meeting in the Chinese seaside city of Dalian. The forum focused on how businesses and governments will emerge from the financial crisis.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090915/how-profit-catastrophe