Bionomics reports healthy bank balance

Adelaide biotech Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has reported that it had nearly AUD$5 million in the bank at the end of the December 2003 quarter, giving it enough cash for at least two years at its current burn rate.

Bionomics CFO Lee Craker said the company's net operating cash burn for the six months to the end of December was $1.089 million.

The cash-burn figure marginally exceeded the net cash inflow of $1.068 million for the same period, a figure swelled by Bionomics' $2.87 million Commonwealth R&D Start grant for its epilepsy drug discovery program. The company began drawing down the grant funds in July.

CEO Dr Deborah Rathjen said highlights for the quarter included the establishment of a collaboration with the Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital to identify new mutant genes involved in epilepsy, the award of a US National Institutes of Health grant by Bionomics' collaborators at Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute, and the development of the first transgenic mouse model of an inherited form of epilepsy.

Rathjen said Bionomics would focus on gearing up its epilepsy drug-discovery program in 2004, while continuing to build its research and commercial linkages with Danish firm Genmab and US-based Nanogen.

At time of writing, Bionomics was trading at $0.39, up from about $0.28 in mid-December.