Invest to innovate virtuous circle starts to deliver

Evotec's H1/2021 numbers were much In line with consensus. At €271m compared to €231m (H1/2021 vs. 2020) the 17% growth in group H1/2021 revenues highlights the robust health of the underlying business. The sharp €47m to €36m YoY fall in H1 EDITDA is due to the continued investment in R&D and pre-production capacity build up of J.POD. With COVID delayed milestones expected in H2, management confirmed its previous €550m - €570m topline guidance, but indicated an EBITDA near the bottom of the €105

Positive Q1 as pipeline inflection nears

Evotec delivered promising Q1/2021 results in line with consensus estimates as revenues grew 11% YoY to €133m. This comes soon after ambitious new 2025E guidance provided by management, indicating revenue and adj. EBITDA CAGRS of >15% and 25% respectively driven by continued strong performance from Just - Evotec Biologics in the short term (2021E - 2023E) followed by the maturing clinical pipeline from 2024E onwards. While Evotec's share price has shown strong recent performance (+10.5% YTD, +48

Positive momentum to continue into 2021E

Evotec reported Q3/2020 results marginally below our estimates, but comfortably exceeding consensus forecasts for both the quarter and first 9 months. Both segments saw strong performance despite disruption due to COVID-19, with the EVT Execute business in particular demonstrating better than expected resilience. We expect this trend to continue into 2021E, lifting 2021E - 2024E Execute revenue contributions by 1% - 4% supported by a full order book for 2021E indicated by the acceleration of gro

Small molecule to biologic developing best in class

Having established itself as a leading innovatorin pharmaceucal outsourcing forsmall molecule R&D, Evotec made an important step into the biologics market in 2019 with the acquision of Just Biotherapeucs ("Just Bio"). With biologics accounng for over half of the global pharmaceucal pipeline, the acquision provides accessto the lion's share of the $180bn drug development spend; synergies between Just Bio and EVT's established plaorm potenally doubling EVT's forecast revenues. EVT's capabi

Evotec - Q1/2020 results review

Evotec reported a strong set of Q1/2020 results, with revenues increasing 15% YoY vs. Q1/19 to €119.4m supported by growth in the base business for both the EVT Execute and EVT Innovate segments. Base revenue growth more than offset a lower contribution from milestones, upfront payments, and licenses (€5.4m Q1/2020 vs. €10.1m Q1/2019) with Evotec maintaining a stable adjusted EBITDA of €30m (Q1/2019: €30m). Despite the ongoing global pandemic, all Evotec sites have been able to continue operatio

Stellar 2019. Expected to weather the COVID-19 storm.

An outstanding Q4 topped off Evotec's strong financial results for FY2019, which exceeded both our and consensus estimates at both the top and bottom lines. Revenues totalled €446m (+19% YoY) with growth in the base business driven by solid performance from both the Execute and Innovate segments. 2020 may prove a challenging year for Evotec, with the COVID-19 crisis likely to disrupt operations of Execute's services business and potentially delay milestone revenue from the coowned Innovate pipel

Building on progress in precision medicine

Evotec announced the launch of a second research collaboration Indivumed GmbH focused on the discovery of innovative new therapies for non-small cell lung cancer ("NSCLC"). This comes on the back of an initial collaboration in colorectal cancer ("CRC") which successfully identified three novel targets within three months by leveraging Indivumed's multi-omics cancer database, IndivuType, in combination with Evotec's PanHunter bioinformatics platform. The new agreement in lung cancer highlights Ev

Strong momentum to continue into 2020E

Evotec reported strong Q3/2019 results that beat our and consensus' estimates. All business segments delivered a solid performance, including the recently acquired biologics business. We expect the positive trend to continue into 2020E and have therefore lifted 2019E - 2023E revenues by 1% - 2% and adj. EBITDA by up to 6%. Our FY2019E forecasts are 3% - 5% above revised company outlook and we think that the risk to our estimates is to the upside. Evotec shares are trading significantly below our

