Investment in R&D at Sensyne rises sharply as company reports annual results

Sensyne Health plc, the Oxford headquartered British Clinical AI technology company, has reported total revenues of £0.136 million for the year to 30 April 2019, a rise from £0.081 million in 2018. However, expenditure on research and development rose to £9.512 million, up from £2,742 million in 2018 and adjusted operating loss from continuing operations was reported at £11.513 million (2018: £6.222million).

The healthcare technology company aims creates value from accelerating the discovery and development of new medicines and improving patient care through the analysis of real-world evidence from large databases of anonymised patient data in collaboration with NHS Trusts.

Sensyne Health also reported a number of operating highlights during the year. These include the first major pharmaceutical collaboration agreement for £5 million signed with Bayer to accelerate the development of new treatments for cardiovascular disease using Clinical Artificial Intelligence.

Another milestone is the announcement of signed agreements with a Fortune 200 company and a data infrastructure specialist to launch and scale our digital health products in the U.S.

The initial focus will be on taking Sensyne Health's gestational diabetes product, GDm-Health, to the US market. With nearly 10 per cent of pregnancies in the US affected by GDM every year, Sensyne Health says its product can dramatically change the way this treatable condition is diagnosed and managed by doctors and their patients.  This will be followed by Sensyne Health's chronic disease products for respiratory, EDGE, and cardiovascular, Support-HF.

As part of these agreements, Sensyne Health will be developing Clinical AI-as-a-service solutions that will use artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics to help prevent and manage a variety of chronic health conditions.

The company has also announced that it has entered into a formal research agreement with the UK MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) to contribute to the development of methods to validate software algorithms used in digital health.

During the year the tech company created a new partnership with Evotec, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford Sciences Innovation and the University of Oxford called LAB10x to accelerate the commercialisation of the next generation of digital therapeutics and data-driven drug discovery from clinical artificial intelligence research and digital health innovations.

The company raised £60 million in new funds through its IPO last year having previously received £4.778 million in a private pre-IPO round.

It is primarily investing these funds in R&D. Its operating loss was driven by increased employee costs of £7.889m (2018: £3.531 million), with the majority of other expenditure being employee related items such as office expenditure (Sensyne commenced a lease on its new office at the Schrödinger Building at the Oxford Science Park), fees paid to recruiters and use of external contractors.

Lord (Paul) Drayson, CEO of Sensyne Health, said:  "I am pleased to report strong progress in our first full year reporting period as a public company, achieving a number of important milestones."

“Experience over the past year has taught us that rather than trying to build a portfolio of small contracts with multiple pharmaceutical clients that would in time develop into larger contracts with those clients, we are better off focusing our efforts on building strategic relationships from the start with a small number of clients that develop a broader R&D partnership relationship with us, as we have achieved with Bayer.

“This has had the effect of reducing our revenue in FY19 and the revenue to be expected in the six months to 31 October 2019 and has increased the proportion of revenue we now have under contract for the second half of FY20 and for FY21 than was previously expected. Going forward we expect this strategy of focusing on fewer, larger contracts will generate the best return for shareholders.”