Queensland biotech startup Ellume Well being, which final 12 months received a $300 million US authorities contract to produce Covid residence testing kits, has positioned its Australian enterprise in voluntary administration.
FTI Consulting had been appointed as directors of Ellume Ltd on Thursday.
In a press release from FTI, directors John Park and Joanne Dunn stated Ellume’s administrators appointed them to establish the very best path to safe the viability of the enterprise.
“The Directors will search to maximise the probabilities of Ellume exiting the Administration course of in an orderly style,” Park stated.
“The Directors intend to commerce the corporate on a business-as-usual foundation, whereas we conduct an unbiased evaluation of the monetary place and ongoing viability of the enterprise.”
Ellume USA will proceed to commerce its enterprise as typical all through the appointment.
The Brisbane-based digital diagnostics startup designed the primary fast self-test for Covid-19 detection authorised by the US FDA, for each asymptomatic and symptomatic use with no prescription.
It February final 12 months the corporate signed US$231.8 million (AU$305m) take care of the US Division of Protection to construct a US manufacturing unit producing as much as 19 million of its residence testing kits. The enterprise beforehand obtained a US$30 million grant from the US Nationwide Institutes of Well being to quick fast-track the event of its diagnostic assessments.
However not all the things went to plan and late final 12 months, round 1 / 4 of the assessments had been recalled after a number of experiences of false positives. Ellume put the determine at round 190,000 of the three.5 million assessments already shipped by October 2021.
CEO and founder Dr Sean Parsons based the enterprise in 2009 and stated they “got down to spark a revolution in the way in which infectious ailments are recognized” with Ellume.
“I’m extremely pleased with Ellume’s achievements in what has been an unprecedented, difficult, and dynamic time” he stated.
“We’re coming into right into a Voluntary Administration course of for the Australian Enterprise to assist decide the very best plan of action to safe and strengthen a future for Ellume.”
A gathering of collectors might be held in mid-September.
