Update on Investment

BioPharma Credit PLC

19 May 2023

 

19 May 2023

BIOPHARMA CREDIT PLC

(THE "COMPANY") 

UPDATE ON INVESTMENT

BioPharma Credit PLC (LSE: BPCR) notes the first quarter 2023 results announcement from LumiraDx Limited ("LumiraDx") that included the following financial highlights:

·    For the three months ended 31 March 2023, LumiraDx delivered revenue of $22.2 million, compared to $126.4 million for the three months ended 31 March 2022, the final quarter of pandemic-related COVID revenues from the Omicron variant.

·    COVID antigen test revenues for the first quarter of 2023 were $10.6 million, Fast Labs COVID revenues were $4.3 million and non-COVID specific revenues were $7.3 million, or 33% of total revenues, including $2.9 million of LumiraDx technology revenues and $4.4 million of distribution revenues.

·    Net loss for the quarter was $44.1 million, or $0.14 per fully diluted share. As of 31 March 2023, the company's cash balance was $68.1 million.

·    The reductions in operating expenses reflect the majority of the benefit of LumiraDx's 2022 restructuring activities, but they do not yet reflect the additional restructuring announced in April of this year. Additional restructuring activities are expected to reduce the global workforce by 40% with expense reductions of $36 million per annum with the full impact from June 2023 onward.

In addition, on a conference call with investors, LumiraDx communicated its intent to raise additional equity and pointed to the recent filing of a US$100 million shelf registration statement. As of 31 March 2023, LumiraDx had raised approximately US$840 million in equity plus an additional US$52 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Shareholders include the management group as well as Morningside Ventures, CVS Pharmacy Inc. (LumiraDX's largest US customer), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as two large life sciences companies. LumiraDx's current market capitalization is approximately US$270 million.

The Company funded US$150.0 million of a US$300.0 million loan to LumiraDx that matures in March 2024. The loan is secured by substantially all of LumiraDx's assets, including its rights to the LumiraDx testing platform, a high sensitivity point of care diagnostic system and the LumiraDx qSTAR (quantitative Selective Temperature Amplification Reaction) molecular technology that produces faster results than PCR and more consistent results than isothermal.

·    As of 31 March 2023 LumiraDx had placed approximately 28,000 systems across more than 100 countries, including the US, the UK, most of the EU and Japan.

·    Outside of the US, the LumiraDx system has eight tests that are commercially available to run in its platform: SARS-CoV-2, CRP, D-Dimer, HbA1c, INR, NT-proBNP, RSV, and a combination SARS-CoV-2 & Flu A/B test.

·    In the US, LumiraDx received emergency use authorization (EUA) for its SARS-CoV-2 test and is pursuing EUA for a combination SARS-CoV-2 & Flu A/B test.

·    Some of LumiraDx's largest customers include CVS Pharmacy Inc. in the US, Azienda Zero, which is an Italian government entity for the Veneto region in Italy, and the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

Pharmakon Advisors, LP is actively monitoring the liquidity situation at LumiraDx, including their intended equity raise, and will provide any updates in due course.

Enquiries

Buchanan

David Rydell / Mark Court / Jamie Hooper / Henry Wilson

[phone]

[e-mail]

 Notes to Editors

BioPharma Credit PLC is London's only specialist debt investor to the life sciences industry and joined the LSE in March 2017. The Company seeks to provide long-term shareholder returns, principally in the form of sustainable income distributions from exposure to the life sciences industry. The Company seeks to achieve this objective primarily through investments in debt assets secured by royalties or other cash flows derived from the sales of approved life sciences products.

 

END