30 October 2024
RUA Life Sciences
plc
("RUA Life Sciences", the
"Company" or the "Group")
Trading update and change of
accounting reference date
RUA Life Sciences, the holding
company of a group of medical device businesses focused on the
exploitation of the world's leading long-term implantable biostable
polymer (Elast-EonTM), is pleased to announce a trading
update for the six months ended 30 September 2024 ("H1 2025" or
"the period").
Trading
update
Revenue
The Group expects to report
substantial first-half revenue growth from £790k in HY23 to £1,485k
in the current period. This growth is stated before the benefit of
the Group's acquisition of the Abiss Group announced on 9 September
2024.
· Biomaterials
royalties for the period from Elast-Eon increased to £237k,
representing year-on-year growth of 19% (H1 2024: £199k)
·
Contract Manufacture revenues
for the period increased to £1,247k. This represents a 110%
increase over the depressed H1 revenues reported last year. Like
for like growth over normalised revenues last year was
49%.
Cost Control
Costs in the period of approximately
£1.6 million benefited from stringent cost control measures and are
expected to be down by approximately 25% on those incurred in H1
2024.
Cash
Cash and cash equivalents at 30
September 2024 were £3.5m compared to £3.9m at 31 March 2024 (H1
2024: £0.5m)
Profit for the period
The Group is expected to announce a
pre-tax profit of £0.4m for the period compared to a loss of £1.4m
last year.
This turnaround is attributed to the
increased revenues and cost control described above together with,
as described in more detail below, other income of £0.9m on
consolidation of Abiss.
RUA
Vascular and Structural Heart
The objective for RUA Vascular and
Structural Heart is to find alternative ways to fund the remaining
regulatory pathway for the polymer sealed graft products and to
introduce the Group's heart valve leaflet material (AurTex) to the
wider industry as a realistic alternative to animal tissue in heart
valves. The teams working on these projects have continued to make
good progress with significant improvements made in the handling of
the graft to address feedback from potential partners.
In addition, the AurTex material has
positively advanced in both manufacturing consistency and testing
milestones. The materials tested under the
Company's Material Transfer Agreement
("MTA") with a heart valve company have successfully met all the
expected results for the tests undertaken; however, at this point,
it is not expected to lead to a commercial agreement due to current
priorities of the Company's MTA partner. Notwithstanding
this, the results of the MTA have confirmed the management's belief
in the potential for AurTex.
Several opportunities are being
pursued for each of the Vascular and Structural Heart businesses,
and further updates will be made as appropriate.
Acquisition of ABISS
On 6 September 2024, the Group
acquired the entire issued share capital of Abiss (France) and its
60% subsidiary, Abiss (Poland), (together the "Abiss Group"). The
sale of the Abiss Group was conducted as an auction by the court
appointed liquidator of the former parent company of the Abiss
Group. The total consideration paid for the Abiss Group was
€80,000.
Abiss is the legal manufacturer of
several implantable surgical products, mainly for pelvic floor
repair procedures. In addition, it is a subcontract manufacturer of
similar products for other companies, including a shared customer
of the RUA Group.
Based on the provisional management accounts
of Abiss (France), shareholders funds amounted to £1 million which
will result in other income of some £900k being recognised in the
Interim Results of the Group. This bargain purchase gain is
provisional and is expected to be revised once the fair value
calculations have been finalised.
Shortly after the acquisition of the
Abiss Group, it was subject to a rigorous FDA audit of its
activities and systems and came through the audit process with no
issues to report, which provides a strong confirmation of the
quality of the team and systems employed at the Abiss
Group.
The Board's short-term priorities
with the Abiss Group are to ensure that the €1m order backlog
caused by supply chain issues relating to packaging components (now
resolved) is dispatched to customers over the next quarter. A
business and strategy review is underway to seek to grow the Abiss
business further and incorporate the Abiss Group into the overall
strategy for the device manufacturing business unit of
RUA.
Change of accounting reference date
The Group announces that it will be changing its accounting reference
date and financial year end from 31 March to 30 September. Going
forward, interim and annual accounts will be prepared and published
for the six months ending 31 March and the twelve months ending 30
September, respectively.
The Company has changed its
financial year end to better guide business planning and
international business unit assimilation.
As a result of this change, the
Company's future reporting calendar is expected to be as
follows:
•
Publication
of unaudited accounts for the six-month period ending 30 September
2024 in mid-December 2024.
•
Publication
of unaudited accounts for the 12-month period ending 31 March 2025
in mid-June 2025.
•
Publication
of audited accounts for the 18-month period ending 30 September
2025 by end of January 2026.
•
Publication
of unaudited interim accounts for the six-month period ending 31
March 2026 in mid-June 2026; and
•
Publication
of audited accounts for the 12-month period ending 30 September
2026 by the end of January 2027.
The information contained within this announcement is deemed
by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under
the UK version of the EU Market Abuse Regulation
(2014/596), which is part of UK law by virtue of
the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended and
supplemented from time to time.
For
further information contact:
RUA
Life Sciences
Tel: +44 (0)1294 317073
Geoffrey Berg, Non-Executive
Chairman
Bill Brown, Chief
Executive
Lachlan Smith, Group Chief Financial
Officer
Cavendish Capital Markets Limited
(Nominated Adviser and Broker)
Tel:
+44 (0)20 7220 0500
Giles Balleny/Dan Hodkinson
(Corporate
Finance)
Charlie Combe (Broking)
Michael Johnson (Sales)
About RUA Life Sciences
RUA Life Sciences plc is the
ultimate parent company of the Group, whose principal activities
comprise exploiting the value of its IP
& know-how, medical device contract manufacturing and
development of medical devices.