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SysGroup 26.5p £13.1m (LON:SYS)
The multi award-winning Managed IT Services and Cloud Hosting provider provided a trading update for the year ended 31 March 2020, together with an update on the impact of the COVID-19 virus. The Group's trading for the year is in line with the Board's expectations, with performance underpinned by high levels of recurring revenue. The Group expects to report revenue growth of 53% to c.£19.5m (FY19: £12.8m) with adjusted EBITDA increasing by 99% to c.£2.8m (FY19: £1.4m) supported by the contributions of the acquisitions of Certus IT Limited and Hub Network Services Limited in the year, as well as the benefits of operational efficiencies. As at 31 March 2020 the Group's cash balance was £3.0m with net cash of £0.5m on a pre IFRS 16 basis.
“COVID-19 is, and will continue to be, a challenging time for many and our priority remains the welfare of our team and their families. The Group is well placed to benefit from its strong levels of recurring revenue and excellent levels of cash generation however we remain mindful of the potential impact to trading in the coming months.”
4d Pharma 61p £66.8m (AIM:DDDD)
The pharmaceutical company leading the development of Live Biotherapeutics (LBP), today announces that the Company has received expedited acceptance from the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to commence a Phase II study of MRx-4DP0004 in patients with COVID-19. The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of MRx-4DP0004, in addition to standard-of-care in up to 90 patients hospitalised with symptoms indicative of COVID-19. Eligible participants will be randomised 2:1 to receive 14 days of treatment with either MRx-4DP0004 or placebo (two capsules twice daily). Participants will be monitored daily throughout the treatment period for improvement or progression of COVID-19 symptoms and adverse events. : "As well as its appropriate mechanism of action, the highly favourable safety profile of MRx-4DP0004 makes it a particularly attractive candidate for COVID-19 patients, and may potentially allow us to prevent or delay their progression to requiring ventilation and intensive care."
Crossword Cybersecurity* 300p £14.1m (AIM:CCS)
The technology commercialisation company focused solely on cyber security and risk, is pleased to announce that it has undertaken a fundraising of approximately £1million through a placing and proposed subscription at a price of 230 pence per share. Tom Ilube, CEO and founder of Crossword, intends to subscribe on the same terms for 73,914 Ordinary Shares .
“Crossword's clients and opportunities exist in multiple sectors, some of which have clearly been affected by the pandemic, and some of which are seeing increased activity as cyber security becomes even more important. Our Rizikon Assurance product pipeline continues to grow and represents nearly £4m out of the £6m total pipeline, and we are engaged in several large-scale bid situations. However, we have also seen some clients delaying the start of new projects, and we remain in close contact with them.”
Angus Energy 0.6p £3.6m (AIM:ANGS)
Angus has today issued a 4% per annum £1,400,000 Convertible Loan Note to Knowe Properties Limited, a significant shareholder in the Company. A proportion of the issue proceeds of the New Loan Note will be immediately used to repay £250,000 of the outstanding £600,000 of the earlier Convertible Loan Note issued on 24 October 2019 led by Riverfort Global Opportunities PCC Limited. The funds will be primarily used to reduce any impact from the Riverfort Global Opportunities PCC Limited facility, now only £350,000, and to assist and support the broader reconnection programme at the Saltfleetby Gas Field and the more involved planning process at Balcombe.
Omega Diagnostics 31.5p £47.4m (AIM:ODX)
The medical diagnostics company focused on CD4, infectious diseases, food intolerance and allergy testing, announces that it has signed a Material Transfer Agreement with Mologic Ltd to formalise a partnership to provide manufacturing capability for Mologic's COVID-19 first generation ELISA diagnostics test, the development of which has been funded in part by the UK government. Once ready, the antibody test will be capable of playing a key part towards identifying people that have built up immunity to coronavirus.
Renalytix 269p £159.38m (AIM:RENX)
The developer of clinical grade artificial intelligence in vitro diagnostics for kidney disease, announces that the KidneyIntelX ™ platform will be used by investigators from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to assess the risk of adverse kidney events in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Acute and chronic kidney disease is strongly associated with severity of disease and fatal outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Evaluation of a patient's kidney risk status at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis, through recovery and during follow-on monitoring, can be of potentially high clinical value.
Yourgene Health 19.5p £120.2m (LON:YGEN)
The international molecular diagnostics group, announces a trading update for the year ended 31 March 2020. Revenues for the year ended 31 March 2020 were £16.6m (2019: £8.9m), up 86% compared to the previous year, and does not include £0.4m of orders for March that fell into the new financial year due to COVID-19 transport restrictions. The revenue increase reflects organic growth of approximately 36%; 11 months contribution from Elucigene Diagnostics, acquired on 26 April 2019; and three weeks' contribution from the Company's French NIPT distribution business, acquired on 10 March 2020.
Futura Medical 11p £27m (AIM:FUM)
The pharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of innovative products based on its proprietary, transdermal DermaSys® technology and currently focused on sexual health and pain, has now filed for a further pre-submission meeting with the US FDA following receipt of the complete and signed clinical study report (CSR) for its Phase 3 Study (FM57). This follows initial presentation of existing clinical evidence from the FM57 study at an FDA pre-submission meeting on 24th February 2020.
FM57 reported top line results in December 2019. It was a 1,000 patient, dose-ranging, multi-centre, randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled, home use, parallel group study for the Company's lead product, MED3000, a topical treatment for Erectile Dysfunction (ED). It demonstrated that MED3000 has the potential to be a highly effective, clinically proven, topical treatment for ED, with a fast onset of action and excellent safety profile. If the outcome of the meeting is positive, this could lead to a US submission filing in Q3 2020 for FDA review for pre-marketing clearance.
The Barkby Group 23.25p £31.4m (AQSE:BARK)
The diversified business group, announced that VivoPlex Group Ltd has received UK regulatory approval to initiate the first clinical feasibility study of its wireless battery-free uterine sensor system.
The study is expected to generate key clinical data to support European approval (CE marking) for VivoPlex's first product, which is part of a range of reproductive health biosensors it is developing. The approval for the study is an important milestone for VivoPlex in the path towards commercialisation of its intra-uterine sensing system.
In line with other medical device and pharmaceutical companies, the study will start as soon as practicably possible after clinical capacity becomes available post the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ethernity Networks 38p £12.4m (AIM:ENET)
The supplier of data processing offload solutions on programmable hardware for accelerating telco/cloud networks, has been named as a Vendor to Watch in a February 2020 Gartner research report titled Market Trends: Function Accelerator Cards Disrupting Traditional Ethernet Adapter Market.*
The report provides the definition of function accelerator cards (FACs), "FACs are a class of network interface hardware that help improve and accelerate server availability, bandwidth performance and data transport efficiency in a network. besides enabling connectivity to a network. While all FACs are essentially NICs, not all NICs are FACs."
According to the report, "by 2023, we estimate that one in three NICs (network interface cards) shipped will be a FAC," and further adds that "as 5G adoption also starts to grow, FACs will also be handy at the edge for offloading NFV functions. Product leaders at semiconductor providers must, therefore, optimize their NIC hardware for capabilities to support such use cases and redraw their product roadmaps for traditional NICs to include FAC functionalities."
The report also provides context for the market trends that these cards address and recognizes five Vendors to Watch, including Ethernity Networks.
*denotes a corporate client of Hybridan LLP
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Derren Nathan
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derren.nathan@hybridan.com