BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - The operating revenue of Innate Pharma SAS bounded by 67.8 percent to €14.2 million (US$20.7 million) in 2007, mainly thanks to a 143 percent increase in government research funding.

In effect, the Marseille, France-based company received €8.7 million in revenues from research collaborations and license fees last year, plus €5.5 million of government funding, up from €2.3 million in 2006.

Innate Pharma explained that the government funding it received was mainly composed of a research tax credit related to its research and development outlays.

The increase in its R&D spending between 2006 and 2007 resulted in a leap in the tax credit from €1.9 million to €4.9 million from one year to the next.

Most of Innate's own revenues consisted of research funding and license fees from the Danish company Novo Nordisk A/S under the collaboration agreement they signed in 2006.

According to Innate's CFO, Stéphane Boissel, the company "booked a total of about €15 million in revenue from the R&D collaboration with Novo Nordisk in 2006 and 2007."

"We expect to generate around €7 million in revenue from this partnership in 2008," he added.

Following the announcement earlier this month that Innate and Novo Nordisk, of Copenhagen, were to refocus their collaboration on inflammation as a result of Novo's exit from oncology, Innate's CEO, Hervé Brailly, has confirmed that this "should have a limited financial impact on our accounts in the short run. In 2008 we anticipate that the only payments that we will not receive are those related to preclinical milestones on cancer products." (See BioWorld International, Feb. 6, 2007.)

As of Dec. 31, Innate Pharma had cash and cash equivalents of €50.8 million.