(ABH) Angel Biotechnology Hldgs

Angel Biotechnology Holdings Plc ("Angel" or the "Company")

Trading Update for the six months ended 31 December 2011

Angel Biotechnology Holdings Plc (AIM: ABH), the biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer, is pleased to provide an update on trading activities for the six month period ended 31 December 2011. The Company expects to report its audited results for the fifteen months ending 31 March 2012 in early June 2012.

Business Highlights for the period were:

Operations:  

·     The Pentlands GMP unit continued to run at peak and the forecast shows that this will continue into 2013.

·     Revenue for the period was £1,660,074 taking the total for the twelve month period to £3,062,074.

·     4 contract extensions and amendments to the value of £127,436 were signed in the six months ended 31 December 2011.

·     ABH forecast a loss for 15 months to 31 March 2012, primarily due to costs incurred in re-commissioning Cramlington and increased overheads as the Company builds capacity. In addition ABH has been unable to sign significant new contracts in the period due to capacity constraints at Pentlands which is fully utilised servicing existing contracts.

·     Successfully raised £1.15m before expenses by way of Placing in December 2011. This round brought in several new institutional investors. The funds will be used to accelerate occupation of the Cramlington facility, complete the joint venture implementation with MMH and provide general working capital.

Cramlington:

·     Work to re-commission the Cramlington GMP facility is progressing ahead of schedule on the Q1 2012 schedule for completion given in the Interim statement and recruitment is underway.

·     Work to support the MHRA application for re-licensing will begin in mid-February.  This will involve moving two of the current Pentlands programmes into the facility to provide validation data for re-licensing.

·     Recent fundraising will allow the progression of re-commissioning thereby further enhancing our service offering.

Business Development:

·     Dr Stewart White joined the Board in the newly created post of Commercial Director.

·     Further support for the decision to focus on Advanced Biologics is evidenced by the discussions currently at advanced stages to sign significant new contracts with new clients. The current value of bids for new business is more than £12.5m. These prospective clients are based mainly in the US and await confirmation on the availability of manufacturing slots at Cramlington. All are of a size and nature such that they could not be undertaken without access to the facilities at Cramlington and a number have indicated a need for the contracts to commence before June 2012.

·     A major new framework agreement with TransGenRx, based in Alabama, was announced. This will lead initially to two major long term programmes involving production of recombinant proteins. We are currently finalising the details of these and expect other programmes to follow in due course.

·     ABH presented at both the Regener8 Annual Conference and Bioprocess UK Annual Conference and participated as a Key Opinion Leader at Regener8.

·     The legal agreements to activate the joint venture arrangement with Materia Medica (MMH) are well advanced. Plans are being drawn up to increase the proportion of GMP space within the facility by 260 sq m thereby preserving the existing capacity for new clients.

Dr Paul Harper, Executive Chairman of Angel Biotechnology Holdings Plc, said:

"Angel has enjoyed a very productive six months with Pentlands operating at full capacity and re-commissioning of Cramlington progressing well. We have made good progress towards establishing the joint venture with MMH and have identified what we expect to be a rich pipeline of potential new contract opportunities focused heavily on large scale programmes to occupy our Cramlington facility.

Whilst we expect to make a loss in this financial year, the reasons for this are clear and in line with market expectations. We expect fiscal 2012-2013 to be an exciting period for the Company with the need to fill capacity in Cramlington and return to profitability. The business development team has made very good progress particularly in our target market, the USA. The agreement with TransGenRx is the first example of progress by our strengthened team in this market place. We expect to have further news as opening of Cramlington is confirmed, which will allow prospective clients to finalise their plans."

For further information:

Angel Biotechnology Holdings plc                                                                                       

Dr Paul Harper, Executive Chairman

Dr Stewart White, Commercial Director

Lorna Peers, Finance Director                                                                             www.angelbio.com

Grant Thornton, Corporate Finance

Colin Aaronson / Melanie Frean / Elliot Berg                                                +44 (0) 20 7383 5100

Hybridan LLP (Broker)

Claire Noyce/Tim Goodman/Deepak Reddy                                                 +44 (0) 20 7947 4350

Media enquiries:

The Communications Portfolio Ltd

Ariane Comstive / Caolan Mahon                                                       +44 (0) 20 7536 2028 / 2029

ariane.comstive@communications-portfolio.co.uk 

Notes to Editors:

Angel Biotechnology Holdings plc is a full service contract bio-manufacturing partner to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Angel specialises in advanced biologics including biopharmaceutical proteins and cell therapies, such as cellular vaccines and stem cells. At present, Angel's products are principally used in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials with a view to becoming the contract manufacturer of choice on a continuing basis.

Drug development companies outsource their biopharmaceutical manufacturing requirements to Angel to reduce their own capital requirements and enable them to develop products more rapidly.  In addition, Angel provides complete regulatory services and documentation to its customers while its manufacturing processes adhere to the most stringent regulatory requirements. Products are produced to current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) standards as required by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in facilities that are certified to European standards by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Its customers range from early-stage biotechnology companies including ReNeuron plc and US-based Pathfinder Cell Therapy, to established pharmaceutical companies such as Russian-based Materia Medica Holdings. 

Angel has two facilities: Pentlands Science Park near Edinburgh where it employs 38 people, and a site in Cramlington, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which is expected to be commissioned by the end of Q1 2012, initially employing up to 10 people.

More information is available at www.angelbio.com .