Animalcare has exports as its pet subject

The York-based firm said the referendum result in June will inevitably have an impact on the business, although the extent of this is still unclear.

It added that the encouraging early progress of sales to territories outside Europe will go some way to diversifying its markets in the short-term.

The group’s CEO ​Iain Menneer said: “We are starting from a low base in exports, but we have recruited a head of international sales, Martin Gore, and he has built up a lot of air miles travelling round Europe and the rest of the world.

“We haven’t really grown the export business. It’s just been ticking along so we brought Martin in to focus on that. He has found new distributors in Europe. He has got his name out there and utilised the DTI to get a lot of inward enquiries from countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel and Taiwan. “There are viable opportunities in those territories. European registered and manufactured products are credible and sought after.”

He added that it was too soon to say what impact Brexit will have on pharmaceutical regulation. Animalcare imports half of its licensed ​veterinary medicines, but they have a relatively small impact on profits

​Chris Brewster, CFO, said: “We will ramp up product development to £2.5m next year.”

Mr Menneer said he is very pleased with the product development pipeline.

“It was empty so we are pleased to get three products licensed last year. We have submitted five during the last financial year,” he said.

The group said that lower sterling will be a benefit as the firm exports more over the next two to three years.

Sales rose 9 per cent to £15m in the year to June 30 and pre-tax profits rose 2.5 per cent to £3.09m.