Concepta Recapitalised for Growth
(AIM: CPT ), 1H20 results highlight the additional funds being channelled into product and commercial development of its home-use personalised fertility tracking and pregnancy self-testing system relaunched under the MYLO® brand.
Whilst the focus during the period was one of reorganisation and recapitalisation of the business, the opportunity for the Company in the pre-IVF space is clear:
‘The myLotus® Fertility Monitor is the only consumer tracking product which allows and records both quantitative and qualitative home (self-test) test measurement of a woman's personal luteinizing hormone (LH) during ovulation and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone level during pregnancy, to support conception rates and early identification of fertility issues.’
‘The proposition of MYLO® is to empower women to better understand their hormone levels and menstrual cycle and help women conceive naturally by identifying their precise and personal window of fertility and optimal time for conception.’
During the period, the Company successfully completed the commercial launch of MYLO® brand with digital marketing campaigns and full optimised search engine strategy to drive UK commercial sales with over 4,000 App downloads achieved during the period.
The most obvious signpost the Company has now achieved commercial readiness was the exclusive global licence agreement with Abingdon Health Ltd announced on 4 May for the development of ‘App Dx’ for pregnancy and fertility testing.
Furthermore, outsourcing the manufacturing for myLotus® enabled the Company to both immediately reduce overheads and future capex requirements whilst focussing management efforts on future product development and commercialisation.
Financial Highlights
The Company raised new funds of £1.7m in April 2020 through a share p[lacing at 0.8p per share with cash as at 30 June 2020 of £1.35m (FY20: £0.61m).
The cost management initiatives successfully completed during the period, including a 30% reduction in operating overhead costs announced in January, resulted in a net loss for the period of £1.35m (1H19: £1.26m).
Further cost saving initiatives, including a 50% cost reduction achieved by moving the Head Office to Cardiff post period end, will certainly improve financial results during 2H20.
Shares in Concepta have been particularly volatile during the past 12 months reflecting the uncertainly surrounding the business, with 52 week highs/lows of 2.3p and 0.72p respectively. The shares opened up 2.9% today at 0.9p following publication of the results.
Outlook
The Board of Concepta ‘continue to view the future with optimism and remain confident that we will deliver value to shareholders’ and state the Company’s focus is now on ‘accelerating UK sales growth, expanding into new markets, developing our next-generation product and widening our portfolio to include a broader mix of female health and personalised healthcare products’.
Penny McCormick, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "I am very excited about the opportunity to take a leading role in influencing the ability to conceive in the pre-IVF space. I believe we have a market leading product and we look ahead to supporting more and more women and couples through their fertility pathway, as well as developing our products to ensure our customers have access to the best possible technology and user experience. Whilst we have a strong foundation in fertility tracking and pregnancy self-testing we also have an opportunity to grow Concepta's product portfolio into other areas of personalised health and female health products." FEMTech is a high-growth segment of the overall global medical device markets and Concepta clearly has a market leading product and first mover advantage in the space. Follow here:
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