Manchester-based molecular diagnostics firm Yourgene Health plc announced that the company’s wholly-owned US subsidiary Yourgene Health Inc. has signed a supply agreement “with a large US clinical laboratory group.”
Yourgene said the agreement is worth an estimated $1.5 million over five years to Yourgene and grants the unidentified partner non-exclusive access to the company’s Ranger Technology which Yourgene gained as part of acquisition of Coastal Genomics Inc. in August 2020.
“The agreement grants the partner non-exclusive rights to integrate the Ranger enrichment technology into their proprietary reproductive health diagnostic screening pathway, to support their US-wide clinical laboratory network,” said Yourgene.
“The agreement enables use of the technology for the field of reproductive health, with the potential to expand into other applications such as oncology in the future.
“Coastal was acquired in August 2020 to allow Yourgene to bring its size selection and DNA enrichment technology to the US, Canadian and other international markets as a complement to the company’s reproductive health products, services and technologies.
“The technology, and Coastal’s broader commercial pipeline in North America, also accelerate the company’s diversification into the oncology market and wider DNA sample preparation markets.
“Under the terms of the Coastal acquisition, this agreement meets the criteria for a Qualifying Commercial Agreement with a Strategic Partner, triggering the first earn-out milestone from that acquisition.
“Consequently, approximately 5 million shares in Yourgene will be issued to the selling shareholders of Coastal within the next 28 days, which will be subject to orderly market provisions for the next 12 months.
“Further details of this equity issuance will be announced shortly once the legal details have been finalised.”
Yourgene CEO Lyn Rees said: “We are very pleased to announce this first important validation by a strategic partner for our recently acquired new technology.
“We continue to believe that this is a key technology platform for our entry into the US diagnostics market, the largest in the world.
“We respect the partner’s preference to remain unidentified as it affirms their perception of Coastal’s Ranger Technology as a competitive advantage.”