Abzena Release: Full Year Results: Integration And Growth Seen Across The Group, With 41% Underlying Increase In Revenues

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Abzena plc (AIM: ABZA, ‘Abzena’ or the ‘Group’), a life sciences group providing services and technologies enabling the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, has published its full year results for the year to 31 March 2017.

Corporate highlights

• Integration of Abzena’s service offering for biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing across three sites in UK and US delivering expected revenue synergies
• Licence deal with US biopharma for ThioBridge™ ADC technology for up to 10 products, with potential to deliver $300m in licence fees and milestone payments plus royalties
• Maturation of ABZENA Inside clinical stage partner product portfolio with five Phase II products, including three with major biopharma companies, in addition to Gilead’s andecaliximab (formerly GS-5745) in Phase III gastric cancer study as well as Phase II studies in two further indications
• Executive management team strengthened with appointment of Chief Business Officer and President, Abzena (US)

Financial summary

• Revenue increased 89% to £18.7 million (FY16: £9.9 million)
• Underlying revenue growth of 41% (Proforma FY16: £13.3 million)
• Increased administrative expenses due to expansion of the Group, particularly in US
• Research & development expenditure reduced to £3.8 million (FY16: £4.2 million) as business increases focus on service business
• EBITDA loss reduced 17% to £7.9 million (FY16: £9.5 million)
• Reported loss reduced 6% to £9.1 million (FY16: £9.7 million)
• Cash at year end of £4.1 million (FY16: £13.7 million)

Post-period events

• Raised £23.9 million (net of expenses) to fund investment and growth plan to accelerate transition to profitability
• Composite Human Antibody licence deal signed with public US biotech company with potential to deliver
  $19 million milestone payments
• Bioverativ’s agreement to acquire True North Therapeutics and its ABZENA Inside product TNT009, for consideration of up to $825 million

John Burt, CEO of Abzena, commented:

“The past 12 months have been a combination of integration and preparing the Group for significant growth.

“Integration of our US sites into the Abzena Group is starting to deliver the expected revenue synergies. We are increasingly seeing our partners utilise our services on a repeat basis and engage with the range of services across the domains of biology, chemistry and manufacturing. The business now has a solid platform from which to expand.

“The recent fund raising from current and new investors gives us the means to establish the capacity to meet the increasing demand for our integrated services and will accelerate our progress towards profitability.”

For the full release, please visit the company website at www.abzena.com

About Abzena

Abzena (AIM: ABZA) provides proprietary technologies and complementary services to enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products.

The term ‘ABZENA Inside’ is used by Abzena to describe products that have been created using its proprietary technologies and are being developed by its partners, and include Composite Human Antibodies™ and ThioBridge™ Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs). Abzena has the potential to earn future licence fees, milestone payments and/or royalties on ‘ABZENA Inside’ products.

Abzena offers the following services and technologies across its principal sites in Cambridge (UK), San Diego, California (USA) and Bristol, Pennsylvania (USA):

• Immunology research studies, including immunogenicity assessment of candidate biopharmaceutical products;
• Protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins;
• Cell line development for the manufacture of recombinant proteins and antibodies;
• Contract process development and GMP manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins for preclinical and clinical studies;
• Contract synthetic chemistry and bioconjugation research services, focused on antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs);
• Proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies and novel payloads for ADC development; and
• GMP manufacturer of ADC linkers, payloads & combined linker-payloads.

For more information, please see www.abzena.com