NTERIM RESULTS FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2020
Omega (AIM: ODX), the medical diagnostics company focused on CD4, infectious diseases and food intolerance, announces its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2020 in line with the trading update announced at the end of October. The Company also provides an update on the core business and the Board's expectation for a significantly improved performance in the second half.
Omega has substantial growth opportunities in the areas of Food Intolerance, CD4 testing for the management of people living with HIV, and COVID-19 antibody and antigen testing and provides high quality in-vitro diagnostics products for use in hospitals, clinics, laboratories and healthcare practices in over 75 countries.
Financial Highlights:
· Revenue decreased by 29% to £3.16m (2019: £4.46m)
· Gross margin decreased to 42.9% (2019: 67.5%) reflecting the fixed nature of labour costs on reduced sales
· Statutory loss for the period of £0.28m (2019: £0.29m)
· EBITDA loss of £1.29m (2019: profit of £0.25m)
· Adjusted earnings per share1 of -0.1p (2019: -0.2p)
· Cash balance of £7.0m (2019: bank overdraft of £1.4m)
1Adjusted for exceptional items, amortisation of intangible assets and share based payment charges
Operational Highlights:
· Chinese regulatory approval of Food Detective® test for both laboratory settings and self-test use
· Supply agreement signed with Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to accelerate access of VISITECT® CD4 Advanced Disease in low and middle income countries
· VISITECT® CD4 Advanced Disease test received WHO prequalification
· Agreement with UK Rapid Test Consortium to produce COVID-19 antibody lateral flow for UK Government and supply agreement signed with Abingdon Health Ltd
· CE-Mark of Mologic COVID-19 ELISA antibody test and Mologic COVID-19 lateral flow antibody test
· Well-funded following placing and open offer which raised £10.5m net of expenses
H2 Outlook:
· Food intolerance business showing early signs of H2 recovery and significant growth opportunity in China
· VISITECT® CD4 Advanced Disease is the world's only point-of-care instrument free test for monitoring people living with HIV
· CHAI is driving early country implementation and WHO prequalification enables NGO funding support for long-term use
· Exciting opportunity for the commercial roll-out of the AbC-19™ Rapid test to the UK Government and other customers
· MHRA approval for self-test use of the AbC-19™ Rapid test expected following final usability study
· Production of AbC-19™ Rapid test from the Alva site is now well underway with shipments to Abingdon already commenced
· Exciting opportunities for commercial launch of Mologic antigen test as we expect antigen testing to remain a key tool in controlling COVID-19 in 2021 and beyond
· Targeted production capacity of 500,000 lateral flow tests a week by the end of December remains on schedule
Regarding outlook, William Rhodes, Interim Chairman, said:
"We are encouraged that our financial performance in the first half, although impacted by the pandemic, was within the boundaries of sensitivity that we have been monitoring and the Company expects to have a significantly improved second half performance.
"Our food Intolerance division is showing early signs of recovery in its second half performance, when comparing sales to equivalent months in the prior-year second half. Whilst we cannot be certain what decisions, and the related impact, might be taken by governments around the world to deal with the pandemic in the short-term, we remain confident that our food intolerance business is resilient and positioned for growth as some degree of normality returns. Achieving self-test regulatory approval in China for Food Detective® is a significant milestone that underpins confidence, and we expect our renewed focus on the US market to bear fruit in the next financial year.
"We are particularly pleased that our VISITECT® CD4 Advanced Disease received WHO prequalification in August this year, a significant mark of regulatory approval which positions the product for short-term deployment through the supply agreement with CHAI, and for longer-term deployment with financial support from a number of other NGOs which are active in supporting initiatives to manage the care of people living with HIV.
"As outlined above we have a number of exciting opportunities in both antigen testing and antibody testing for COVID-19. We are very encouraged by recent news with a number of vaccine candidates demonstrating efficacy in producing an immune response as we believe testing will play a crucial role in any vaccine deployment. We continue to make progress to significantly increase lateral flow test capacity in our manufacturing site in Alva and are on target to reach a production capacity of 500,000 tests a week by the end of December."