30th Jul 2019 11:43
(Alliance News) - Hutchison China MediTech Ltd on Tuesday said its loss widened in the first half of the year due to expenses, while it has reduced guidance on expenses and cash flow.
Shares in Hutchison China were down 5.3% at 321.00 pence in morning trade.
The drug developer posted a pretax loss of USD68.3 million, widened from USD50.5 million the year before, on flat revenue of USD102.2 million.
This was the result of expenses, with total operating expenses climbing to USD174.2 million from USD155.9 million. This included a rise in third party costs of goods to USD74.1 million from USD65.4 million and in research and development expenses to USD69.3 million from USD60.1 million.
The research and development costs were attributed to Hutchison China's eight clinical drug candidates.
In terms of guidance, the company has reduced expectations for adjusted research and development expenses for 2019 as a whole to between USD130 million and USD170 million from between USD160 million and USD200 million.
In 2018, the company's adjusted research and development expenses totalled USD142.2 million. The figures exclude revenue from external customers and costs of goods from its innovation platform.
Adjusted group net cash flow, excluding financing activities, is now forecast at between USD90 million and USD120 million for 2019, having previously been between USD120 million and USD150 million. This figure is adjusted to excludes the net cash from financing and compares to USD49.1 million in 2018.
Hutchison China said the adjustments relate to foreign exchange, which is set to reduce its research and development expenses in China in US dollar terms, and the expansion of its surufatinib and fruquintinib studies in the US which will move some start-up costs into 2020.
Chair Simon To said: "Our organization is expanding rapidly, with our New Jersey-based international clinical and regulatory team scaling up to manage global registration studies on surufatinib and fruquintinib and early development on our B-cell malignancy assets. Our in-house oncology commercial team in China is also growing fast, managing medical affairs and getting ready for the potential launch of surufatinib late next year."
"Looking ahead at the next two years, we expect to accelerate our transformation into a fully integrated and globally-facing biopharmaceutical company with capability to discover, develop and launch multiple novel drug innovations aimed at addressing a broad range of unmet medical needs and benefiting a large number of patients."
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