Further re: Fundraise

RNS Number : 6812E

Premaitha Health PLC

22 October 2018

 

Premaitha Health PLC

("Premaitha," the "Company" or the "Group")

Further re: Fundraise

Manchester, UK - 22 October 2018: Premaitha (AIM: NIPT), a leading international molecular diagnostics group, announces that, further to the announcement made on 1 October 2018, the Company has increased the Second Tranche Admission (as defined in previous announcement of 1 October 2018), from 20,166,420 Placing and Subscription Shares to an aggregate of 20,966,420 ordinary shares, following an increase of 800,000 Subscription Shares, amounting to gross proceeds of £2,096,642 from the Second Tranche Admission.

Accordingly, application has now been made for 20,966,420 ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. Admission of the 20,966,420 ordinary shares is expected to become effective on or around 25 October 2018. Following Admission, the Company will have 417,643,523 ordinary shares in issue. The new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares. None of the ordinary shares are held in treasury. The total number of voting rights in the Company immediately following admission will therefore be 417,643,523.

Related Party Transaction

The increase in subscription shares includes an additional subscription by Adam Reynolds, a director of the Company. Mr Reynolds has subscribed for 500,000 Subscription Shares in addition to the 250,000 shares previously subscribed for as announced on 1 October 2018. The directors of Premaitha, other than Adam Reynolds, who are independent of the transaction consider, having consulted with the Company's nominated adviser, Cairn Financial Advisers LLP, that the terms of the transaction are fair and reasonable insofar as the Company's shareholders are concerned.

Adam Reynolds' interest following issue of the Second Tranche Admission is now as follows:

Director	Number of shares subscribed for in the Second Tranche Admission	Shareholding on Admission	Percentage of enlarged share capital on Admission
Adam Reynolds	750,000	5,449,656	1.30%

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.

For more information, please contact:
Premaitha Health PLC Lyn Rees, Chief Executive Officer Barry Hextall, Chief Financial Officer Joanne Cross, Head of Marketing [e-mail]	Tel: [phone]
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP (NOMAD) Liam Murray / James Caithie	Tel: [phone]
finnCap (Broker) Geoff Nash / Matthew Radley (Corporate Finance) Tim Redfern (Corporate Broking)	Tel: [phone]
Vigo Communications Ben Simons / Fiona Henson / Antonia Pollock [e-mail]	Tel: [phone]

About Premaitha 
 

Premaitha is an international molecular diagnostics group which uses the latest advances in DNA analysis technology to develop safer, faster and regulatory approved genetic screening tests.

The Group's current primary focus is on non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) for pregnant women - an emerging, multi-billion dollar global market - although the Group intends to expand its product range into other areas of clinical genetics.

Premaitha's first product, the IONA® test was launched in 2015 as the first CE-IVD NIPT test in Europe. It enables laboratories and healthcare practitioners to offer a complete CE-marked NIPT system in-house. The IONA® test is performed on a maternal blood sample - which contains traces of fetal DNA - and estimates the risk of a fetus being affected with Down's syndrome or other genetic conditions.

Unlike existing prenatal screening methods, due to its high level of accuracy, the IONA® test can significantly reduce the number of women subjected to unnecessary invasive follow up diagnostic procedures, such as amniocentesis, which are costly, resource intensive and carry a risk of miscarriage.

In March 2017, Premaitha acquired Yourgene Bioscience, a specialist next generation sequencing and bioinformatics company based in Taiwan, with its own NIPT screening solution that operates on the same Thermo Fisher next-generation sequencing platform as Premaitha's IONA® test. Yourgene brings significant benefits to the Group through expanded market access in Asia - the world's fastest growing NIPT market - as well as opportunities for cross-selling and the ability to jointly develop expanded test content both within NIPT and beyond.

Since May 2018, the Group has traded as Yourgene Health outside of Europe (but remains as Yourgene Bioscience in Taiwan), reflecting the increased scope of the business in other areas of clinical genetics further to reproductive health; but maintains the Premaitha Health brand within Europe.

Premaitha is headquartered in Manchester, England, with Yourgene offices in Taipei and Singapore. Its shares trade on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NIPT). For further information, please visit www.premaitha.com. Follow us on twitter @PremaithaHealth.

 

END

 

 

FURURVKRWRARUAA