Nephrology JV with Vifor: patient-centric approach

Evotec announced the launch of a 50:50 joint venture ("JV") with Swiss specialty Pharma company Vifor Pharma AG for the discovery and development of innovative nephrology therapies. The JV combines Evotec's strong expertise in drug discovery with Vifor's proven commercial platform and ambition to become a global leader in nephrology. The aim will be to identify novel targets by leveraging clinical data from a kidney biobank (NURTuRE), reflecting Evotec's patient-centric approach of feeding patie

Biologics boost raises expectations

Evotec reported Q2/2019 revenues in line with cons. forecasts and adj. EBITDA c.8% ahead. Combined with the consolidation of Just Biotherapeutics (“Just.Bio”, closed on 2nd July), this has led management to increase financial outlook for FY2019E. Changes to our model are due largely to adding forecasts for Just.Bio and the increased debt position following the placing of a €250m Schuldschein (promissory note) in June. We maintain our OUTPERFORM recommendation and target price (“TP”) of €28 per s

Financial outlook upgraded post strong H1 results

Evotec reported solid H1/2019 results, with revenues in line with our and consensus forecasts and adjusted EBITDA 3% - 4% ahead. This, combined with the consolidation of Just Biotherapeutics (acquisition closed on 2nd July) led management to increase its financial outlook for FY2019E, suggesting modest upside to our top-line forecasts. Evotec ended the half year with a strong liquidity position of €342m following the issue of a promissory note ("Schuldschein") and the final €54m repayment of the

Evotec expands into high-growth biologics segment

Evotec announced that it has signed a definite agreement to acquire Seattle-based Just Biotherapeutics ("Just.Bio") for up to $90m (c.€81m) in cash. The acquisition is expected to close in Q2/2019E and accelerate Evotec's revenue growth. Just.Bio is a technology company focused on the design, development and manufacturing of biologics with speed, flexibility and cost-effectiveness at its heart. Despite its short existence (founded in 2014/2015), Just.Bio has already grown to approx. 90 employees

Macro trend drives strong start to the year

Evotec reported strong Q1/2019 results that comfortably exceeded our and consensus estimates on the top and bottom line, driven by solid performance across both business segments (EVT Execute and EVT Innovate). Once again, the results reflect that Evotec is well positioned to benefit from the accelerating macro trend towards external innovation in drug discovery and beyond. On the results call, management stated that “we comfortably confirm our guidance”, which may appear conservative in light o

Q1 results beat on strong top-line growth

Evotec reported strong Q1/2019 financial results that beat our and consensus forecasts at the top and bottom line. Revenues came in at €103.8m, +31% YoY, well ahead of our and cons. estimates of €90m and €94m, respectively, driven by solid performance across both business segments (Execute and Innovate). The gross margin of 30% was also ahead of our expectations. Total operating costs of €13m (in line with GPSLe) yielded an adjusted EBITDA result of €30m (vs. GPSLe €20m and cons. €22m), more tha

Q1/2019E results preview

Evotec reports Q1/2019 financial results on Tuesday, 14 May 2019. We forecast total revenues of €90m, +14% YoY and adjusted EBITDA of €20m, +43% YoY. While we anticipate robust growth for the EVT Execute business, we expect Q1 overall to be weaker than subsequent quarters this year due to modest milestone income in the EVT Innovate business, which we estimate at <€7m. The expected high EBITDA growth rate reflects the low level achieved in the prior year, where total milestone income was <€3m. Mi

Strong growth in core underpins FY expectations

EKF has reported a strong H1, with revenues of £37.5m and double-digit growth in underlying non-Covid related business. Management reports it is trading in line with expectations for the full year and we make no change to our profit forecasts at this stage. New growth initiatives are proceeding to plan and should lead to accelerated core growth from FY23 onwards. We continue to see substantial upside on successful execution with the shares trading on an FY23 P/E of 13.1x and an EV/EBITDA of just

Kromek - FY 2022 results

Kromek reported full-year results to 30 April that were in line with the trading update of 16 May. Record visibility over our FY 2023 revenue forecast of £18m (c.53% of which is already contracted and 37% “Awarded not Contracted”, with the balance from its normal monthly run rate) is a great start for FY 2023 on which the company can build further. We are leaving forecasts unchanged for the moment, despite additional contract wins, and expect to introduce FY 2024 forecasts at the time of its int

