PLANEGG (dpa-AFX) - The biotech company Morphosys massively reduced its losses last year. Analysts had expected a significantly worse result. The group, which specializes in new cancer therapies, benefited in 2022 from higher sales of its drug Monjuvi and increased licensing income. In return, the Bavarians incurred significantly lower costs, as the SDax company announced on Wednesday evening after trading hours in Planegg near Munich. In the new year, however, the expenses could increase again somewhat. At the same time, the Board does not rule out declining revenues for Monjuvi in 2023, although this has already been known since the beginning of the year. The share price rose by 3.5 percent after trading hours compared with the Xetra close.

Last year, Group sales rose by 55 percent year-on-year to 278.3 million euros. As also reported by the group, Monjuvi contributed 89.4 million US dollars (84.9 million euros) - the rest came mainly from higher royalties and license fees. Morphosys had, for example, signed license agreements with the Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis and the US group Human Immunology Biosciences.

Morphosys was able to reduce its operating loss by 57 percent to just under 221 million euros. The almost one-third increase in research and development costs was offset by a significant reduction in administrative expenses. A year earlier, the establishment of sales structures for the blood cancer drug Monjuvi had still cost a lot of money after its market launch.

Although the bottom line for 2022 was still a deficit of a good 151 million euros, Morphosys had still reported a loss of almost 515 million euros in 2021. At that time, the deep red figures had been caused, among other things, by high write-downs on discontinued research projects of the acquisition Constellation Pharmaceuticals. In 2022, on the other hand, Morphosys benefited from income from the reduction of financial liabilities from collaborations, so that a profit was posted in the final quarter, contrary to market expectations.

Since the costly takeover of the U.S. cancer specialist, Morphosys has been going through difficult times. The Bavarians are currently putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping for a breakthrough of a cancer drug acquired from Constellation, which, however, is still in research. Pioneering study results on pelabresib in patients with the rare bone marrow cancer myelofibrosis are not expected until early 2024.

At the same time, the situation for the cancer therapy Monjuvi remains tense. For 2023, the Bavarians expect sales to decline to $80 million at worst and grow to $95 million at best. Morphosys forecasts sales in dollars, as revenues are largely collected in the U.S. market.

To cut costs, the company is now discontinuing its preclinical research programs. As a result, about 70 jobs will be eliminated at the company's headquarters, Morphosys announced in early March. Nevertheless, the group expects costs for research and development as well as for administration and sales of up to 460 million euros for the year - in 2022, these items together had still fallen by almost a third to 450 million euros.

Last year's report is the last one for which outgoing CFO Sung Lee was jointly responsible. The manager, who started in 2019, is leaving the company at the end of this week for personal reasons. The previous day, Morphosys announced that his successor, Lucinda Crabtree, would take up her post at the SDax company in the third quarter at the latest./tav/jsl/jha/