25 Annual Report 2022 IMPACT OF COVID-19 The spread of a novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19, led theWorld Health Organisation to declare a global pandemic inMarch 2020. Although conditions have improved, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to hamper the Group’s commercial initiatives, restricting the ability to conduct on-site visits to potential new and existing customers for business development, sales and technical support of the Group’s hTERT product and EXO-NET® product. Sales of the hTERT product continue to be negatively impacted by a reduction in routine pathology services and as a result have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The Group has continued to advance its R&D programs at its Australian and U.S. locations with the assistance of its external collaborators. COVID-19 has caused some delays to expected R&D timelines related to interrupted supply of goods and logistics. External suppliers have experienced similar issues which has slowed receipt of materials, patient samples, laboratory consumables and equipment. In spite of these impacts INOVIQ continues to efficiently and effectively advance its programs to minimise delays. INHERENT RISKS OF INVESTMENT IN BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES There aremany inherent risks associated with the development and commercialisation of medical devices, including diagnostics, to amarketable stage. The clinical development process is designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of amedical device prior to commercialisation and a significant proportion of medical devices fail one or both of these criteria. Other risks include uncertainty of patent protection and proprietary rights, whether patent applications and issued patents will offer adequate protection to enable product development, obtaining of necessary regulatory authority approvals, and competitive risks associated with the rapid advancements in technology. Companies such as IIQ are dependent on the success of their research projects and their ability to attract funding to support these activities. Investment in research and development projects cannot be assessed on the same fundamentals as other trading enterprises and access to capital and funding for the Group and its projects going forward cannot be guaranteed. Investment in companies specialising in research projects, such as IIQ, should be regarded as highly speculative. IIQ strongly recommends that professional investment advice be sought prior to individuals making such investments. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Certain statements in this Annual Report contain forward-looking statements regarding the Company’s business and the technical and commercial potential of its technologies and products in development. Any statement describing the Company’s goals, expectations, intentions, or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk statement. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, particularly those risks or uncertainties inherent in the process of discovering, developing, and commercialising medical devices that can be proven to be safe and effective for use in humans, and in the endeavour of building a business around such products and services. INOVIQ undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this Annual Report. As a result, readers of this report are cautioned not to rely on forward-looking statements. ROUNDING No rounding has been applied to the amounts contained in the financial report under the option available to the Company under ASICCorporations (Rounding in Financial/Director’s report) instrument 2016/191. The Company is an entity to which the legislative instrument applies. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS AFTER THE BALANCE DATE The following announcements were made via the ASX announcement platform since the end of the reporting period: – On 21 July 2022, the Company announced that it had engaged US-based Percorso Life Sciences LLC (Percorso) under a Services Agreement to provide contract sales and logistics services, accelerating the commercial roll-out of INOVIQ’s EXO‑NET research products in the USA. At the date of this report, other than that outlined above, there have been no matters or circumstances that have arisen since the end of the period which significantly, or may significantly effect: – The Group’s operations in future years; – The results of those operations in future years; or – The Group’s state of affairs in future years.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjE2NDg3