- FY16 molecular screening order book exceeds current operational capacity
- FY17 molecular screening order book in excess of £1.6 million
The Group notes that available high-throughput molecular screening capacity is now full for FY16 and in excess of £1.6 million of further agreements are now in place, to be recognised in FY17. In addition, significant additional work from these partners is anticipated following initial smaller pilot screens or as the start of a broader programme of drug combination screens, which could result in a further over £1 million in new molecular screening revenues in FY17.
The projects announced today include a sizeable drug combination study from a previous long-term top five pharma partner with a long history of working with Horizon for drug combination screening, and additional agreements with multiple top twenty pharmaceutical and emerging biotech companies. Each project varies in size and scope, from small screens involving a limited number of cell lines to far more complex work packages for testing highly promising novel compounds against large panels of cell lines. Individual molecular screening contracts vary from £40k to £400k and operate for between 1-4 months.
Dr. Darrin Disley, Chief Executive Officer, Horizon Discovery, commented: “Today’s announcement clearly demonstrates that our high-throughput molecular screening business is strong. As was recently announced, Horizon has taken the step to consolidate all screening operations from Boston, USA to Cambridge, UK. By doing so we have not only reduced our cost base but have also established a more efficient and integrated Services business platform, providing an engine for growth for a broad range of applications and markets. With a robust pipeline running at full capacity for the remainder of 2016 and building momentum for a strong Q1 and full year 2017, molecular screening remains a core driver of Horizon’s Services business and we look forward to the future with confidence.”
About Horizon’s High-throughput Molecular Screening platform:
Combination therapies have become the standard of care in many diseases including oncology, with immuno-oncology emerging as an area of particular promise. It is widely accepted that the biological pathways fundamental in many serious diseases are highly complex with individual cell types containing a unique network of pathways and, as a result, traditional monotherapies are often insufficient.
It is important therefore to assess these drug or compound combinations to look for synergistic or antagonistic effects as they will directly impact patient care. These may be observed either as an increase in the anti-proliferative or cell killing effect, or as potency shift such that lower dosages are required to see the same therapeutic effect.
Horizon is recognised as a leader in high-throughput molecular screening, with over a decade of experience analysing over 10 million unique drug combinations. Horizon’s core platform technology in this area is used to profile compounds at high throughput as single agents or combinations across hundreds of well annotated cancer cell lines in order to discover new combination therapies, to aid patient stratification, and to gain actionable insights in a short period of time.
*******
For further information from Horizon Discovery Group plc, please contact:
Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Media)
Katie Odgaard
Tel: +44 (0)7787 502 947
Email: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
Horizon Discovery Group plc
Darrin Disley, Chief Executive Officer
Richard Vellacott, Chief Financial Officer
Chris Claxton, VP Investor Relations
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 655 580
_______________________________________________________