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One factor I like about penny shares is how they often supply a sneak peek into the long run. Many of those small start-ups are on the slicing fringe of expertise, engaged on initiatives which have but to achieve mainstream media consideration.
From groundbreaking new AI implementations to life-saving drugs, they’re paving the way in which for a way our future would possibly 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 degree of danger 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 feel Protect Therapeutics (LSE: STX) is onto one thing massive — and I just like the path it’s headed. After years of share value declines, it’s been making spectacular strides in 2025.
Sure, substantial dangers stay. However trying on the numbers, I feel it has vital progress potential.
Spectacular progress
At present 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 median 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 monitor to attain money stream positivity by the tip of 2025. However that focus on may simply derail if issues don’t work out as deliberate.
A robust roadmap… with dangers
A recently-formed partnership with US pharma big Viatris has proved extremely profitable, giving it entry to a 100-person gross sales crew. Prescription volumes reached round 84,000 for the primary half, with the common web promoting value growing 1.4 instances from H1 2024. This pricing energy, alongside quantity progress, is a powerful indication of strengthening market acceptance.
For my part, 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 destructive fairness, which is regarding. The corporate’s survival relies upon largely on attaining money stream positivity by year-end and sustaining industrial momentum. Any setback — whether or not regulatory delays, aggressive pressures or execution missteps — may 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 enlargement, I see a vivid future forward for the corporate.
On the identical time, the dangers are equally pertinent — as a lot because it may skyrocket, it may additionally go to zero. General, I nonetheless assume it’s one price contemplating for speculative buyers with excessive danger tolerance, albeit as a small portfolio place.
