Novacyt expands Covid test capacity further as orders roll in

Novacyt said on Wednesday that its subsidiary Primerdesign has sold, received orders for or has been contracted to deliver more than £90m of its Covid-19 test.

The AIM-traded firm said that figure included the contracted minimum amount of test orders from the recently-signed supply agreement with the UK's Department of Health and Social Care, and initial orders received to date from the collaboration with AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Cambridge.

It said it was now supplying its Covid-19 test to more than 100 countries, with approvals for the test recently received from Malaysia and Ecuador.

The company said it was continuing to increase its sales levels into the United States market, and was evaluating potential options to further expand its presence there.

On 15 April, Novacyt announced plans to increase manufacturing capacity to around eight million tests per month.

It said on Wednesday that it was on track with that scale-up, expecting to achieve at least that level of output during June.

In addition, Novacyt said it had signed manufacturing partnership agreements with two further contract manufacturers based in the UK, providing it with a total of six sub-contract manufacturers in addition to its own manufacturing sites in Southampton and Camberley.

As it had announced on 15 April, Novacyt said it had been working to address the current reported global shortfall in extraction reagents required to perform PCR testing through the development of a new extraction technology.

That technology would avoid the use of the magnetic beads commonly used in the extraction process.

The development of a new ‘direct-to-PCR’ extraction method, dubbed ‘Exsig Free’, used prior to running the company's Covid-19 test, would thus remove the need for scarce reagents used with magnetic beads and “significantly reduce” the number of extraction steps, allowing faster cycle times, higher throughputs and cost savings.

Novacyt said it believed that innovation would facilitate an increase in testing capacity for Covid-19 , removing a current bottleneck in sample processing for laboratories.

Development was apparently progressing well, with the firm on track to launch the new extraction technology in May.

“The visibility of the sales order book is transformational for the business and it is becoming increasingly clear that this exceptional demand for our Covid-19 test could continue for some months,” said chief executive officer Graham Mullis.

“As a result, we continue to ensure we have significant capacity and flexibility in the manufacturing of our Covid-19 test.”

Mullus said the upcoming launch of the firm’s Exsig Free extraction kit would address a significant market need to increase testing availability and throughput.

“This is a challenging time for Novacyt but the transformation of our financial performance and our position as a market leader in clinical diagnostics means we are confident in the long-term prospects of the business.”

Novacyt said that, due to a longer review process of the financial statements caused by the pandemic, it now intended to report its audited results for the year ended 31 December during the week of 11 May.

At 1241 BST, shares in Novacyt were up 7.51% at 458p.