Smith & Nephew lifted by endoscopy arm

Medical equipment maker Smith & Nephew today said the recovery in its endoscopy arm was continuing as it posted a 7% rise in pre-tax profits to £67m (€101.4m).

The company said sales had increased 6% in the division, which makes tubing and other equipment used to look inside the body.

Although the performance did not match the 8% growth achieved in the first quarter, S&N described it as “good progress”.

Smith & Nephew does about 55% of its sales in the US and the remainder in the UK, where its operations include its wound-management division in Hull and a group resources centre in York. It is active in 32 countries around the world and employs more than 7,000 people.

It said sales of orthopaedic equipment grew 14%, helped by the division’s US operations, which outperformed their market for a further quarter.

The group said it had reorganised the division, which had helped to drive growth, and increased the sales team by 14% since the beginning of the year.

S&N said overall first half pre-tax profits were 15% up at £129m (€195.1m) against the same period last year.

During the half, the group bought metal-on-metal hip resurfacing business MMT, which is a market leader with annual sales of £20m (€30.3m) in 2003.

The group said its markets were continuing to grow strongly.

“We expect to achieve our full-year targets of underlying high-teens sales growth for orthopaedics and high single digits for endoscopy and wound-management,” the group said.