NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Premaitha Health said today that it plans to raise approximately £2.5 million ($3.3 million) through a fast offering of ordinary shares, a so-called accelerated bookbuild, that will proceed in two tranches. It is offering the shares at a price of 10 pence per ordinary share, which represents a discount of 19 percent to the closing price on September 27.
The first tranche of shares will be allotted on Oct. 4 and the second tranche on Oct. 25.
The offer is only available to institutional investors in the UK and Europe. In conjunction with the placement, certain company directors will subscribe to 8 million new ordinary shares at the placing price.
The bookbuild is open immediately and the timing of the closing will be determined by Premaitha and by FinnCap, the sole bookrunner for the placing.
Premaitha, headquartered in Manchester, UK, plans to use the net proceeds of the offering to finance its recent settlement with Illumina and for general working capital requirements.
The company also provided an updated on its business for the past six months and reported full financial results for its fiscal year 2017, which ended March 31, 2018.
For the first six months of fiscal year 2018, which will end Sept. 30, the company expects a 40 percent increase in revenues to £3.8 million from £2.6 million in the first half of FY2017.
Test volumes for the first half of the year are expected to exceed 34,000, up 55 percent from 22,000 in the first half of fiscal 2017.
Premaitha also secured agreements for its noninvasive prenatal test in Kenya and India during the past six months, expanding its geographic reach.
Further, its recent settlement and agreement with Illumina is allowing it to address a larger market. "Settling the litigation has removed a significant distraction to management and we now look forward to focusing on business growth," said Adam Reynolds, Premaitha's non-executive chairman, in a statement. The new partnership with Illumina "opens up new markets where we had previously assessed the IP risk too great and we look forward to working with our new partners, as well as continuing our fruitful relationship with Thermo Fisher [Scientific]."
As reported earlier this year, the company had £6.1 million in revenues during fiscal year 2017, up from £3.1 million during previous fiscal year. Of those revenues, £1 million came from the UK, £1.2 million from Europe, and £3.9 million from international markets. Today, the company said that it had a loss of £9.6 million during fiscal year 2017, or 3 pence per share, up from a loss of £7.9 million, or 3 pence per share, the previous year.
As of the end of March, Premaitha had £282,000 in cash and cash equivalents. The company subsequently raised £3 million in equity in May, and it has £2 million in loan funding available that it secured from Thermo Fisher Scientific in February of this year.