Syntopix hopes for pivotal year with acne product breakthrough

The company, spun out of the University of Leeds, said it is optimistic of making progress on getting a key compound into a consumer acne treatment, which would significantly accelerate its growth.

It is also assessing various ways of expanding the business and expects to reveal these plans in the next few months.

The Bradford-based company yesterday reported six months of increasing revenues but deeper losses.

Syntopix said pre-tax losses for the six months to the end of January hit £557,000 from £517,000 a year earlier. Revenues from commercial agreements increased to £161,000 from £104,000.

“The board is currently exploring ways in which Syntopix can expand its business offering and strengthen its revenue streams, and we believe 2011 could be a transformational year for the group,” said chief executive Stephen Jones.

Shares in Syntopix rose 2p to 55.5p.

Syntopix’s library of compounds now stands at more than 3,000, and it is exploring how to commercialise this.

Dr Jones declined to comment further on its planned developments, but said he believes Syntopix is now about two years away from seeing its compounds in acne products on the shelves of supermarkets and pharmacies.

Its lead compound, SYN1113, was recently tested clinically and did as well as, and in some cases better than, a global brand at treating acne.

While Syntopix was yesterday unable to reveal much detail about the clinical study involving 30 subjects for six weeks, it said the compound demonstrated “excellent efficacy against inflamed skin lesions”. Syntopix has an exclusivity deal with an unnamed world leader in personal care brands for SYN1113.

The consumer goods company is currently gauging the consumer response to the compound and Syntopix expects it to make a decision about licensing it during the summer. “We are optimistic about the outcome,” it said.

“It (SYN1113) is competing in a market place where the annual incomes are well over $1bn and the global consumer healthcare company has a brand in that acne treatment space worth well in excess of $100m,” said Dr Jones.

“They don’t take these things on to make just a little bit of money.

“It can fail at any stage but at the moment we’re as confident as we can be.”

Dr Jones said Syntopix suffered a tough couple of years as potential customers demanded “more for less” and shied away from spending on its compounds.

“Instead of being able to tempt companies into speculative research programmes and evaluating compounds they wanted to spend less money and take less speculative bets.” However, he believes prospects are finally looking up for the company.

“The tide is turning with a couple of things but mainly I suspect because of progress we’ve been making over the last 12 months. We’ve got sharper, more focused and understand more what we’re doing.

“We’ve started to get closer to the target and that’s enabled us to enhance our reputation.”

In January, Syntopix signed a research deal with the owner of skincare brand Nivea.

It was appointed by Biersdorf, an international branded consumer goods company, which also owns the La Prairie brand, to carry out tests to improve the topical antimicrobials used in its products.

Dr Jones said the next challenge is for Syntopix’s compounds to be made consumer-ready, which would involve packaging, perfuming and stabilisation.

“It’s the refinement of a development candidate into a consumer offering that people would be very happy to use,” said Dr Jones.

Syntopix finished the period with cash of £1.07m. Losses per share reduced to 4.7p from 5.9p a year earlier.

It now has 24 families of patents or applications.

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