Ergomed Plc (LON:ERGO) increased interim revenues by more than a fifth on the back another strong half year for its drug safety and information business Primevigilance.
Revenues at the clinical services specialist rose to £17.6mln (£14.5mln), with Primevigilance chipping in £5.5mln, a 53% jump on a year earlier.
Underlying profits [EBITDA] rose 12% to £1.9mln, though pre-tax profits dipped to £820,000 (£1.06mln) after £400,000 of M&A costs.
Miroslav Reljanovic, chief executive, said it had been an excellent first half.
Primevigilance continues to go well, while the acquisitions strategy that had seen it add two service groups O+P and GASD had strengthened its product range.
They add “immediate significant, tangible value including an in-house Electronic Data Capture system, "OPVERDI" and biostatistics and data management capabilities," said Reljanovic.
As well as clinical services, Ergomed also takes small stakes in new drugs being developed by its partners and two of these, Ferrer and Aeterna Zentaris, have trial results due around the end of 2016 and early 2017 respectively.
In May, it also acquired Haemostatix for US$28mln, which is developing a novel treatment for surgical bleeding and also has a phase II trial to start next year.
Broker N+1 said: "The board continues to evaluate additional potential service business acquisitions and a number of co-development leads are under discussion.
"We continue to favour Ergomed’s integrated business model of services provision, co-development and development."
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