Share price hits record high
Nov 7 2006 By Graeme King, The Journal
A huge leap in pre-tax profits at North drug testing kit firm Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDS) led its share price to reach a record high.
The South Tyneside company, which only listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in December 2004, has posted earnings of £737,000 for the six months to September 30 - up 90% on 2005's performance.
And sales have also been impressive, seeing a 22% leap to £4.53m, with more expected by analysts in the next few years. Shares slipped back slightly from the initial 22% leap to 183.5p to close at more than 173p, 15.6% up on the day, and still a record high.
IDS makes testing kits which are used to help diagnose or monitor diseases including osteoporosis, or providing information for research studies.
Managing director Dr Roger Duggan, the new Tyneside & Northumberland Business Executive of the Year in The Journal's awards, said yesterday he was pleased with the company's progress, and was looking forward to winning bigger contracts in the future, following investment in automation.
He said: "It's been a very good six months for us, following on from a very good first 12 months. The US, Germany, France and the UK have all performed well in sales. We have automated our biggest selling products, and can now go after much bigger accounts."
Dr Duggan said where IDS had previously only supplied its products for manual use, it now sold or leased a machine for its clients to use them more efficiently.
The managing director said IDS' in-house R&D staff were busy handling automation, but new products would still become available through licensing deals with third parties. He added that staff numbers would rise from the current 55 to over 60 over the coming months.
He said: "We are recruiting on R&D here and have just started two new staff in technical support. There will be two more technicians by the end of the year. Our new technical director arrives in January and we are also looking at another board position - an operations director."
Dr Duggan said IDS was also mindful of the need to tackle the growing Indian and Chinese markets.
He said: "We are going to break into China and India with distributors. The markets over there are enormous and the prospect of competition coming from there is gargantuan. Their development of a scientific base, and their knowledge development is awesome."
House broker Teather & Greenwood's Mike Mitchell said yesterday he expects full year turnover at IDS to rise by 37% from March 2006's figure of £8.1m to £11.1m in 2008.
And though this has been scaled back from a previous forecast of £12.05m for 2008, there is still confidence that earnings per share will be just over 15.5p - as previously expected.
