Boston Healthcare gets £1.25m backing of Finance Yorkshire

Finance Yorkshire’s biggest investment to date will help the Wakefield-based company to rejuvenate its recently acquired portfolio of pharmaceutical products.

The portfolio of over-the-counter brands includes a range of sun protection products (Uvistat) and multi-vitamins (Dalavit).

Steve Stocks, executive chairman of Boston Healthcare, said: “Our focus is on over-the-counter brands that people know and have trusted in the past.

“We are looking to bring them back to life through more creative and innovative marketing, through partnering with our retail and wholesale customers and by increasing the on-shelf presence of each of our products.”

Boston Healthcare’s managing director Colin Darroch said the company carefully considered the portfolio of brands before deciding to go ahead with the acquisition.

“The over-the-counter market is very large and is being influenced by Government pressure as people are encouraged to see their pharmacist for advice and purchase over-the-counter treatments where possible to avoid seeing a GP,” he said.

“We had a look at these brands and looked at other options and decided that now was the time to get the deal done, get control of the brands and start on the marketing of them. Every product is going to have its own individual website.”

Alex McWhirter, chief executive of Finance Yorkshire, said: “This is a significant investment and demonstrates that Finance Yorkshire can operate at this level.

“The company needed investment and Finance Yorkshire was able to provide the right equity package to fit their needs.

“We intend to build on this success by completing more of these types of deals in the fu- ture.”

Boston Healthcare was set up in April 2010 by senior managers already working within the healthcare industry.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

It has attracted £30m investment from the European Regional Development Fund as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, £15m from Yorkshire Forward’s Single Programme, and £45m match funding from the European Investment Bank.