Babies born in 50 years’ time could live until they are 150, according to reports last week. Anti-ageing technology is apparently developing so fast that only those with eight decades under their belts will be able to claim a mid-life-crisis Ferrari in the future.
I’m not yet convinced — this certainly isn’t a sell note on listed undertaker Dignity. But what is clear is that while we are living longer, our brains can’t always keep up.
Aim-listed neuroscience tech firm Cambridge Cognition Holdings knows all about that. The brain-focused business, founded more than 30 years ago and spun out of research at Cambridge University, isn’t a drug developer or a straight pharma play. It makes specialist software for tasks such as designing clinical trials, and its computerised cognitive assessments are used by the likes of Pfizer, Glaxo and Roche, and by hospitals in 100 countries, to investigate conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Cambridge Cognition’s share price since it listed in 2013 makes for the type of oscillating chart that would adorn the end of beds on Casualty. The shares peaked at 192p last July, having dived to 19p at the start of lockdown in 2020, but they have risen in the past two years and they now hover at about 116p.
While young upstarts are rushing to cash in on investors’ interest in the buoyant healthtech sector, Cambridge Cognition is a relative veteran, with plenty of form. Its proprietary Cantab tests are used to assess brain health and evaluate the impact of swathes of medication on cognitive performance, while its strength in at-home clinical trials, where patients’ cognitive abilities can be tested throughout the day on its platform, has been timely given the pandemic.
Cambridge Cognition has a market cap of just £35 million; it is still a tiddler. But revenues rose 50 per cent to £10.1 million last year, when it celebrated signing up more clinical-trial contracts than at any time in its history and turned a (very modest) profit.
The company is also rolling out NeuroVocalix, which analyses brain cognition from voice markers without demanding expensive human experts, and has a decent cushion of £3.8 million net cash as more customers are pre-paying for its software.
The pharmaceutical sector values Cambridge Cognition highly but the City doesn’t look to have realised how much. It is benefiting from an increase in the number of clinical trials and more drugs in the pipeline at pre-clinical stage.
Singer Capital Markets predicts sales will rise 24 per cent by next year. The stock should surge, too — buy.
