Ixico H1 revenues grow despite Covid-19 impacts on clinical development sector

Clinical research firm Ixico said on Monday that revenues were expected to have improved in the six months ended 31 March, despite the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the clinical development sector.

Revenues were pegged to be around £4.9m for the half, an 8% year-on-year improvement, while the group's adjusted order book was said to have grown from £15.3m to £19.0m, partly driven by the signing of £9.4m of contracts across several clients and neurological disease indications over the period.

The AIM-listed group also highlighted that it had a "strong" cash balance of £7.0m, up slightly from the £6.7m on hand at the same time a year earlier.

Ixico also acknowledged that its largest client had stopped dosing participants in its phase III and open-label extension trials in Huntington's disease back in March. However, the client had now provided it with a revised protocol for the trials.

Previously, Ixico had indicated that the maximum impact on revenues could be around £2.7m for the remainder of the 2021 trading year and about £5.0m in 2022 but receipt of the revised protocol enabled the company to estimate impacts on its 2021 performance as being roughly £700,000 and £2.8m for 2022, with a total of £7.1m removed from its order book through to 2024.

Chief executive Giulio Cerroni said: "Considering the delays experienced in the past year to new trial start-ups (other than Covid-19 trials), we are particularly pleased with the increasing pace of new contract wins, combined with continued top-line growth reported for the first half of 2021."

As of 0905 BST, Ixico shares were up 6.67% at 88.54p.