(Alliance News) - N4 Pharma PLC on Wednesday posted a considerably widened annual pretax loss, resulting from higher research and development costs.
Shares in N4 were down 4.3% at 8.85 pence in London in morning trading.
The pharmaceutical company, which is developing its Nuvec delivery system for cancer treatments and vaccines, reported a GBP1.6 million pretax loss for 2020, far wider than its GBP947,340 loss the year prior.
This came as research and development costs multiplied to GBP900,410 in 2020 from only GBP216,948 the year before.
"Expenditure was broadly in line with budget and increased in line with study results determining the next expenditure requirements to progress work streams," the company explained.
N4 is still developing Nuvec and so reported no revenue in either 2020 or 2019.
The firm recently announced that the European Patent Office is intending to grant to the University of Queensland a patent to which N4 has exclusive rights. The Australian patent office has confirmed it plans to grant a patent, with N4 expecting other territories to do so as well in 2021.
Chief Executive Nigel Theobald said: "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. 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."
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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N4 Pharma Plc (N4P)