Amersham's 1st Half Disappoints But Strategy Good

Although not as spectacular as a year ago, Amersham International's financial results for the first half of 1994 are good given the current health care environment, said Kirk Stephenson, Amersham's finance director. The company achieved pretax profit growth of 13% to L19.6 million ($31.6 million), operating profit growth of 14% to L19.8 million, and earnings per share grew 12% to 20.8 pence in the first six months of the year. Group turnover was L163.1 million, ahead 6%.

There was an outstanding performance by the health care division, which was the major profit driver, in terms of operating profit, which advanced 267% to L5.5 million. Trading profits were L8.8 million, up 115%. The division achieved sales of L62.3 million up 14%. Bill Castell, chief executive, said that sales growth of branded health care products was behind the division's strong performance.

Health care sales in North America were particularly strong, benefiting from a full six months of sales of Metastron (strontium89) which had first-half sales of L10.2 million, up 161.5%. Myoview (tetrofosmin), a heart imaging agent, achieved sales of L1.5 million. It is yet to be launched in the USA. Sales of Ceretec (technetium exametazime), a brain imaging agent, declined 6.2% to L11.3 million. Product sales were hit by the launch in Europe and Japan of DuPont Merck's Neurolyte. In order to combat this Amersham is looking to get a claim for diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.