LONDON (Alliance News) - Venn Life Sciences Holdings PLC said Tuesday that it expects to see its profit and cash flow benefit from its recent contract wins in the final quarter of this year, as it posted a widened loss in the half-year to the end of June.
The company posted a pretax loss of EUR987,000, widened from EUR716,000 a year before, as revenue rose to EUR1.5 million from EUR1.1 million, although this was offset by higher administrative expenses. The company invested EUR200,000 in InnoVenn Skin Science during the year, and also saw one off Clinical Research Organisation costs.
The company secured two new contracts worth EUR5.4 million in two new contracts since May. The company said that following these contract wins it is continuing to actively seek and consider merger candidates, as part of its plan to become a European mid-sized Clinical Research Organisation.
"It has been very hard work to date and we have more ahead of us in order to achieve our key growth milestones. In the short term these are to deliver on our contract successes, to secure more work and to grow the business to the next level. I am confident we can get there," said non-executive chairman David Evans in a statement.
Venn Life Sciences also announced that its has received EUR800,000 from the Helium Rising Stars Fund for its InnoVenn technology development division. InnoVenn acquired assets from Evocutis PLC in February of GBP210,000, and the company said that since then, significant progress has been made towards commercialising these technologies, which has led it to mark an increase in value by facilitating a direct investment into InnoVenn of EUR1 million.
After this investment Venn will be interested in 56.6% of InnoVenn.
"Having achieved recent success in our CRO business with the awarding of international contracts it is important that we capitalise on this momentum through continued investment in business development to deliver greater critical mass. This direct investment into InnoVenn allows us to concentrate on achieving this objective and leaves InnoVenn appropriately funded to deliver on its potential," said Chief Executive Tony Richardson in a statement.
Shares in Venn were trading up 0.8% at 19.40 pence per share Tuesday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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