Issued on behalf of Premaitha Health plc
Manchester, UK: Friday, 30 Sept 2016
Premaitha Health plc
(“Premaitha” or the “Company”)
Final results
Manchester, UK – 30 September 2016 – Premaitha Health plc (AIM: NIPT), developer of the leading
CE-marked complete non-invasive prenatal screening system, announces final results for the year
ended 31 March 2016.
Financial Highlights:
• Revenues of £2.5m (2015: £132k) from the IONA® test in its first full year of commercialisation
• Operating loss £5.9m (2015: £4.3m) before one-off and non-cash items of £6.2m (2015:
£3.2m)
• Strong balance sheet with cash at year-end of £5.3m (2015: £2.7m)
• £13.0m investments secured in period
• £8.0m Placing (July 2015)
• £5.0m Thermo Fisher investment in loans and warrants (December 2015)
• Further £4.0m loan/warrants by Thermo Fisher post year-end (September 2016)
• Provision for anticipated litigation costs increased for strongest possible defence, £5.4m
balance at year-end
Operational Highlights:
• IONA® test sales in excess of 17,000 in the first full year since launch
• Awarded lab contracts with hospitals in the UK, Poland, Switzerland, France, Russia and the
Middle East
• Secured service customers across the UK, Asia, Europe and Latin America
• Enhanced relationship with Thermo Fisher – manufacturer of the next generation sequencing
instrument on which Premaitha’s IONA® test runs – through further strategic investment by
Thermo Fisher and ongoing technical work to validate the IONA® test on new instruments
• Benefits of NIPT being recognised by Governments and countries moving towards making
NIPT freely available through public health services
• Illumina launched patent infringement proceedings against Premaitha in March and October 2015.
Premaitha vigorously defending the actions on grounds of patent invalidity, noninfringement
and anti-competitive behaviours. Ongoing European Commission investigation
into potentially anti-competitive behaviour by Illumina and others
Corporate Highlights
• Strengthened Board with appointments of Barry Hextall as CFO (June 2015) and William
Denman as CMO (October 2015)
• Adam Reynolds appointed Chairman (September 2016)
• finnCap appointed as sole broker to the Company (September 2016)
• A copy of the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts have been posted today to all shareholders.
Further copies is available to the public on the Company’s website, www.premaitha.com.
Update on post year end commercial progress
• New lab contracts signed in Italy, France and first Asian lab secured in Thailand
• 9 labs operational (up from 4 at 31 March 2016), with further 4 scheduled by the end of 2016
• Reduced reliance on two European customers
• Service laboratory growing, now more than 25 UK and international clients
• Product registrations commenced in Mexico and Canada
Adam Reynolds, Non-executive Chairman, commented:
“The team at Premaitha has worked extremely hard in the first year since the launch of our lead
product to raise awareness of the IONA® test’s benefits amongst pregnant women and regulatory
bodies.
“Awareness of the benefits of NIPT is rising sharply and this is evidenced both in the level of M&A
activity in our sector; and in the increasing number of countries moving towards making NIPT freely
available through their public health services.
“We firmly believe that NIPT should be available to all pregnant women – not just those at high risk –
to reduce the number of women who are required to undergo unnecessary invasive testing which
carries the well-documented associated risks.
“In addition to driving widespread availability of the IONA® test, Premaitha is also leveraging its
expertise in molecular diagnostics and exploring other high impact applications for our technology in
oncology and pre-implantation.”
The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article
7 of Regulation 596/2014.
For more information, please contact:
Premaitha Health plc
Dr Stephen Little, Chief Executive Officer
Barry Hextall, Chief Financial Officer
Joanne Cross, Head of Marketing
investors@premaitha.com
Tel: +44 (0) 161 667 6865
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (Nomad)
Liam Murray
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7148 7900
finnCap (Sole Broker)
Adrian Hargrave / Scott Mathieson (Corporate Finance)
Tony Quirke (Corporate Broking)
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7220 0500
Vigo Communications
Ben Simons / Fiona Henson / Antonia Pollock
premaitha@vigocomms.com
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7830 9700
About Premaitha
Premaitha is a molecular diagnostics company which uses the latest advances in DNA analysis
technology to develop safer, faster and regulatory approved non-invasive screening tests for pregnant
women.
Premaitha’s lead test – the IONA® test – was launched in February 2015 and is the leading CE marked
complete system which estimates the risk of a fetus being affected with Down’s syndrome or other
genetic conditions. The IONA® test is performed on the mother’s blood sample – which contains traces
of fetal DNA – and then analysed using next generation DNA sequencing technology from
ThermoFisher Scientific.
Unlike existing prenatal screening methods, due to its high level of accuracy, the IONA® test can
significantly reduce the number of women subjected to unnecessary stressful and invasive follow-up
diagnostic procedures which are costly, resource intensive and carry a risk of miscarriage.
Non-invasive prenatal screening is an emerging, multi-billion dollar global market and Premaitha’s
complete CE marked system enables laboratories and health care practitioners to offer an approved,
non-invasive prenatal screening system in-house.
Premaitha is based in Manchester Science Park, United Kingdom and its shares trade on the AIM
market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NIPT). For further information please visit
www.premaitha.com. Follow us on twitter @PremaithaHealth.
