The head of Shorla Oncology said the business expects to increase revenues significantly in 2025, even as losses widened in 2023.
Chief executive Sharon Cunningham was commenting on new accounts for the Clonmel headquartered Shorla Pharma Ltd which show that the group recorded a pretax loss of €8.07m in 2023 as the business continued in its development phase.
The pretax loss followed a €6.2 million loss in 2022.
Last year, Sharon Cunningham and Orlaith Ryan from Shorla Oncology were named 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Of The Year.
Ms Cunningham said: “Our business is very capital intensive in the product development phase. It takes several years to develop and commercialise pharmaceutical drugs to start generating revenue and realise a return’’
The company is currently conducting another round of fundraising after having already raised $45 million, she added.
The accounts show that the company recorded its first revenues in 2023 at €2.49 million and Ms Cunningham said: “There was a significant increase in revenues in 2024 and we expect another significant increase in revenues this year.”
Research and development spending increased from €2.12 million to €3.26 million in 2023.
“We are very pleased with the progress of our business and we are exactly where we planned to be and want to be from a revenue and pipeline progression perspective,” Ms Cunningham said.
The company has currently four FDA approved medicines for the US market and launched the fourth of those this week in the US.
It also has a US office at Cambridge, Massachusetts where Ms Cunningham is based.
The Waterford native said that numbers employed now total 45 and said that she expects employee numbers to increase further this year.
The accounts show a capital injection of €28.45 million in 2023 resulted in the company having shareholder funds of €17.12 million at the end of 2023.
Asked on the impact of winning the EY Entrepreneur of the Year for 2024, Ms Cunningham said that it has been “ phenomenal”.
“It’s extremely beneficial to have access to such a dynamic group of successful entrepreneurs and winning the competition overall has provided validation and further credibility of our business’’
The company will be representing Ireland in the world EY Entrepreneur of the year competition in Monaco in June.
