German company Evotec, which employs nearly 400 people in Oxfordshire, expects to break even this year for the first time after selling a Hamburg-based subsidiary for £23m.
The sale to US company PerkinElmer is another milestone in Evotec's strategy to focus on its core business - drug discovery and development.
It has now made £30m this year by sell-offs to fund the development of its own drug for central nervous system diseases.
This year it expects to reach £44m revenue, of which £20m will be spent on research and development.
Its labs in Milton Park, near Abingdon, once part of Oxford University spin-off company Oxford Asymmetry, make new drugs for pharmaceutical companies to test.
Operating income is anticipated to be almost break-even for the full-year 2006.
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