Irish pharmaceuticals wholesaler United Drug posted a 15 per cent rise in full-year earnings on Wednesday and said it expected further double digit growth in the year ahead despite government price cuts.
"(We are) absolutely committed to continuing the track record, that's the key message and that's very much where we see the company continuing to grow and grow," chief executive Liam FitzGerald said.
The company expected growth to come both from United Drug's existing business and further acquisitions, he added.
The company earlier said that, once adjusted to exclude goodwill amortisation and exceptional items, earnings per share in the 12 months to the end of September rose 15 per cent to 18.13 cents - in line with analyst expectations of 18 cents.
Turnover rose 6 per cent to almost €1.33 billion as FitzGerald said the impact of cutbacks by the British government on how much it pays for drugs wore off in the second half of the year.
"It's just a pick-up mainly in the UK market ... The price reduction last January had an impact for the first six or seven months of producing negative growth in the UK market but it's beginning to wash through now and we've seen a pick-up in momentum in the second half of the year."
Mr FitzGerald said he was confident that the company could comfortably withstand similar price cuts planned by the Irish government. "I think we can say 'Look, we've been able to deal with a very significant issue on a third of our wholesale business, the other two-thirds are subject obviously to whatever the Irish government might do'.
"Our sense, and it's purely a sense at this stage, is that whatever the Irish government does will be less aggressive than has happened with the U.K. government price cuts."
A 9 per cent fall in the company's share price so far this year was probably an overreaction on the part of investors to fears over pending Irish price cuts, Mr FitzGerald said.
"We do believe that people are probably overly cautious about what might happen and the impact it may have. We do not believe it will be significant."