4th Oct 2022 10:35
(Alliance News) - Allergy Therapeutics PLC shares dropped on Tuesday following production at the Freeman facility, part of its Worthing, UK manufacturing site, being paused.
Shares in the West Sussex-based commercial biotechnology company were down 11% to 16.98 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.
Allergy Therapeutics said that the facility has been closed to accelerate ongoing site improvements.
It added that no areas for improvement are related to the safety of its products and all of the company's clinical trials remain unaffected.
"The partial pause in production follows an internal review of current operating processes and is part of the group's previously communicated ongoing programme to improve the robustness of its quality systems and build capacity across its manufacturing facilities," the company explained.
Allergy Therapeutics is also working to minimise the closure's impact on its revenue. It currently expects the pause in production to be a number of weeks.
Chief Executive Manuel Llobet said: "This temporary pausing of production is a necessary step to ensure that we can both continue to deliver the highest standards of quality in our products and build capacity for the future growth of the group.
"We continue to support our strong Research & Development driven pipeline. Our clinical trials remain on track and are completely unaffected by these manufacturing improvements," Llobet added.
On Thursday, Allergy Therapeutics said it plans to raise GBP7 million via a subscription of shares at 20 pence each, and a further GBP10 million through the issue of loan notes.
The proceeds will be used to complete the company's Phase I peanut trial and Grass Phase III trial, it added.
The company said the VLP Peanut trial has the "potential to become a best-in-class treatment for peanut allergy" with revenue potential of more than USD1 billion per year, meanwhile the Grass trial "presents a significant future opportunity to grow grass allergy product sales."
"I would like to thank our existing shareholders, Southern Fox and ZQ Capital, for their ongoing support and their belief in our pioneering research to deliver transformational outcomes for allergy patients," Llobet said.
Both trials are expected to start in 2022.
By Sophie Rose; [email protected]
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