PHC.L Share News (PHC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in Plant Health Care PLC dropped by a quarter on Wednesday as the company warned of increasingly challenging trading conditions and headwinds in its second half, and reported a widened loss for the first half of 2016.

Plant Health Care was down 28% at 19.78 pence Wednesday morning.

The agricultural biotechnology company reported a pretax loss of USD6.6 million in the half-year to June 30, widened from a pretax loss of USD3.1 million the prior year, due to higher administrative, research and development costs. Revenue fell to USD2.9 million from USD3.2 million.

Plant Health attributed the lower revenue to a milestone payment it had been paid in the prior year not repeating.

The company said that, whilst revenue in the first half from its commercial products was in line with its expectations, its full year will be hit by "challenging industry conditions" and adverse currency movements. As a result, it now expects its revenue for 2016 will fall short of market expectations.

"During the first six months of 2016, we have made further solid progress in building the sales momentum of Commercial Products; trading conditions have recently become increasingly challenging, and we expect headwinds in the second half, with continuing revenue growth anticipated in 2017," said Executive Chairman Christopher Richards in a statement.

"We are also making great strides in the development of our PREtec New Technology. With the completion of the USD10 million placement in August 2016, we are now confident of delivering first revenues from our PREtec peptide platforms and of bringing our Commercial business to profit, within our existing cash resources," Richards added.

By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews

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