Manchester-based drug discovery company C4X Discovery Holdings plc on Thursday published results for the six months ended January 31, 2021, with its CEO telling investors the firm sees a “roadmap of potential cash milestones over the next 12-24 months.”

On April 12, C4X announced its subsidiary, C4X Discovery Limited, signed an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Sanofi worth up to €414 million for C4XD’s oral pre-clinical IL-17A inhibitor programme.

C4X said the Sanofi agreement involves €7 million up front and €407 million “in potential development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones, of which €11 million is in pre-clinical milestones.”

C4XD shares have soared about 160% over the past 12 months to give the firm a current stock market value of more than £90 million.

C4X Discovery CEO Clive Dix said: “C4X Discovery has continued to advance its high value portfolio of commercially attractive drug candidates for future partners and, post-period end, a €414 million agreement was signed with Sanofi for our IL-17A oral inhibitor programme, demonstrating the value of C4XD’s Drug Discovery expertise and our business model.

“C4XD’s focus will now be to further augment the portfolio, continue to build its network of partnerships and advance the pipeline of proprietary and partnered projects.

“With two programmes now successfully partnered and a roadmap of potential cash milestones over the next 12-24 months, the board is confident that, through the delivery of next generation, high quality out-licensing opportunities, C4XD can deliver significant value for shareholders.”