UCrest eyes clinical labs deal with Pathway

> Hopes to secure licence to ‘clone’ the latter’s laboratories in regional markets

PETALING JAYA: UCrest Bhd, which started distributing early cancer detection genetic test kits yesterday, expects to move forward with partner Pathway Genomics in the clinical laboratories segment.

The group will be distributing BRCATRUE, an early breast and ovarian cancer detection genetic test kit produced by Pathway in Malaysia, through hospitals and clinical laboratories.

In addition to Malaysia, UCrest is in the process of offering the test kit abroad – in Southeast Asia, China, Taiwan and Russia.

UCrest is hoping to recognise a contribution of at least 10% to its total revenue for the first few years from the rollout of the product, which is part of the group’s i-medic service, known as Cloud Hospital. The i-medic system connects multiple medical, healthcare, fitness and tracking devices, with mobile applications running on smartphones and tablets, which enables patients to measure their vital signs such as blood pressure, blood oxygen level, body temperature, bone density, body mass index and others, and upload them to the cloud system. The information will then be accessed and assessed by doctors who could then provide consultations to their patients online. Speaking to reporters after the group’s EGM yesterday, UCrest CEO Eg Kah Yee ( pix) said the group is working towards becoming a licensee to set up Pathway’s clinical laboratories in its existing markets outside of Malaysia, of which China appears to be a primary choice. “The next thing we have possibly with them (Pathway) is we (will) set up the labs in this part of the world, that means we clone the labs. The licence to build the lab equivalent to what they have,” he said. We are working on it … hopefully, in the next year or two, we will get it set up.”

At the EGM, the group received shareholders’ approval for a private placement exercise involving up to 20% of its total share capital. It intends to raise between RM27.40 million and RM42.76 million from the private placement.

UCrest, which was formerly known as Palette Multimedia Bhd, will be allocating 96% of the proceeds for working capital purposes, including business development.

Excluding the second quarter ended Nov 30, 2017, the group’s order book stood at RM20 million.

In the second quarter, the group recorded a net profit of RM3.60 million “attributable to the owners of the company” compared to a net loss of RM550,000 posted in the same period a year before that.

Revenue for the period grew multifold to RM11.24 million from the RM61,000 registered in the same quarter of the previous year.

Having recorded a net loss of RM820,000 in the financial year ended May 31, 2017, the group is of the view that it will be profitable in the current financial year. This will be supported the penetration of the i-medic services into the China, Russia and other Asian markets.

The group’s cumulative net profit for six months to Nov 30, 2017 was RM6.62 million against a net loss of RM1.06 million recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Revenue for the period under review surged to RM19.10 million from the RM283,000 in the year before.

UCrest does not intend to declare any dividend payment as it intends to plough back the earnings into its business.

On Bursa Malaysia yesterday, UCrest leaped 27.78% to close at 57.5 sen with 149.88 million shares traded.