LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Healthcare company Alliance Pharma updated the market on its first half on Tuesday, reporting that it had traded "strongly", with see-through revenue rising 24% year-on-year to £80.9m, or 28% on a constant currency basis.
The AIM-traded firm said that excluding 'Amberen', which was acquired in December, like-for-like see-through revenue totalled £71.4m for the six months ended 30 June, which was 9% higher than the first half of 2020, or 12% at constant exchange rates.

Based on trading in the year-to-date, its board said it was expecting underlying profit before tax for the full year to be in line with market expectations.

It said its consumer healthcare brands were performing strongly, with total divisional revenues up 30% to £56.8m, and like-for-like revenues, excluding Amberen, ahead 8% to £47.3m.

'Kelo-cote' delivered another strong performance, with revenues up 54% to £21.9m, while Amberen continued to trade in line with its pre-acquisition expectations, generating revenues of £9.5m, making for a constant currency increase of 10%.

'Nizoral' revenues were 8% lower than the same period last year at £9.0m, or 7% weaker on a constant currency basis, primarily due to the phasing of distributor orders.

Alliance reported an uplift in its prescription medicines business in the period, with revenues increasing 12% to £24.1m, as some of the negative impact of Covid-19 on the delivery of routine treatments eased.

Free cash flow for the period totalled £6.5m, down from £10.5m a year earlier, with the board putting the reduction down to the expected reversal of the favourable working capital movements in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the timing of sales within the period.

Net debt narrowed by £2.7m to £106.7m as at 30 June, as group leverage reduced to 2.21x at period end, from 2.43x at the end of December.

Its directors said they still expected that to fall below 2x by the end of the year.

"Our consumer healthcare business continues to perform well - Kelo-cote in particular enjoyed a very strong first half," said chief executive officer Peter Butterfield.

"We were pleased with the first half performance from Amberen, and the integration of the brand into our US-based operations is now complete.

"We expect the group's strong performance will continue throughout the second half, and anticipate this will have a positive impact on cash generation and our ability to further deleverage by the year-end."

At 0909 BST, shares in Alliance Pharma were up 1.81% at 101.2p.

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