Quotient Limited announce plans for new product development and manufacturing facility in Midlothian

Quotient Limited, a commercial-stage diagnostics company, today announced that it has entered into a construction contract with MW High Tech Projects UK Limited for a new product development and manufacturing facility at the Midlothian Biocampus ("Biocampus Site") near Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Contract provides for the first phase of the project, encompassing product manufacturing, which is expected to be completed by August 2017. The estimated cost of the first phase is approximately £15 million, or $23 million at current exchange rates, with funding expected to be provided primarily from the proceeds of a sale and leaseback transaction.

These activities comprise the product development, manufacturing and commercial operations associated with the Company's conventional reagent business, as well as research and development endeavors to support and expand the applications for MosaiQ™ – Quotient's next generation automation platform for diagnostics.

"I am pleased to confirm our plans for a new product development and manufacturing facility near Edinburgh, Scotland, which we have been progressing forward for several years," said Paul Cowan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Quotient.

"The new facility will provide additional production capacity for our conventional reagent business and for assays associated with the initial blood grouping applications of MosaiQ™. It will also provide state-of-the-art research and development laboratories to increase the utility of the MosaiQ™ platform, particularly as we expand its intended use into new applications beyond our initial focus on blood grouping and serological disease screening."

Quotient has also entered into an arrangement to purchase the Biocampus Site upon completion of construction of the first phase of the new facility for a total consideration of £986,000, or approximately $1.5 million at current exchange rates.

About MosaiQ™

MosaiQ™ has been designed to offer a breadth of diagnostic tests unmatched by existing commercially available transfusion diagnostic instrument platforms. Once approved, it will be the first fully automated solution for blood grouping, providing for the comprehensive characterization of both donor and patient blood, with turnaround times significantly quicker than existing methods.

Widespread adoption of MosaiQ™ is expected to improve patient outcomes through better and easier matching of donor and patient blood, given cost-effective extended antigen typing offered by MosaiQ™. Improved patient outcomes from the use of MosaiQ™ include the potential for reduced incidence of adverse events associated with transfusion, particularly alloimmunization, where patients develop antibodies to foreign antigens introduced through transfused blood.

MosaiQ™ will also offer the opportunity for substantial cost savings and a range of operational efficiencies for donor and patient testing laboratories, including:

• elimination of the need for routine manual testing typically undertaken by highly skilled technicians;
• simplification of required consumables and testing processes;
• consolidation of multiple instrument platforms in donor testing laboratories;
• significant reduction in sample volume requirements;
• reduction in the number of patient/donor samples required, consumables and reagent waste; and
• more streamlined processes for matching donor units to patients.

Quotient expects to develop additional applications for MosaiQ™ once the initial blood grouping and serological disease screening applications enter field trials, which are scheduled to commence in the first half of calendar 2016.

About Quotient Limited

Quotient is a commercial-stage diagnostics company committed to reducing healthcare costs and improving patient care through the provision of innovative tests within established markets. With an initial focus on blood grouping and serological disease screening, Quotient is developing its proprietary MosaiQTM technology platform to offer a breadth of tests that is unmatched by existing commercially available transfusion diagnostic instrument platforms. The company's operations are based in Edinburgh, Scotland; Eysins, Switzerland and Newtown, Pennsylvania.

Source: GlobeNewswire