Syncona NAV grows in Q3

Life sciences investor Syncona said on Thursday that its net asset value had grown in the three months ended 31 December, driven by a prioritisation of capital allocation across its portfolio to enable the delivery of key inflection points.

Syncona said net assets had risen from £1.2bn at the end of September to £1.25bn at the end of December, with a NAV per share return of 5.4% in the period, driven by a £111.1m increase in the value of Autolus Therapeutics.

The FTSE 250-listed group added that over the nine months to 31 December, NAV per share returned 0.9%, with its life science portfolio generating a return of 3.0%.

Chris Hollowood, chief executive of Syncona Investment Management, said: "We have continued to take decisive action to support our companies' ability to deliver on their next key clinical milestones to maximise value across the portfolio against a continuing challenging market backdrop in the third quarter.

"Looking ahead, we have six key value inflection points over the next 12-36 months with the potential to drive significant NAV growth and are funded to deliver these. We will continue to take a rigorous approach to capital allocation and portfolio management, whilst also continuing to fuel our long-term growth by creating new companies across the new frontier of science."

As of 0900 GMT, Syncona shares were down 0.087% at 115.50p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com