Novacyt : Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 2023

Novacyt Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2023

Bringing Together

Research, Instrumentation

and Clinical Expertise

Contents

01 Business Overview	04	04
Introduction	05
Building growth on our core expertise	06
Highlights	08

Financial Statements	76
Responsibility Statement of	77
the Directors in Respect of the
Annual Financial Report
Statutory Auditors Report on the	77
Consolidated Financial Statements

02	Strategic Report	10	05	Accounts and Notes	82
	Chairman's Statement	11
	Focus on strategic growth with			Note to the Annual Accounts	88
	an expanded portfolio	12
	Chief Executive Officer's Review	16	06	Company Information	150
	Section 172 (1) Statement	22
	Financial Review	24
	Sustainability	30
	The importance of talent to Novacyt	34
03	Governance	36
	The Board of Directors	37
	Directors' Report	42
	An Introduction from the Chairman	46
	QCA Principles	48
	Nomination Committee Report	56
	Directors' Remuneration Report	57
	Performance Share Awards Scheme	60
	Audit Committee Report	62
	Principle Risks and Risk Management	66

3

Business Overview

Introduction

Novacyt is an international molecular diagnostics company providing a growing portfolio of integrated technologies and services, primarily focused on delivery of genomic medicine. The Group develops, manufactures,

and commercialises a broad range of molecular assays, workflows and instrumentation for both research and clinical applications. The Group is recognised as a leader in reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious disease.

Our vision

To be a trusted provider of molecular diagnostics, enabled through our technical expertise, innovation and our global partnerships.

• Clinical		• Research		• Instrumentation
A focused portfolio of in		A broad range of high		Ranger® Technology for
vitro diagnostic tests for		quality, reliable reagents,		DNA size selection and
human health		and qPCR assays for the life		qPCR instrumentation
		science industry		products for in-field testing

These three key areas of focus for the enlarged Group are underpinned by our core expertise in areas such as Bioinformatics, Regulatory and Technical Services, which is explained in more detail on pages 6 to 7.

4	Annual Report	Business	5
and Accounts	Overview

Building growth on our core expertise

Clinical in vitro diagnostics assay development

A key strength of the combined Group is the ability to develop clinical assays that will have a positive impact on human health. This isn't just a technical development workstream but comes from a deep understanding of unmet clinical needs, keeping on top of different healthcare reimbursement and insurance coverage policies and changes to clinical pathways, which create market opportunities for some clinical tests. The team can then develop products that meet the needs of clinicians using a range of different technologies such as NGS, ARMS and qPCR amongst others. Yourgene has a range of screening and diagnostic tests in the field of reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious disease.

Research tools for life sciences

The Primer Design life science division within the Group is focused on the design, manufacture, validation

and supply of real-time PCR kits and reagents which offers our life science and research customers a comprehensive range (1200+) of qPCR assays that are high quality and accurate.

The portfolio covers a range of different applications including human health, animal and veterinary, food, water and agriculture pathogen kits. In addition, the team of friendly specialists has a wealth of expertise in developing custom assays for our partners. This includes qPCR assay design, multiplexing, custom and extraction workflow solutions. Primer Design has substantial experience in manufacturing finished products that are ready for distribution. We can manufacture molecular diagnostic assays in freeze- dried, air-dried and liquid formats.

Instrumentation

Novacyt has two different families of instrumentation both offering unique solutions to our customers' genetic testing needs. The core fundamental underpinning our instrumentation portfolio is building platforms, consumables and reagents that are built with our customers in mind.

• Ranger® Technology - this game-changing technology is used for next generation DNA size selection, enabling customers to enrich a specific target through real-time machine vision. Ranger® Technology is deployed in the LightBench and NIMBUS Select instruments, giving customers automation and scalability across multiple applications.
• MyGo and genesig™ q series of qPCR instruments both enable customers to take real-time PCR tests out of the laboratory, with portable options to run the instrument out in the field. This offers mobility, versatility and speed to meet any testing need.

