Cancer drug developer Antisoma saw a return to the red at its half-year report statement, reporting a 30,000 pound loss after tax.

This compares to profits of £424,000 for the full year, reported last October, when the group restructured its activities to become an investment company.

Antisoma made its first major deal as an investment company in the most recent trading period, via an agreement to subscribe to up to £4.0m in new shares proposed for issuance by GVC Holdings. This is in connection with GVC's recommended offer, alongside William Hill, for Sportingbet.

Confirmation on the size of Antisoma's holding in GVC is expected on March 31st.

In the half year to December 31st, Antisoma continued to cut costs, and is now sitting on £12.88m in cash, and short term deposit balances of £9.48m.

Antisoma previously focused on cancer therapy development, but suffered a blow in early 2011 when both its drugs failed in final-stage trials. The group then stopped all its drugs development programmes in an effort to save cash, ahead of the restructuring.

Chairman Michael Bretherton was cautiously optimistic in his outlook for the company, pointing to the troubles in the general economy.

Still, he believes Antisoma's strong cash position and low cost base are encouraging: "This places the company in a good position to exploit opportunities as they emerge in the current volatile economic environment. We will therefore continue to maintain a highly selective investment approach."


Revenue for the first half of the fiscal year 2013 was down 8.0 per cent at AIM-listed Europa Oil & Gas, financial results from the company have shown.

The company reported that revenue fell to £2.2m compared to £2.4m in the first half of 2011 for three onshore producing UK assets.

The average volume of oil produced every day over the same period was down 7.0% to 177 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

However, the group reported that it was on course to achieve a full-year production target of 180 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The oil price per barrel was also up 1.10% to $110.1 per barrel compared to $108.9 in 2012.

Hugh Mackay, Chief Executive Officer of Europa Oil & Gas, reacted by saying that: "I am highly encouraged by the continuing good performance of our producing UK assets which has generated revenues of £2.2m in the first half of this year.

"The back-to-back work-overs on the two West Firsby wells were potentially disruptive and I commend our operations team for their efforts, dedication and professionalism in completing the work efficiently. As a result, we remain on course to hit our full-year production target of 180 barrels of oil per day."

"The revenues generated by our UK production assets help fund our exploration activity, most notably our share of drilling costs for either the Wressle or Broughton prospects in the UK in the first half of 2013."

Europa Oil & Gas has a diversified portfolio of multi-stage hydrocarbon assets that includes production, exploration and development interests.

Europa Oil and Gas's share price was unchanged at 10.12p at 09:30 on Tuesday morning.

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