Premaitha Health has entered into a further extension of the investment agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, the latter providing an additional two-tranche secured loan facility of $5.0m.

Thermo Fisher is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of over $18bn and more than 55,000 employees in 50 countries.

Premaitha’s IONA and SAGE prenatal screening tests run on Thermo Fisher’s DNA sequencing instruments and the additional investment signifies a deepening of this relationship, as well as a move to scale up the Group’s commercial activities.

This included continuing Premaitha’s geographic diversification strategy and further broadening the Company’s product and service offering; as well as, in turn, accelerating pull-through of Thermo Fisher’s reagents and instruments.

Under the terms of the agreement, Thermo Fisher would make available to Premaitha an additional secured loan facility of $5.0m, of which $4.0m would be drawn down immediately for the purposes of working capital to support commercial growth strategies.

The remaining loan (Second Tranche) would be drawn down against performance milestones to be reviewed quarterly.

The new loan facility followed on from the existing facility, announced on 14 December 2015 and extended as announced on 23 September 2016, on similar terms.

Specifically, interest on amounts drawn on the Loan would accrue at a rate of 6% a year payable quarterly in arrears or would be capable of conversion to loan principal. The Loan was repayable on 14 December 2023, with the option to repay sooner.

Under the terms of the Loan, Premaitha would issue Thermo Fisher warrants over 28,938,797 new ordinary shares in the Company exercisable at 10.725 pence (“New 2017 Warrants”), being a premium of 10% over the closing share price on 10 July 2017 (the last business day prior to issue of the New 2017 Warrants).