Evocutis hails ‘transformational’ year as deal revenues shoot up

Wetherby-based Evocutis, which focuses on advanced laboratory and clinical evaluations of skincare products for the health and cosmetic markets, acquired independent commercial testing facility Leeds Skin in May. It was previously known as Syntopix Group, which was founded in 2003 as a spin-out from the Skin Research Centre at the University of Leeds. The company officially changed its name to Evocutis last month.

In the year ending July 31, the company delivered a full year operating loss of £1.219m, which was an increase on the £1.106m recorded the year before. The loss per share reduced to 0.90p, from 1.14p the year before.

Dr Stephen Jones, chief executive, said the year had been “transformational” for the business, adding: “The company increased revenues, progressed the product pipeline, and formed a new collaboration with the speciality pharma group, Sinclair IS Pharma. Additionally, the company acquired Leeds Skin, which brings into the business a unique skincare model for the testing and development of new dermatology products.”

He added: “The group enters the year with a cash balance of £2.32m and is well positioned for sustainable growth.”

Dr Jones said: “The short-term plans that we have are to maximise the revenue potential. The long-term plans, should we be successful in that, and obviously we hope that we will, would be to start using those skincare services for our own purposes. That would mean product development of our own.”

Aim-listed Evocutis this week launched the first of its LabSkin skin models, which emulate living skin and are used as a research and product testing tool.

Dr Jones said that the LabSkin in combination with the microbiology lab and the clinical volunteer testing facilities offer opportunities individually for research services, but the combination of all three offers “a true unique opportunity for integrated skincare development”.

Asked when the company expects to make profit, Darren Bamforth, finance director, said: “We are not giving out any forecasts at this stage. We are four months into the acquisition of Leeds Skin now so we are starting to get a better understanding of the revenue streams and the type of contracts we can attract.

“So we will have a clearer idea of the picture in the next three to sixth months as we give out our interim numbers.”

He added: “Over the past three or four years since the company floated we have had a research and development programme to get us to point where we are. You have to incur the costs first to get to a point where you have something commercially viable and marketable.

“From here on in we should be at a stronger point where we’ve now got something that’s validated and commercially viable and we can look to really start to sell the services out there to offset what’s been a historic spend to get us to this point.”

He said: “We have increased our revenue this year by 50 per cent and the expectation of the board is that we will keep increasing our revenues really to mitigate against what we have spent today.

“We are in a much stronger position now than 12 months ago, so with the acquisition of Leeds Skin it’s opened up a wider customer base for us.

“We’ve got more contacts in more of the consumer healthcare companies and got the combination of the LabSkin, microbiology and clinical services.”

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