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(Alliance News) - Abingdon Health PLC on Tuesday reported a widened half-year loss but boasted of two new lateral flow test development agreements.
Shares in Abingdon were up 4.2% at 11.20 pence on Tuesday morning in London but had reached a high of 12.40p earlier in the day.
The rapid test developer and manufacturer reported a worsened pretax loss in the six months that ended December 31. The loss widened to GBP5.7 million from GBP2.1 million the previous year.
Revenue in the half fell 78% to GBP1.7 million from GBP7.7 million year-on-year. The York, England-based company said this was primarily due to no UK Department of Health & Social Care revenue being recognised as well as other Covid-19 non-recurring revenue falling.
The company said that the UK DHSC owes Abingdon GBP8.4 million for the supply of AbC-19 and the procurement of materials on behalf of the department. It says it is treating the owed amounts as bad debt which will allow the reclaiming of GBP800,000 in VAT. However, it said it is confident it can recover the money owed.
Looking forward, Abingdon says it is "mindful" that the capacity within the business is under-utilised at this time. Nonetheless, it says it is "well placed" to take advantage of the expected growth in the lateral flow test market.
Separately, Abingdon announced two collaborations on Tuesday.
The first was with diagnostic technology innovator Vatic Health Ltd for the development and manufacture of a range of lateral flow tests in the area of infectious disease. Initially, the companies will focus on the development of an influenza LFT.
Under the memorandum of understanding, Abingdon and Vatic intend to enter into a longer-term commercial agreement, with both parties developing and commercialising LFTs and Abingdon exclusively manufacturing them.
The second agreement was with environmental science company DeepVerge PLC for development and manufacture of a range of LFTs for DeepVerge's Modern Water and Life Science divisions.
DeepVerge and Abingdon intend to enter into a longer-term commercial agreement, with Abingdon manufacturing and DeepVerge commercialising the new products through its production, sales, marketing and distribution channel partners.
Dublin-based DeepVerge explained that Abingdon will grant DeepVerge a non-exclusive, royalty bearing, licence to use the Abingdon technology in end-products only. DeepVerge will pay single-digit percentage royalties on the net sales of the end products.
By Heather Rydings; heatherrydings@alliancenews.com
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