By Anthony O. Goriainoff

Novacyt S.A. said Thursday that Covid-19-related revenue in the first quarter fell 67% and that if this sales decline continued for the rest of the year it expects to report a fall in revenue in the range of 35 million pounds ($43.9 million) to 45 million pounds.

The Anglo-French biotechnology group said that revenue in the quarter was GBP13.1 million--with GBP10.1 million of this being Covid-19-related--compared with GBP34.4 million for the first quarter of 2021, when GBP31.0 million was Covid-19-related.

The company said it was working to accelerate the expansion of non-Covid-19 revenue in 2022 through both internal research and development and external partnerships.

Novacyt also said that it swung to a pretax loss for 2021 as revenue fell due to a continuing dispute with the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care.

The company said that pretax loss was GBP9.8 million compared with a pretax profit of GBP165.2 million for 2020. The company said that due to the dispute, it incurred GBP35.8 million in exceptional, one-off costs.

Revenue fell to GBP95.8 million from GBP277.2 million the year prior. The company said this excluded GBP40.9 million of revenue under dispute.

Shares at 0740 GMT were down 5.70 pence, or 3.6%, at 154.60 pence.

Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 28, 2022 04:10 ET (08:10 GMT)

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