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Overall, disappointed to see the impressive revenue growth (which seems to have settled at 35%-40% per annum) suffocated by both the general administrative expenses and the litigation costs.

I'm inclined to agree with Andyken that there is an element of 'kitchen sinking' going on here, to reset the baseline both for the new CEO and following the settlement, but the financials are well short of what I was expecting. It does, however, get everything out in the open so we can move forward with a clean slate.

I wonder whether part of the reason for the delay has been Lyn and Steve arguing over how to present this. Reading between the \zlines of the CEO Statement, I think there are indicators of a shift in focus coming through, with reference to the number of tests (which I think was SL's focus) being recognised as important, but that new KPIs are needed moving forward (which I think references Lyn's more commercial focus).

All of the revenue numbers are already in the public domain, but the general admin costs (which weren't included with the interims) are clearly the thing that's dragging the profits and the reason that they need to scale up the revenues quite a lot further before they can reach profitability as an overall business (rather than at an NIPT product sales level), even if the litigation costs are excluded.

I think the challenge we have as shareholders is that we look at things in quite simple ways and if we're told that a business has reached break even, we assume (not unreasonably) that this means we'll be making (or close to making) a profit, whereas the business (also, not unreasonably) may know very well that they will still be loss making, once the broader business development overheads are included, but that's all part of being a start-up. The reality is that we need the continued investment in R&D and marketing etc. to drive the future revenue streams, but it does feel like a kick in the proverbials when they BOD and commentators are touting the break even mantra, only to find that their definition of break even doesn't equate to shareholders' definition.

I'm not personally worried by the placing in terms of dilution - another 25m shares is less than 5% dilution. The key thing I guess we'll find out next week is whether the market sees this as attractive - we've got about a third of the placing covered already by the directors, so the market would need to be happy picking up the remaining £1.7m at 10p. I can see arguments for and against that, but we do now have a very well established global footprint, strong revenue growth and a (genuine) freedom to operate globally, all of which are pretty unusual on AIM, so I think there's a fair chance fresh money will find this attractive and they'll get this away (and it's not a huge amount of money either). If they don't, then I guess the possibility of a T/O by either or both of TF / Illumina may come to the fore more quickly than anticipated.

It would surprise me hugely to have a cash call - and if there was, given we don’t need cash to operate any longer (since we have passed break even), the only justification would be for something very positive (e.g. accelerate growth or new product launch).

Pretty low volumes today, so seems unlikely that the drop is driven by anything leaking ahead of the results.

Notaflipper - my P/E musings are simply based on dividing the profit figures I quoted by the number of shares in issue (387m or 475m fully diluted) to provide the respective earnings per share uplift that this would represent and then multiplying by 30 (assuming a P/E ratio of 30). I've done this on the basis of uplift in value rather than absolute value, as a bit of a ready reckoner, but the same calc would apply to the absolute numbers. So, if we made profit of £1m, then that would equate to earnings per share of 0.25p (undiluted), which multiplied by 30 gives an SP of 7.75p. Every additional £1m would add a further 7.75p to that number (which is the same as £1.3m adding 10p in my previous calculation), so £2m = 15.5p; £3m = 23.25p; £4m = 31p etc.

Assuming we did actually break even last year, I'm not expecting much actual profit in the finals (break even may not translate into a clear statutory profit for technical accounting reasons), but the important thing for me is what the forward position looks like, as our fixed costs are clearly now covered, so each additional sale adds more to the bottom line than previously, which should lead to accelerating profit growth. I would hope that we would be aiming for profit of £10m+ over the medium term (2-3 years) which would equate to an SP of 77.5p. That would still only value the company at £300m, which is some way below the £500m that others on here have quoted as a possible value in the next two years and doesn't allow for future products that we know are under development.

The key things I'm looking for (tomorrow) are:

- The latest baseline profit position from the finals
- Greater transparency about the value of contracts secured to date (which has been increasingly opaque as the litigation has progressed - I've had a definite sense that Premiatha have been playing their cards close to their chest to protect their clients from being drawn into the litigation).
- The implied rate of organic growth for the enlarged group following the acquisition of Yourgene
- Any published forward looking revenue and profit numbers (we may need the Hardman or another broker's report for those).

