IDS boosted by 'remarkable' vitamin D market

The growing concern over vitamin D deficiency has boosted sales at Immunodiagnostic Systems, the maker of diagnostic kits, as it increased its dividend by 10 per cent and launched a new automatic diagnostic device.

"Vitamin D is a remarkable market at the moment and has been for the last couple of years," said Roger Duggan, chief executive of IDS.

"The demand for vitamin D testing in the US rose by 80 per cent to 90 per cent last year. In France, the market tripled over the past seven quarters.

It has been driven by publications that depict vitamin D as important in having a preventive effect on disease onset," he said.

"Colorectal cancer, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, auto-immune diseases, high blood pressure . . . you name it, low vitamin D is bad news and that's what's driving the market."

IDS makes diagnostic kits for research laboratories and medical clinics. In addition to testing for vitamin deficiency, the group makes tests to determine patient susceptibility to kidney and bone disease.

At present, the manual kits are shipped to laboratories in small shoebox-sized packages containing test-tubes for about 40 different patient tests. IDS has also launched a new desk-top machine the size of a large office printer that can process about 1,000 patient samples a day.

For the full-year to March 31 pre-tax profit rose 27 per cent to £4.8m on revenues that rose 51 per cent to £24.9m. Earnings per share increased 21 per cent to 16.166p.

The company has proposed a final and total dividend of 1.65p.

Shares in IDS rose 3½p to close at 240p.