On February 26, 2021 GENFIT (Nasdaq and Euronext: GNFT), a late- stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with metabolic and liver diseases, reported its cash position as of December 31, 2020 and revenues for 2020 (Press release, Genfit, FEB 26, 2021, View Source [SID1234575766]).

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Financials

As of December 31, 2020, the Company’s cash and cash equivalents amounted to €171.0 million compared with €276.7 million, as of December 31, 2019.

As of June 30, 2020, cash and cash equivalents amounted to €225.7 million.

The cash position as of December 31, 2020 omits the cost of the partial buyback by the Company for its convertible bonds (OCEANEs) issued in October 2017 and amounting to approximately €180 million. Following the completion of this transaction, €85.7 million of convertible debt was canceled by spending a gross amount of only €47.48 million.

Given the conversions of bonds into shares in January 2021, which led to the creation of 3,037,309 new shares in February 2021, the residual convertible debt, initially reduced to a nominal amount of €94.3 million through the partial buyback transaction, was further reduced by a nominal amount of €16.3 million, with approximately €78 million outstanding as of February 18, 2021.

Pascal Prigent, CEO of GENFIT, commented: "Since the announcement of our new corporate strategy in the Fall of 2020, GENFIT has achieved a significant amount and I’m satisfied with the early direction of 2021. ELATIVETM, our Phase 3 clinical trial in PBC, is on track, and we recently organized a KOL event on this disease, which highlighted the potential of elafibranor in this market already worth >$300M in 2020, and expected to reach $1bn in 2025, at the time we hope to launch. Next to this, we successfully restructured the convertible debt at the end of January 2021, with a maturity extended to October 2025. Some bondholders have since converted their OCEANEs, further reducing the outstanding debt to approximately €78 million. We will present advances on our R&D programs at the next corporate update, to take place before the summer."

1Excluding transaction-related costs
2Unaudited financial information under IFRS

Revenues3

Revenues for 2020 amounted to €765 thousand compared to €31 million for 2019.

Revenues included revenues from the licensing agreements with Covance/Labcorp to roll out the NIS4 diagnostic technology in NASH and the sale of goods and services provided pursuant to the collaboration and license agreement with Terns Pharmaceuticals. As a comparison, revenues for 2019 mainly consisted of the $35 million upfront payment received from Terns Pharmaceuticals as part of the collaboration and license agreement.

Reminder

On September 30, 2020, GENFIT announced its plan to reduce its cash burn by 50% by 2022 compared to the cash burn before the publication of the RESOLVE-IT Phase 3 data readout.

The Company reiterates its goal to reduce the cash burn rate from €110 million annually before our Phase 3 data, to approximately €45 million annually, beginning in 2022. 2021 will be a transition year with a cash burn of approximately €75 million (excluding the partial OCEANEs buyback transaction for €47.48 million in cash) mainly due to the residual expenses related to the termination of the RESOLVE-IT clinical trial, and to costs associated with the workforce reduction plan.

Upcoming Financial Communications

The Company will release its full-year 2020 financial results on April 1, 2021. The 2020 Universal Registration Document, the 2021 Annual Financial Report (included in the 2020 Universal Registration Document), and the Annual Report on Form 20-F will be published by the end of April 2021.