Braveheart Investment Group PLC (AIM:BRH) updated investors on portfolio companies PhaseFocus Holdings and Paraytec.
On the back of PhaseFocus reporting its highest ever sales in the first half of the year, Braveheart said it is working to seek an exit in the next 12 months, which could be at a valuation considerably in excess of the carrying value in its accounts.
PhaseFocus has opened a new manufacturing facility in Nottingham to meet the increased demand for Livecyte systems, the high contrast time-lapse videos using its patented Ptychographic quantitative phase imaging (QPI) technology, with its distributors in Japan, China and the US reporting a strong pipeline of prospective buyers.
Meanwhile, at Paraytec the CX300 platform technology is now ready for the next stage of development after recent refinements.
A proposed Coronavirus (COVID-19) test, which is the technology's lead application, will be progressed from the current laboratory prototype into a fully functional prototype with an integrated cartridge ready for testing in a clinical setting to aid development of the device to the required regulatory standards for commercial manufacture, Braveheart said.
The CX300 technology underlying Paraytec’s test is expected to offer a key benefit over PCR tests, as it should avoid reporting a positive result for patients who are no longer infectious but whose test specimens still contain residual viral components that would be labelled positive by PCR.
To validate this, a team at the University of Sheffield will compare the PCR and CX300 results for the same clinical specimen.
Helped by Braveheart, Paraytec has produced several prototype versions of the instrument and is currently developing the disposable cartridges for integration within the instrument, ready for clinical testing.
In parallel, Braveheart said Paraytec's corporate finance partner is leading discussions with over 50 companies as potential partners for licensing, co-developing the technology or potential acquirers of the company.
Paraytec plans to provide a separate update on the bladder cancer and sepsis application projects of the platform in November.
Paraytec’s 30-month grant-funded Alzheimer's disease (AD) detection project ended in August with analysis of test results failing to reliably discriminate between patients with Alzheimer's disease and healthy controls.
“The cause of this result is not known, but it is clear that commercialisation of the AD Scanner in its current form is not practical and any further work will be outside the grant funded project,” Braveheart said.
In the AD tests the instrument performed capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF) in a highly stable manner and showed excellent repeatability of results, making Paraytec confident the enhanced technology can be put to use in other applications, for example in the biopharmaceutical industry for quality control in manufacturing therapeutic antibodies. Paraytec is seeking opportunities to explore this.