Bioinformatics

Developing bespoke software analysis tools to work alongside our assays, instruments and workflows enables us to offer a comprehensive work package to a lab. Our Bioinformatics teams work closely with R&D teams to build data analysis tools to meet our customer needs. The Bioinformatics teams also work alongside our customers and Technical Services teams to ensure that data and reports that customers develop from our tests are accurate and that the test is performing as it should in the customers' hands. Many customers who do not have a specialist bioinformatics resource rely on us to provide easy to interpret clinical results through user-friendly software.

Regulatory expertise

The Yourgene team has a long history of nearly 10 years of having regulatory approved in vitro diagnostics tests, starting with the world's first NIPT assay, the IONA® test to receive its CE mark back in 2015.

The In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR 2017/746) replaced the current In Vitro Diagnostic Directive (IVDD 98/79/EC), and we are pleased to have received IVDR accreditation for the Yourgene® DPYD test in November 2023.

IVDR provides the regulatory framework for safe and effective tests for the benefit of patients. As a responsible IVD manufacturer, we are pleased to embrace these enhanced regulations and we are actively working to fulfil the IVDR requirements for our devices to meet the needs of our customers and to support the health decisions of their patient populations. In addition to the new challenges of IVDR, the experienced Regulatory team work hard to ensure other products are registered in additional non-European regions and are available for sale

in regions such as Vietnam, Australia and Canada amongst others.

Technical services

Our global technical services team is well regarded by our customers. We receive consistent feedback that they provide excellent and detailed training programmes, pre and post installation support, handholding and ongoing operational support. Our teams pride themselves on being fast, responsive, supportive and proactive. The teams are very customer focused and aim to deliver a comprehensive service plan for our more complex NGS workflows such as NIPT.

In addition, our dedicated Life Sciences team and technical and field support specialists continue to provide round-the-clock support to our customers with instrument servicing and repair, software updates, troubleshooting and technical advice.

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Business 7 Overview

Highlights

This has been a transformational year for the Novacyt Group with the acquisition of molecular diagnostics business Yourgene Health Ltd (formerly plc) on 8 September 2023. The acquisition adds scale and diversification to create a stronger global diagnostics business, with a complementary suite of genomic technologies and services.

Operational & commercial highlights (1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023) of the combined Group

Novacyt Acquisition of Yourgene Health Ltd (September 2023)

Lyn Rees and John Brown CBE join Novacyt Board (September 2023)

First IVDR accreditation for Yourgene DPYD assay for chemotoxicity (November 2023)

Yourgene Health is a PacBio compatible partner and publication of a Technical Note for LightBench in long read sequencing (November 2023)

Yourgene Health launch MagBench automated DNA extraction platform (August 2023)

Yourgene Health presents Data Demonstrating

Successful Fetal Fraction Enrichment in NIPT Workflows in EDTA Tubes at IPSD (June 2023)

Launch of the Primer Design Co-Prep ES instrument, providing automated DNA and RNA extraction using Primer Design developed and optimised chemistry which allows for pathogen detection across numerous applications

Financial highlights

Group revenue for FY2023 was £11.6m

Group gross profit	£3.7m
Group EBITDA loss	£13.7m
Cash position on	£44.1m
31 December 2023 was

Novacyt announce DHSC trial date (January 2023)

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Business 9 Overview

Strategic	plc has significantly expanded
	"The acquisition and successful
Report	integration of Yourgene Health
strengths of in vitro diagnostic
	the Group's product portfolio
	and strengthened our core
	product development and
	commercialisation. This has put
	the Group in a great position to
	accelerate revenue growth both
	organically and through further
	selective acquisitions."

Chairman's

Statement

2023 was a year of significant strategic change for the Novacyt Group as we continued shaping our product portfolio for a post-COVID-19 world. This change took place both organically by developing the existing portfolio of Primer Design and IT-IS and through the acquisition of Yourgene Health Ltd.

James Wakefield

Chairman, Novacyt S.A.

