Dr Clive Dix, CEO of C4X Discovery, said: “In this period, C4X Discovery has taken significant steps towards our vision of becoming the world’s most productive Drug Discovery Engine. We have acquired new technologies to enhance our core target identification and drug design capabilities, expanded our drug asset portfolio and signed new strategic alliances to support our core expertise in solving the drug discovery challenges that confound others.
“We have defined our strategy to drive revenue through early-stage licensing deals around a high value, pre-clinical portfolio. In the coming year, we will focus on securing deal revenue from our existing portfolio, progressing our discovery candidates to pre-clinical development, identifying novel and exciting drug targets and selectively building our operations to support our vision. I believe C4X Discovery has the team in place to deliver this strategy.”
C4X Discovery Holdings plc (AIM: C4XD), a pioneering drug discovery company, today announced its full year results for the year ended 31 July 2016.
Financial highlights
· Fee-for-service revenue for the 12 months ended 31 July 2016 was £279,000 (2015: £312,000).
· Loss after tax for the 12 months ended 31 July 2016 was £5,321,000 or 16.83 pence per share (2015: £3,064,000 or 10.77 pence per share).
· R&D expenses increased by 66% to £5,239,000 for the year ended 31 July 2016 (2015: £3,159,000).
· Administrative expenses increased by £903,000 during the year to £1,817,000 (2015: £904,000).
· Net assets at 31 July 2016 of £4,305,000 (2015: £7,968,000).
· Cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and deposits of £1,328,000 (2015: £7,485,000).
Strategic and Operational highlights
Strategy
· The Board has committed to the delivery of C4X Discovery’s (“C4XD”) vision to become the world’s most productive Drug Discovery Engine. Focus has shifted to generating a high value pre-clinical asset portfolio that will drive revenue through early stage licensing deals. Existing fee-for-service agreements have been discontinued after the year end.
· Strategic acquisitions made to enhance the Company’s core target identification and drug design capabilities:
o In March 2016, Adorial Limited (“Adorial”) together with its subsidiaries and its proprietary DNA based target identification platform, Taxonomy3®, were acquired. New Taxonomy3® targets in rheumatoid arthritis were announced in July 2016 alongside a potential personalised medicine approach in Parkinson’s disease; and
o In July 2016, the pioneering computational drug discovery technologies from MolPlex Ltd were acquired, further enhancing the Company’s cutting-edge drug design platform.
Senior appointments
· Dr Clive Dix was appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2016, following a successful period as Executive Chairman
Discovery Engine progress
· Drug asset portfolio grown from three programmes in addiction, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder at the time of the IPO in 2014 to eight programmes across a number of therapeutic areas.
o Future disease areas of focus will be inflammation, neurodegeneration and other areas selected on an opportunistic basis, for example, immuno-oncology.
Partnerships/acquisitions
· In October 2015, a new research collaboration was announced with the University of Oxford’s Structural Genomics Consortium, providing C4XD with access to valuable target, assay and ‘hit’ molecule information.
· Acquisition of Adorial Limited and its subsidiaries (“Adorial”) on 1 March 2016 for £1,670,700.
Post-period end
· Completion of a £5.0 million fundraise in September 2016 through the conditional placing of 4,901,961 new ordinary shares at a price of 102 pence per ordinary share.
· A new multi-target risk-sharing alliance with Evotec AG (“Evotec”) was announced in September 2016. Evotec and C4XD will work together on novel small molecule drugs across a range of targets, therapeutic areas and stages of development.
· Brad Hoy, Chief Financial Officer, and Dr Craig Fox, Chief Scientific Officer, were appointed to the Board of Directors in November 2016
Dr Clive Dix, CEO of C4X Discovery, said: “In this period, C4X Discovery has taken significant steps towards our vision of becoming the world’s most productive Drug Discovery Engine. We have acquired new technologies to enhance our core target identification and drug design capabilities, expanded our drug asset portfolio and signed new strategic alliances to support our core expertise in solving the drug discovery challenges that confound others.
“We have defined our strategy to drive revenue through early-stage licensing deals around a high value, pre-clinical portfolio. In the coming year, we will focus on securing deal revenue from our existing portfolio, progressing our discovery candidates to pre-clinical development, identifying novel and exciting drug targets and selectively building our operations to support our vision. I believe C4X Discovery has the team in place to deliver this strategy.”
