C4X continues fundraising as it expands drug discovery goals

Drug discovery company C4X Discovery Holdings announced its interim results for the six months to 31 January on Thursday, with the board reporting that it remained committed to the delivery of its vision to become the world's most productive, self-sustaining “drug discovery engine”.

The AIM-traded firm said its focus had shifted to generating a high value preclinical asset portfolio that would drive revenue through early stage licensing deals with the pharmaceutical industry.

Existing fee-for-service agreements had been discontinued during the current financial year.

The company said it continued to enhance its core state-of-the-art target identification and drug design capabilities through strategic partnerships, with a new multi-target risk-sharing alliance with Evotec announced in September 2016.

Evotec and C4XD would now work together on novel small molecule drugs across a range of targets, therapeutic areas and stages of development, the board explained.

The firm’s proprietary drug asset portfolio had grown from three programmes in addiction, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder in 2014, to eight programmes across a number of therapeutic areas at present.

Its disease areas of focus were now inflammation, neurodegeneration, and opportunistic areas in immuno-oncology, addiction, and diabetes, among others.

During the period, Brad Hoy - chief financial officer - and Dr Craig Fox - chief scientific officer - were appointed to the board of directors in November 2016.

On the financial front, the company completed a £5m fundraise in September 2016 through the placing of 4,901,961 new ordinary shares in the capital of the company at a price of 102p per ordinary share, bringing in new institutional investors including Calculus Capital and Polar Capital.

Cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and deposits at 31 January stood at £2.2m, up from £1.3m at 31 July 2016.

Net assets at period end were £6.1m, up from £4.3m.

Since the period ended, the company confirmed the completion of a £7m fundraise in March through the placing of 8,235,294 new ordinary shares with existing and new investors at a price of 85p per ordinary share.

The proceeds of the fundraise would be used to support working capital and continue the “successful execution” of the company's strategy, strengthen the balance sheet as partnering discussions progresssed, and expand C4XD's commercial capabilities.

“The recent period has seen C4XD make significant progress towards our goal of becoming the world's most productive, self-sustaining Drug Discovery Engine,” said CEO Clive Dix.

“We have strengthened our cash position and management team, and entered a strategic alliance with Evotec which, alongside our own innovative drug discovery technologies, will expand our ability to generate commercially attractive preclinical assets to meet the pharma industry's increasing demand for high quality early-stage drug candidates.”

Dr Dix said C4XD aimed to continue growing its commercial capabilities and progressing partnering discussions with the aim of completing at least one revenue-generating deal on the C4XD portfolio in the next 12 months.

“Myself, the board and senior management are excited about the future of the company.”