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One factor I like about penny shares is how they often provide a sneak peek into the long run. Many of those small start-ups are on the reducing fringe of expertise, engaged on initiatives which have but to realize mainstream media consideration.
From groundbreaking new AI implementations to life-saving drugs, they’re paving the best way for a way our future may look. On the identical time, many aren’t but worthwhile, counting on funding to maintain going till they make it.
Naturally, this provides an additional stage of threat to any penny inventory funding. When assessing penny shares, a key consideration is whether or not or not the corporate’s product (or service) has long-term viability.
With that in thoughts, I believe Protect Therapeutics (LSE: STX) is onto one thing huge — and I just like the course it’s headed. After years of share value declines, it’s been making spectacular strides in 2025.
Sure, substantial dangers stay. However wanting on the numbers, I believe it has vital progress potential.
Spectacular progress
At the moment buying and selling at simply 6.6p per share, Protect Therapeutics is a commercial-stage pharmaceutical firm that specialises in iron deficiency therapy. Its flagship product, Accrufer, is used to deal with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) — a uncommon illness that causes hypertension within the lungs.
In H1 2025, income elevated by 72.4% year-on-year to £16.5m, with Accufer accounting for £14.6m. In Q2 2025, income doubled from the earlier quarter, with 47,000 new prescriptions promoting at a mean value of £175.
For the yr, revenues are up 93.5% whereas earnings improved 51.2% year-on-year, boosted by accelerating industrial traction within the US. Money and equivalents stood at round £7.89m as of June, nearly all of which got here from fairness funding.
The enterprise is reportedly on observe to realize money circulate positivity by the tip of 2025. However that concentrate on might simply derail if issues don’t work out as deliberate.
A robust roadmap… with dangers
A recently-formed partnership with US pharma large Viatris has proved extremely profitable, giving it entry to a 100-person gross sales workforce. Prescription volumes reached round 84,000 for the primary half, with the common internet promoting value growing 1.4 occasions from H1 2024. This pricing energy, alongside quantity progress, is a robust indication of strengthening market acceptance.
In my view, it demonstrates the hallmarks of a possible millionaire-maker penny inventory: robust income acceleration, increasing market alternatives, and a path to profitability.
Nonetheless, the dangers can’t be ignored. It has a severely strained steadiness sheet with vital debt and adverse fairness, which is regarding. The corporate’s survival relies upon largely on attaining money circulate positivity by year-end and sustaining industrial momentum. Any setback — whether or not regulatory delays, aggressive pressures or execution missteps — might show catastrophic given the weak monetary basis.
My verdict
As a risk-averse investor, I don’t usually contemplate penny shares, however Protect Therapeutics is compelling. With a product that’s already flying off cabinets amid fast growth, I see a vibrant future forward for the corporate.
On the identical time, the dangers are equally pertinent — as a lot because it might skyrocket, it might additionally go to zero. General, I nonetheless suppose it’s one value contemplating for speculative traders with excessive threat tolerance, albeit as a small portfolio place.
