16th Sep 2014 09:45
LONDON (Alliance News) - Silence Therapeutics PLC Tuesday said it expects to maintain its momentum from the first half for the remainder of the year, as it posted a widened loss for the half year to end-June and continued to develop its pipeline.
Silence is focused on the development of Ribonucleic acid interference treatments. Ribonucleic acid is a family of larger molecules that can be used to code, decode, regulate and express genes. It has a similar structure to DNA, and can be delivered into the cell to reduce the level at which genetic code is interpreted by the body.
The company posted a pretax loss of GBP5.6 million for the recent half, widened from GBP3.4 million a year before, on revenue of GBP7,000, compared to GBP41,000 a year earlier With negligible revenue, the loss was primarily driven by higher administrative, research and development costs. This reflected the rise in spend on clinical and pre-clinical programme, the company said.
In April, the company confirmed successful "gene knockdown" in non-human primates using its Ribonucleic acid interference lung delivery system, which it said was a key target for the company, as it demonstrated the use of its therapeutics. Following the half-year end the company completed recruitment for a Phase 2a trial of its Atu027 treatment for pancreatic cancer.
Partner Quark Pharmaceuticals Inc saw favourable results in its Phase 2 trial of its QPI-1002 Ribonucleic acid interference treatment for the prevention of delayed graft function for kidney transplant patients.
The company said it had continued progress in selecting development targets from its pre-clinical research engine. It is reviewing its pipeline to focus on the projects with the strongest potential.
Silence said it was continuing discussions with a potential licensee of its intellectual property, and will provide any update as appropriate "in due course".
Shares in Silence Therapeutics were trading down 2.1% at 210.50 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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