For the second time this yea,r Danish biotech giant Novozymes has raised its financial expectations for 2014 after another strong quarterly showing.

EBIT increased by 19 percent with the EBIT margin increasing by 3.5 percentage points to 28.1 percent compared to the first half of last year. Full-year expectations have been improved from 8-10 percent to 9-11 percent

“It’s been a good first half for Novozymes. Sales growth was in line with expectations and earnings were strong,” Peder Holk Nielsen, the head of Novozymes, said in a press release.

“For the full year, we maintain our outlook for sales growth, and the profit is now expected to come in a little better than what we thought back in April.”

READ MORE: Novozymes in strong first quarter showing

Encouraging sales figures
While sales figures were slightly down in Asia Pacific compared to the first half of last year, there were strong increases in Europe, the Middle East & Africa, North America and Latin America – markets that account for 82 percent of Novozymes’ business.

“Looking beyond the financial performance, we’ve seen good progress in our innovation pipeline and portfolio of growth platforms in the first half of the year,” Nielsen said.

“In the second half, we'll continue to concentrate our efforts in both to further strengthen our ability to deliver double-digit sales growth.”