Allergy Therapeutics sees good first-half progress

Commercial biotechnology company Allergy Therapeutics updated the market for the six months ended 31 December on Wednesday, reporting that it was trading in line with board expectations.

The AIM-traded firm said reported revenues for the six month period were expected to be £46.7m, representing 10.6% growth on both a reported and constant currency basis.

In terms of geography, the main contributors to that sales growth were Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Netherlands.

Allergy said its Spain operations had continued to grow “well”, despite the withdrawal of all bacterial products across the market.

In terms of product mix, the growth was being driven primarily by its ultra-short course, aluminium-free treatments ‘Pollinex’ and ‘Pollinex Quattro’, as well as ‘Acarovac’ and ‘Venomil’.

The group said it continued to gain market share in Germany, and again achieved the number one position in that market for the month of October - Allergy’s busiest month of the year - for the second year running.

Its cash balance at the end of December was £31.6m, up from £25.8m year-on-year.

Allergy Therapeutics said it continued to make “good progress” with the peanut allergy vaccine outsourced manufacturing scale-up, and the Acarovac Phase I trial for dust mite allergies.

The first in-human trials for the Polyvac peanut product were expected to start in 2019, with data from the Acarovac Phase I trial expected in the first half of 2019.

As it announced in December, the top-line results of the PQ Birch Phase III trial would be announced in the first quarter of 2019.

Meetings with the FDA and the German regulator, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut (PEI), in relation to the PQ Grass trials were also scheduled for the first quarter, the board confirmed.

“This is another period of revenue growth and continued gain in market share for Allergy Therapeutics, in line with our mid and long-term strategy,” said chief executive officer Manuel Llobet.

“The group is also making good progress across its clinical pipeline, with a number of key developments anticipated for the first half of this year.

“We see momentum in the business and look forward to updating the market at our interim results.”

Allergy Therapeutics said it would announce its half-year results on 6 March.