As ever with NIPT, we can probably expect some surprises, but I really hope that this marks a return to a more transparent agenda, centred on rebuilding confidence in the Board's ability to reward the patience of shareholders.

Thanks notaflipper - hence why I think this is still massively undervalued, albeit the EPS numbers I’m referring to are profit rather than sales. There’s an argument about whether a P/E ratio of 30 is the right number, but it would certainly not be unusual in early life biotechs.

This week we’ll get probably the most important set of results we’ve had since Premaitha was launched. For me, the forward looking protections are the most important thing to focus on. Based on fundamentals alone, I reckon that every £1.3m of profit translates into 10p on the share price (at a P/E ratio of 30). With the warrants fully exercised, it would take £1.6m for each 10p on the sp, but it still highlights that it wouldn’t take a huge uplift in earnings to move the sp very quickly indeed, particularly given the realively low liquidity of the stock.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about the Indian partnership - with 26m births per annum, if Premaitha achieved just 1% of that market, that's 260,000 tests per year, which is five times our current volumes. Not quite sure what the margins are now (and they may be lower for this mass market offering), but even at say �10 profit per test, that's �2.6m in profit per annum. On a P/E ratio of 25, that's worth about 15p per share on it's own! And that's just 1% of the potential market with a �10 margin per test (which I think is well below the current margins)..............................

I’d always assumed maitha was mother (but strictly closer to Mother Earth) and therefore Premaitha is ‘before mother’

Volume only equates to £100k and with the size of the trades it looks to me like a relatively small number of PIs taking their positions (and a few punts) ahead of the awaited announcements, rather than any advanced knowledge of what’s coming. What it illustrates to me though is just how quickly this share might move if we get good news - we touched over 30% up yesterday on no news and no volume, so what would this share do on the big news items that we’re all hoping for? As I’ve said before, we’re massively undervalued but the sp has been like a cork in a champagne bottle. Each time there’s been good news, the bottle has been shaken a bit more, but the litigation has been like a steadfast cage around the cork, anchoring the sp in place. After nearly ten years in VIY/NIPT, my sincere hope is that yesterday’s rise was the foil coming off and our BODs next move will remove the cage and let the cork fly.

No formal confirmation yet Jimmy, but it has been suggested by a number of sources and we've yet to see the full impact of the Yourgene acquisition in any published numbers, so the expectation is that they have now either passed, or are at least very close to, BE and that will be confirmed in the trading update. If that's the case, then I can't see how the 2019 numbers won't be revised upwards, but I guess we should know either way by the end of April. I don't agree with the blanket assessment of the BOD's competence - with hindsight, they have been proved wrong to date on the patent issue, but that's still subject to appeal and if you look at what has been achieved in spite of that, it's actually pretty impressive given the headwinds (which I accept are to a large part of the BODs own making). We'll see how things unfold over the next month, but there aren't that many AIM companies who are actually making money on the back of growing sales - most are just about limping along between increasingly dilutive share issuances to raise working capital on the promise of jam tomorrow for shareholders (as Vialogy did extremely adeptly for many years!). I think Premaitha are different in that respect and the BOD need to clear away the distracting fog caused by the litigation to allow the market to see this.

One of the things that's a bit unusual about Premaitha as an AIM listed company is that (as a result of all the delays), we do now have some meaningful annual accounts that provide a clear picture of how the company is progressing over time. I think the past Hardman reports have been very helpful in this respect, as they show the historic and projected future trends for all the key financial numbers. As far as I'm aware, the latest Hardman report is now a year old, so we are overdue an update from them, which ought to include updated estimates for the full year 2018 figures (which presumably next month's trading update will shine some light on), plus 2019 and 2020. Looking at the latest report (here: http://www.hardmanandco.com/docs/default-source/company-docs/premaitha-health-plc-documents/17.03.17-expanding-global-distribution-network.pdf), for B/E to have been achieved around now, then either sales must have risen materially, or margins widened materially. Either way, I think we could then reasonably assume that the 2019 numbers would also look significantly better than the last estimate (either higher sales, or better profits). Given that Underlying Earnings Per Share for YE March 2019 were last estimated to be 1.09p (yes, a quarter of the current SP!), I think that will be the number to watch in the next update, plus the equivalent for 2020 if that gets included, as it's probably a fair basis for valuing the business as it stands, before adding any premium for growth and new opportunities. Using the current 2019 EPS estimate of 1.09p with a modest PE ratio of 20 would value the business at 21.8p per share. A PE ratio of 30 (which is still not silly for biotechs) would be 32.7p per share. Of course, any upward movement in the estimated EPS numbers would raise these numbers proportionately, with a 50p valuation requiring EPS of 2.5p on a PE ratio of 20, or 1.67p on a PE ratio of 30. Given that we have been told that B/E has been achieved, then I would expect the next Hardman update to show us being well on our way to both of those numbers. Once the litigation is dealt with and in the absence of financial distress (which seems to be the case), then any takeover offer must surely account for these forward cashflows, plus future growth potential, plus any new product IP (assuming they have FTO - ha!). While I still believe that any offer from TF will have a technical floor of 24p because of their warrants, I don't believe that would represent fair value for the company. On financial projections alone, this company is massively undervalued and the removal of the litigation cloud alongside a trading update and some solid forward projections should lead to a very material re-rate in the SP based on fundamentals alone.