Our core Research Assays for life sciences are now well established with an extensive portfolio covering the areas of Human Healthcare, Animal & Veterinary and Food, Water and Agriculture all underpinned by a custom assay capability that enables bespoke solution development for customers. The acquisition of Yourgene Health has introduced some new high growth product areas such as Non-Invasive Parental testing, DPYD genotyping and Cystic Fibrosis screening. The acquisition has also increased our instrumentation portfolio with the addition of Ranger® Technology which provides industry-leading scalability and precision for DNA size selection.

As well as expanding the product portfolio the acquisition of Yourgene Health has significantly increased the Research and Development capability of the Group both in terms of scale and expertise. The larger commercial team means we have a better geographic footprint to sell all of our products and the increase in scale means we have access to better distribution channels in some territories. We have strengthened our regulatory capability which is an area of growing importance as we enter the era of IVDR. We are pleased with the progress we have made on integrating the two businesses and can see further opportunities for economies of both scale and skills as we move forward.

We have also seen significant change at Board level with both John Brown and Lyn Rees joining the Board in September 2023, Steve Gibson stepping up as CFO in January 2024 and Jo Mason joining from 1 May 2024. We are delighted that Lyn is taking on the role of CEO, effective from 1 May 2024, and on behalf of the Board, I would like to thank both Andrew Heath and James McCarthy who stepped down from the Board on

1 May 2024.

During the 2023 period under review, we generated revenues of £11.6m (including Yourgene Health from 8 September 2023) and the Company remains debt free with a cash position at 31 December 2023 of over £44 million. We are delighted to be working with Allegra Finance as our French listing sponsor and SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP as our Nominated Advisor/ Broker; Numis continues to act as our joint broker.

We are not proposing to pay a dividend for the financial year ended 2023. The future dividend policy will

be reviewed on an annual basis as part of a wider review of capital allocation, which will be formulated in conjunction with the requirements for continued investment in the business or future acquisitions to maximise Shareholder value, taking into account the prevailing financial conditions in the markets in which the business operates.

The Company is listed on two stock exchanges: Euronext Growth Paris and AIM London. As such, the Board remains committed to maintaining the highest standards of transparency, ethics and corporate governance, whilst also providing leadership, controls and strategic oversight to ensure that we deliver value to all our stakeholders.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity of thanking you, the Shareholders, for your continued support, and also to thank the Board, the Executive management team and all of our staff for their commitment and contribution to the business.

James Wakefield

Chairman, Novacyt S.A.

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Strategic 11 Report

Focus on strategic growth with an expanded portfolio

Clinical in vitro diagnostics

Through the acquisition of Yourgene Health, the Novacyt Group has expanded it's portfolio of human clinical in vitro diagnostics products, workflows and services focused on three therapeutic areas: Reproductive Health, Precision Medicine and Infectious Diseases. Below is a deeper dive into some of our market-leading products within the clinical space.

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)

Prenatal screening has been revolutionised over the last ten years with the emergence of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) enabling vast improvements in accuracy and precision through the detection of circulating fetal DNA (cfDNA) in maternal blood. Non-invasive prenatal testing has been so successful since its introduction that it has since been called the vanguard of genomic medicine. NIPT tests reduce the risk of false positives occurring, giving clinicians the confidence to refer mothers for an invasive test only when there is a

high risk that the fetus is affected. This means fewer pregnant women will undergo unnecessary invasive follow-up procedures such as an amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) which can be stressful, painful and may carry a small risk of miscarriage. NIPT is a screening test, and all high-risk results must be followed up with a confirmatory invasive test.

NIPT was first launched as a super-lab service offering in the USA and China, but the market need for clinical laboratories wishing to run their own local NIPT service created great clinical demand. In 2015 Yourgene launched the IONA® test (CE-IVD) and changed the NIPT screening landscape. The IONA® test was the pioneer, the first to market as an IVD kitted product, enabling the democratisation of NIPT for a network of clinical laboratories globally. Today, Yourgene has a comprehensive offering of NIPT workflows, utilising

next generation sequencing, that have been built with labs in mind, and clinical prenatal screening services in the UK and Taiwan.

