Santhera's operating costs soar 67% in 1st half

Santhera Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss specialty pharmaceutical company with a focus on neuromuscular diseases, says that it generated no revenues in the first half of 2007, while in the like, year-ago period its pro rata income totaled 800,000 Swiss francs ($563,000) from the outlicensing of its dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor program to Sweden's Biovitrum.

During the period, operating expenses reached 20.7 million francs, a 67% increase, which was in line with expectations and largely reflects a 5.6 million-franc non-cash-relevant expenses resulting from unvested stock options, which were only 700,000 francs last year.

R&D costs jumped 40% to 10.7 million francs, reflecting the firm's increased development activities, which included its first ever product filing. In August, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) accepted for filing Santhera's Marketing Authorization Application for its lead product SNT-MC17 (idebenone) in Friedreich's Ataxia.