ASX Health Stocks: Cogstate falls as pipeline contracts; LBT delivers product to Thermo Fisher

Cogstate falls 7pc as clinical trials pipeline declines
LBT Innovations delivers its technology to Thermo Fisher

Cogstate down after pipeline contracts

Neuroscience biotech, Cogstate (ASX:CGS), tumbled by as much as -10% this morning after revealing that its contracted future revenue has fallen to $123m at the end of H1, compared to $146.7m in the pcp.

The company also struggled in its clinical trials sales contracts revenue during the half, executing only $10.9m, down 60% compared to pcp – citing delays in trial approvals.

Cogstate provided no specific guidance, but said its outlook on new clinical trials are expected to “remain strong, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease.”

In the first half, CGS reported EBIT of $1.8m, compared to the -$0.2m loss in the pcp. Net Profit after Tax was $2.0m, compared to the pcp of $0.1m.

This was on the back of top line revenue of $20.2m, which was 3% higher compared to pcp.

The board will also recommence the share buyback program to buy back up to 5 million of Cogstate’s issued shares over the next 12 months.

LBT delivers product to Thermo Fisher

Medtech company, LBT Innovations (ASX:LBT), announced the delivery of its APAS PharmaQC to Thermo Fisher’s facility.

This was the first recognised sale of APAS PharmaQC used for environmental monitoring.

LBT says the sale reflects the positive market interest from pharmaceutical customers for its product, and has now established a pipeline of potential early adopters who have shown interest in the technology.

The delivery to Fisher also completes the sale of the instrument agreed as part of a strategic development partnership with Thermo Fisher.

Thermo Fisher provided funding for the development of APAS PharmaQC to support its culture plate media for use in pharmaceutical microbial quality control applications.

The APAS (or Automated Plate Assessment System) PharmaQC technology uses AI to automate the imaging, analysis and interpretation of microbiology culture plates.

The technology remains the only US FDA-cleared artificial intelligence technology for automated culture plate reading.

LBT says this is the first deployment of APAS PharmaQC outside of its partnership with AstraZeneca.

“The evaluation performed by Thermo Fisher will provide meaningful performance data supporting ‘real world’ use of our technology,” said Brent Barnes, CEO of LBT.

“This will provide a further third-party validation of APAS PharmaQC, and further enhance our commercial activation of the product.”