UK life sciences company BTG says that revenues for the year ending March 31 shot up 60% rise in full-year net revenue and is now looking at strengthening its pipeline by licensing products.
Revenues reached £42.9 million, while net income climbed to £8.8 million from £2.4 million in the last fiscal year. The rise were principally due to the performance of the anticoagulant treatment BeneFIX (recombinant coagulation factor IX) marketed by Wyeth which contributed £16.9 million.
BTG also benefited from strong sales of the oncology drug Campath (alemtuzumab) and an orthopaedic hip cup that is marketed by Zimmer. The figures also included a $10 million milestone from Tolerx after the US firm signed a potentially lucrative deal with GlaxoSmithKline to develop TRX4 (otelixizumab) for type 1 diabetes.
Chief executive Louise Makin noted that BTG had enjoyed a a third consecutive profitable year and it has cash reserves of £57 million. The company has “six clinical programmes in our active development pipeline”, led by Varisolve (polidocanol microfoam) for the treatment of varicose veins which is in Phase II and is being touted in some quarters as a blockbuster.
A European Phase II of BGC20-1259 for Alzheimer’s disease is scheduled to start in the second half of the year, the company noted, and the migraine drug BGC20-1531 and the oral multiple sclerosis candidate BGC20-0134 have gone into clinical trials.
As for what BTG intends to do with its cash pile, chairman John Brown said that a priority “is to further strengthen our pipeline, which may be achieved by licensing individual assets and through broader corporate transactions”. He added that partnering talks for Varisolve are progressing and “we anticipate another strong financial performance in the current year”.
