NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Yourgene Health – formerly known as Premaitha Health – today reported a 45 percent increase in revenues for the first half of fiscal year 2018.
For the six months ended Sept. 30, the Manchester, UK-based noninvasive prenatal testing company reported £3.9 million ($5.0 million) in revenues compared to £2.7 million during the prior-year period. Revenues consisted of £2.5 million from products and £1.4 million from services.
Testing volumes during H1 increased 73 percent to 38,000 from 22,000 in H1 of FY2017.
In September, Yourgene reached a settlement of patent litigation with Illumina. As part of the agreement, it has taken a license to Illumina's patent pool for NIPT and will develop an Illumina-based Iona test that is expected to launch in early 2020. It will also pay Illumina up to £1 million to settle all ongoing UK litigation.
In the meantime, the company is maintaining its partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific, putting a new framework in place that focuses on collaboration in territories not covered by Illumina's patents.
"We continued to grow our customer base successfully outside of the IP-restricted markets for NIPT in the period, and now have product and service sales in over 20 global territories," said CEO Lyn Rees in a statement. "With market access now clear post the settlement with Illumina, we will look to broaden our international reach with a refreshed and upskilled commercial structure. As well as bringing new customers to the business, we are excited to rapidly expand existing markets such as India, the Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia where the foundations for growth have been laid."
The company's H1 net loss narrowed to £3.4 million, or £.01 per share, from £4.9 million, or £.02 per share in the year-ago period.
R&D costs for H1 of 2018 were £219,601, down 38 percent from £353,621 during the same period a year ago. General administrative expenses totaled £4.4 million in H1, down 2 percent from £4.5 million in the first half of FY2017.
As of Sept. 30, Yourgene had £225,581 in cash and cash equivalents. In October, it raised £3.1 million in funding by issuing 30.8 million new ordinary shares to investors and other subscribers.
Last month, the company changed its name from Premaitha Health to Yourgene Health after acquiring Yourgene Bioscience of Taiwan in 2017.