Yourgene has four different NIPT workflows for labs based on different sequencing platforms (Illumina and Thermo Fisher) and different regulatory landscapes.

• IONA® Nx NIPT Workflow - CE-IVD based on Illumina
  Nextseq 550 Dx
• The IONA® test workflow - CE-IVD based on Thermo
  Fisher Ion Torrent
• Sage™ prenatal screen - RUO based on Thermo Fisher Ion Torrent
• Yourgene Nx NIPT Workflow - LDT customisable workflow on Illumina Nextseq 550 Dx

The majority of the above NIPT workflows have a broad range of benefits to our lab customers enabling them to offer an accurate, comprehensive, competitive clinical NIPT service, including:

• A broad clinical menu including clinically actionable microdeletion syndromes.
• Fetal fraction enrichment technology.
• Low re-draw rates.
• Highly flexible workflow that can be scaled.
• Manual or automated workflow.

DPYD genotyping

DPYD assay is used to identify patients with Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase (DPD) deficiency, through the rapid detection of six clinically relevant variants in the DPD enzyme. Patients with a DPD deficiency have a high risk of severe, and sometimes lethal, side effects following the administration of

5-Fluorouracil(5-FU), a widely used chemotherapy agent used in the treatment of many cancers including colorectal, head and neck, breast, pancreatic and stomach cancer.

An estimated two million people globally are treated with fluoropyrimidines (including 5-FU) each year, with between 10-30% of these patients suffering severe side effects associated with DPD deficiency. DPYD genotyping for 5-FU toxicity has been adopted in many countries internationally with screening introduced into cancer care clinical pathways following government reimbursement in England, Wales, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Ontario province of Canada. The screening enables clinicians to reduce the risk of increased toxicity from 5-FU exposure in these patients by lowering the treatment dose, or alternate drug therapy where indicated.

The Yourgene® DPYD assay is the first to conform to the new EU IVDR regulations and is one of the first pharmacogenomics tests in the market providing clinicians and patients with additional confidence

in the high-quality and accuracy of this test which is increasingly becoming an essential screening requirement ahead of cancer patient treatment.

Cystic fibrosis screening

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) has become the most common life-shortening hereditary genetic condition affecting 1 in 2500 live births in Caucasians. Within defined geographical populations and ethnic groups, there are variations in the predominant mutations. To address this variation, Yourgene provides a range of CE-IVD products designed specifically for these populations and groups. The kits use Amplification-Refractory Mutation System (ARMS) technology and genetic analysers to detect point mutations, insertions or deletions in DNA.

Yourgene® Cystic Fibrosis Base is a pan-European CF testing kit designed specifically to address the most common mutations found across populations of European origin. Alongside this assay, Yourgene Health offer several population-specificbolt-on panels, as well as bespoke offerings for national programmes. The assay is designed with all clinically relevant diagnostic scenarios in mind, including newborn screening and male factor infertility testing.

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Focus on strategic growth with an expanded portfolio

Instrumentation

Ranger® Technology:

Ranger® Technology offers industry-leading scalability and precision for DNA size selection, ensuring maximal enrichment every time, providing clinical and research laboratories with true walk away time, reducing workflow costs and improving yields. It offers a fast, effective and efficient automated solution for separating DNA molecules based on their size and electrical charge; it uses patent-protected, machine- vision algorithms to interpret the gel electrophoresis process in real time.

Ranger® Technology is deployed in our state-of-the- art DNA sample preparation platforms, LightBench, LightBench Detect and NIMBUS Select. One of the greatest benefits of the technology is that it enables true target enrichment that is both automated and scalable and this can be utilised across different applications:

• NIPT - Ranger® is used in the IONA® Nx and Sage 32
  NIPT workflows to enrich fetal fraction, giving more accurate results, first time.
• Oncology and liquid biopsy - Ranger® uses dynamic ctDNA target enrichment to enable early detection, capturing patients with cancer earlier and therefore improving patient outcomes.
• Gene synthesis - Ranger's unique approach to sample visualization and automated size-selection, ensuring higher sample purity, decreasing failure rates and lowering overall costs in gene editing and gene synthesis workflows.
• Long read sequencing - LightBench has been shown to enable PacBio customers to optimise size selection for long-read sequencing libraries. Yourgene Health is a PacBio compatible partner.

