CRISM Therapeutics Reports Final Results and Advances Phase 2 Trial for Glioblastoma

CRISM cash position looks better after the year end than it did on 31 December 2025

At the year end, CRISM had £1.128 million of cash. On its own, that is not a huge number for a clinical-stage biotech heading into a Phase 2 trial, so if you stopped reading there, you would miss the bigger picture.

After the period end, the company completed a significantly oversubscribed fundraise of £2.745 million before expenses at 10p per share. It also won two non-dilutive grants – meaning money that does not require issuing more shares – worth £896,088 from Innovate UK and £99,902 from Invest Northern Ireland.

The most important of those is the Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst grant, because CRISM says it covers 70% of the cost of Part 1 of the Phase 2 glioblastoma trial. That is a strong validation point and a useful reduction in cash pressure.

Management says the combination of cash, the June 2026 equity issue and grant support allows the group to fund the clinical trial, prostate cancer work, operations and corporate overheads as a going concern for the foreseeable future. For investors, that meaningfully reduces near-term funding anxiety, though it does not remove it forever.

Why the bigger CRISM loss is not a surprise – but dilution is the price of progress

The loss for 2025 widened sharply to £1.903 million from £607,000. That looks ugly on the surface, but for a pre-revenue biotech preparing a Phase 2 trial, it is not unexpected.

Administrative and other expenses rose to £2.009 million from £901,000, driven largely by increased development work. Within that, R&D expenditure was £908,000, legal and professional fees were £186,000, consulting fees were £132,000, broker and registrar fees were £134,000, and auditor remuneration was £64,000.

The company still reported no commercial revenue. There was £231,000 of other income and the imphatec development service contract generated total revenue of £193,000, of which £169,000 was recognised in the year, but this is not a revenue-generating operating business yet. It is still a funding-led development story.

The catch, of course, is dilution. CRISM raised money several times, with approximately £4.7 million before expenses raised between June 2025 and June 2026. That helps the science move forward, but existing shareholders own a smaller slice each time new shares are issued.

Docetaxel-ChemoSeed gives CRISM a second programme beyond glioblastoma

This RNS is not just about brain cancer. CRISM is also pushing docetaxel-ChemoSeed in prostate cancer, and that matters because platform stories usually get stronger when there is more than one asset in play.

The company reported positive preclinical data in April 2026, including a 58% reduction in tumour volume versus standard of care at the strongest dose tested. It also said there were no adverse tolerability effects or early terminations in the ChemoSeed-treated groups.

That is encouraging, but investors should be disciplined here. Preclinical data are interesting, not decisive. The real value is that this supports the idea that ChemoSeed could be a broader local drug delivery platform for solid tumours, rather than a one-shot glioblastoma bet.

What this CRISM RNS means for retail investors

• The positive case: real regulatory progress, a trial that looks close to starting, fresh funding, grant support and a second programme showing useful signs of life.
• The negative case: no commercial revenue, a much larger annual loss, repeated equity raises and the core clinical trial still not yet dosing patients.
• The practical takeaway: CRISM looks better funded and better prepared than it did a few months ago, but the investment case still hinges on clinical execution.

My view is that this is a constructive update. It is not a victory lap, because biotech investors only really get paid when clinical data deliver, but it is a meaningful de-risking step operationally and financially.

If CRISM can move from site initiation into patient recruitment and then produce credible Phase 2 data, the story could change gear. Until then, this remains a speculative AIM biotech with genuine momentum, but also with the usual high-risk, high-dilution profile that comes with the territory.