Trading update and Notice of Results

RNS Number : 2295K

Omega Diagnostics Group PLC

15 April 2015

 



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 results for the year to 31 March 2015 will be in line with market expectations. Revenues for the year are expected to be £12.1m and adjusted profit before tax (before acquisition costs, share based payments, IFRS-related discount unwinds and amortisation of intangible assets) will be significantly higher than that achieved in the prior year and is expected to be approximately £1.4m. 

Current trading performance

	Revenue to 31 March 2015	Revenue to 31 March 2014	% increase
Food Intolerance	£5.95m	£5.18m	+ 15%
Allergy/Autoimmune	£3.61m	£3.96m	- 9%
Infectious Disease/Other	£2.55m	£2.45m	+ 4%
TOTAL	£12.11m	£11.59m	+ 4%

Infectious Disease - Visitect® CD4 update

We have made good progress in readying our handheld manual Visitect® CD4 test for launch since the issues of batch variability and long testing lead times were highlighted in our interim statement on 26 November 2014.  By increasing the number of local sites available to us for testing, performing a number of internal investigations and validating changes to the manufacturing process, which is now entirely in-house, we believe we have identified and corrected the root cause issues that had previously led to test variability.

Final confirmatory testing is underway, and we anticipate providing a further update by the end of next month.

Allergy Development - IDS-iSYS update

Since the last update, progress with the allergy development programme has focused on the validation and scale-up of the manufacturing process.  We are in the process of producing commercial scale quantities of all 27 allergens, previously reported as optimised, with those quantities produced so far all having passed internal quality control procedures.  Following completion of the manufacturing run of all these allergens, the intention is to run beta evaluations across two European sites in Italy and Spain.  We will also provide a further development update shortly to coincide with the CD4 update referred to above.

Outlook and Notice of Results

Our core business has performed well with adjusted profit before tax slightly ahead of expectation.  This is despite reported turnover being approximately £0.5m lower than it would have been if euro and US dollar denominated turnover had been translated at prior year exchange rates.  The result of the Food Intolerance division has again outperformed, thereby mitigating the foreign exchange challenges in other parts of the business.  The prospects for our core business remain encouraging for the new financial year.

We recognise that the major focus of investors' attention is with our Visitect® CD4 programme.  The prospects for the Group as a whole will be significantly enhanced by the success of this product.  As mentioned above, gaining access to a local hospital has significantly shortened the time required for testing and we remain very confident that we will resolve all of the issues previously reported.  We look forward to providing a further update shortly.

Omega will announce its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2015 on Tuesday 7 July 2015.

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/James Thompson (Corporate Finance)
Mia Gardner (Corporate Broking)
Walbrook PR Limited	Tel: [phone] or [e-mail]
Paul McManus	Mob: [phone]
Lianne Cawthorne	Mob: [phone]

 

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