You can’t keep a high quality company down. Indeed despite the current R&D budget headwinds in the US (re NIH) which has already impacted several much bigger healthcare stocks (eg CROs), IXICO is bucking the trend.
Indeed today, this AI powered neuro degenerative imaging firm reported positive YTD trading and upgraded its Sept FY25 sales guidance to £6.3m (or +9% YoY). Why?
Well not only is its best-in-class platform benefitting from increasing investment into debilitating conditions such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. But also brain scans (re MRI, PET, etc) remain the gold standard for measuring drug efficacy/safety in neuro degenerative disease - and hence are often mandated by regulators before approving new treatments.
Elsewhere, I suspect IXICO ' gross margins should be improving too as economies of scale kick in. With the net cash position forecast to be circa £3m in Sept’25, providing ample runway until the group becomes EBITDA profitable in the medium term (Est breakeven turnover of £8.5m).
CEO Bram Goorden commenting: “The Innovate Lead Scale strategy outlined during our capital raise has begun to deliver results. The positive momentum is a result of a team approach, executing with discipline to grow revenues, expand market share and diversify the neurological therapeutic areas we operate in. In addition, we are rapidly advancing our technology platform offering with new differentiated biomarker analytics products and applications fit for scale. This activity strengthens my belief that we will continue to build upon this year's commercial success and the progress we are making towards profitability in the medium term”.
House broker Cavendish have a 24p/share price target compared to today’s 10p, equivalent to 1.0x EV/revs, which appears far too cheap for such an IPR/tech rich and expanding life sciences business.