Amersham yesterday gave a third quarter trading update in the build-up to its proposed $9.5 billion (€8.1bn) acquisition by General Electric and said that it would meet its full-year financial forecasts.
The UK company reported sales of £393 million (€573 million) in the three-month period, up 5 per cent at constant exchange rates and excluding discontinued product sales compared to the same period of 2002.
Sales in Amersham Health in the quarter were £235 million, up six per cent. The best performer in the division was the medical diagnostics business, with sales rising 11 per cent driven by the patented product portfolio (up 19 per cent).
Visipaque (iohexol), Amersham's non-ionic X-ray contrast media, continued to benefit from the results of the NEPHRIC study, published in February, which indicated that the product had a lower chance of causing nephropathy than rival contrast agents. However, the business in Japan was affected by low bulk sales, according to the company.
In Amersham Biosciences, growth in the Protein Separations sector improved in the third quarter with a 7 per cent increase to £67 million. North America contributed the lion's share of that increase, and sales growth in laboratory separations was driven by AKTApilot, the bench-top protein purification system launched earlier this year.
Discovery still soft
Sales in Discovery Systems were flat at £91 million (excluding discontinued product sales of £5 million), with growth in proteomics and bioassays offset by continued weakness in the sequencing market. The CodeLink oligonucleotide bioarray range for gene expression profiling and SNP genotyping achieved steadily increasing sales, according to the company, although specific detals were not available.
Meanwhile, the restructuring programme in the Discovery Systems unit is ahead of schedule and is on track to deliver profitability as planned during 2004, according to the firm.