ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB: Publication of financial report for January – December 2018

ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB (“ExpreS2ion”) hereby publishes financial report for the period of January – December 2018. The report is available as an attached document to this press release and on the Company’s website (www.expres2ionbio.com). Below is a summary of the report.

CEO Dr. Steen Klysner comments

“In 2018 we focused on the continued expansion of our core platform by developing and including new technologies, as well as strengthening our joint venture AdaptVac. We have succeeded well with these activities and have documented good progress in a number of existing and new projects at the same time. This investment was however reflected negatively in our revenues that were below what we expected. Looking forward, we now expect to see the service business gain momentum as an isolated business approaching a sustainable plateau in 2019. Beside this, an increasing and highly exciting part of our activities will target the development of new and existing assets in partnerships and joint ventures, based on our optimised proprietary discovery platform.”

Q4 (2018-10-01 to 2018-12-31)

• Group turnover amounted to 1,434 (1,823) KSEK. 
• Result after financial items amounted to -6,104 (-4,124) KSEK. 
• Net income amounted to -5,585 (-3,135) KSEK. 
• Net income per share* amounted to -0.47 (-0.33) SEK. 

The fiscal year 2018 (2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31)

• Group turnover amounted to 8,868 (9,795) KSEK. 
• Result after financial items amounted to -18,853 (-11,750) KSEK. 
• Net income amounted to -16,822 (-9,835) KSEK. 
• Net income per share* amounted to -1.46 (-1.10) SEK. 
• Cash flow from operating activities amounted to -12,879 (-8,608) KSEK 
• Equity ratio** amounted to 39.6 (39.1) %. 
• Cash and cash equivalents amounted to 6,255 (1,508) KSEK. 

Numbers in parenthesis are the numbers from the same period in 2017. 

*The Group’s net income per share: the net income for the period divided by 11,541,664, which is the average number of shares for the whole period. The average number of shares for the fourth quarter was 12,002,015. The total number of shares in ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB was 12,002,015 shares per 2018-12-31. 

**Equity ratio: Shareholder’s equity divided by total capital. 

Significant events during Q4 2018

• On October 3, the Company announced that a recently published scientific article in Nature Communications on the Pfs48/45 malaria vaccine candidate adds further evidence to support that the ExpreS2 platform is an excellent tool for producing transmission blocking malaria vaccines.  

• On October 31, the Company announced that the Jenner Institute of the University of Oxford had presented positive results from its Phase I/IIa clinical studies with their RH5.1 blood-stage malaria vaccine at a scientific meeting in New Orleans. The vaccine, developed and manufactured using the ExpreS2 platform, was shown to be safe and it is the first vaccine to demonstrate a reduction in the parasite multiplication rate following a blood-stage controlled human malaria infection. This is a very important milestone in a longstanding collaboration with The Jenner institute of Oxford and as stated by Professor Dr. Simon Draper, Leader of the Jenner Institute’s Blood-Stage Malaria Vaccine Group, “the encouraging results from this RH5.1 Phase I/IIa malaria study are in line with our preclinical findings and form a solid foundation on which to build the next steps in our blood-stage malaria vaccine clinical programme. We are grateful to ExpreS2ion for providing the enabling ExpreS2 development and production platform, and their contribution to the project as a whole.” 

• On December 12, ExpreS2ion announced the publication of the first visual image of the molecular ’key’ the deadliest malaria parasite uses to enter human blood cells in the scientific journal Nature. The publication was authored by an international team, including scientists from ExpreS2ion, led by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (“WEHI”). This breakthrough will contribute to the development of vaccines based on a patent co-owned equally by WEHI and ExpreS2ion. 

• On December 20, ExpreS2ion announced that the Company's joint venture AdaptVac has received DKK 2.2 million (SEK 3.2 million) in funding from the Danish Innovation Foundation for two new vaccine development projects: cardiovascular disease in humans and HER2+ breast cancer in dogs. 

Significant events after the end of the period

• On January 10, 2019, ExpreS2ion announced that the placental malaria vaccine (PlacMalVac) consortium, of which ExpreS2ion is part, has announced successful phase I clinical study results. The PAMVAC vaccine, manufactured using the ExpreS2 platform, was demonstrated to be safe, well-tolerated and to elicit specific antibody responses in all participants. 

• On February 19, 2019, ExpreS2ion announced that its joint venture AdaptVac has been awarded approx. SEK 3.6 million by the Danish Innovation Foundation for its participation in a vaccine project aimed at preventing post-weaning diarrhoea, a major cause of antibiotic use in the swine industry. 

A complete summary of significant events during 2018 is available in the attached financial report.

Certified Adviser 

Sedermera Fondkommission

E-mail: CA@sedermera.se

Telephone: +46 40-615 14 10

For further information about ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB, please contact:

Dr. Steen Klysner, CEO
Telephone: +45 2062 9908
E-mail: sk@expres2ionbio.com

This press release contains information that ExpreS2ion is obligated to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication through the agency of the contact person set out above on February 28, 2019.

About ExpreS2ion

ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies ApS is a fully owned Danish subsidiary of ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB with company register number 559033-3729. The subsidiary has developed a unique proprietary platform technology, ExpreS2, that can be used for fast and efficient preclinical and clinical development as well as robust production of complex proteins for new vaccines and diagnostics. Since the Company was founded in 2010, it has produced more than 300 proteins and 40 virus-like particles (VLPs) in collaboration with leading research institutions and companies, demonstrating superior efficiency and success rates. In addition, ExpreS2ion develops novel VLP based vaccines through the joint venture AdaptVac ApS which was founded in 2017.

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