Leading AI powered medical imaging analytics firm IXICO certainly doesn’t do anything in half measures. Indeed today it released a ‘clean sweep’ across its FY25 results. Exceeding consensus forecasts on all major KPIs with turnover, EBITDA and net cash all coming in slightly better than expected at £6.5m (+13% YoY), -£1.3m and £3.5m respectively.
However what particularly caught my eye was the impressive jump in the orderbook since the period end, climbing +27% to £17.7m in Nov from £13.8m Sept – thanks to £4.7m of new contract wins in just the 1st 2 months of new year. Which in turn has triggered a significant upgrade in house broker Cavendish’s FY’26 estimates – lifting sales and EBITDA to £7.5m (+15% YoY) and -£1.3m from £6.9m and -£1.6m before. Alongside anticipating Sept’26 net cash of £1.1m, equivalent to a £2.4m cashburn (vs £2.1m LY) reflecting further investment in growth.
In fact, it’s probably fair to say that despite the well chronicled challenges across the broader CRO sector - IXICO is bucking the trend and continues to benefit from positive tailwinds across the neuroscience R&D and clinical trials space.
Here the company’s scalable platform operates as the ‘brains behind brain scans’ helping Biopharma groups develop new treatments for CNS diseases such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. In fact in Alzheimer’s alone, there are globally 138 drugs being tested (+9% YoY) with the number entering early-stage clinical trials jumping from 27 to 48.
So what about the future?
Well, long term the goal is to increase sales to £20m+ with a target of reaching £10m in the medium term. Future revenues will be supported by continued expansion into AD, PD and new larger market opportunities (eg royalties from drug development) beyond the current iCRO contract model.
For me the next key milestone along this impressive journey, will be reaching EBITDA breakeven, which I suspect will occur sometime in late FY’27 assuming momentum continues. Here the strategy is to deliver double-digit revenue growth by driving diversification across a mix of platform modalities, clinical programs, disease areas, geographies and customer types.
CEO Bram Goorden, commenting: “2025 has been a pivotal year for IXICO witnessing a strong return to growth, an extension of our leadership in neuroimaging and promising early progress from the Innovate Lead Scale strategy. The continued development of scientific capabilities through our next-generation IXITM platform uniquely places IXICO to deliver impact to biopharma and diagnostics partners, helping accelerate the development of much-needed treatments for neurodegenerative disease. The commercial momentum experienced in FY25 has continued into the new financial year, and together with our incredible group of people and a clear strategy to advance precision medicine, we enter 2026 with confidence and excitement.”
Disclosure: IXICO is a Vox Markets client