Drug maker Mycenax Biotech Inc (永昕生技) yesterday said revenue would double this year from last year, as the company gears up to develop and manufacture drugs for clients on a contract basis.
The Miaoli County-based company also expects sales for next year to double from this year, Mycenax president Karen Wen (溫國蘭) said at an investors’ conference in Taipei.
Mycenax reported revenue of NT$54.94 million (US$1.86 million) for the first 11 months of the year, up 90.63 percent from NT$28.82 million a year ago, but the company will remain in red this year after posting losses of NT$78.92 million, or NT$0.85 per share, during the first three quarters.
Losses shrank from the year-earlier level of NT$91.08 million, or NT$1.58 per share, but Wen said: “It is still not likely for us to swing to the black next year, but we will try to keep our cash flow positive.”
To finance the development of new drugs and bolster its working capital, Mycenax is planning to issue 12.98 million new shares to raise NT$1.4 billion. The company is scheduled to shift to trade its shares on the main board from the Emerging Stock Market (興櫃市場) on Dec. 25.
“By the end of 2020, we will launch two to four biosimilar products for curing autoimmune diseases, co-develop two biosimilars for curing cancer and send two new protein drugs into phase-one clinical trials in Taiwan,” Wen said.
The company currently has no product on the market.
Mycenax’s TuNEX, which was co-developed with drug maker TSH Biopharm Corp (東生華) to treat rheumatoid arthritis, is expected to pass all clinical trials in 2015, while its neutropenia drug GranNEX could enter clinical trials by the end of this year, the company said.
The company has a bioreactor with a capacity of 500 liters to make protein drugs in the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區). Mycenax is constructing a new bioreactor of 2,000 liters, which will be the largest in Taiwan, the company said.
Mycenax will start the trial run of its 2,000-liter reactor in January and it expects the reactor to be operational in the second half of next year.
The company said the utilization rate of its new bioreactor will be at 80 percent in 2015.
Wen said the company can extract 2g of protein drug for every liter, and it can extract 32g of protein drug per liter if manufacturing in a small scale.
During the January-to-September period, the company spent NT$70.92 million on research and development, down 16.22 percent from NT$84.65 million a year ago, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Mycenax was established in 2001, focusing on developing and manufacturing biologics, or products made from living cells, blood factors and genetically engineered proteins.
The company has a paid-in capital of NT$973 million, with major shareholders including Center Laboratories Inc (晟德), Nien Hsing Textile Co (年興紡織), Taiwan Global BioFund (上智生技創投) and the National Development Fund (國發基金) of the Executive Yuan.
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