Silence Therapeutics' FY pre-tax loss widens in year of transition

Biotechnology company Silence Therapeutics says 2016 was a year of transition for the company and RNA interference (RNAi), as it posted a wider full-year pre-tax loss.

Revenue for the period was £770,000, from zero. Its pre-tax loss was £11.9m, from a loss of £9.8m, which was mostly due to R&D costs and administrative expenses.

Chief executive Ali Mortazavi said, looking ahead, that 2017/18 would be a critical period in the field of RNAi for Silence, which was developing systematic RNA interference therapeutics for the treatment of cancer & other diseases.

RNAi was the biological process in which RNA molecules inhibited gene expression or translation, by neutralising targeted mRNA molecules.

"As well as announcing our own GalNAc-siRNA pipeline candidates, we also await important readouts from competitor clinical studies which will add not only to the viability of RNAi as a new class of therapeutic but will also potentially have a significant impact upon the value of our IP portfolio," he said.

"Drug development is a unique industry with a unique set of risks and challenges. The often incomplete knowledge of human biology, coupled with extremely long product life cycles and a requirement for significant amounts of capital, can be difficult to manage.

"In summary, we do this because it matters, and because we believe that RNAi will have a substantial impact on medical practice while also transforming some of the business risks above to a smoother outcome. We look forward to 2017 with great anticipation and excitement."

At 12:45 GMT, shares in AIM-quoted Silence were up 0.71% to 88.75p each.