Spain’s Zeltia has posted a major rise in revenues, and a significant reduction, in its losses for the first nine months of 2009, thanks to sales of its anti-cancer treatment Yondelis.
Turnover reached 95.2 million euros, a rise of 15%, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation came in at a loss of 6.7 millions. That represents an improvement of 68.7% on the like, year-earlier period.
The figures reflect a rise in revenues from Yondelis (trabectedin) which is approved for the treatment of advanced soft tissue sarcoma in the European Union and 12 other countries. Sales of the drug were up 55% to 30.4 million euros, while Zeltia’s Genomica unit contributed 5.3 million euros; the rest of the Madrid-headquartered group’s income came from its consumer chemicals division.
Zeltia ended the reporting period with 35.3 million euros in cash. Earlier this month, the company said it decided not to expand capital after European regulators issued a positive recommendation on Yondelis to be used in combination with Johnson & Johnson’s Doxil (doxorubicin) to treat ovarian cancer.
That recommendation was a major boost, seeing as how last month the US Food and Drug Administration issued a complete response letter on the combo, requesting additional information, “including overall survival data from the company’s ongoing pivotal trial and additional clinical pharmacology studies”.
