Advanced Oncotherapy PLC (AIM:AVO) (AVO) has said it is focusing on cost reductions and refinancing as it aims to treat the first patients with its LIGHT proton beam cancer therapy in the second half of 2023.
In an update, Nicolas Serandour, AVO chief executive, commented: "Despite the wider economic issues and inflationary cost pressures impacting our execution and financing plans, we have made significant progress in 2022.
"As these headwinds persist, AVO is strongly focused on three immediate objectives: achieving regulatory certification, increasing the size and maturity of our commercial pipeline, and reducing operational spending by over 30% in the next 90 days."
"As we enter 2023, we are seeing tremendous growth in our new customer sales pipeline with active discussions taking place with over 20 new centres. We believe this is driven by the delivery on recent milestones such as 230 MeV, the anticipation of upcoming certification, and the extremely promising clinical results that our recent studies are demonstrating," Serandour added.
Advanced Oncotherapy said it needs an additional £75-85mln to complete the first LIGHT project, at its site at Daresbury, which will comprise equity funding and other non-dilutive sources.
A refinancing of existing debt facilities is also planned, which will include the repayment of a short-term loan facility provided by a French counterparty that has £2.92mln outstanding. Discussions are underway with the lender, the company noted.