26th Sep 2019 10:06
(Alliance News) - Circassia Pharmaceuticals PLC on Thursday posted a notably widened loss for the first half of 2019, hurt by higher costs and expenses, as well as higher sales volume and rebates from Tudorza the year before.
Shares in Circassia were up 0.3% at 16.80 pence in London in morning trade.
The respiratory disease-focused pharma firm's pretax loss for the six months ended June 30 was GBP29.4 million, widened from a GBP22.6 million loss the year before.
Administrative expenses rose 90% to GBP9.9 million from GBP5.2 million, while finance costs jumped 48% to GBP9.0 million from GBP6.1 million.
Furthermore, revenue slipped 1.8% to GBP27.9 million from GBP28.4 million. In 2018, Circassia's revenue from Tudorza was derived from a profit-share arrangement with AstraZeneca PLC.
However, Circassia exercised its option for full control of Tudorza - a maintenance treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - in the US in December 2018. The licence for Tudorza was transferred to Circassia at the end of June.
Circassia explained that "Tudorza revenues were higher in H1 2018 mainly due to higher volume of sales and the release of accrued rebates."
Chief Executive Steven Harris said: "Circassia made good financial and commercial progress in the first half of 2019, and we are delighted this has accelerated significantly in the past two months as our recent strategic changes begin to deliver results. During 2019, NIOX revenues increased in all our direct markets, as well as those served by our partners, with particularly impressive growth in China following the launch of our new sales team. Since taking full control of Tudorza in the US at the end of June we have seen encouraging growth in net revenues, validating our newly-introduced commercial strategy.
"As a result Circassia continues to make strong progress, dramatically reducing net cashflow outflow in the first two months of H2 2019, which we anticipate maintaining during the remainder of the year. With our ongoing focus on controlling our cost base and with multiple growth drivers in place, including the imminent launch of Duaklir in the US and our new sales teams in China and Italy focused on growing NIOX revenues, we look forward to further boosting our performance over the rest of the year. By building on our performance in the first two months of the second half, we plan to continue our drive towards profitability and our goal of building a self-sustaining specialty pharmaceutical business."
By Anna Farley; [email protected]
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