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LONDON (Alliance News) - hVIVO PLC on Thursday reported widened pretax loss for the first half of 2015, hit by pharmaceutical companies continuing to divert resources to tackle the Ebola outbreak, and lower-than-expected demand for human challenge clinical trials in influenza.
hVIVO is a life sciences company focused on human challenge models for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, which involves inducing infections in healthy volunteers to test the efficacy of vaccines or study the progression of the disease.
For the half year to end-June, the company reported a pretax loss of GBP12.0 million, widened from a pretax loss of GBP5.4 million a year before, as a drop in revenue to GBP2.9 million from GBP15.0 million. Cost of sales also fell, but this was more than offset by higher research and development expenses.
The company attributed the fall in revenue to clients funnelling resources into tackling Ebola, and reduced demand for early phase human challenge studies in influenza. hVIVO said that in response to the changing market conditions it took actions to priorities its spend in research and development.
"I am heartened by how quickly the Ebola outbreak was contained due to the extraordinary response across the scientific and pharmaceutical communities, and I look forward to leveraging our newly acquired insight into flu as influenza clinical trial programmes regain their momentum within global pharmaceutical and biotech companies," said Chief Executive Officer Kym Denny in a statement.
Shares in hVIVO were down 5.4% at 290.00 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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