AXIS-Shield, the Dundee medical diagnostics kit maker, yesterday said it was on track for a steep rise in profits after selling more than 2,500 of its Afinion test kits in the first half of the year.
Placed in doctor's surgeries, the kits test for everything from diabetes to bacterial infection and provide laboratory-quality results in within minutes from a single pinprick of blood.
The kits are sold at around cost price, but Axis-Shield makes
high margins on cartridges designed for Afinion. Once installed, profitability will quickly climb.
Axis-Shield predicts it will install 4,500 of the kits by the end of the this year, and a further 3,000 a year in the future.
The company also expressed its relief at the conclusion of a legal battle with Diazme Laboratories, a division of General Atomics, over what Axis-Shield claimed was unlicensed use of a test which measures cardiac disease risk. Under the settlement, completed in July, Axis agreed to drop all litigation in return for GE paying it royalties for sales of the test in Europe.
Axis chief executive Ian Gilham said Axis-Shield was forced into the legislation.
"You have to defend your patents," he said.
"If people license your patents you have to defend them, that's part of the deal." he said.
Axis-Shield reported a pre-tax profit of £1.6 million for the six months to 30 June.
The full article contains 246 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
