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A health testing company that responded to the government’s “call to arms” at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak has questioned ambitions to build a British diagnostics industry.
Abingdon Health reached a settlement with the Department of Health and Social Care in June over payments from the government for antibody tests and services provided.
The York-based, Aim-quoted testing company has received £6.3 million, but its profits and prospects have been damaged by the dispute, which has led to the redundancy of 80 employees, more than half its workforce, at its sites in York and Doncaster.
Speaking out alongside full-year results, Abingdon’s bosses said: “It is disappointing that we, alongside many other UK diagnostic companies, have had to spend time and money recovering monies owed despite responding to a ‘call to arms’ by the UK government.
“The group believed at all times that there were no legal grounds as to why these monies were not being paid in full by [the health department], but the reality was that it was important to reach a settlement with a counter-party that effectively had unlimited time and financial resources at its disposal to prolong the dispute.
“Given the UK government’s initial aim at the start of the pandemic was to build a British diagnostics industry, their behaviours have been quite the opposite, both in terms of how they have dealt with established UK businesses and their preference to order significant quantities of tests, through recently established intermediaries, predominantly from Chinese companies.”
In April 2020, as Britain was launching its emergency response to the pandemic and amid concerns about the country’s capacity to quickly diagnose coronavirus cases, Matt Han****, the health secretary at that time, called for companies “to build a British diagnostics industry at scale”.
In addition to the government’s dispute with Abingdon, the department is also embroiled in High Court litigation with Novacyt, another diagnostics company operating in the UK. The government launched a £135 million breach-of-contract claim against Novacyt, which the company has rejected. In June the company launched a counterclaim against the department of £81.5 million for goods and services and damages for breach of contract.
Abingdon reached its settlement with the department in June for outstanding invoices for lateral flow tests and component stock. The professional use, finger-prick antibody test was designed to let people know and monitor their antibody status before and after vaccination, as well as following infection with the virus.
Abingdon was founded in 2008 and was floated on Aim, the London Stock Exchange’s junior market, in December 2020, when it raised £22 million placing shares at 96p each. The funds were raised to help to increase contract manufacturing of testing for Covid and other conditions. Abingdon is now concentrating on its work as a contract manufacturer, making tests for non-Covid conditions.
The breakdown in its relationship with the government and the reduction in demand for its Covid tests have led to revenues falling to £2.8 million in the year to the end of June, from £11.6 million a year earlier. It made a loss of £21.3 million, compared with a £7 million loss in 2021. It had cash of £4.4 million at the end of last month.
Abingdon’s shares, which peaked at more than 125p in January 2021, fell ¾p, or 12.5 per cent, to a fresh low of 5¼p, valuing the company at £6.4 million.
A spokesman for the health department said: “We have worked with UK manufacturers to support the resilience of UK diagnostics. We have been always been clear that government contracts must deliver value for taxpayer money and we will take action in instances where this does not happen.”
Immensa health covid contract award yesterday...... Immensa health testing scandle.. Good law case..... Immensa health owners
Tks KT well done Abingdonhealth spokesman said
We have worked with UK manufacturers to support the resilience of UK diagnostics.
A couple yes the rest no they've not.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2021-10-19.HL3205.h
The difference between NCYT and abdx is NCYT theoretically have no shortage of (within limits) time and money to thrash out this dispute with the DHSC, the DHSCs money to be precise. That wouldn't suit most shareholders who'd prefer this to be done and dusted, me included but it's reality. Financially abdx were on the ropes.
Good to see a MSM article at least attempting to take a critical look at the government's behavior towards UK diagnostics.
Agree Sir Digby, just a shame that so much money being wasted on legal services. Taxpayers included.
thanks for posting Ted, a positive read for a change. Digby, abdx are still on the ropes and yes NCYT has the resources to see it out, however, I question their enthusiasm to do so. If NCYT made statements like this at least occasionally I would be a happier SH.
Well worth reading question two of the transcript from a meeting of the public accounts committee dated 18/05/22. In this they discuss the Oxford nanopore contract dispute with the DHSC. Tests from this contract awarded two months before Novacyts were planned for use in similar settings but were never rolled out at scale like those from Novacyt.The statement at the end said this didn't happen because newer tests were coming on the market .The final sentence summed up the direction testing had now taken- We are now very used to using lateral flow tests , which have taken precedence.
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/13552/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
Just click on the transcript
Exmex I'm only on page 12 my jaw has fallen open reading.
Shareholders remember our company said something along the lines of we believe the govt. is baseing!! it's conclusion on incomplete data.
