LONDON (Alliance News) - Monitoring and diagnostic devices provider Sphere Medical Holding PLC Monday expressed "ever-growing" confidence for its future, as it continued to develop its Proxima product towards commercialisation in the half-year to the end of June.
The company posted a pretax loss of GBP3.0 million, widened slightly from a loss of GBP2.9 million in the previous year, as revenue declined to GBP8,000 from GBP31,000, and operating expenses rose.
Wolfgang Rencken, appointed as chief executive in February, said in a statement that the company has taken "great strides" towards commercial success since then.
Sphere Medical has been focusing on preparing its Proxima monitoring system for commercialisation; during the half-year its Proxima 3 system was granted CE Market in the EU.
A Proxima 3 Post market clinical follow-up study has begun at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, and Sphere Medical expects to see the results from this study in October 2014. The study will be used to assess the performance of Proxima, with a primary endpoint of comparing blood gas readings from Proxima to those obtained using a standard commercially available blood gas analyser.
Commercial launch of the product in the UK is due to take place later this month at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland Annual Congress.
The company has already begun development of a new iteration of the product, Proxima 4, as part of its collaboration agreement with Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. The new product will include enhancements, which the company hopes will lead to stronger sales penetration, and expand the geographical reach of Proxima.
"This is an exciting time for the company and I look forward to the future with ever-growing confidence," said Rencken in a statement.
Shares in Sphere Medical were trading 4.6% higher at 25.62 pence per share Monday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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