Today, the immunodiagnostics group, Oncimmune (ONC ), has signed a commercial collaboration deal with a healthcare company owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet.
The contract will focus on the autoantibody profiling of patients who have had the COVID-19 infection and have gone on to develop long lasting symptoms lasting more than four weeks.
Oncimmune said it will utilise its recently validated infectious disease panel of biomarkers to evaluate whether autoantibodies are associated with the development of “Long COVID”.
The Company’s infectious disease panel will also be used to assess whether these autoantibodies remain elevated in long COVID patients during their period of recovery.
Should this initial discovery phase prove successful, both Oncimmune and Verily have retained the rights to commercialise the resultant intellectual property, including the filing of patent applications for the development of a companion diagnostic, the company noted.
Oncimmune says the real impact on society of long COVID is only beginning to be understood. It outlined: “As is typical with Oncimmune’s contracts, there is potential for the initial discovery work in autoantibodies to progress onto the identification of intellectual property rights, and to the development of viable commercial companion diagnostic devices.”
Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Oncimmune said it expects its ImmunoINSIGHTS to become a leading player in the autoantibody profiling segment of pharma services by FY23.
In its half-year results for period to 30 November 2021, the group, which highlighted a solid ImmunoINSIGHTS pipeline, said this growth will be supported by an “enviable list” of existing blue-chip customers, which includes “many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.”
Since launching the ImmunoINSIGHTS business back in 2020, the company has secured contracts with five of the top ten global pharma companies. This is expected to constitute around 70% of revenue for FY22. The Group added that most of these clients have multiple studies, with five separate programmes underway with the world’s leading oncology group.
The number of contracted clients has more than doubled from FY21 to 13, with three of these currently running multiple contracts each. The company said momentum has continued to accelerate post period, particularly in terms of number of orders and its forecast pipeline.
In particular, the company highlighted to investors that there is increasing visibility from project extensions as well as additional contracts in other areas for Oncimmune’s existing clients.
The company currently anticipates that by the end of FY22 approximately 70% of FY22 group revenues will have been earned from contracts with the top ten pharmaceutical companies.
In 1H22, revenue was £1.43m, down from £1.83m in 1H20 as this was affected by the easing of COVID-19 restrictions over the 2021 summer holiday period. Gross profit for the period was £0.96m (1H20: £1.41m) while loss after tax was £4.86m (1H20: £2.6m), the group reported.
Administrative expenses rose to £4.05m which the group said reflects the planned expansion in its ImmunoINSIGHTS Dortmund facility and accelerated investment in its commercial team, particularly in the US, in light of the increasing demand for ImmunoINSIGHTS services. In addition, research & development expenses remained stable at £0.67m (1H20: £0.62m).
Gross cash balance at the period end of £2.97m (1H21: £3.28m) while net debt at the period end came to £5.39m, down from £7.22m in 1H20, after investment including capacity growth.
Whilst new business activity in 1Q22 was unexpectedly slower than forecast, Oncimmune acknowledged that there has been a ‘marked pick-up’ in commercial momentum in 2Q22 which has continued into 3Q22 and which is expected to continue into 4Q22 and beyond.
In addition, Oncimmune’s iDx Lung1 programme remains ongoing, with 815 patients recruited to date in Southampton and Leeds. Following the completion of a screening evaluation pilot with the
Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group, a final report is expected in 4Q.
A second pilot with an additional CCG screening over 2,000 patients is also anticipated to commence in 4Q22 which is also expected to lead to an ongoing contract, it highlighted.
Oncimmune says ImmunoINSIGHTS, which it acquired for an all-share consideration in 2019 for £3.5m, is “an exciting business” which is delivering significant high margin revenue growth.
By the end of FY22, the group expects ImmunoINSIGHTS to have contracted with the majority of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies to deliver high quality projects.
The company outlined that a significant proportion of contracts signed during the latter part of FY22 will deliver revenue into FY23 and that, as a result, it expects to commence FY23 with more than 30% of management’s FY23 revenue expectations already contracted.
Commenting, Dr Adam M Hill, CEO of Oncimmune Holdings said: “Now that we have far greater visibility on our revised management expectations for this year and beyond, it is anticipated that ImmunoINSIGHTS will become a leading player in the autoantibody profiling segment of pharma services by FY2023, supported by our enviable list of existing blue-chip customers, which includes many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.”
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