Ilika Plc Regulatory News (IKA)

Ilika plc

("Ilika" or the "Company")

AGM Statement

Ilika plc (AIM: IKA), the advanced cleantech materials discovery company, will hold its Annual General Meeting today at 12 noon at the offices of Eversheds, One Wood Street, London EC2V 7WS.

Ahead of the formal proceedings Ilika will provide the following update to shareholders:

Since announcing its final results in July, the company has made good progress in securing commercial orders and grants.

Firstly, as a result of its Advanced Materials competition in July, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) confirmed the award of a £3.3 million grant to the University of Southampton for the development and manufacture of advanced composite materials. The grant will be managed by the Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University, Professor Brian Hayden, who is a founder of Ilika and its Chief Scientific Officer. The grant covers investment in capital equipment designed for the fabrication of pre-production quantities of devices including solid-state batteries. The equipment will allow the novel battery chemistries identified by Ilika's high throughput methods to be applied on a larger scale suitable for technology transfer into full-scale manufacturing processes.

At the end of July, the Company announced two contract renewals with existing customers in Japan and a grant award from the Technology Strategy Board, which, in aggregate with existing contracts, increased the Company's level of committed revenues for the current financial year to more than double the level of committed revenue achieved at the same point in the previous financial year.

Earlier this week, the Company issued further positive news regarding its business development pipeline when it confirmed two new customers in Germany as a result of its increased business development efforts in Europe. Both customers are blue-chip OEM's, which also have multi-billion supply-chain businesses selling into global markets. Both of these customers have entered into collaborations with Ilika in order to extend their strong in-house R&D capabilities by accessing Ilika's proprietary high throughput techniques. One of the customers is accessing Ilika's world-recognised expertise in lithium-ion battery technology, while the other is using Ilika's proprietary material discovery techniques for the optimisation of high efficiency LED lighting. 

These successes have ensured the Company continues to trade in line with management expectations.

ABOUT ILIKA

Ilika is an advanced materials company which accelerates the discovery of new and patentable materials using its unique high throughput technologies (''HTT'') process for identified end uses in the energy, electronics and biomedical sectors. This process enables hundreds of scalable materials to be made in a single, automated operation and subsequently tested for key properties.

Traditionally, materials development has been a slow and arduous task, with manual, sequential methods used to make samples of material that are then tested for suitability. On average, it takes between 7 and 10 years to move from an initial discovery through to the first commercial prototype. Experiments carried out by the Company can be executed 10 to 100 times faster than using traditional techniques.

The Company focuses on three principal sectors and has a number of active development programmes addressing markets within each sector:

Energy - developing innovative new materials for Lithium-ion batteries for vehicles for Toyota; developing high capacity hydrogen storage materials with Shell Hydrogen and Johnson Matthey through joint development programmes; developing cheaper alternatives to Platinum electrodes for use in fuel cells through a grant-funded project with the Carbon Trust; developing new materials for use in fuel cells for the transport sector for a major vehicle manufacturer; and carrying out in-house research on film photovoltaic solar cells.

Electronics - developing lead-free piezoelectric materials through a joint development programme with CeramTec; developing phase change memory materials for high capacity memory chips and high-performing electronic materials for a multi-national manufacturer.

Biomedical - developing polymers to enable the filtering of somatic stem cells from blood with a major global supplier of filters; it has been selling its Cryoskin and Myskin products for the treatment of burns and wounds in the UK through a specialist distributor and intends to commence clinical trials of its corneal bandage candidate.

The Group's commercialisation strategy is to enter into joint development or licensing agreements with large multinational companies which are seeking to commercialise products developed using the intellectual property created through jointly-funded programmes. Current commercialisation partners include large multinational companies such as Toyota, Shell, Johnson Matthey and CeramTec. The Company generates revenues from three sources: licensing and milestone payments from joint development programmes; fee for service from contract research projects; and from sales of Cryoskin and Myskin.