Allergy Therapeutics pauses production at Freeman facility

Biotechnology company Allergy Therapeutics has “proactively paused” production at the Freeman facility, part of its Worthing manufacturing site, to accelerate ongoing site improvements, it announced on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm said none of the areas for improvement were related to the safety of products, adding that all of its clinical trials remained unaffected.

It said the partial pause followed an internal review of current operating processes, and was part of its previously-announced ongoing programme to improve the robustness of its quality systems, and build capacity across its manufacturing facilities.

Work was ongoing to minimise the commercial impact, with the board saying it currently believed the pause would be confined to “a number of weeks”, as it worked to limit the impact on revenue in that period.

“This temporary pausing of production is a necessary step to ensure that we can both continue to deliver the highest standards of quality in our products and build capacity for the future growth of the group,” said chief executive officer Manuel Llobet.

“It does not affect the safety of our products. Our work to deliver ongoing improvements has identified a number of systems that require further optimisation.”

Llobet said accelerating the work would ensure Allergy Therapeutics was “fit for the future” across its growing portfolio.

“We continue to support our strong research and development-driven pipeline.

“Our clinical trials remain on track and are completely unaffected by these manufacturing improvements.”

At 1257 BST, shares in Allergy Therapeutics were down 5.26% at 18p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.