October 28 (Reuters) – Spanish pharmaceutical group PharmaMar (PHMR.MC) said on Thursday its nine-month net profit fell 58% to € 54.7 million ($ 63.92 million) from a year ago when he recorded a huge gain on a license payment.

PharmaMar, which develops marine-inspired oncology drugs, said its recurring revenue increased 31% to € 119.4 million over the period, helped by demand for its cancer treatments. It recorded the initial license payment of 181 million euros in the first half of last year.

The company’s oncology sales jumped 21% year-over-year to € 88.7 million, boosted by the steady performance of its ovarian cancer drug Yondelis, as well as an increase 78% of European sales of Zepzelca, its lung cancer medicine.

Royalty income reached 27.2 million euros in the January-June period, compared to 7.4 million euros a year ago, mainly supported by sales of Zepzelca in the United States by partner Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ.O).

Sales of PharmaMar’s smaller diagnostics division fell 67%, affected by lower demand and a drastic drop in the price of PCR tests, antigens and COVID-19 antibodies, the company said.

The Group’s R&D expenses increased by 21.2% over the nine months.

PharmaMar has invested an additional 4.5 million euros in clinical trials to use its drug Aplidin, originally developed to treat a type of bone marrow cancer, as a COVID-19 treatment in the third trimester.

($ 1 = € 0.8558)

Reporting by Anita Kobylinska; Editing by Nathan Allen, Kirsten Donovan

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.