Premaitha Health confident about full year after Thermo Fisher deal

Pre-natal testing company Premaitha Health reported a slightly larger loss as well as a larger provision for its looming legal case, but has signed up with a major US manufacturing partner.

Premaitha, which has developed the IONA non-invasive pre-natal test for Down's and other genetic syndromes, reported revenues up sixfold to £0.6m in the six months to 30 September from early sales of the test.

Losses before one-off and non-cash items swelled slightly to £2.7m from £2.3m in the same period last year, on gross profits of £0.26m, due to staff recruitment, product development and commercialisation activities.

During the period the AIM-listed company installed the IONA test in four customer laboratories in the UK, Switzerland and Poland, with a fifth in France since the period end, and began processing patient samples in two in-house clinical service facilities in the UK and Chile.

IONA has only so far been approved for free NHS-style reimbursement in Switzerland as a secondary screening test, though management expect other countries to follow suit "in the not too distant future".

After a £8m fundraising in July, there was £6.6m in the bank at period end.

After Nasdaq-listed Illumina sought to bring intellectual property litigation against Premaitha, the company has now increased its provision for anticipated litigation costs to £1.9m, from £0.5m, in order to enable a strong defence against the claims.

Premaitha admitted the case had put off some potential clients but that those customers that had signed up were " seeing through this opportunistic attempt of a non-CE marked competitor to slow us down".

It added: "The legal process will be lengthy but customers and investors can rest assured that we will mount the strongest possible defence - reflected in the increased financial provision - and we remain confident of the strength of our position."

Premaitha also on Monday announced a £5m investment from NYSE-listed Thermo Fisher Scientific, whose products Premaitha uses for the IONA test, via a secured loan that will be repayable between December 2022 and December 2023, in return for £5m of warrants from Premaitha.

Broker Panmure Gordon said although commercial volumes were coming through more slowly versus its forecasts, leading it to therefore trim its forecasts, the Thermo Fisher partnership was "a major vindication" of Premaitha’s position and "raises the stakes and further reinforces our view that Premaitha is well-positioned to capture value".