Revenue grew while pre-tax profits fell in the six months ending 31 December 2020 at Clinigen Group, the Burton-on-Trent-based pharmaceutical products and services group.
Newly published half year results, following COVID-19 disruption, show that revenue increased by 6% to £258.1m, in comparison to £243.7m in the same period of the prior year. Profit before tax meanwhile dipped 8% to £22.7m from £24.8m.
Shaun Chilton, Chief Executive Officer, said: “Clinical trial and hospital demand have been severely impacted by the pandemic as the focus remains on treating COVID-19 patients and the roll out of the vaccines.
“Like many companies focused on hospital-based treatments, and oncology in particular, we have seen some effect on our operations during the period, but the diversity of our business model has helped us to mitigate much of the disruption and we have ended the first half ahead of market expectations.
“During H1, we remained focused on our core business, on generating cash and improving synergies within Clinigen to support our future growth. We reorganised our structure, simplifying it from three to two divisions, to align us closer with our end-customers.
“We have made good progress in business development and continue to develop our digital solutions to help healthcare professionals’ source hard-to-find essential medicines quickly and easily.
“Moving into H2, we see strong cash conversion and improving operational performance reducing our leverage below 2.0x EBITDA within the calendar year. We may not be immune to the impact of the pandemic, but our business model gives us a degree of resilience. We continue to guide shareholders to an acceleration of growth in FY22.”