Venn Life Sciences Share News (VENN)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Drug development firm Venn Life Sciences Holdings PLC said Tuesday its half-year loss widened as revenue dropped on delays to the conversion of orders to sales.

For the six months ended June, pretax loss deepened to GBP625,000 from GBP533,000 the year prior. This was after revenue fell to GBP7.8 million from GBP9.1 million the year before.

"Any services business is dependent upon conversion of opportunity into billable work to maintain the occupancy of its employees and its margins," Venn Chairman Allan Wood said. "Although we have used the flexibility in our resource cost base to mitigate the impact of conversion delays, our profitability has been impacted this period."

"This period has seen a significant investment in business development which is delivering opportunities into our pipeline and our recent small acquisition has also strengthened our sales & delivery capabilities," Wood added. "Consistent with our strategy update earlier this year we continue to evaluate both organic and in-organic growth options as we move forward."

"In the context of some of our larger programs concluding I am pleased with the profile of the replacement business and while we have not delivered revenue growth in the period I am pleased with the current business development approach and expect this will deliver significant order book improvement", Wood added.

Shares in Venn were 12% lower at 5.00 pence on Tuesday.