MANCHESTER, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Premaitha Health PLC (AIM: NIPT, “Premaitha” or the “Company”) signs an agreement for Thermo Fisher Scientific to provide a £5 million investment in Premaitha.
Premaitha’s CE-marked, non-invasive prenatal screening (NIPT) product, the IONA® test, runs on Thermo Fisher’s two sequencing instruments, the Ion Proton and Ion Chef. Thermo Fisher is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of $17 billion and approximately 50,000 employees in 50 countries.
This investment will enable Premaitha to offer enhanced commercial solutions to clinical laboratories across Europe and other international territories, enabling more pregnant women to access the benefits of NIPT. It will also allow the Company to deliver and further develop high quality, fully validated non-invasive prenatal screening tests that are designed to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes.
Financial overview
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Thermo Fisher will invest £5 million in Premaitha in the form of a
secured loan facility:
- £3 million to be received at the outset with further milestone payments expected over the next two years
- Interest to accrue at a rate of 6 percent per annum payable quarterly in arrears or capable of conversion to loan principal
- Repayable between 14 December 2022 and 14 December 2023, with option to repay earlier
- Premaitha will issue warrants to Thermo Fisher over 20,325,204 new ordinary shares in the Company at an exercise price of 24.6 pence per share (“Warrants”), representing 8.2 percent of the Company’s so-enlarged issued share capital (7.1 percent on a fully diluted basis). The Warrants will expire after 8 years.
Dr Stephen Little, CEO of Premaitha, said:
“Today we have strengthened our relationship with Thermo Fisher as an investor in our business.
“This investment will enable us to expand our global reach, support our marketing and clinical and technical capabilities. It will also provide future product development opportunities in the rapidly growing non-invasive prenatal testing market.”
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The Company also released today its half year results for the six months ended 30 September 2015 – see separate announcement.
A group analyst briefing will be held at 9.30am on Monday 14 December 2015 at Instinctif Partners’ offices at 65 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7NQ.
Analysts who wish to participate should contact Instinctif Partners on +44 (0)20 7457 2020 or email premaitha@instinctif.com to register.
Notes to Editors
About Premaitha Health
Premaitha is an innovative molecular
diagnostics company employing the latest advances in DNA analysis
technology to develop tests for non-invasive prenatal screening (NIPT)
and other applications. Premaitha's flagship product, the IONA®
test is the first non-invasive in vitro diagnostic product for prenatal
screening enabling clinical laboratories to offer CE-marked NIPT
in-house for the first time; the IONA® test is not FDA
cleared.
The IONA® test estimates the risk of a fetus having Down's syndrome or other serious genetic diseases. The IONA® test has a higher detection rate and lower false positive rate than existing screening tests, giving pregnant women, their families and their doctor’s greater confidence in the result and reducing the need for unnecessary invasive follow-up tests and the associated anxiety and stress.
The IONA® test is a complete diagnostic system that is simple and standardised, enabling Premaitha's clinical laboratory customers to perform the test in their own facilities. This supports Premaitha's strategy of accelerating the broad dissemination of NIPT tests to ensure that their benefits are more widely available to pregnant women.
Premaitha is listed on the London Stock Exchange (AIM). Its R&D, manufacturing and commercial operation is located at Manchester Science Park, UK.
For further information please visit www.premaitha.com or email iona@premaitha.com
