Axis-Shield plc announces its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2009
Operating highlights Point of Care Division
- Revenues up 27.3% to £22.1 million (H1 2008: £17.4 million)
- Over 5,000 Afinion systems in place by end-June 2009; revenues £7.2 million, up 93.4 %
- On track to achieve full year target of 2,500 new Afinion placements, with 50% in US
- New hs-CRP marker for cardiovascular risk now in development
- NycoCard sales up 9,2% to £12.3 million (H1 2008: £11.3 million) including 20.7% increase in NycoCard HbA1c
- More than 2,000 new NycoCard Reader II instruments placed
- Installed base of NycoCard Reader II instruments in excess of 33,000
- Acquisition of PoC distribution business in Germany
Commenting on the results, Nigel Keen, Chairman of Axis-Shield said:
“We have produced a sound first half performance by building the revenues of our key products. We continue to broaden the range of tests we market, and today we announce plans to market a new Afinion™ test for high sensitivity CRP, which is being increasingly recognised as an important marker for cardiovascular disease. I look forward to reporting another set of strong results at the year end.”
Chairman’s Statement Interim Report 2009
Our Afinion system continues to attract positive comments regarding its ease-of-use, reliability and accuracy and this was confirmed in the paper by Arabadjief and Nichols in the March 2009 edition of the journal “Point of Care”, along with its superiority over current methodologies for measuring HbA1c for the monitoring of diabetes control at the point of care.
We have now installed over 5,000 Afinion instruments in the marketplace and we expect to see increased cartridge utilisation per system as the Afinion menu is expanded. Our Afinion menu development programme is progressing well and we expect to launch a PT (Prothrombin Time) venous blood test for use in monitoring anticoagulation therapy before the end of the year, outside the USA. A capillary blood version, required for the US market, will follow in 2011, with a lipid panel planned for 2011/12.
NycoCard, our long-established point-of-care system, recorded sales of £12.3m, up 9.2% over the same period in 2008, helped by favourable exchange rates. On-going global demand for this simple, accurate and cost-effective testing system continues and NycoCard HbA1c is particularly well suited to diabetes management programmes in emerging markets.
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