15th Apr 2015 07:00
Omega Diagnostics Group PLC
("Omega" or "the Company")
Trading update and Notice of Results
Omega (AIM: ODX), the medical diagnostics company focused on allergy, food intolerance and infectious disease, announces that results for the year to 31 March 2015 will be in line with market expectations. Revenues for the year are expected to be £12.1m and adjusted profit before tax (before acquisition costs, share based payments, IFRS-related discount unwinds and amortisation of intangible assets) will be significantly higher than that achieved in the prior year and is expected to be approximately £1.4m.
Current trading performance
Revenue to 31 March 2015 | Revenue to 31 March 2014 | % increase | |
Food Intolerance | £5.95m | £5.18m | + 15% |
Allergy/Autoimmune | £3.61m | £3.96m | - 9% |
Infectious Disease/Other | £2.55m | £2.45m | + 4% |
TOTAL | £12.11m | £11.59m | + 4% |
Infectious Disease - Visitect® CD4 update
We have made good progress in readying our handheld manual Visitect® CD4 test for launch since the issues of batch variability and long testing lead times were highlighted in our interim statement on 26 November 2014. By increasing the number of local sites available to us for testing, performing a number of internal investigations and validating changes to the manufacturing process, which is now entirely in-house, we believe we have identified and corrected the root cause issues that had previously led to test variability.
Final confirmatory testing is underway, and we anticipate providing a further update by the end of next month.
Allergy Development - IDS-iSYS update
Since the last update, progress with the allergy development programme has focused on the validation and scale-up of the manufacturing process. We are in the process of producing commercial scale quantities of all 27 allergens, previously reported as optimised, with those quantities produced so far all having passed internal quality control procedures. Following completion of the manufacturing run of all these allergens, the intention is to run beta evaluations across two European sites in Italy and Spain. We will also provide a further development update shortly to coincide with the CD4 update referred to above.
Outlook and Notice of Results
Our core business has performed well with adjusted profit before tax slightly ahead of expectation. This is despite reported turnover being approximately £0.5m lower than it would have been if euro and US dollar denominated turnover had been translated at prior year exchange rates. The result of the Food Intolerance division has again outperformed, thereby mitigating the foreign exchange challenges in other parts of the business. The prospects for our core business remain encouraging for the new financial year.
We recognise that the major focus of investors' attention is with our Visitect® CD4 programme. The prospects for the Group as a whole will be significantly enhanced by the success of this product. As mentioned above, gaining access to a local hospital has significantly shortened the time required for testing and we remain very confident that we will resolve all of the issues previously reported. We look forward to providing a further update shortly.
Omega will announce its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2015 on Tuesday 7 July 2015.
Contacts:
Omega Diagnostics Group PLC | Tel: 01259 763 030 |
Andrew Shepherd, Chief Executive | www.omegadiagnostics.com |
Kieron Harbinson, Group Finance Director | |
Jag Grewal, Group Sales and Marketing Director | |
finnCap Ltd | Tel: 020 7220 0500 |
Geoff Nash/James Thompson (Corporate Finance) | |
Mia Gardner (Corporate Broking) | |
Walbrook PR Limited | Tel: 020 7933 8780 or [email protected] |
Paul McManus | Mob: 07980 541 893 |
Lianne Cawthorne | Mob: 07584 391 303 |
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