A pharmaceutical company has reported its profits up by almost 100 per cent as it prepares to out-licence a vaccine for hayfever.

Allergy Therapeutics, based on the East Worthing Industrial Estate, has announced total gross sales up 20 per cent to £22.9 million and net sales up 15 per cent to £20.6 million for the year ended June 30.

Much of the company's success has been down to sales of its flagship product Pollinex Quattro, helping increase Allergy Therapeutics' operating profit by 97 per cent to £6.1 million.

While many vaccines for patients with hayfever require up to 20 injections over a period of about two years, just four shots of Pollinex Quattro are required in as little as three weeks. Sales of the vaccine have focused on Germany, Italy and Spain but Allergy Therapeutics is hoping to market the product worldwide.

The company has signed an out-licence agreement for Pollinex Quattro with Canadian pharmaceuticals company Allerpharma for exclusive rights to the Canadian market.

Chief executive Keith Carter said: "Our products give patients long-term benefit by retraining the immune system.

"From our Worthing base, we will hopefully sell new products worldwide."

Pollinex Quattro has massive growth potential. An estimated 16 million people in the UK and 60 million people in the USA suffer from seasonal allergic rhinitis, the clinical name for hayfever.

Mr Carter said: "Allergy vaccines are not widely used in the UK but are in Europe.

"A lot more doctors in Germany, for example, are familiar with the treatment and are able to administer it.

"Allergy vaccines are normally considered to be more effective than antihistamines and have longterm curative potential.

"With vaccines, you retrain the immune system and, eventually, the patient will be better. Hopefully, we will bring these vaccines to the UK market."

Allergy Therapeutics has a history going back to the 1930s. Originally, it was part of SmithKline Beecham but Allergy's management team bought the company from the larger group seven years ago.

It was floated on the AIM Index in October last year. Allergy Therapeutics employs 165 people in Worthing, with 20 of them recruited in the past two months.

A further three or four people are joining the company in the next few weeks. The company also employs 100 people at its sales bases in Germany, Italy and Spain, and is in the process of setting up new offices in Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

Finance director Ian Postlethwaite said: "Most of the people recently recruited in Worthing are in production.

"We are really gearing up the production facility but have also bolstered the management team to prepare for the time when our products are registered in the US."

Tuesday 20 September 2005