Sirtex sales continue to grow

Sirtex Medical (ASX:SRX) has reported another strong quarter for its SIR-Spheres targeted radioactive liver cancer treatments, reporting year-on-year sales growth of 37% for Q1.

Dose sales increased across all three key regions, Sirtex said. The fastest-growing market was the US, with 42% growth over last year, while sales in APAC grew 33%.

The European market for SIR-Spheres doses continued to recover in the first quarter, after sales contracted 2.9% in 1H12 in the midst of the region's economic instability.

But with 26% growth recorded throughout EMEA, the region is still lagging behind the other markets.

Announcing the latest figures, Sirtex CEO Gilman Wong said this had been the company's best quarter for sales growth in history.

“However we should remember in Europe during the first quarter last year we experienced some issues that impacted negatively on our progress,” he said. “These issues are resolved and we have returned to positive growth.”

Sirtex has now recorded 33 consecutive quarters of unit sales growth, Wong said, adding that the company is “confident, barring unexpected events, that sales of Sirtex’s SIR-Spheres microspheres will continue to grow.”

The quarterly growth follows a 23% increase in dose sales for the whole of FY12. These sales helped Sirtex report a 49% increase in profit for the year to $17.1 million.

Sirtex (ASX:SRX) shares climbed over 7% on Thursday after the sales update was published, to reach $9.890 as of around 2pm.