IXICO PLC (LSE:IXI, OTC:PHYOF) CEO, Bram Goorden, talked with Proactive about the company’s strong performance in 2025, highlighting above-guidance revenue delivery and continued progress in its strategic focus areas.
Goorden detailed how the Innovate, Lead, Scale strategy has driven growth, with three core pillars: new contract wins, contract extensions, and expansion into new verticals such as blood-based biomarkers.
Discussing full-year trading, Goorden noted a boost in new contracts, particularly within neurology and Alzheimer’s disease, aligning with IXICO’s strategic goals. He emphasised that “we start to now also see that especially for Alzheimer's disease in revenue.”
Contract extensions also played a significant role, including one in a major Alzheimer’s program. Additionally, IXICO’s movement into validating diagnostic blood tests was underlined by a new deal in this space, further building on earlier work with companies like Fujirebio.
Goorden addressed the effective use of capital raised in the prior year, confirming investments in innovation, personnel, and US operational scale-up were all “on track” and have now moved into the execution phase. Looking ahead to 2026, the company aims to maintain its trajectory and highlight innovations more publicly, potentially exploring new partnerships.
Proactive: Bram, very good to speak with you. You've had two very positive announcements from IXICO over the last two days. Can we start with your full-year trading update and the drivers behind that growth?
Bram Goorden: I think we had a good year in 2025. We obviously delivered above guidance in terms of revenues. The key drivers, and I’ve been talking about them before, really continued into H2 of the year.
First of all, new contract wins — that’s what everyone is on the lookout for — and we saw new contracts coming in, even in new disease areas. Our "Innovate, Lead, Scale" strategy is very much about penetrating big disease areas like Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease, still very much within neurology, which is our bread and butter. We’re seeing that now in the pipeline and order book, and especially in Alzheimer’s, we are now seeing that reflected in revenue.
The second driver is contract extensions. That’s about being a thought leader and a true partner for our customers. As recently as this week, we had another contract extension in a major Alzheimer’s program. We’re shepherding these clients further down their clinical development programs.
The third driver is particularly exciting — entering new verticals. Especially in the blood-based biomarker space, we’ve seen some important wins, and we expect more to come. The deal we announced recently is exactly in that vertical.
Proactive: I mean, taking a closer look at the order book, Bram — there’s been a very particular upward trend in the last six months. Can you comment on that?
Bram Goorden: Yeah, that makes me very happy. As you may remember, I started 12 months ago — it’s hard to believe it’s been a year already. In H2, we were on the lookout for a trend reversal in the order book. We made several investments after a fundraise a year ago, and we wanted to see signals that those investments were paying off.
The increase in H2 of the order book is very much the result of that. Obviously, we want to see more of it — even as early as Q1 of this year.
Proactive: Bram, tell us more about the contract win announcement you made on Wednesday, and IXICO’s deepening expertise in diagnostic blood test validation.
Bram Goorden: As mentioned, that’s the third driver and something we’re very focused on. IXICO will continue to support biotech and pharma in new drug development. But in the case of blood-based biomarkers, we’re talking about the diagnostics market.
This isn’t phase one, two or three. We’re supporting a development program for a solution that will come to market as an approved diagnostic. As an imaging company — and, I’d say, a gold standard in biomarkers — we validate those blood-based biomarkers that then become diagnostics in specific areas.
We can’t disclose the client in this latest case, but six months ago, we announced we were doing this for Fujirebio, which brought the first Alzheimer’s blood-based biomarker test to market.
Proactive: You performed an oversubscribed capital raise less than 12 months ago. How has the utilisation of proceeds progressed?
Bram Goorden: We put a lot of effort into execution immediately after the raise. As mentioned, the strategy is "Innovate, Lead, Scale." That meant investing into innovation — building out biomarker algorithms on our platform. I’m happy to report that’s on track. You’ll see us productize and commercialize this in the coming months.
Second, "Lead" meant hiring medical personnel and strengthening our thought leadership. Those people are now part of the IXICO team.
Third, "Scale" meant growing operations, especially in the US. We brought new people on board and built bigger operations. That work is now done, and it’s all about execution and doing more of the same.
Proactive: Bram, what are your ambitions for 2026?
Bram Goorden: More of the same. The strategy is working — Innovate, Lead, Scale — and we’ll continue down that path. You can expect us to be more vocal about platform innovations. We made major efforts in 2025, and in 2026 we want to talk more about them.
Our technology has always been a bit of a hidden gem — under the hood of the company — and we’ll start to make more noise about that. You might also see us make some partnerships, as we believe that’s a gateway to new revenue streams.
Proactive: Bram, I hope you'll continue to keep us updated with your performance. Thank you very much for speaking with us today.