ETX.L Share News (ETX)

(Sharecast News) - Half-year losses at e-Therapeutics have narrowed as the drug discovery and development firm continued to manage costs.The operating loss for the six months to 31 July was £2.8m, compared to £3.7m in the same period last year and against an operating loss of £3.1m in the second half of 2017. Cash and deposits were £7.6m, against £9.6m at 31 January 2018, and the company received a research and development tax credit for £1.4m.The Oxford-based group has also filed a new patent covering "breakthroughs in our computational approach".e-Therapeutics said it had reduced operating losses by "carefully managing cash burn" as it sought "commercial validation" of its proprietary network-driven (NDD) drug discovery platform.Ray Barlow, chief executive of the AIM-listed firm, said: "In the last six months, we continued to invest in our NDD platform, rolling out additional functional enhancements."We remain focused on developing the business from existing capital and from non-dilutive sources of funding. To this end, we have executed a systematic and extensive international business development programme where the potential of NDD has been recognised. We have been short-listed as preferred partners by a number of biopharma companies and are in detail discussions on several distinct NDD deals."We also continue to evaluate broader potential corporate development opportunities."