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Stem Cell specialist Epistem says trading strong, expects maiden full year profit

Published: 11:07 31 Jul 2009 BST

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Adult epithelial stem cell specialist, Epistem plc (AIM: EHP) confirmed yesterday that it would post a maiden profit after tax for the full year ending 30 June 2009, thanks to “strong” trading and a tax credit from the prior year.


Shares in Epistem were little moved on the announcement, not entirely unsurprising when looking at the strong appreciation in its share price over the past few months.  Clearly the market was confident that the company would hit its numbers, and the market is not often wrong.


Epistem’s recent share price performance places is amongst the best performing stocks in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, in spite of two of its largest shareholders, Helium Special Situations Fund and Calculus Capital, both taking advantage of recent gains to trim their holdings to 9.4% and 13.99% respectively.


The company’s business model is based around leveraging its intellectual property and the expertise in stem cell research. The company’s three divisions include: Novel Therapies, which looks to find preclinical leads for new drugs; Contract Research, which looks at the preclinical efficacy of third party new drug compounds; and Biomarkers, which work with both preclinical and clinical stage drugs in development.

Both Daniel Stewart and Piper Jaffray (Nomad and House Broker) have a ‘buy’ stance on Epistem. Daniel Steward if forecasting full year (June 30 2010) profit before tax of £0.8 million on revenues of £5.3 million.  Piper Jaffray is slightly more bullish, anticipating FY 2010 profit before tax of £0.9 million on revenues of £5.5 million.

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