First-quarter sales rose by 19 per cent to $222 million. In local currency terms the increase was 10 per cent. First quarter earnings were $0.55 per share, up 25 per cent from $0.44 per share in the first quarter of last year.

Millipore provides technologies, tools and services for the development and production of new therapeutic drugs. Its financial performance often serves as an indication of the fortunes of the biopharmaceutical industry.

The first quarter results are a welcome indication that the improvement seen in the third quarter of 2003 has been maintained through and beyond the end of last year.

The company's profit also increased slightly in the quarter, up 5 per cent to $35.3 million.

Fran Lunger, Millipore's CEO, said: "We had very good revenue growth across our markets and geographic areas in the first quarter, and delivered strong earnings performance."

In terms of markets, Millipore's Biotechnology sales were up 15 per cent, life science research sales were up 13 per cent. One specialist area of growth was the sales of chromatographic media for purifying biotech drugs. In other bioscience, revenues were up 7 per cent - a strong performance for the market.

Geographically, Millipore's first quarter revenue grew 14 per cent in the Americas to $89 million, while European turnover increased 22 per cent during the same quarter to $90 million, while Asia/ Pacific was up 19 per cent to $43 million.