Winsford, UK -- Woundcare specialist Advanced Medical Solutions Group plc (AMS) announced strong results for 2008, with pretax profits up by 54 percent over 2007, to £2.9 million ($4.23 million), on sales of £20.3 million, a 21 percent improvement over 2007.
The Winsford, Cheshire-headquartered organisation paid £2.3 million last year for a 49.4-percent stake in the small Dutch operation Corpura BV, a subsidiary of Belgian polyurethane foam group Recticel NV.
Corpura develops and produces hydrophilic urethane foams for the medical and cosmetic markets, from its base at Etten Leur in the Netherlands.
AMS's 17 March results statement said the hydrophilic PU foams sector is, "the largest and fastest growing segment of the advanced woundcare dressings market."
Describing 2008 as, "a year of excellent progress for AMS," Dr Geoffrey Vernon, chairman, said that the group has broadened its customer base and strengthened its technology portfolio.
Advanced woundcare, based on moist-healing principles, is a $15 000 million market globally, with AMS having expertise in silver alginate uses and topical tissue adhesives, as well as the polyurethane foam dressings it acquired in the Corpura deal. Many of its products rely on seaweed extracts to promote healing or silver to act as an antimicrobial and prevent infection.
Corpura, with 11 employees, supplies AMS with the base polyurethane foam needed for its AMS's wound dressings. AMS said its stake in Corpura has "given it "a strong technology position in polyurethane foams: these materials are the largest ($900 million) - and fastest growing (20 percent a year) segment in advanced woundcare, AMS emphasised.
The polyurethane dressings also provide "an ideal platform material" for delivery of higher value technologies such as the silver alginate infection control materials, said AMS. Such advanced technologies exploit AMS's research and development capability and intellectual property rights concerning methods of controlling infection and promoting wound healing.
The joint venture with Recticel contributed £80 000 to AMS's profits in 2008, the group commented.
"
