No half year revenues, but Genedrive confident of its future
Manchester molecular testing business, Genedrive, reported no revenues were received in the six month period to December 31, 2021, but said it has cash reserves and the company is “well positioned to deliver on shareholder value”.
During the half year reporting period the figures show just £2,000 of income, against £355,000 a year ago, while a pre-tax loss of £2.807m compares with a pre-tax profit of £621,000 in the 2020 six month period.
The company said the absence of revenues was due to delayed product development.
It said it reduced its R&D spend to £1.9m, down from £2.3m in 2020, and is debt free with cash of £6.3m at December 31, 2021, compared with £2.6m at June 30 2021. As at March 25, 2020, the company had cash of £6m, following the recent receipt of R&D tax credit of £1.2m.
During the six month period the company submitted its Genedrive POC COVID-19 test for approval to sell the product in the UK under the new Coronavirus Test Device Approvals (CTDA) regulation, with approval pending.
Distribution agreements for POC COVID-19 were signed covering Spain, Portugal, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Initial commercial orders were received subsequently in March 2022.
A new Genedrive system was developed and CE-marked for Antibiotic Induced Hearing Loss (AIHL) launch, and the Genedrive MT-RNR1 test for AIHL is now deployed into Manchester Hospital Trust for routine use.
Inspiration Healthcare was trained and commenced distributing the Genedrive MT-RNR1 test in the UK and Ireland.
A new product development programme for use of the Genedrive Point of Care device for stroke management in emergency care was also initiated.
Chief executive, David Budd, said: “We have achieved some key milestones in this period, namely the CE marking of our Genedrive POC COVID-19 test, which was closely followed by a number of distribution agreements with key territories.
“We have also made significant further progress with our AIHL system, establishing initial installations and generating significant evidence and support to make commercial progress.
“We believe the company is well positioned to deliver on shareholder value; we have managed our cash position carefully and are poised to progress with our expanded portfolio.”
He thanked investors who continue to support the company as it moves further into a commercial phase.
Looking ahead, he added: “Whilst the future trajectory of the pandemic is not possible to predict, as a board we are excited about the COVID-19 point of care assay’s technical performance and unique selling points, and we remain optimistic that it has the opportunity to generate meaningful revenues for the company.
“The AIHL product is now launched and although adoption into healthcare systems will be step by step until formally recognised as being ‘best practice’, we remain confident in the business case and predict escalating adoption in the UK and abroad, and expect in the medium to long term that the assay has the potential to sustain the business through to profitable revenues.”
He said the company expects to drive value from other single target test markets and is focusing its resources on point of care opportunities that can complement AIHL in emergency care settings, and bring long term revenue growth to the business.
“This is a critical phase of the company, but we have sufficient cash resources to allow both point of care products to embed themselves and have confidence that over time we can build successful revenues streams for these and other point of care products in the future.”