MyGo and genesig™ q-series qPCR instrumentation:

We are a global leader in developing and manufacturing accurate, robust, compact and portable ranges of qPCR instruments to meet the needs of space-limited laboratory testing and in-field testing.

The MyGo Mini S qPCR instrument is a compact real-time PCR instrument, ideal for use outside of the laboratory, or for when bench space is at a premium. MyGo Pro and MyGo Pro ESR qPCR instruments are multiplex real-time PCR instruments ideal for a wide variety of applications including life-science research, food speciation testing and viral determination

and quantification.

genesig™ q16 and q32 real-time PCR instruments are accurate and robust yet portable, enabling 16 or 32 simultaneous reactions, and are designed to work across many in-field applications and at point-of-need workflows.

Research assays for life sciences

Real-time PCR is an exceptionally powerful research tool. With the correct kits, reagents and experimental design, it is quick and easy to generate high quality meaningful data with real-time PCR. We have a growing and expansive portfolio of assays available across three key verticals, and these assays are available in

a range of different formats of test kits - Advanced, Complete, Easy, Standard and Multiplex, all built to meet the needs of a broad range of customers.

Human healthcare

The human pathogen detection kit range forms the largest part of the genesig™ portfolio and is ever growing. This segment includes hundreds of kits for pathogenic bacteria, viruses, protozoa, parasites amongst many others. We have a range of respiratory assays in the range looking at influenza A and B, RSV, SARS-CoV2 amongst others. In addition, the infectious disease range is comprehensive and covers sexually transmitted disease, viral and bacterial gastrointestinal disease, and tropical vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and zika virus. These focus areas of human healthcare have substantial addressable markets. At Primer Design we are always horizon scanning to understand when the next pathogen outbreak could be to ensure we are available to support any aid agencies, such as WHO, with rapid and reliable assays.

Animal & veterinary

The veterinary range is currently the fastest growing part of the genesig™ portfolio with nearly 400 assays available for pathogen testing. qPCR-based veterinary kits attract a lot of attention and this product range addresses some truly unique challenges in the field. Primer Design specialises in tests for companion animals (cats, dogs, household pets) and equine, along with a comprehensive range of animal and veterinary diagnostics covering all major animal groups, be it livestock, birds or exotic animals.

Food, water and agriculture

An exciting area of non-human diagnostics, this growing field has shown an uptake in the use of our qPCR assays. qPCR methods are proven to be the fastest and most accurate way for screening water and food. We offer highly sensitive kits for food-borne pathogens, agriculture, meat and fish speciation, allergen testing and water contaminants. We have 68 assays for food contamination and 63 assays covering aquaculture.

Custom assays

Our expertise extends to custom development solutions across multiple sectors including human health, animal and veterinary diagnostics and the food, water and agricultural markets, offering a full suite of services for diagnostic companies: assay design, prototype testing, optimization, validation, regulatory support and kit manufacturing. We tailor solutions to in-house and open-format qPCR platforms, ensuring maximum performance. This comprehensive approach empowers our partners to bring innovative diagnostic tests to market with efficiency and confidence.

Primer Design's deep expertise makes us an ideal partner for custom assay and workflow development. With over 500 custom assays created and a global presence spanning 100 countries, we possess a wealth of experience to draw upon. This, combined with our rapid turnaround times of two to six weeks, empowers our clients to accelerate their route-to-market with tailored solutions. Our focus on innovation and customer collaboration positions us to consistently deliver the tools diagnostic companies need for success.

