Good Performance For Nycomed And Amersham

Newly-merged Anglo/Norwegian company Nycomed Amersham'sbetter-than-expected results failed to please the investment community, which seems to think that if the Amersham and Pharmacia & Upjohn joint venture, Amersham Pharmacia Bioscience and a Japanese JV are stripped out, then the performance was rather uninspired.

The figures for the two entitities were reported separately. For Amersham International, first-half 1997 sales grew 35% to L267.7 million ($454.4 million), with pretax profits up 32% to L37.6 million (after an adverse exchange effect of L6.9 million). R&D spending rose 60% to L20 million.

Health care sales advanced 45% at level exchange rates to L127 million, and benefited from an increased shareholding in Nihon Medi-Physics and the acquisition of Cygene and Sorin. In Life Sciences, sales were up 65% at level exchange rates to L122 million, helped by the inclusion of two months' turnover from Amersham Pharmacia Bioscience and strong sales in DNA sequencing and drug development services, the company said. The main drivers were the heart imaging agent Myoview (sales of which leapt 93% to L17.6 million) and Iodine Seeds (rapidstrand) for the treatment of prostate cancer, for which turnover was up 89% at L9.8 million. On a comparable basis, health care sales rose 19% and pretax profits were 58% higher.