Healthcare company Uniphar has reported an operating profit of €23.6m for the six months to the end of June, up almost 18% on 2020.
Revenues for the first half of 2021 rose over 10% to nearly €965m as it continued to play a critical role during the pandemic ensuring continuity in the supply of medicines, medical devices, and related services to the healthcare sector.
Uniphar said the integration of acquisitions it made last year, including Hickey's Pharmacy Group, RRD International, Diligent Health Solutions and Innerstrength, are progressing well and are delivering the expected benefits.
The company said the business has performed in line with expectations, with growth across all three divisions - Commercial & Clinical, Product Access and Supply Chain & Retail.
This reflected strong organic growth and the benefit from recent acquisitions, it added.
Gross profits at its Commercial & Clinical division rose by 27.5% to €53.4m from €41.9m in 2020, while gross profits at its Product Access unit increased by 31.6% to €20m from €15.2m.
Its Supply Chain & Retail division posted gross profits of €60.8m, an increase of 33.8% on the profits of €45.4m last year.
The company said that despite the difficulties of the Covid-19 trading environment, Uniphar has created many opportunities for growth.
"These new opportunities coupled with our continued investment in M&A, digital solutions and diversity in our products and services has demonstrated the group's sustainable growth strategy and the resilience of our business which resulted in the group delivering overall gross profit growth of 30.9% for the first six months of 2021," the company added.
Since June, the company has completed two acquisitions in the Commercial & Clinical division.
CoRRect Medical GmbH, a German-headquartered company, specialises in the commercialisation and distribution of medical device products in the interventional cardiology sector across Germany and Switzerland.
New York-based BESTMSLs Group provides outsourced Medical Affairs services including the provision of contract Medical Science Liaison teams and digital solutions.
Ger Rabbette, Uniphar Group's chief executive, said the group delivered strong results for H1 2021 with double digit organic gross profit growth and EBITDA growth of 36.2%.
"While all divisions have performed well, the Commercial & Clinical division has performed particularly strongly, outperforming against its medium-term guidance," Ger Rabbette said.
"We remain confident and are on track to achieve our strategic objective of doubling 2018 pro-forma EBITDA within five years of IPO," the CEO added.
Uniphar also today announced the appointment of Hugh McDonnell as chief technology officer for the group.
The CTO role is a newly-created position on the Executive Leadership team reporting to the CEO.
Mr McDonell was the former Chief Architect for eShopWorld, one of the fastest growing Irish technology companies.
Having worked also in IT consultancy for a number of years, he has extensive experience in sectors such as freight and logistics, automation, telecoms and finance.
