Protherics: healthy cash flow after CytoFab deal

In a pre-closing statement ahead of its fiscal-year results anouncement, UK-based Protherics says its underlying business has continued to perform well, with revenues for the 12 months ended March 31, 2006, expected to be approximately L16.0 million ($27.8 million), excluding any contribution from CytoFab.

The London-based biopharmaceutical company focused on critical care and oncology, says that sales of its rattlesnake antivenom, CroFab, met expectations, while DigiFab, its treatment for digoxin overdose, earned approximately L3.6 million despite the firm's US distribution partner, Fougera, continuing to reduce its average inventory levels. Protherics noted that the approval of its Chesapeake Biological Laboratories site at the start of 2005, as a second fill and freeze-drying facility for CroFab, will allow it to meet current market demand.

For the year-ending 31 March, 2006, the key event for the group was the $195.0 million licensing deal it signed with Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca for the global development and commercialization of Protherics' anti-sepsis product, CytoFab (Marketletter December 19, 2005). The deal, which could transform the small UK group by fueling its entire pipeline, has been described as the largest transaction in anti-infectives in the last 10 years.