LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Covid-19 vaccine producer Oxford Biomedica swung to a profit in the half year on the back of a surge in revenues through its partnership deal with AstraZeneca and announced that Serum Institute of India has agreed to invest £50m in the group in return for a 3.9% stake in the company.
The company on Wednesday said operating core earnings rose to £27.1m from a £0.4m loss. Revenue increased by 139% to £81.3 m. On a pre-tax basis profit for the six months to June 30 amounted to £19.2.m, compared to year-on-year losses of £6.1m.

Group operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the second half were expected to be higher year on year, but lower than the first six months as a result of an increase in operating expenditure levels, the company said.

"The exceptional financial results that we have reported reflect our strong progress across the business as we continue to demonstrate our world leading expertise in gene and cell therapy," said chief executive John Dawson.

"As we move from strength to strength, and with rapid growth in the cell and gene therapy market, we are in a great position to maximise on the opportunities ahead, both in lentiviral vectors as well as other viral vector types and look forward to the remainder of 2021 and beyond with considerable confidence."

Operating expenses fell 19% to £23.6 million, which the company pinned on a higher recovery of batch manufacturing costs, which was reflected in increased cost of goods.

Oxford Biomedica said it continued large-scale commercial manufacture of AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine from three manufacturing suites. The two companies in May committed to increase the number of batches in the second half of the year 2021 - leading to Oxford lifting forecasts of cumulative revenues from the contract to be in excess of £100m by the end of the year.

In a separate statement, Oxford Serum Institute of India had agreed to invest just over £50m in the group in return for a 3.9% stake in the company.

Proceeds of the deal will be used to fund the development of the fallow area at Oxbox, the group's manufacturing facility based in Oxford "into a flexible advanced manufacturing space and the validation of several independent cGMP suites, expected to come online in mid-2023", Oxford Biomedica said.

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