27th Aug 2015 08:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Oxford Biomedica PLC Thursday posted a widened pretax loss for its first half, as it continued to develop its drug pipeline and worked on expanding its manufacturing capacity.
For the half year to end-June, the company posted a pretax loss of GBP8.6 million, widened from a pretax loss of GBP5.6 million a year before, on revenue of GBP4.4 million compared to GBP4.8 million, mostly as a result of higher research, development and administrative costs.
The company said it continued to progress its pipeline of clinical and near-clinical drug programmes, along with its research and pre-clinical stage programmes, and also worked on expanding its existing Harrow House manufacturing facility and opening a new manufacturing facility in Yarnton, Oxford, intended to help meet its obligations under a contract with Novartis International AG.
Oxford Biomedica signed deals with Novartis last October worth up to USD90 million to help develop its CART-19 leukameia drug.
The company announced results from the Phase I study of its wet age-related macular degeneration treatment RetinoStat in May, which met its primary endpoints. Also in May the company presented results from a three-year follow up of patients in a phase I/II study of ProSavin for Parkinson's disease.
It is working towards the start of a Phase I/II study for its corneal graft rejection treatment EncorStat. This study is expected to start in the second half of 2016 and is partially funded by a GBP1.8 million Innovate UK grant.
"I am very pleased by the progress we have made over the past six months. We have seen encouraging data from both the RetinoStat Phase I study and the long-term follow-up of ProSavin patients which give us further confidence that our lentiviral vector platform can deliver meaningful and sustained long-term benefit to patients," said Chief Executive Officer John Dawson in a statement.
"We have also made a good start in delivering the Novartis contract and the Group's sector-leading expertise in integrated gene and cell therapy is clearly in demand. We are well placed to benefit from additional manufacturing contracts and from the opportunities our business model now presents us," Dawson added.
Shares in Oxford Biomedica were down 6.6% at 8.50 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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