N4 Pharma Plc Share News (N4P)

(Sharecast News) - Pre-revenue specialist pharmaceuticals company N4 Pharma reported an operating loss of £1.56m in its final results on Wednesday, widening from the £0.95m loss a year earlier.
The AIM-traded firm said its research and development costs increased to £0.9m for the year ended 31 December, from £0.22m in 2019, while its general and administrative costs were £0.66m, down from £0.73m.

Its total loss for the year came in at £1.3m, compared to £0.87m.

Basic losses per share were 0.96p and diluted losses per share came in at 0.94p, both widening from the 0.87p it reported at the end of 2019.

"The last 12 months have seen us make considerable progress in the dispersion and formulation work for 'Nuvec'. which will put us in a stronger position for our collaboration discussions as we continue to present our data to potential licensing partners," said chief executive officer Nigel Theobald.

"The next few months will generate further important in vivo antibody response data using a SARS COV-2 plasmid both with our original and optimised Nuvec formulations.

"We have also recently announced that the European Patent Office has notified the University of Queensland of the intention to grant the patent that we have licensed the exclusive rights to."

Theobald noted that was followed more recently by the Australian patent office, IP Australia, confirming its intention to grant a patent.

He said the firm expected other key territories to follow in 2021, strengthening N4's commercial discussions.

"This is a pivotal time for the company - we are now finalising the data we feel will give third parties the confidence to explore testing of Nuvec with their own constructs and we continue to expand that dataset all the time.

"We are continuing work on other applications for Nuvec both for cancer treatment and also to explore the potential for oral delivery of vaccines," Theobald said.

"This work on oral delivery will continue in the background as there is much that needs doing to establish the potential for Nuvec in this area as no one experiment will provide a definitive conclusion either way on this potential."

At 1214 GMT, shares in N4 Pharma were down 4.86% at 8.8p.