Strong Second Half Boosts Pro Medicus Full Year Result

Leading medical IT and e-health company, Pro Medicus Limited (ASX:PME), today announced its results for the financial year ending June 30, 2004.

Financial Highlights

• Full year Profit before Tax of $5.02 million (after the $1.2 million reversal of accrued revenue due to deferral of a Mayne contract)

• Full year Profit after tax of $3.58 million. Second half PAT of $2.52 million, up 21.8% on previous corresponding period

• Final dividend of 2.25 cents per share fully franked. Full year dividend increased 7.7% to 3.50 cents per share fully franked

• Cash reserves increased to $10.5 million

• Operationally debt free

Business Highlights

• Considerable progress with digital radiology integration products with a number of important contracts won. These included a major public sector tender, new and existing private radiology practices and a flagship practice of one of the country's largest private radiology groups, Mayne Imaging.

• Continued strong growth of promedicus.net, the company's e-health offering, with over 16,000 doctors now using the service to send or receive diagnostic results. The network carried 2.4 million transactions for the year (up 27.8%).

• Acquisition and launch of ProMed Clinical, opening up a new market sector for Pro Medicus in the GP clinical desktop software market.

A strong second half lifted after tax profit to $3.58 million, for the full year on revenue of $8.402 million. Second half PAT of $2.52 million was a 21.8% increase on the previous year's second half result. The 2003/2004 first half PAT of $1.06 million was impacted by the reversal of $1.2 million in accrued revenue after major client, Mayne, deferred the implementation of a large contract. Based on assurances from senior Mayne executives, Pro Medicus expects that this contract will be resumed in due course, at which stage the revenue would be written back to profit.

Pro Medicus managing director Dr Sam Hupert said, "The strong second half was particularly pleasing. In fact we achieved virtually everything we set out to do for the whole year and would have been looking at close to a record full year profit without the Mayne reversal. We made significant advances with the market penetration of our digital technology, promedicus.net continues on its steep growth path and our core practice management business is performing strongly. We have also added a new string to our bow with the launch of our clinical desktop software, ProMed Clinical, which offers the 20,000 plus Australian GPs an attractive alternative to the previously unchallenged market leader."

"We are still the most profitable e-health company and certainly the only one paying fully franked dividends," Dr Hupert added.

Commenting specifically on the advances the company has made with its digital radiology technology, Dr Hupert said, "Digital radiology is now well and truly up and going, with plenty of growth upside. We now have ten sites using our technology, covering the whole range of large and small, new and existing and public and private radiology providers. We have demonstrated the efficiencies that digital can deliver and the whole radiology industry is now focused on the technology as a major productivity initiative. With international recognition of the quality of our digital technology, we are now also poised to take it offshore."

Outlook

Pro Medicus expects its major sources of growth in the Australian market to come from the widespread adoption of digital radiology technology, the continued growth of promedicus.net, particularly the expansion of the e-health network to include non-radiology specialists, and market take-up of the GP desktop product, ProMed Clinical.

The company intends to focus on overseas expansion following the successful installation and support of it's seventeen UK sites. It is now looking for further international opportunities for it's world class digital radiology integration technology.

For more information: