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Axis-Shield Plc Pre- Close Statement Conference Call - Final.

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Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Good day, and welcome to the Axis-Shield Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ian Gilham, please go ahead sir.

IAN GILHAM, CEO, AXIS-SHIELD PLC: Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for calling in this morning. I think you've had a chance to look at the update we sent out this morning, so I propose not to read that by popular request. And I'll just briefly go through the key highlights, and then we're happy to take your questions, myself Ian Gilham online and, of course, Ronny Hermansen Group Finance Director.

So, to precis the results that we published this morning -- or sorry, the pre-close that we published this morning, our revenues -- we are expecting our revenues to show strong growth of approximately 27% for the first half of this year versus the first half of last year. Included in that growth is, of course, contributions from our newly acquired Swiss distributor, now our Swiss subsidiary, and also the ongoing strength of the Norwegian krona, which has positively impacted the results in the first half. Net of those, comparing like for like, we anticipate growth of around 14% which we still believe is very good.

During the first half we've made significant investments in the sales and marketing structure, particularly around Afinion in the U.S. and working capital to go along with the penetration of Afinion into the U.S. marketplace.

In addition we are making good progress with the move to our new unified premises in Oslo. Some of you had the opportunity to visit the site recently, and where we've now moved NycoCard manufacturing, are in the process of moving Afinion cartridge manufacturing. And we are on track to be fully occupying that site and give up the two current sites of point-of-care units in Oslo by year end.

Despite this increased investment we expect to make good progress with profitability in the first half, and we anticipate that that will certainly be in line with Board expectations.

Specifically around Afinion we've made good progress. We continue to get good customer feedback both in terms of ease of use and the reliability of the Afinion instrument. And we anticipate that we will be at around 2,500 installed instrument base for the first half by the end of the first half this year. In addition we are making good progress on the intellectual property. And as you've recently seen we've announced that we've got patent coverage in Europe, in Japan and in the U.S. So we are continuing to make good progress on the intellectual capital around the Afinion instrument. So we are doing well with Afinion.

NycoCard continues to do well. The whole issue of antibiotic resistance is one that's gaining merit. Don't know if anyone saw some interviews on the TV this morning with Alan Johnson, Health Secretary, antibiotic resistance and the fight against antibiotic resistance is a key focus in the U.K. And we anticipate that that's certainly driving CRP demand for NycoCard and Afinion for the future.

In addition we -- in addition to HbA1c and diabetes management on NycoCard, we are actually starting to build a significant franchise in HbA1c testing. We have NycoCard, which continues to grow particularly in emerging economies. Afinion is doing well. And the patented HbA1c test on the...

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