Genedrive's revenues rise despite difficulties in India

Genedrive, an AIM listed near patient molecular diagnostics diagnostics company, has progressed well in the second half despite difficulties faced with its Tuberculosis (TB) assay in India.

Group revenues “significantly” rose to £2.8m for six months ended 31 December 2016, up from £2m in the previous period with diagnostic related revenues at £1.2m compared to £0.5m.

Net cash at period end was £5.7m after the successful share placement in July 2016.

The group has continued to make positive progress on Hepatitis C (HCV) test and it is targeting submission for CE Marking by the end of March based on the encouraging performance results.

End user sales engagement in India for the TB assay have however remained challenging with the company’s distributor still operating from its initial stocking order of £0.2m.

The group is continuing to work to address some performance related issues which are evident in field use and are connected to sample preparation complexities that are unique to the TB assay.

Chief executive David Budd said: “We are making good progress towards realising the proven potential of the Genedrive platform in a range of applications through our own programmes and partnerships. While we continue to address challenges in India and are working to address TB-specific sample preparation issues for our MTB/RIF test in field use, the Genedrive platform itself is performing very well across a diverse range of programmes.

"Our Pathogen Detection collaboration with the US Department of Defense is progressing well and, in Hepatitis C, we have the potential to be first to market with a decentralised qualitative test that will help extend the reach of new treatments to large patient populations globally."

The share price fell 7.67% to 55.40p at 1253 GMT on Friday.