Government ends Oxford Nanopore Covid testing contract early
The UK government has ended a contract with Oxford Nanopore worth £113m as the vaccination rollout continues apace.
Last August Oxford Nanopore signed a contract with the Department of Health, to provide rapid LamPORE tests to NHS laboratories.
At the time, former then-health secretary Matt Hancock said the rapid testing kits would “benefit thousands of people.”
However, financial statements published on Companies’ House last Monday reveal that the government opted to end the contract early after deciding it “no longer had a requirement” for the product back in April.
The news comes as the number of UK adults to have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine nears 90 per cent while nearly three quarters of adults have been double jabbed. In response, the number of virus tests conducted are dropping sharply with daily tests falling by 21 per cent in a month according to the latest available data.
The termination of the contract comes as a blow to Oxford Nanopore which announced in March 2021 that it would hold an Initial Public Offering before the end of 2022 with timing dependent on market conditions.
Testing services have been giving the company’s intake a serious boost. Last year £48.3m of revenue came from Covid-related testing helping to boost profits by 119 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels and reducing loss before tax by £7m.
Despite the hit Nanopore is still an integral part of the global testing regime with its genome sequencing tools, which detect different variants of the virus, being used for one in five Covid tests globally.
Read more: Oxford Nanopore raises £195m ahead of London listing