RE: Can’t see RNS on LSE11 Feb 2021 09:16
Omega (AIM: ODX), the medical diagnostics company focused on CD4, infectious diseases and food intolerance testing, announces that it has agreed a contract with the Department of Health and Social Care ("DHSC") to provide manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 lateral flow antigen tests, as part of the UK Government's well-publicised target of producing two million lateral flow tests per day.
The intention is that as soon as the DHSC has access to a test that has successfully passed a performance evaluation, the test will be licensed for Omega to manufacture. As part of the contract, DHSC will loan a number of key pieces of manufacturing equipment.
This will facilitate the necessary expansion in production capability in Omega's Alva-based facility, to ensure the tests are made available as soon as possible.
The Company anticipates that the above actions will provide the Company with capacity to produce approximately 2 million tests per week by the end of April, when combining the Government-loaned equipment with its own manufacturing equipment. Omega expects that this capacity will be sufficient to meet the expected demand for lateral flow COVID-19 antigen tests, with enough remaining capacity to be used for VISITECT® CD4 or COVID-19 antibody tests according to demand.
Board appointment
As separately announced today, the Board has appointed Simon Douglas, who has over 25 years of Board level experience across a variety of Diagnostics, Life Science and BioPharma companies, as its new Non-Executive Chairman to support the Company and the executive team in delivering shareholder value through its next phase of growth.
Trading update
The significant contribution to future performance expected from the DHSC contract above will impact the new financial year ending 31 March 2022. For the current financial year ending 31 March 2021, the Company's Food Intolerance division has held up well, despite the impact from pandemic lasting longer than originally thought. Sales are expected to be in the region of £7.5 million for the year ended 31 March 2021, which is a reduction of 19% over the previous year. The Board is encouraged by this performance given that food intolerance sales in the first quarter of this financial year were 47% down over the first quarter of the prior year.