Diagnostics firm raises £8m through share placings as stock soars 3,200% in six weeks
Manchester molecular testing business Genedrive has successfully raised £7m through a share placing.
At the same time of the placing announcement yesterday morning (May 5), the company also announced a proposal to raise up to a further £1m by way of a broker option.
The business has seen its shares soar by more than 3,200% in just six weeks after revealing two tests that could detect COVID-19.
On March 24, its shares closed at 9p per share. Last night the share price was 220p per share.
It said the proceeds of the placing would be used to scale up tests and development of its two detection systems.
The first of these systems is a high through-put laboratory test which is about three weeks from market. The test will determine if a patient has an active infection. The company expects it could have the ability to ramp quickly to high production volumes of more than 10,000 tests per hour.
Genedrive’s point-of-care instrument-based test should be ready in December. It can allow testing outside of the main hospital environment in places such as clinics, intensive care units, or where rapid and accurate testing might be required.
David Budd, Genedrive chief executive, said: “It is a critical time for our industry’s expertise to contribute towards testing and treatment of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our novel experience in developing molecular assays, the rapid workflows we can achieve with Genedrive compared to centralised testing, and our scaleable manufacturing capability give the company an opportunity to contribute very significantly to the global crisis.”
The company, situated between Manchester University and Manchester Royal Infirmary, joined the AIM market in 2007 and, until July 2016, was known as Epistem Holdings.
