Oncimmune spends first half progressing agreements

Early cancer detection company Oncimmune Holdings announced its interim results for the half year ended 30 November on Tuesday, reporting continued commercial progress with its ‘EarlyCDT-Lung’ product as a framework agreement with Genostics Company for China was signed.

The AIM-traded firm said the exclusive licence was for the distribution, manufacturing and future development of all products related to the EarlyCDT platform.

Royalty payments between 8% to 12.5% were agreed, with minimum royalties over the first six years post market entry of £15.7m, and £5m index linked per year thereafter.

A £10m equity investment was also made in Oncimmune, with the first investment tranche of £7m completed on 29 January.

In addition, the company signed new agreements in multiple territories during the period, with the EarlyCDT-Lung kit product now having minimum payment guarantees of £7.9m over the next five years in the Asia Pacific region, not including China.

The EarlyCDT-Lung kit also had a minimum sales commitment of approximately £2.0m over the next five years in Europe.

Oncimmune reported that the first commercial batches of the EarlyCDT-Lung kit were shipped to distributors for introductory testing prior to full market release, adding that its distributor base in the US was now being trained for the sale of our EarlyCDT-Lung test.

A preliminary distribution partnership was said to be progressing “well” with an unnamed major US pulmonary sales force, for the use of EarlyCDT-Lung in assessing indeterminate lung nodules.

The initial phase of that partnership was expected to complete by the end of the month, and following that, the parties would assess the results.

If successful, it was expected that should lead to a distribution agreement for the US pulmonologists.

Oncimmune’s ‘finger stick’ test was also launched, which the board said increased the speed and simplicity of the EarlyCDT-Lung test.

On the research and development front, the company said development of the kit version of its EarlyCDT tests was helping expand Oncimmune’s geographical reach, and the firm expected to make “significant progress” on that going forward.

It reported that it had now validated the EarlyCDT-Liver test, and was on track to begin commercial sales in the first half of 2018.

The NHS lung cancer screening trial was also now fully recruited, with 12,210 patients and final study results expected in 2019.

Looking at the books, the company’s revenues were flat at £0.1m, generated from early sales of the EarlyCDT-Lung test.

Its loss before one-off and non-cash items was £3.04m, widening from £2.3m year-on-year, which the board said reflected recruitment, product development and commercialisation activities.

A total of £5.0m was raised from new and existing investors during the period, with the company reporting a cash balance at period end of £6.3m, down from £7.6m.

Since period end, the company had received the first tranche equity subscription of £7.0m from Genostics, making the cash balance £11.8m at the time of its announcement on Tuesday.

“Oncimmune continues to make excellent progress in delivering on the potential of our platform to detect up to four years earlier than other methods based on a simple, robust, blood test - a liquid biopsy,” said CEO Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley.

“We have recently entered an exclusive distribution and product development agreement in China which includes a £10m equity investment and £15.7m in minimum royalties.”

Hamilton-Fairley noted the company had now secured agreements for 12 countries with minimum sales commitments of £25.6m.

“We have also entered a preliminary distribution partnership with a major US pulmonology salesforce which is progressing well and, if successful, should lead to a significant distribution agreement focused on the risk detection of indeterminate pulmonary nodules - a large and growing market.

“With our R&D programme delivering new tests and commercial opportunities in personalised medicine and companion diagnostics, we are excellently placed to deliver value in the medium and long term.”