Cellestis reports FY net profit up 26 percent

Melbourne biotech Cellestis this week announced a full year net profit of $10.22 million, following strong growth in all of the company’s major markets.

Cellestis’ QuantiFERON-TB (QFT) is one of the world’s leading diagnostics products for tuberculosis (TB), a disease which now claims a life every 17 seconds.

The company noted that total revenues increased by 49 percent in the US, 31 percent in Europe with a 25 percent increased recorded for Australia and Japan combined. It said, however, that the strength of the Australian dollar over the last 12 months disguised a strong increase in underlying operational profit.

Cellestis CEO Tony Radford said that the company had succeeded in building on last year’s record sales and operational profit to further strengthen the company’s financial position.

“It’s been another very positive year for Cellestis, underlying growth is very strong with revenues increasing across all of our major markets,” he said. Radford added that the company’s decision to ramp-up sales and marketing activities was an important factor in the result.

Earlier this year the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published guidelines in which it recommended physicians use blood tests such as QFT, to test for TB infection. Cellestis said that this marked a significant development for the company and one which would likely contribute to increased sales.

Cellestis announced a full year dividend of 3.5 cents per share, bringing the total dividend for the year to five cents.