As a result the group, which once employed 200 people in Lanarkshire before moving its Bellshill plant in 2004, reported a doubling of income from $2.44m to $5.04m in the 12 months to March 31, 2012.

Sales of its core polymer products, used to make heart valves and other medical devices, dropped from $1.4m to $694,000 after its manufacturing facility was operating at lower capacity for several months while operations were transferred from Melbourne, Australia to Rogers, Minneapolis in the US.

In spite of the $761,000 costs involved in moving staff and setting up operations on a new continent Aortech reported a $57,000 pre-tax profit compared to a loss of almost $3.9m in the previous year.

The firm put itself up for sale in July and said in August it contacted parties from around the world.

There was no update on the sale process yesterday but the board had said they wanted to complete a deal by October or they would be forced to raise funds to keep the company trading.

Aortech's cash balance was $1.9m at the end of March, down from $2.2m at the end of the previous financial year.

Chairman Bill Brown, a former Edinburgh-based fund manager, said the AIM-listed group planned "to raise sufficient finance to enable the Company to continue to trade for the foreseeable future".

He added: "This decision has been taken in the interests of shareholders to ensure that the best outcome can be obtained through our sale process."

Shares in Aortech fell more than 14% to 157.5p.