"Excellent" Progress Made By Chiroscience In 1996

Chiroscience of the UK made progress with clinical trials, and securedthe acquisition of Darwin Molecular in the financial year ended February 28, 1997, which has been described as a year of "excellent progress" by the firm's chief executive, John Padfield.

Group revenue grew 133% to L11.5 million ($18.7 million) and included income from sales of chiral compounds and intermediates, income from technical collaborations and payments for achieving research milestones. The firm's subsidiary, Chiro Tech, achieved turnover of L9.2 million, of which L6.5 million related to sales of the key intermediate (-) lactam, an increase of more than two-fold over the prior year. Revenues generated by the Darwin Discovery projects include income from sales of dexketoprofen and the Medeva and Knoll development collaborations.

Profit For Chiro Tech A pretax loss of L18.7 million was recorded, against a loss of L11.6 million a year earlier. The consolidated operating loss was L21 million, an increase of 61%. It included the first operating profit from Chiro Tech of L1.2 million, compared with a loss of L900,000 in the previous year. Pharmaceutical operations made a loss of L20.4 million, which is double the year-earlier loss. The loss attributable to central activities stayed the same as in the previous year at L1.8 million. The loss per share was 21.9 pence.