Pharma services company Hvivo delivers record revenues in first half

Dublin and London-listed pharmaceutical services company Hvivo delivered record revenues and grew its profit to almost £4 million (€4.6 million) in the first six months of this year, its interim results show.

The company, formerly known as Open Orphan, described the first half of 2023 as “another period of excellent growth”. Its profit of more than £3.9 million for the period was up from £277,000 in the same period of 2022 and a loss of £776,000 in the second half of last year.

The company, which specialises in testing infectious and respiratory disease products, delivered record revenue of £27.3 million, which represented a 52 per cent increase on the £18 million delivered the previous year.

The rare and orphan drug consulting services platform recorded earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) growth of 129 per cent to £5.2 million, up from £2.3 million, with EBITDA margin increasing from 12.6 per cent to 19.1 per cent.

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Hvivo had net cash of £31.3 million on June 30th, almost double what it recorded on its books a year earlier. The group said it is debt free, has a robust net working capital, and has structured its contracts to be cash flow positive.

Venn Life Sciences, its drug development consulting subsidiary, reported strong revenue growth of 20 per cent in the first half of 2023.

The company — which was formed when the group’s chairman Cathal Friel reversed his pharma services business of the same name into Dublin-listed drug clinical trials manager Venn Life Sciences — said the outlook for the business “remains extremely positive”.

It said the increasing number of human challenge trials highlights that the market is experiencing a strong growth trend that will continue over the long term.

The board has increased its revenue guidance to £55 million for 2023 as well as increasing its EBITDA margin guidance to about 19 per cent for 2023.

Furthermore, it is the board’s intention to pay a nominal annual dividend following the publication of the full year results for 2023. A special one-off dividend of 0.45 pence per share was paid to shareholders on June 9th, totalling more than £3 million.

Mr Friel said it faces “a busy couple of months ahead and an even busier 2024″, with a weighted order-book of £78 million at the end of June and visibility into late 2024 “underpinning our sustainable growth trajectory”.