Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The leading provider to the drug discovery industry of human tissue and human tissue-based services, Cambridge-based Asterand, said it continues to progress towards its goals of sustained profitability and sales growth.

Asterand is chasing contracts within government and academia similar to the consulting contract it has with the US Department of Defense for assessment of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) biorepository as it says the research value of these types of collections is beginning to be recognised on a broader scale.

Speaking in its interim management statement for the quarter ended March 31, Asterand said demand for human tis sue and human tissue based services in research was strong and the company continued to expand its donor site network to meet this increasing demand.

It added that based on unaudited results, first quarter revenues reached £2.2m, a 32 per cent increase over 2007 (£1.7m) at constant exchange rates.

Significant progress was also made in the restructuring of its UK organisation, resulting in annualised savings of £700k.

It added that a revitalised international commercial team has increased the company's market penetration and in the first quarter of 2008, 39 new customers were added as these managers successfully expanded its customer base in both old and new accounts.

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