16th May 2014 12:03
LONDON (Alliance News) - Venn Life Sciences Holdings PLC Friday posted a widened pretax loss in 2013, as it saw revenue decline, and announced a new contract win.
The clinical research organisation posted a pretax loss of EUR1.8 million, widened from EUR1.2 million in the previous year, as revenue declined to EUR2.0 million from EUR2.7 million.
The company said that, following its listing on AIM in December 2012, it has started work on its plan to become an international clinical support services business. As part of this plan it acquired to clinical services business in December 2013, which it said will begin producing benefits in 2013.
As a result of these acquisitions, the company has been able to better respond to multi-country tenders, which are higher value contracts.
It said that going forward it is targeting to have at least 50% of its revenue from multi country contracts worth over EUR1.5 million.
In February the company acquired the assets and intellectual property of Evocutis PLC, and said that in the two months since the acquisition it has made "considerable progress" to re-activitating the Labskin asset. It has relocated the development and production of the product to a new facility, and expects to generate its fire revenues from Labskin later in 2014.
Venn expects to make further acquisitions during 2014, and said it was currently looking at three specific opportunities.
"The clinical research and development markets remain buoyant, underpinned by committed Pharma spending and a more vibrant biotechnology scene driven largely by better access to capital. We believe that investments made during 2013 leave us well positioned to benefit from this," said Chief Executive Anthony Richardson in a statement.
Venn Life Sciences said Friday that it had won a contract with a European biotechnology company worth over EUR3 million to manage clinical trials.
The deal will run for over a year and a half, and will include seven European countries and a number of US sites, said the firm.
Shares in Venn Life Sciences were trading down 0.8% at 20.33 pence Friday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @hanassallnews
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