As usual there is a whole load of hype on here from PIs about this fairly verbose court transcript (most of whom I suspect, like me, have very limited understanding of the meaning of all the various bits of legalese). A few additional thoughts to try and balance the discussion: The transcript seems to relate only to the judgement on Monday and doesn't cover any of today's directional hearing. That means that there has been a whole week of further background work on both sides, plus further remarks added by the judge today that we should hopefully hear about on Monday. Essentially, this transcript is new information to shareholders, but may be old news by Monday. The 321 issue has always been a sideshow to the main event (where there has already been a ruling against Premaitha which is subject to appeal, hence the SP being a fraction of it's former peak). The 321 hearing has never been presented by the BOD as a definitive step in the main proceedings - as I see it, it's simply Premaitha trying to limit any new actions springing up out of the blue when the core case has already been heard, had a first ruling and is going to appeal. It's not unreasonable for the BOD to have defended this and while they may not have been successful in striking it out, I think it probably was worth them trying to stop multiple new infringement claims coming out of left field. While we will probably never know, by simply protesting and drawing attention to this in the way they have, the BOD may may well have curtailed any further new claims. As is clear, the judge doesn't believe there's been an abuse of process by Illumina but, from my reading, neither does he believe that the 321 claim (as it currently stands) presents anything material beyond the scope of the original ruling (against Premaitha), albeit that he seems to lay the foundations for a potential alternative approach by Illumina. However, this case was primarily about legal process rather than the substance of the core case, so I'm not sure that it changes that much overall - we still lost the original case and we're still appealing that judgement, so that's where the battle (and any settlement) really lies. It feels to me that this transcript is a bit like reading a really detailed account of how one small skirmish played out in a much bigger war - it looks a bit ugly and we didn't gain the ground we were fighting for, but we only got to hear the battle because the big guns on both sides are quiet ahead of the main event that will decide the war. Meanwhile, the diplomats are furiously trying to agree a truce that works for both sides and, of course, this particular war applies to less than 15% of the overall battleground.

Not sure we can assume that the news is good in terms of the ruling, but I do think the silence from both sides suggests that there is now active dialogue ahead of announcing the outcome and that may well be around settlement terms (with our position either strengthened or weakened by the judgement). One thing to bear in mind if there is any form of market-led re-rating (as opposed to to some kind of pre-determined T/O deal), is that relatively few shares are in the hands of PIs. I'm not sure what the free-float is now, but I remember Adam Reynolds pointing to this at the time of the RTO, so with the warrants in place now too, it will be even less. That means that there could be a hell of a scramble for shares if this starts heading North, with the potential that demand significantly outstrips supply and any shorts getting squeezed etc. I think the next Hardman update will also be pivotal, as it will give us the first proper forward look we've had for ages, with the latest revenues and the Yourgene numbers fully factored in, plus hopefully updated numbers for 2018/19/20. Hardman have consistently underplayed the volumes by projecting on known contracts only, so I think a really solid update to their forward projections could very easily surprise to the upside and given that we've hopefully now passed break-even, that would give a very welcome boost on the back of any settlement news. Feels like we may finally be reaching the end game here - and not before time for those of us in from the VIY days!