Zealand Pharma A/S (CPH:ZEAL), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery, design and development of innovative peptide-based medicines, reported on Thursday a negative net result of DKK219.5m for the first half 2018.

This was a decline over a negative net result of DKK121.5m in H1 2017.

Revenues for the half year were DKK24.9m, as compared with DKK86.7m in H1 2017. Royalty revenues for the half year were up by 60%, as compared with H1 2017.

There were no milestone revenues in first half of 2018, as compared with DKK71.3m in H1 2017.

Zealand maintains its financial guidance for full-year 2018.

Net operating expenses in 2018 are expected to be within the range of DKK475m to DKK495m, with most of the expenses related to the increased clinical development costs associated with phase 3 trials of the company's glepaglutide and dasiglucagon programmes.

Also, the company expects an increase in royalty from Sanofi for sales of Soliqua 100/33 and will provide updates as additional information is available from Sanofi. Zealand receives royalty revenues of 10% on Sanofi's net sales of Lyxumia / Adlyxin (lixisenatide) in countries with a valid IP protection and potentially up to USD100m in future commercial milestones.

(EUR1.00=DKK7.45)