(Alliance News) - ImmuPharma PLC on Thursday announced a share placing and a retail share offer to raise just under GBP2 million, while it also reported a narrowed loss in the first half of the year on reduced expenses.

The London-based drug discovery and development company reported a pretax loss of GBP1.1 million in the six months that ended June 30, narrowed from GBP1.8 million a year before.

ImmuPharma booked GBP69,959 in revenue, compared to none a year before. More importantly, research and development expenses were reduced to GBP828,767 from GBP1.0 million and administrative expenses to GBP412,277 from GBP555,600. The company also swung to net finance income of GBP161,355 from net finance expense of GBP160,301.

ImmuPharma said it raised GBP1.4 million from subscriptions to 67.5 million new shares at 2 pence each. The subscriptions were by finance provider and current 8.0% shareholder Lanstead Capital Investors LP, together with an institutional investor who wasn't named.

ImmuPharma shares were down 9.8% at 2.16p each in London early Thursday afternoon.

The company also launched a retail offer via the Winterflood Retail Access Platform to raise up to GBP500,000 from the sale of 25.0 million new shares at the same 2p price.

"We continue to make positive progressive steps for ImmuPharma," said Chair & Chief Executive Officer Tim McCarthy. "As a board, we remain focused on bringing our two key late stage P140 clinical assets in Lupus and [chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyneuropathy] through their final clinical trials and to the market."

By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor

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