Epistem, the Manchester based biotech and personalised medicine developer, announced interim results to 31 December 2010 last Tuesday. Overall revenues were up 8% to £3.0 million (H1 2009/10: £2.8 million) on the back of growth in the Contract Research Services and Personalised Medicine groups. Revenues for the Novel Therapies group, whose revenue was largely dependent on a drug discovery contract with Novartis, remained steady. Pre-tax profits increased to £107,000 from £5,000 in H1 FY 2009/10, leaving fully diluted EPS to 0.8p. Epistem had £4.3 million in cash (and no debt) at the end of the half, vs. £5.3 for H1 FY2009/10.
Revenues in Epistem’s Contract Research Services group grew to c. £1.4 million from c. £1.2 million in H1 FY2009/10 as both European and US based pharmaceutical groups resumed more normal research activities following partial paralysis following the 2008 financial crisis. This division focuses on designing and executing scientific studies for private-sector drug developers and government programmes (including the US’s radiological biodefense programme). Operating profit for this division was £398,000.
The new Personalised Medicine division (which is comprised of the Biomarkers and Diagnostics groups) also recorded modest revenue growth during the period to £383,000 (up from £307,000 in H1 FY 2009/10). Though H1 Biomarkers revenue was relatively small, the division will start to produce more significant sales as the division’s recent $4 million, 3 year oncology collaboration with Sanofi-Aventis gets under way.
Regarding Diagnostics, during one of last week’s analyst meetings, Epistem CEO Matthew Walls demonstrated an early production version of the company’s new Genedrive Point of Care (PoC) diagnostic testing unit, which will initially be marketed for sexually transmitted disease (STD) applications (after it gains market authorisation in the US and Europe). The system is being lined up for use in a supportive diagnostic role in clinical studies of experimental therapeutics, where it is most likely to generate initial revenue. The Genedrive system is the first PoC system based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology, which is used to amplify small samples of DNA sequences millions of times so that they can be easily measured. PCR is a fairly standard technology used in the diagnosis of mutations (cancer) as well as bacterial and viral infections – it has a wide range of applications. However, Genedrive is the first PoC application of the technology.
Novel Therapeutics posted £1.2…
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