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LONDON (Alliance News) - Provexis PLC Thursday posted a narrowed loss in the year to the end of March as it cut costs following the de-merger of Science in Sport PLC from its business.
The company develops and licences 'Fruitflow,' a food ingredient extracted from tomatoes which the company says has been shown to reduce the propensity for aberrant blood clotting in human trials.
The company posted a pretax loss of GBP1.0 million, narrowed from a pretax loss of GBP4.3 million in the previous year, despite seeing revenue drop to GBP3.967 from GBP37,351, as it halved its research and development costs, and more than quartered its administrative costs.
The significant reduction in costs was due to the de-merger of the Science in Sport business in August 2013, which delivered a 25% return on its original acquisition price, Provexis said. Additionally, during the first-half of the year it closed its Aberdeen research and development facility.
The company's partner DSM Nutritional Products Ltd continues to market the company's Fruitflow product, the company said, launching 10 new consumer brands using the product during the year.
The company has launched a powder format of the product in May last year, and said it has invested "substantial resources" into establishing a commercial scale supply chain for powder manufacturing. Now that the initial manufacturing set-up phase is finished, the costs of producing Fruitflow powder have been reduced.
"With DSM making good progress in the marketplace it remains our belief that products addressing blood flow and circulation issues represent a long-term opportunity in the functional food sector," said Chairman Dawson Buck in a statement.
Shares in Provexis were trading down 4.4% at 0.722 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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