SkyePharma's 6-month loss reduced 11%

A reduction in loss and progress made in the development of the asthma drug Flutiform (combined formoterol and fluticasone) were key to the positive market response received by UK drugmaker SkyePharma's half-year report. The firm's deficit for the period ended June 30, 2007, was 14.1 million ($28.8 million), an improvement of 10.7% on the figure it recorded in the comparable six months last year.

SkyePharma, which carried out considerable strategic restructuring activity, including delisting from the Nasdaq, earlier this year (Marketletters passim), said that the improvement was largely due to a 51% reduction in its loss from discontinued operations. The firm added that ongoing talks, coupled with additional clinical work it is conducting, would satisfy questions about the design of Flutiform trials that the US Food and Drug Administration raised last month (Marketletter August 13).

Turnover dropped 7.9% to 19.7 million, which the London-headquartered firm primarily attributed to exchange rate translation effects. Revenue from licensing activities and milestone payments was down 23.3% to 5.9 million, while the contribution from the company's contract research activities was also lower, falling 54.5% to 600,000. In addition, royalty income declined 12% to 8.2 million due, the company said, to a combination of exchange rate fluctuations and European generic competition for the benign prostatic hyperplasia drug Xatral OD (alfuzosin; Marketletters passim).