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Chief Executive

Officer's Review

2023 represented a transitional year for Novacyt, as we continued to diversify the business away from COVID-19. In September 2023, the Group completed the acquisition of Yourgene, which represented a significant milestone that enhanced and diversified our portfolio. We are now working as one integrated global diagnostics business, benefitting from initial synergies between the combined entities, and are focused on investing to further leverage these and achieve long-term, sustainable growth for the Group.

Lyn Rees

Chief Executive Officer, Novacyt S.A.

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Yourgene acquisition and integration

Following the strategic acquisition of Yourgene, the Group now has a broader technology portfolio, with a stronger end-to-end customer offering, enhanced routes to market in Europe, Asia and the Americas, expanded skills and expertise in our R&D and commercial teams, and a rationalised, high quality distribution network to drive growth and maximise efficiencies.

We have successfully completed the integration of all key operational departments including R&D and sales, combining complementary skills in molecular biology and instrumentation and our commercial teams have full access to the wider product portfolio to address customer needs. We have also streamlined support functions, such as finance, regulatory and other back-office activities to remove duplicate corporate functions.

As part of this process, the Group has been reorganised into three business segments: Clinical, Instrumentation and Research Use Only ("RUO"). This has transferred the development and commercialisation of all clinical products to Yourgene, enabling Primer Design to focus on its core flagship offering of developing RUO assays. The IT-IS business is continuing its focus on real- time quantitative PCR instrumentation and is adding complementary technical and engineering expertise to support growth in the Ranger® Technology products.

With the strengthened expertise of the combined leadership team, we are continuing to evaluate our portfolio and product mix, identifying those products that will benefit most from further investment. With the strength of our balance sheet, I am confident we will be able to accelerate growth in areas with highest potential, particularly NIPT, Ranger® Technology and Precision Medicine.

The Yourgene acquisition business case assumed £5.0m of annualised cost synergies would be achieved by year three of the integration, with circa £2.5m of investment required to achieve those savings. We announced in our January trading update that the Group is tracking substantially ahead of this target with 80% of the annualised savings realised at the end of 2023 and we are on track to deliver the balance by the end of 2024. The main savings delivered thus far coming from the refocus of the Primer Design business on the RUO market, the elimination of duplicate corporate functions and streamlining of management.

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Chief Executive

Officer's Review

Portfolio update	fast, and cost-efficient,bench-top robotic, cell-free
1. Clinical	DNA (cfDNA) extraction.

we are seeing steady interest from our growing RUO customer base.

a stronger data set in these new use cases will drive further adoption and market penetration.

The Clinical business is focused on three key therapeutic areas, Reproductive Health, Precision Medicine and Infectious Diseases, which each represent large and growing addressable market opportunities. We continue to drive sales of these products in our core markets in Europe, Asia and some key regions in the Americas.

Obtaining certification for our clinical products under the new EU requirements of the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation ("IVDR") remains a key priority for the Group. We received our first IVDR certification in November 2023, with the Yourgene® DPYD genotyping assay,

an important test for oncology treatment, which identifies cancer patients at risk of suffering a severe, and potentially life-threatening, reaction to common chemotherapy. In December 2023, the Company submitted the application for its Cystic Fibrosis quantitative fluorescence PCR (QF-PCR) test, which is used for newborn screening as well as carrier screening in adults during family planning.

Reproductive health

We saw encouraging growth in our Reproductive Health business, with the addition of several new non-invasive prenatal testing ("NIPT") laboratory customers across Europe, Columbia, Uzbekistan, India, UK and Taiwan. With the NIPT market expected to reach $5.71 billion by 2028, we

are well positioned to meet the growing global demand for accurate and reliable NIPT workflows as an increasing number of laboratories offer NIPT testing internationally.

We have continued to see strong growth in India, which is a major market for Yourgene's Sage™ 32 and 12 NIPT workflows. To support this in September, the Company launched MagBench™ in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. MagBench™ is an automated DNA extraction platform optimised for the Sage 32 NIPT Workflow, which enables simple,

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The Group also saw strong growth in its cystic fibrosis portfolio in Australia in Q4 2023, following the introduction of a new nationwide reimbursement pathway by the Australian government that enables all eligible Australians to receive cystic fibrosis screening either prior to or early in pregnancy, and have seen this momentum continue into 2024.

