OptiBiotix Health ends year in line with expectations

The AIM-traded firm said administrative expenses, excluding non-cash items such as share based payments and amortisation, totalled £2.1m - an increase of 31.3%, which the board put down to one-off recruitment and consultancy costs, and investment in expanding its team as it announced in its interim results.

Intellectual property, research and development, and travel costs decreased as patents were granted, and the effects of Covid-19 reduced research and development activity with partners.

Gross profit grew to £1.2m, which was up 36.5% on 2020.

Both the company's prebiotic and probiotic businesses contributed to a strong sales performance, the board said, and were profitable during the year.

OptiBiotix said its wholly-owned subsidiary ProBiotix Health delivered an EBITDA profit of £195k - a 122% increase on 2020, with total sales of £1.1m, which was up 34%.

Income for 2020 included a £250k milestone payment for the development of LPLDL into a biopharmaceutical, giving an underlying product sales growth of 92.6% for the period.

ProBiotix signed four commercial agreements during 2021 - the most significant being the expansion of territories with Seed Health from the United States to include Europe, Oceania, and Asia excluding India for the supply of LPLDL in Seed’s DS-01 product - a multi-strain synbiotic.

OptiBiotix said its prebiotic ingredient business, meanwhile, delivered an EBITDA profit of £83k - a 23% increase on 2020 - with total sales of £1.1m, which was up 97.5%.

Underlying sales, excluding licensing fees, increased by 122%, with sales of its prebiotic weight management ingredient SlimBiome to existing partners developing “well”.

Three new commercial agreements were signed with partners during the year, including the MyProtein brand of the Hut Group, Apollo Hospitals in India, and Nahdi Medical in Saudi Arabia.

The new agreements extended the geographic reach into the main markets of Europe and Asia, and the launch of prebiotic lean muscle mass support ingredient ‘LeanBiome’ created an entry point into the “lucrative and fast-growing” sports nutrition market.

At year-end on 31 December, the company held £2.04m cash at bank, up from £0.87m.

Once research and development tax credits, recoverable VAT and debtors and creditors were accounted for, the balance would be £3.2m, up from £1.4m a year ago.

The company holds 20.7% of the issued share capital of its AIM colleague SkinBiotherapeutics, the board noted, which was valued at £13.7m as at 31 December, up from £8.9m a year earlier.

“This has been another year of progress for OptiBiotix with its probiotic and prebiotic businesses growing sales and profitability in a challenging and uncertain global economic environment,” said chief executive officer Stephen O'Hara.

“The company has made good progress against its stated aims of focusing on a smaller number of large partners in key strategic markets and expects to see the benefits of these in 2022 and beyond.

“The company is in a strong position with profitable trading divisions, an appreciating asset in SkinBioTherapeutics plc, and a strong balance sheet allowing it to invest and expand sales and marketing capabilities, bring its second generation products to markets, and in-licence or acquire technology to ensure a continuous pipeline of technology solutions to ensure diversified future growth of the group across multiple opportunities in this exciting area of healthcare.”

At 1351 GMT, shares in OptiBiotix Health were down 9.38% at 35.34p.