Agenix profits up as sales soar

One of Australia oldest biotechs, Agenix Ltd, has produced extraordinary across-the-board results on booming sales of its blood clot diagnostic and infant hygiene products.

The 20-year-old group recorded an 11 per cent rise in after-tax profit to $4.2 million on record revenues of $40.3 million, or 39 per cent up on the previous year.

Both major arms of the company contributed to the impressive result, with revenues from blood clot diagnostic division Agen Biomedical climbing 37 per cent to $23 million, and infant hygiene division Milton Pharmaceutical up 44 per cent to $16.8 million.

Public concern about deep vein thrombosis helped accelerate sales of Agen's D-dimer diagnostic products and royalty licence income from its D-dimer IP climbed 165 per cent to $2.9 million.

The gains by Milton Pharmaceutical in the first full year of trading with the Milton brand were even more impressive because they were achieved despite the market flop of two products during the year.

Agenix' rosy results included cash flow levels up 168 per cent to $9.1 million before R&D costs. Subtracting R&D expenditures of $3.4 million (up 44 per cent) still left cash flow of $5.7 million, a company record which leaves it with cash reserves of $7 million.

"We are extremely happy to generate that much cash flow and to have had an extremely good year overall," said Agenix CEO Don Home.

During the year Agenix experienced a hiccup with its ThromboView blood clot-imaging project developing radio-labelled antibodies to locate blood clots in the body.

An external supplier failed to deliver cGMP manufactured product for human trials, which has pushed back first human dosage tests from November to next March. Agenix claims the setback will have minimal effect on ThromboView's overall development schedule.

Home declined to put a percentage figure on Agenix's expected growth next year, but said the company would be increasing its staff count, which now stands at close to 200.