Kromek - Fundraise – £1.7m convertible loan note

Kromek announced a £1.7m fundraise by way of the issue of convertible loan notes (8% coupon, 18-month conversion period at 15p per share), which will allow the company to minimise any potential supply-chain disruption to the delivery of contracts during the year. We make only minor changes to forecasts to reflect the additional interest (c.£0.1m) accrued, with adjusted pre-tax loss increasing to £5.0m. We leave our target valuation of £118m (27p) unchanged, with near-term catalysts (e.g. a secon

Update ahead of results

Ahead of its upcoming results, ECO has issued an update flagging an issue around a sales tax liability and the treatment of certain items of capitalised development, offset by a foreign exchange gain will result in it reporting FY22 Adj EBITDA of ~£6.5m vs SCMe £7.1m. It has also indicated trading in China has been difficult in Q1 FY23, particularly with the large producers, but margins have improved on mix. Trading in the Rest of the World has been strong YTD. Given the proximity to the results

Morning Note – 3 August 2022

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 21-07-2022

Dish of the day Joiners: No joiners today. Leavers: No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen? Unigel Group, intends to join the Aquis Growth Market. Unigel Group is a pioneer in the field of thixotropic gels for the fibre optic cable industry. The Company is also a supplier of laminated steel tapes to the fibre optic cable industry in the US. Thixotropic gels and laminated steel tapes are essential components to the rapidly growing global fibre optic cable market. The Group export

Morning Note – 2 August 2022

Q2 21: Internal problems amplify the external headwinds

Smith & Nephew reported mostly in-line Q2 22 numbers, missing the top-line estimates (-0.6%) but beating on the trading profit (+0.5%), albeit marginally. The Q2 performance was overshadowed by a 100bp margin downgrade for FY22 (-50bps Y-o-Y vs +50bps previously), which sent the stock ~9% lower in the session following the update. The reiteration of the top-line growth outlook of 4-5% was no help either. We will cut our estimates, largely to reflect the soft margin guidance.

Strong top-line drives another decent quarter

In Q2, Astra sustained its solid top-line momentum. Like in the past few quarters, this outperformance was again driven by higher COVID-19 business sales and solid growth in Diabetes drug Farxiga. Moreover, the recovering Oncology and much-needed green shoots in Rare Diseases were the icing on the cake. Although, profitability again came under the scanner but should improve in the coming quarters/years as the company completes its ‘growth phase’. Overall, a decent set of results and our positive

LIBERUM: SourceBio International* - Update shows evolution to core

Hybridan Small Cap Feast 01-08-2022

Dish of the day Joiners: No joiners today. Leavers: No leavers today. What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?** Inteliqo Limited, intends to join the Aquis Growth Market. Inteliqo Limited provides sales, marketing and distribution services to technology product owners under long-term distribution agreements. The Company has agreed its first such agreement in respect of the Ipedia iQ product range. The iQ product is a smart translation earphone (earbuds) system which offers integrated real time speech

Supply agreement with VGM Group

Belluscura has announced that it has entered into a Group Purchasing Organisation Product Supply Agreement with VGM Group which further expands its distribution network across the US.

Morning Note – 5 August 2022

FY22 results and a highly visible outlook

For the year to 30 April 2022 Kromek reported results in line with the Trading Update of 16 May: revenue of £12.1m, +16.5%YoY, and an EBITDA (adj.) loss of £1.2m. We estimate revenue in the Advanced Imaging division grew 28% YoY to £4.6m, whilst the CBRN segment grew 1.5x to £5.4m. Kromek reports that it expects growth to accelerate in both its core segments – security-related CBRN and advanced imaging – with the prospect of “a substantial year-on-year increase in revenue”. The CBRN segment in

The Hardman & Co Monthly: August 2022

Feature article: Utility regulation – Changes afoot - Patching up a tainted model While the gas supply crisis – and its price implications – have dominated the UK price regulated sectors in recent months, other issues have arisen that have seriously tainted the price regulation system itself. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether it is ‘’fit for purpose’’. Back in 1984, price regulation, via an unsophisticated RPI-x formula, was introduced to prevent the privatised British Telecom (BT) from abusin