Covid testing kits fuel sales boom at Novacyt

A BRITISH producer of coronavirus testing kits expects ‘significant demand’ to continue for the rest of the year and potentially into 2021.

Novacyt has been selling its testing kits to more than 100 countries during the pandemic, racking up revenues of more than £90m.

Its Southampton-based subsidiary, Primerdesign, was among the first in the world to develop the diagnostic product and it plans to make 10m per month from June, using eight manufacturing sites.

The company’s extraordinary rise was underlined yesterday by its full-year results, which showed Primerdesign had made just £5.6m in 2019. Its revenues so far this year are at least 16 times that size.

The company said it expected the strong demand for the test kits to ‘continue through to the end of the year, and may extend well into 2021, as the global demand for Covid-19 testing continues to increase’.

Its deals include an agreement to supply the Department of Health with 288,000 tests per week.

Novacyt is also working with pharmaceutical groups Astrazeneca and Glaxosmithkline to support a testing lab set up in Cambridge.

The huge demand for its product has caused the AIM-listed company’s share price to rocket, with the stock up by more than 2,700pc so far this year. That means someone who invested £1,000 would now have a staggering £28,000.

But shares in Novacyt fell 14.6pc, or 58p, to 340p yesterday. Annual results for 2019 showed losses had widened from £1.8m to £3.4m.