Alliance Pharma hikes dividend

Pharmaceutical company, Alliance Pharma, has hiked its interim dividend after reporting a rise in profits for the first half of the year.Alliance said pre-tax profits came in at £7m, which were up from £6m the previous year and equated to earnings per share of 2.38p. However, after stripping out the £1.7m exceptional items in the first half of 2010, underlying pre-tax profit decreased by £0.7m to £7.0m, which the company put down to a combination of lower gross margin and increased costs. It declared an interim dividend of 0.25p per share, an increase of 47% on last year.Alongside these results Alliance also announced the acquisition of six products from Beacon Pharmaceuticals for £2.4m in cash. The firm said main product in this portfolio was Rizuderm, which is used in the treatment of severe acne and fitted well in Alliance's dermatology business. This deal is expected to make an immediate positive contribution, it said.