Well if you read this they e not kept notes for all sorts and the "chair"Dame Meg Hillier states verbatim read this
Chair: Let us be clear: we know that there was an urgent need. We get that. We have said that repeatedly since we started looking into all these issues in May and June of 2020. We were right there, early doors. But as I said at the start, the civil service prides itself on being the goldstandard administration. I have been a Minister in the Department, so I know that if you cough it is recorded and kept in a file forever— everything is recorded. But for some reason, even though it was a busy time, but a time when it was more important than ever, with huge sums of money going out without a normal procurement process, the record keeping was not just poor but woeful. You could not find records; there were no records to provide the auditors with, so they cannot make a judgment.
And these shiny shoe bastards are holding our company to ransom. Furious.
Great find Ex and thanks for sharing. The company lawyers need to get their hands on this. This document will stand up in court all day as it highlights the governements intention for testing methods and the fact they wanted to pull out the novacyt contract but needed an excuse. Didnt meet the standards my a***. How they are going through with this stil is beyond me.
Yes agree ,,great find Ex,,havibg just skimed through a lot of the report it does come across that ' they ' wanted to pull out of certain contracts and shall we say looking for excuses,,Randox do not cover themselves in glory in this report imo and neither do 'certain 'ministers ,,it seems D&D wasnt as it should have been although they were unprecedented times i suppose,,lets hope we have good lawyers who are challenging them at every level,,having read what i have read i would be very surprised if it ever went to court and a settlement figure is not been talked about or 'maye ' has been talked about all imo
Also the Newton report that apparently came out in June about testing providers may be of interest but i cant find any info about it
Share holders appear to be solving the dispute with amazing fact finding. However, we are losing 5% of our investment every week and the lawyers are gainingg 5% in their fees everyweek. Who's winning?
In this situation the Lawyers are the Dealers and the House always wins
From 2020
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/industry-responds-to-call-to-arms-to-build-british-diagnostics-industry-at-scale
"The fifth pillar is the most ambitious. We want to build, in a short space of time, the large-scale diagnostics industry that this country currently lacks. Just as our top-end manufacturers have joined the national effort to build ventilators, so our life sciences companies will do the same for testing. UK pharmaceutical giants, which don’t have a tradition of diagnostics, are now working with our world-leading but smaller diagnostics companies to build a large-scale British diagnostics industry at scale. This new national effort for testing will ensure we can get tests for everyone who needs them."
The Government changed it's mind and went down the cheaper, faster, less accurate LFT route.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878121/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-strategy.pdf
Another link from 2020 with a forward from that bloke off the "I'm a Celeb"
"We also have to ensure that any new test products are up to the job. Our experts are clear that having no test is better than an unreliable test, and several of the tests we’ve already checked have been too inaccurate to be used in this crisis. I will not send NHS staff back onto the wards with the false comfort of a false negative result."
So Novacyts products were accurate enough to win a concract (or 2) . But are now in breach of contract as the products didn't achieve 100% accuracy as stated. No diagnostic co would state this level of accuracy.
Enter RazzaB. Leaves pointless message. Gets zero interaction. Leaves feeling lower than when he posted. REPEAT
Look familiar?
*grinning emoji*
From KT's link how did this play out did we manage to push Chinese diagnostics forward?
"The fifth pillar is the most ambitious. We want to build in a short space of time, the large diagnostics industry that this country currently lacks. Just as our top end manufacturers have joined the national effort to build ventilators, so our life sciences companies will do the same for testing. UK pharmaceutical giants which don’t have a tradition of diagnostics, are now working with our world leading but smaller diagnostics companies, to build a British diagnostics industry at scale. This new national effort for testing will ensure we can get tests for everyone who needs them."
Hmmm back to paint drying oops I mean the World Cup group stages.
Wait until those fake deaths start piling up in China and the global supply chain suffers a shock nobody is prepared for.
There's already a global shortage of antibiotics and other medicines manufactured there, wait until China tells the West that they've embargoed the export of all these products to fulfill their own dire needs. Hong Kong got hammered earlier in the year with better vaccination rates, better vaccines and better healthcare provision. 1.2 billion naive individuals, what could possibly go wrong.
Firstly apologies KT I hadn't seen your earlier post before I posted the same doh.
Secondly I've been looking for handy111's Newton link (is it not from June 2020 handy ? Re Shona D's reply it keeps on putting me back at page one) anyway there's a public accounts committee paper where it appears Randox are heavily criticised and a response from Schillings(randox solicitors) it's private and confidential (in public domain though) so I'm reluctant to post.
Hi Wilson ,, It may possibly be ,i just saw it refrenced in an answer when i was reading the transcripts,,like i said i cant see owt about it when i have searched fir it online
gizmo555
Posts: 2,226
Price: 62.00
No Opinion
RE: TimesFri 11:34
Immensa health covid contract award yesterday...... Immensa health testing scandle.. Good law case..... Immensa health owners
Do you have a link for this Gizmo?
I've seen a contract published recently but it was from services in 2021
Hi kilkenny.... Nov 22..... 50.4 million