The Medical House starts year well
THE Medical House, the group best known for needle-free injection kits, has made a good start to the year following the sale of its loss-making orthopaedic business Eurocut.
The move, which allows the Sheffield company to focus on its profitable drug delivery operations, was announced last December. Today it said that pre-exceptional operating profit from continuing operations was £162,000 in the six months to December 31 compared to a loss of £142,000 in the 12 months to June 2007.
The group, which has moved its year-end to December, saw a loss from discontinued operations of £3.8m in the second half of last year but has reduced its debts from £3.9m to £400,000.
Turnover in the six months was £780,000 compared to £709,000 for the same period in 2006.
Chairman Ian Townsend said: “The first quarter of 2008 has begun well and consequently trading is considerably better than the same period last year. We confidently expect this trend to continue throughout 2008.”
Last year the group signed a £34m six-year deal with an un-named global pharmaceutical company to provide an auto injector.
The details of the deal will be announced closer to the launch in about 12 months as the pharmaceutical company does not want to alert its rivals to the new drug.
And earlier this year The Medical House received clearance to place one of its products in the US market.
The permission from US Food and Drug Administration will enable the AIM quoted company to market its Compact Auto Safety Injector (CASI) in America.
The CASI will assist the self-administered injection of fixed doses of FDA approved drug products which are provided in pre-filled syringes with staked needles.
Mr Townsend said that in the six months to December 31 the drug delivery division reported continued growth in revenues. It is working on a needle-free injector system for drug group Merck Serono's human growth hormone products.
Margaret Scott is joining the company as finance director at the end of this month to replace Gary Ogden. She has previously worked for Alstom and in the aviation sector.
