NEW YORK – Yourgene Health today reported a 45 percent increase in revenues for its fiscal year 2018, which ended March 31.
The Manchester, UK-based molecular diagnostics company had already reported an estimate of its revenues and earnings for the year in April.
The company's revenues for the year climbed to £8.9 million ($11.1 million) from £6.2 million the previous year.
Yourgene booked a profit of £3.4 million, or £0.01 per share, for the year compared to a loss of £9.6 million, or £0.03 per share, the previous year.
"It is very heartening to report the group's first profitable year," said CEO Lyn Ress in a statement. "Even though this is due primarily to the debt restructuring with Life Technologies, the underlying business has also made significant progress towards profitability through sales and gross profit growth, coupled with control of expenditure. Achieving sustainable profitability and generating free cashflows under our own steam remains a very current focus for myself and the business."
As of March 31, Yourgene had £1.3 million in cash and cash equivalents.
Following the close of its fiscal year, Yourgene in late April acquired UK firm Delta Diagnostics, which traded under the name Elucigene Diagnostics, for £9.6 million in cash and stocks and completed an associated equity funding round, raising £11.8 million in gross proceeds through issuing 115.4 million new shares at a price of 10.25 pence per share. Of those, it used £6.8 million for the acquisition of Elucigene and issued another 24.6 million new shares to Elucigene shareholders at a price of 11.7 pence per share.
Yourgene plans to use the remaining cash to fund the continued international expansion of its enlarged business.
The company said that the integration of Elucigene, which had £3.6 million in revenues in 2018, is proceeding well and that the two commercial teams are now operating as one.
Yourgene has recently been increasing its business in existing markets, such as India and France. It is also getting into new markets, such as Japan, "where early momentum is building," and the US, where it expects to generate its first revenues during the current fiscal year. In addition, it plans to enter the Chinese market.
The firm continues to develop a new Iona noninvasive prenatal test that is compatible with Illumina's sequencing platform and is scheduled to be launched in early 2020. In addition, its first oncology testing product "is in a soft launch phase" with several clinical partners in the UK and in Europe.
Yourgene offers molecular diagnostic tests, primarily for reproductive health. Its products include NIPT, cystic fibrosis screening, invasive rapid aneuploidy testing, male infertility testing, and genetic disease tests. The firm is also moving into genetic testing for oncology. Through the acquisition of Elucigene, it obtained a cystic fibrosis screening test for the US and a chemo-toxicity diagnostic assay for its first oncology product.
The company, which has clinical laboratories in the UK and in Taiwan and an office in Singapore, is commercially active in more than 60 countries, including the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.