Precision medicine

Over two million cancer patients globally are treated with fluoropyrimidines (including 5-FU) each year; 10-30% of these patients suffer severe, and sometimes fatal, side-effects associated with DPD deficiency. Our DPYD genotyping assay can identify patients with this deficiency, and we are seeing increased adoption being driven by government reimbursement programmes and the introduction of DPYD screening into cancer care clinical pathways. We are seeing growth across UK, Ireland and Europe and in Canada where new customers are starting to screen for DPYD as part of a province roll-out with reimbursement in Ontario and other regions are expected to follow.

Infectious diseases

The Group launched its CE marked winter respiratory panel, genesig™ Real-time PCR SARS- CoV-2 Winterplex, before the cold winter season in the UK and has had a steady uptake with a number of NHS customers. However, given the considerable financial and staff resource required to advance a product to IVDR, we will monitor clinical demand over the coming winter to evaluate the opportunity and the investment required to progress the test.

As part of our portfolio evaluation, we have deprioritised the clinical development of the nine new genesig™ multiplex products. These products are currently available for research use only and

2. Instrumentation

Our instrumentation offering has been significantly enhanced by the addition of Ranger® Technology, Yourgene's automated DNA sample preparation and target enrichment technology, which provides better performance and improved workflows in multiple applications including NIPT, oncology, infectious disease testing and gene synthesis. We see opportunities for Ranger® across multiple markets as it addresses key industry problems such as sample preparation and purity, can meet high volume requirements in markets such as gene synthesis, and has proven capability with multiple gene sequencing platforms.

The team has continued to drive new opportunities for Ranger® across new human and non-human applications. In November 2023, Yourgene became a compatible partner of PacBio, a leading developer of high-quality, highly accurate sequencing solutions with

a global customer base. PacBio released a Technical Note, supporting the use of Yourgene's LightBench® instrument (Ranger® Technology) with PacBio's HiFi sequencing system for size selection of long DNA fragments to enable high yields for HiFi sequencing data. PacBio's customer base spans a broad set of research areas, including human genome sequencing, plant and animal sciences, infectious diseases and microbiology, oncology and other emerging applications, which represents a significant opportunity to expand the use of Ranger® Technology. In addition, the Company has just signed a co-marketing agreement with PacBio, strengthening our relationship and ensuring Ranger® Technology is available for their long- read sequencing customers. There are also

a number of ongoing collaborations with key institutions around the world to test Ranger® across a number of different applications. Having

In Q1 2023 we saw the launch of the Primer Design Co-Prep ES instrument, providing automated DNA and RNA extraction using Primer Design optimised assays, which enables pathogen detection across numerous applications. Within the IT-IS International Instrument division/business, the renewed marketing plans and commercial restructure is beginning to make an impact and the Group is seeing greater awareness and lead generation, with sales improving during Q1 2024.

3. Research use only

Primer Design has maintained its position as a leader in custom assay development, having delivered over 500+ custom assays in addition to its extensive catalogue, which includes over 1200 assays. Building on this expertise it has expanded its capabilities into the animal diagnostics and aquaculture sectors, developing assays for both its own portfolio as well as client-specific needs.

The business has a solid and growing pipeline addressing the need for fit-for-purpose testing options and streamlined workflows. The R&D team is also working on a Norovirus RUO assay, which will be ready to go to market in Q2 2024 and has built on the market needs of key strategic customers within the oyster farming community in the UK.

Based on extensive customer and market feedback, the team have launched a range of "Complete" assays, which include our market- leading customised mastermixes, unique enzyme and control combinations, that are tailored to provide everything our customers need in one kit for their experiments. In addition, the mastermix reagents have been launched as a stand-alone component that can be used for any labs working with multiplex assays, giving a route into potential new customer labs.

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