Companies: GTX   

Though pre-tax profits slipped from £2m to £421,000 (on sales reduced by 14% to £10.8m) during the year to December Mark Reid, chief executive of genomics and proteomics business Genetix, remains upbeat. 'During the year we implemented two action plans designed to take advantage of the changing market trends' explains Reid. 'We believe these [changes], together with an improving trading climate, will help us deliver enhanced growth'. The changes made effected two main aspects of Genetix's business. Firstly, the company's operations have been restructured into a series of separate business units, the idea being that this should enable each division to focus more effectively. Secondly, particular emphasis is being placed on developing new products for the opportunity rich biopharmaceutical sector. Three new products - including ClonePix an instrument designed for the mammalian cell cloning industry - were launched last year and, with the company spending roughly £1.2m a year on research and development, a raft of further launches are planned for 2004. With trading conditions said to be improving analyst Gary Waanders certainly remains upbeat, forecasting an improved pre-tax profit of £1.4m on sales of £13.7m for 2004. Expected earnings of 1.4p place the shares on a rather hefty prospective p/e of 41.1 times. That said, more than £22m remains in the bank and the shares look a decent speculative bet.