Alliance Pharma PLC (LON:APH) has highlighted a strong performance in the first half of 2021 ahead of its interim results, due in September.
The company told investors that revenue amounted to around £80.9mln, up 24% on the comparative months of last year. Like-for-like revenue, excluding Amberen (acquired in December 2020), totalled £71.4mln, a 9% improvement.
Alliance pointed to strength in its consumer healthcare business with its revenue rising 30% to £56.8mln and added that Amberen continues to trade in line with the company’s pre-acquisition expectations.
“Our consumer healthcare business continues to perform well - Kelo-cote in particular enjoyed a very strong first half,” said chief executive Peter Butterfield. “We were pleased with the first-half performance from Amberen, and the integration of the brand into our US-based operations is now complete.
"We expect the group's strong performance will continue throughout the second half and anticipate this will have a positive impact on cash generation and our ability to further deleverage by the year end."
Alliance noted that its prescription medicines business saw an uplift of 12% to £24.1mln and it said that some negative impacts of COVID-19 on the delivery of routine treatments had eased.
Group free cash-flow was marked at £6.5mln, reflecting an anticipated reversal of favourable working capital movements in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the timing of sales.
Net debt reduced by £2.7mln to £106.7mln, whilst group leverage reduced to 2.21 times at the end of June – and the company expects leverage to fall further to 2.0 times by year end.