DNA-gathering company Genuity saw losses rise prior to sale

Genuity Science Ireland, the controversial DNA-gathering company that was acquired last August, reported a $27 million (€23.75 million) loss in the year prior to its sale as net liabilities rose to $67.6 million (€59.4 million).

Newly filed accounts show revenues more than halved during 2020 to $12.1 million (€10.6 million) from $25.7 million (€22.5 million) a year earlier as the number of collections of samples of human DNA it did plummeted due to Covid restrictions. The company continued to be adversely impacted by the pandemic after 2020, resulting in a restructuring in the first half of 2021 that led to redundancies.

Transaction

Genuity Science Ireland, which is leading a programme to gather the DNA of a tenth of the Irish population for private research, was acquired in an all-stock deal by US group, HiberCell, in a transaction that involved the Irish Strategic Investment Fund (Isif) remaining as a shareholder.

The company was formally known as WuXi NextCode and had Chinese backing. It bought Dublin-founded Genomics Medicines Ireland in 2015 in a $400 million (€351.5 million) investment that included participation from Isif. The State agency declined to comment on the details of the transaction at the time but acknowledged that its €66 million investment in Genuity had been negatively impacted.

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The company said it spent $23.8 million (€20.9 million) on research and development costs last year versus $16.6 million (€14.5 million) in 2019. It employed more than 100 people with staff costs totalling $10.8 million (€9.4 million).

The organisation owed $56 million (€49.2 million) to its ultimate parent company, Cayman Island incorporated Genuity Science, at the end of the year, having been advanced loans of $21 million (€18.4 million) during 2020.

Genuity Science Ireland said it would continue to operate it genomics laboratory and database infrastructure at its Irish facility following its sale.