Cyprotex, a specialist ADME-Tox contract research organisation based in the UK, reported a ‘good performance across all parts of the business’ in its interim results for the half year to 30 June 2013.
Revenue was up 22.3% to £4.55m (H1 2012: £3.72m), with an increase of 33.7% in Europe and 15% in the US.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were ‘robust’ at £703,000 (H1 2012: £89,000). Operating profit was £317,000 (H1 2012: loss £189,000).
Chief Executive Tony Baxter said the firm had seen ‘good global trading as a result of building long-term relationships with customers’. In total 78 new customer contracts were signed in the first half of 2013 (H1 2012: 88).
Cyprotex has also attracted new investment from Oryx International and Henderson Global in the UK, who now own 27.3% and 6.95%, respectively, and has raised a further £7m, which will be used to replicate in Watertown, Massachusetts, the high throughput analytical capabilities and advanced automated workflows of the operation in Macclesfield, UK, as well as to make acquisitions.
Baxter said the firm’s 18-month collaborative research project in the area of predictive toxicology with Pfizer, announced in October 2012, ‘is proceeding well’.
Cyprotex has also won a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contract of up to $10m over five years to support Phase II of the ToxCast programme. Baxter said the contract, which will start later this year, ‘validated and endorsed’ the firm’s technology.
New service offerings, such as the upgraded CellCiphr high content screen for determination of hepatotoxicity and eCiphrCardio, a new cardiotoxicology assay launched in February, have also ‘rapidly attracted high-value customers’.
The firm has also made ‘significant investment’ in instrumentation by adding two further Waters Xevo TQ mass spectrometers and a second new robotic screening platform (TECAN Freedom EVO 200).
