Imagine a treatment which could cure cancer in patients with blue eyes but not those with brown. Doctors would prescribe it to the patients who they knew would benefit, but seek out a different treatment for brown-eyed sufferers. This personalised approach, which can help to save time, money and potentially lives, is seen by some as the the future of medicine.
The development of drugs tailored to treat patients with certain genetic profiles represents a growing trend among pharmaceutical companies, but identifying genes associated with specific clinical conditions is far from straightforward. Oxford Biodynamics (OBD) has developed proprietary technology to make that task easier. Its EpiSwitch platform is used by pharma companies and research institutions to help develop drugs in specific patient populations. In exchange, ODB receives service fees, which broke the £1m mark for the first time in the reported period.
The company plans to use the £7.1m net cash raised at its December IPO to develop the EpiSwitch to cover more diseases. It's also hired more staff to start marketing the platform, meaning costs rose and operating losses widened in the year through to September. But the cash-burn is relatively modest, with research and development costs of £0.5m hardly extravagant for an early stage biotech.
Even so, Broker Stifel expects losses to ramp up again in the year to September 2017 and has forecast an adjusted loss per share of 4.4p, against a loss of 2.1p for FY2016.
OXFORD BIODYNAMICS (OBD) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 135p | MARKET VALUE: | £116m | |
| TOUCH: | 135-140p | 12-MONTHHIGH: | 168p | LOW: 135p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | nil | PE RATIO: | na | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 9p | NET CASH: | £7.3m* | |
| Year to 30 Sep | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013** | 0.35 | -1.1 | -1.4 | na |
| 2014** | 0.66 | -0.7 | -1.0 | na |
| 2015** | 0.70 | -1.4 | -1.3 | na |
| 2016** | 1.09 | -2.1 | -2.1 | nil |
| % change | +55 | - | - | - |
Ex-div: na Payment: na *Post-IPO cash of £12.3m at 31 Dec 2016 **Pre-IPO figures | ||||
