Analyst Report
10 July 2017
Louise Weihart
LBT Innovations [ASX:LBT], an Adelaide, Australia-based medical technology company, is keen to secure a cornerstone-type investor to help develop its chronic wounds measurement product WoundVue, Chief Executive Officer Brent Barnes said.
The company, which has a market capitalization of about AUD 37m (USD 28m), is keen to hear from companies or institutions that have an interest in wound care, Barnes said.
A cornerstone-type investor in LBT itself, willing to commit a material interest is preferred. It would also consider a joint venture technology partnership or other investment-style collaboration to drive commercialization of the WoundVue platform, he added.
LBT welcomes approaches from advisors with potential investors or partners, Barnes said. Its current advisors include Deloitte, legal firm Thomson Geer, and Monsoon Communications for investor relations.
A prototype has been developed for WoundVue, which is a hand-held device capable of taking 2D and 3D images of wounds to objectively manage wound healing by interpreting tissue types and providing surface area, volume and depth measurements.
Use of the device can significantly save assessment time and assist in improving patient outcomes by having an accurate, frequent and reproducible assessment of chronic wounds, Barnes said. It is estimated that more than 50 million people globally are affected by chronic wounds and incidents are increasing with global aging demographics, the rise in diabetes and obesity, and hospital-acquired infections, he noted.
WoundVue is the second product extending from LBT’s intelligent imaging platform, Automated Plate Assessment Systems (APAS), which is an artificial intelligence technology for the automated imaging, image analysis, interpretation and reporting of growth on microbiology culture plates after incubation.
The development of WoundVue originates from the principles behind LBT’s APAS platform, which has been included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods and has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, Barnes said, noting that LBT has also completed a self-assessment for CE Marking.
Meanwhile, LBT is some six months away from commercialization and sales of APAS Independence, an automatic plate reading and interpretation instrument, which is due to commence laboratory trials in September 2017 at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, Barnes said, noting that this will be the first global reference site for the instrument.
For the half-year ended 31 December 2016, LBT had revenue of AUD 0.55m, including from a now defunct licensing agreement for its Microstreak technology, which it is now selling. It also had net assets of AUD 22.7m and cash of AUD 5.3m.