Trading Update and Notice of Results

RNS Number : 9679B

Omega Diagnostics Group PLC

09 April 2013

 



10 April 2013

Omega Diagnostics Group PLC

("Omega" or "the Company")

Trading Update and Notice of Results

Omega (AIM: ODX), the medical diagnostics company focused on allergy, food intolerance and infectious disease, announces that revenue for the year ended 31 March 2013 is expected to be £11.26m, slightly ahead of last year's result (31 March 2013: £11.12m).  Profit before tax (before acquisition costs, share based payments, IFRS-related discount unwinds and amortisation of intangible assets) is expected to be approximately £0.8m and will be stated after the restructuring costs of approximately £0.1m reported at the interim results.  The Company continues to benefit from enhanced R&D allowances and expects to book a tax credit of approximately £0.3m for the full year with adjusted profits after tax expected to be in line with current market forecasts and a slight increase in reported earnings per share over the prior year.

Commenting on the trading update, Andrew Shepherd, Chief Executive, said:"We are pleased with the performance of the business and to have managed profitability in challenging economic conditions.  Our decision to go direct in the Indian market has been vindicated with a strong performance from the new team.  With CD4, we have very recently received results from an external UK-based HIV Reference Laboratory which has been testing HIV-positive samples against certain manufacturing protocols and the results are very encouraging.  In addition, our allergy programme with the IDS-iSYS instrument has made progress and the commercialisation of this new product range will be strengthened by the collaboration with IDS announced separately today."

Current trading performance

	Revenue to 31 March 2013	Revenue to 31 March 2012	% increase
Allergy/Autoimmune	£4.16m	£4.47m	- 7%
Food Intolerance	£4.39m	£3.90m	+ 13%
Infectious Disease/Other	£2.71m	£2.75m	- 1%
TOTAL	£11.26m	£11.12m	+ 1%

Allergy/Autoimmune

As reported at the interim results, the first half saw a weaker pollen season due to wet weather and a weaker Euro. This segment performed better in the second half, helped by the launch of an Indian version of Allergodip® with the combined effect meaning that sales fell by 7% to £4.16m for the year to 31 March 2013 (2012: £4.47m).  The Company has also just launched a new liquid format of Allergozyme® which is expected to contribute to Omega GmbH's export performance in the new financial year.

IDS-iSYS

The need to solve certain imprecision issues has taken longer but an assay protocol is expected to be finalised very shortly which will then be used throughout the remaining development programme.  Completion of the optimisation phase with the first 10 allergens is now expected by the end of the June.  The previous problem with the sourcing of sufficient patient serum samples has now been solved with enough material in stock to undertake the claim support work for a further 30 allergens.  Therefore, with the reproducibility of the chosen protocol, overall, we now anticipate launching a panel of 40+ allergens during the final quarter of the financial year. 

Food Intolerance

The Food Intolerance market has continued to grow despite the obvious pressures on consumer spending and the segment has continued to perform very well with sales growing by 13% to £4.39m for the year ended 31 March 2013 (2012: £3.90m).

Genarrayt® reagent sales have increased by 18% to £1.84m (2012: £1.56m) with France overtaking Spain to become the largest single market by value and revenue per instrument (excluding Spain) increasing by 19% to £12,885 (2012: £10,783).  Sales of Food Detective® grew by 27% to £1.25m (2012: £0.98m) with Poland continuing to remain as the Company's largest market for this product.  Finally, sales of the Foodprint® laboratory test also increased by 26% to £0.61m (2012: £0.48m).

Infectious Disease/Other

Sales of infectious disease products fell slightly by 1% to £2.71m for the year ended 31 March 2013 (2012: £2.75m).  This is despite the loss of annual sales of approximately £0.2m in India due to a Government ban on the import of blood-based TB tests.

CD4

The project to transfer the technology from the Burnet Institute to Omega is in its final stages and, despite it taking longer than the Company first envisaged, we are now in the process of selecting the final manufacturing protocol.  Results received as recently as last week from a UK-based HIV Reference Laboratory, albeit with a low number of HIV-positive samples, have shown encouraging performance with a highly scalable manufacturing protocol.  We plan to verify performance of the devices produced by this protocol at additional HIV Reference Laboratories in the US and India prior to supplying the Clinton Health Access Initiative with evaluation samples to enable in-field trials to commence in Mozambique as soon as possible.

India

Direct sales in India commenced at the end of July last year and the team has achieved an impressive sales performance which, when aggregated with the final sales made by the old distributor in the three months of April-June 2012, means total Indian sales of approximately £0.4m for the year just ended.  This compares to a prior year like-for-like sales figure of approximately £0.2m (which excludes the TB product sales noted above).

Outlook and Notice of Results

Omega will announce its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2013 on Monday 1 July 2013 and the prospects for CD4 in particular remain a significant near-term opportunity for the Company which continues to attract substantial interest from the wider HIV/AIDS healthcare community.  

Contacts:

Omega Diagnostics Group PLC	Tel: [phone]
Andrew Shepherd, Chief Executive	www.omegadiagnostics.com
Kieron Harbinson, Group Finance Director
Jag Grewal, Group Sales and Marketing Director
finnCap Ltd	Tel: [phone]
Geoff Nash/Christopher Raggett (Corporate Finance)
Stephen Norcross/Mia Gardner (Corporate Broking)
Walbrook PR Limited	Tel: [phone] or [e-mail]
Paul McManus	Mob: [phone]
Lianne Cawthorne	Mob: [phone]

 

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