Calzada appoints new director, posts 1H14 results

Calzada (ASX:CZD) has appointed experienced company director David Williams to its board and revealed it ended 1H14 in a stronger cash position even as its expenses grew.

Williams has joined Calzada as a non-executive director effective immediately. He has had 30 years’ experience working with public companies in the food, medical device and pharmaceutical sectors.

Williams is currently chairman of Medical Developments International (ASX:MVP), director of IDT (ASX:IDT) and managing director of corporate advisory firm Kidder Williams.

This week, Calzada also announced its financial results for the first half of FY14. The company ended the period with total cash and deposits totalling $5.3 million, up from $3.9 million at the end of FY13.

But total expenses grew 9.46% to $1.8 million, with R&D costs increasing 15.3% to $383,682. The company’s net loss for the quarter also increased 96.6% on paper to $1.15 million, due largely to a change in the way Calzada books its R&D tax incentive rebates.

During the six-month period, Calzada subsidiary PolyNovo applied for FDA approval to market its NovoSorb wound dressing for Topical Negative Pressure (TNP) procedures, completed a 10-patient trial of NovoSorb BTM in free-flap donor site repair and recruited five burn victims for a trial of NovoSorb BTM in third-degree burns.

Calzada’s other business unit Metabolic subsequently entered its first licensing agreement covering the manufacture and sale of obesity and muscle repair drug candidate AOD9604, signing a deal with compounding pharmacy Australian Custom Pharmaceuticals.

Calzada (ASX:CZD) shares were trading 8.05% higher at $0.094 as of around 2 pm on Friday.