No retreat, no surrender: Sosei Heptares takes hit to accelerate pipeline

Japanese-owned pharma company Sosei Heptares, which has expanded its presence to a second site in Cambridge, took a hit on revenues and endured growing losses in the six months to June 30 as it refused to compromise continued growth in its portfolio and facilities.

Revenue fell $8.9 million to $20m and the net loss was $7.6m higher to $28.8m. Cash and equivalents at June 30 had fallen by $129.2m to $392.9m.

Set against those figures was the outstanding boost in R & D investment which was almost five times higher – up $6.1m to $30.1m. This surge primarily reflected increased investment in the company’s in-house discovery and early development programmes and the cost of a restructuring strategy designed to accelerate the development of medicines.

The expansion of UK R & D operations to a second site in Cambridge was driven by the company’s growth and strategy to become a multi-programme, early clinical stage business and a partner-of-choice for leading biopharma companies.

Chris Cargill, President and CEO of Sosei Heptares, said: “The first half of 2022 has been an exciting period. Our new leadership team has settled in quickly and is already making progress implementing important operational initiatives designed to build an agile, world-leading drug discovery and translational medicine capability and accelerate our transformation into a multi-program, early clinical-stage business.

“We continue to focus on bringing much-needed medicines to patients as fast and efficiently as possible, and to generate significant value for shareholders.

“We are doing this by augmenting the exceptional talent and expertise at the company; collaborating with exciting new technology companies to enhance our ability to identify, validate and address new opportunities; and signing high-value discovery, development and commercialisation partnerships with global leaders. We have made progress in all these areas during 2022. 

“These achievements, including most recently our second deal with AbbVie and an important clinical milestone reached with Neurocrine, highlight the strengths of our business and our ability to deliver strong development candidates targeting key disease indications. This gives us great confidence for continued success in the future.”