YORK veterinary medicine specialist Animalcare is on track for a year of growth following an increase in revenues to almost £7 million.

Reporting its interim results for the six months ending December 31, 2014, Animalcare revealed a rise in turnover of 7.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2013, up to £6.93 million.

As a result the group, based at York Business Park, saw underlying operating profits increase from £1.44 million in the first half of 2013 to £1.79 million.

Animalcare's Licensed Veterinary Medicines division, represents around 60 per cent of overall business revenues, with sales up 10.6 per cent to £4.40 million.

The groups animal chipping division Companion Animal Identification delivered an overall increase in sales of five per cent to £1.26 million.

Animalcare chief executive Iain Menneer said: "The Group delivered another solid trading performance, building on the firm foundations established during the previous financial year.

"Our robust balance sheet and cash position continues to reflect the highly cash generative nature of our operations, supported in the first half by planned activity to reduce our inventory levels.

"Strategically, we continue to focus on delivering growth from our current core business and our product development pipeline to accelerate our organic expansion from 2016 onwards.

"Though it inevitably takes time for this progress to be visible externally, the activity in our product development pipeline has increased significantly in the last 18 months.

Changes to the product development team and processes are having a positive effect on the progress of our new pharmaceutical product pipeline. In order to maintain momentum and explore the extensive range of business opportunities available to Animalcare, we are starting to recruit additional resource.

We expect to launch three new pharmaceutical products in the second half of the financial year, on distribution from one of our European partners, which will keep up the momentum in the core part of our business."