Burcon NutraScience Corp (TSX:BU) said it has achieved another quarterly record of royalty revenues from its licensee Merit Functional Foods Corporation during the fiscal third quarter of 2023.
For the three months ended December 31, 2022, the company posted royalty revenues from Merit of $161,000, up from $45,000 in the same quarter in the previous year.
The company noted its royalty revenues from Merit have been increasing each quarter over the past year, with the current quarter’s royalty representing a 44% increase over the previous one.
READ: Burcon NutraScience reiterates commitment to Merit Functional Foods business, outlines funding plans in shareholder letter
“New leadership, progress and production consistency mark our fiscal 2023 third quarter, which saw our investee, Merit Functional Foods, achieve the highest protein sales for any single quarter to date, as well as saw Burcon further advancing its partnership discussions,” Burcon management said in a statement accompanying its quarterly results.
“We are pleased with the momentum from this quarter and continue to focus on our goal of commercializing Burcon's additional protein technologies.”
During the quarter, the company’s net loss increased to $16.3 million or $0.15 per basic and diluted share, up from $1.5 million or $0.01 per basic and diluted share in the year-ago quarter.
Merit, in which Burcon holds a 31.6% equity stake, recorded total sales of $3 million, a 146% increase over the year-ago quarter.
Burcon said its share of loss in Merit for the quarter was $2.1 million, compared to a share of loss of $1.2 million in the same quarter in fiscal 2022. The company noted this higher loss reflected its stage of development as it continued to ramp up production and sales.
The company ended the quarter with cash balances totalling $1.6 million. Burcon said it expects it has sufficient resources to fund its operations to June 2023, and further to May 2024 if certain conditions are met for the second tranche of its secured loan facility, noting the company has implemented certain cost-cutting measures to conserve its cash resources.
Burcon Nutrascience is a global technology leader in the development of plant-based proteins for foods and beverages.
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