Infection prevention and contamination control products manufacturer Tristel today further lifted its forecast for annual profits as its strong start to the second half of the year continued.

Tristel, based at Snailwell, near Newmarket, said at the start of March that all three sectors of its business ? human healthcare, animal healthcare and contamination control ? were performing well.

And in a trading update today, the company it was “now confident that the momentum evident throughout the first half will continue through to the end of the financial year and beyond, resulting in pre-tax profit for the year to June 30 2014 of no less than £1.5million.”

This figure is ahead of previous market expectations and compares with a pre-tax profit of £400,000 for the previous year, adjusted for one-off charges of £2.2m.

Tristel added yesterday that its balance sheet also continued to strengthen, with cash balances now exceeding £2.2m, compared with £1.5m as of December 31, 2013.

Chief executive Paul Swinney said: “The momentum that we have built since the beginning of 2013 is gathering pace both in the UK and overseas markets and across all three product portfolios.

“Over the past three years the business has undergone a transformation to focus upon innovative consumable products which are essential within the healthcare setting. One recent success has been our inclusion in the NHS Scotland framework agreement for surface disinfectant products.”

Broker finnCap today lifted its forecasts for pre-tax profits at Tristel for both 2014 and 2015.

from £1.3m to £1.5m and from £1.4m to £1.8m respectively, and raised its price target for the company’s shares to 63p, from 52p.