Corporate News & RNS

Fusion Antibodies plc (AIM: FAB), specialists in pre-clinical antibody discovery, engineering and supply for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications, announces that Stephen Smyth has been appointed as interim Chief Financial Officer of the Company with immediate effect. 

Stephen has over 25 years’ experience working in audit & accounting, finance, and operations management within both the public accounting and commercial sectors. Stephen’s previous roles include acting as Chief Financial Officer at Sera Global LP, as well as holding senior finance functions at Cormark Securities Inc and at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) LLP. Stephen is a chartered accountant and is currently a partner at FPM, a Chartered Accountancy practice with offices throughout the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, including Belfast. At FPM, he provides virtual finance function solutions to clients ranging from start-ups to private equity backed multinationals.

As part of the ongoing efforts to preserve cash, Fusion will be utilising the services of Stephen on a part-time basis, supported by a team at FPM, who will provide the Company with outsourced finance function services. It is anticipated that the Company will utilise the services of Stephen and FPM until such time that the trading recovers to levels that would support the appointment of a permanent CFO and in-house finance function. 

Fusion Antibodies CEO, Adrian Kinkaid said: “We are pleased to welcome Stephen on board to manage our finance team. We have been through a period of change and as we are keeping costs down, this is an ideal solution for us at the current time to conserve cash.”

AIM Disclosures

Stephen Barry Smyth, aged 48, is, or has been during the last five years, a director or partner of the following companies and partnerships:

Stephen does not hold any ordinary shares in the Company.

Enquiries: 

About Fusion Antibodies plc

Fusion is a Belfast based contract research organisation ("CRO") providing a range of antibody engineering services for the development of antibodies for both therapeutic drug and diagnostic applications.

The Company's ordinary shares were admitted to trading on AIM on 18 December 2017. Fusion provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, production, characterisation and optimisation. These services include antigen expression, antibody production, purification and sequencing, antibody humanisation using Fusion's proprietary CDRx ^TM platform and the production of antibody generating stable cell lines to provide material for use in clinical trials. Since 2012, the Company has successfully sequenced and expressed over 250 antibodies and successfully completed over 200 humanisation projects and has an international, blue-chip client base, which has included eight of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies by revenue.

The Company was established in 2001 as a spin out from Queen's University Belfast. The Company's mission is to enable pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies to develop innovative products in a timely and cost-effective manner for the benefit of the global healthcare industry. Fusion Antibodies provides a broad range of services in antibody generation, development, production, characterisation and optimisation.

Fusion Antibodies growth strategy is based on combining the latest technological advances with cutting edge science to deliver new platforms that will enable Pharma and Biotech companies get to the clinic faster, with the optimal drug candidate and ultimately speed up the drug development process. 

The global monoclonal antibody therapeutics market was valued at $135.4 billion in 2018 and is forecast to surpass $212.6 billion in 2022, an increase at a CAGR of 12.0 per cent. for the period 2018 to 2022. In 2017, seven of the world's ten top selling drugs were antibody-based therapeutics with the combined annual sales of these drugs exceeding $63.2 billion.