(Alliance News) - Novacyt SA on Thursday said it has promoted Executive Director Lyn Rees to chief executive officer, as acting CEO James McCarthy plans to step down from his role on May 1.

This comes after CEO David Allmond left the biotechnology group focused on clinical diagnostics in November. In his place, chief financial officer, James McCarthy, assumed the role of acting CEO.

At the time, finance director, Steve Gibson, took a substantial part of CFO responsibilities on, and was then promoted to finance chief in January, replacing McCarthy.

According to Novacyt, incoming CEO Rees, is a "seasoned healthcare executive with over 28 years' global leadership and commercial experience and a proven track record of successfully building/scaling companies."

He had been CEO of Yourgene Health PLC since 2018, where he led the group through four acquisitions and the sale to Novacyt in 2023.

Lyn Rees said: "I am excited to have the opportunity to lead Novacyt in its next stage of development. The molecular diagnostics market is experiencing rapid growth, driven by the continued demand for fast and accurate diagnostics, and with our strong portfolio of molecular assays and instruments combined with our leading expertise I believe we are well-placed to capture this. I would like to thank James for his support since I joined the company and look forward to working with the entire team as we continue to deliver our strategy."

Additionally, Novacyt said its chief scientific officer, Joanne Mason, will join the board as an executive director, also effective on May 1, following the retirement of non-executive director, Andrew Health.

Further, the company said that its annual results will be published in May, after initially having been scheduled for release on April 30, due to "time required to integrate the accounts of Yourgene Health, acquired towards the end of the year, into Novacyt's consolidated results."

Yourgene, which is a Manchester, England-based molecular diagnostics group, was bought by Novacyt in September, after agreeing to a cash takeover offer from Novacyt that valued the company at around GBP17 million.

The companies had said the acquisition "strongly aligns" with Novacyt's post-Covid strategy, which included pursuing strategic mergers and acquisitions to support its long-term growth and prioritised the twin objectives of geographic expansion and portfolio development.

Novacyt also assured that its revenue for 2023 remains in line with its previous guidance of GBP11.6 million, which would be a decrease from GBP21.0 million in 2022.

Shares in Novacyt were down 0.8% to 50.87 pence each in London on Thursday morning.

By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter

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