Iceland’s deCode genetics says that losses widened and revenues fell in 2006 but the company is confident that it is making good progress on the clinical front.
Revenues fell almost 8% to $40.5 million, though the Reykjavik-based firm noted that it will receive deferred payments of an extra $9.8 million over the next few quarters. Net loss increased 36% to $85.5 million or $1.49 per share for the full year 2006, due to a 30.7% increase in R&D costs to $57.1 million. The company ended the year with cash and equivalents of $152 million.
The best news that deCode had to offer was that it hopes to reinitiate Phase III testing for DG031 (veliflapon), the company’s experimental compound for the prevention of heart attack. Last October, the firm voluntarily suspended a late-stage trial of the drug in order to address a formulation problem but this seems to have sorted out and deCODE said it expects to have sufficient clinical supplies to be able to restart the trial near the end of this year.
The company also completed a Phase IIa trial for DG041, its anti-platelet compound for the prevention of arterial thrombosis, and chief executive Kari Steffanson noted that deCode is preparing to launch in the next quarter “the first product based upon our work in human genetics: a DNA-based test for better understanding risk of type 2 diabetes.”
