Queensland biotech startup Ellume Well being, which final yr gained a $300 million US authorities contract to produce Covid house testing kits, has positioned its Australian enterprise in voluntary administration.
FTI Consulting had been appointed as directors of Ellume Ltd on Thursday.
In an announcement from FTI, directors John Park and Joanne Dunn stated Ellume’s administrators appointed them to determine 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 normal all through the appointment.
The Brisbane-based digital diagnostics startup designed the primary speedy self-test for Covid-19 detection authorised by the US FDA, for each asymptomatic and symptomatic use with no prescription.
It February final yr the corporate signed US$231.8 million (AU$305m) cope with the US Division of Protection to construct a US manufacturing facility producing as much as 19 million of its house 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 checks.
However not all the things went to plan and late final yr, round 1 / 4 of the checks had been recalled after a number of stories of false positives. Ellume put the determine at round 190,000 of the three.5 million checks 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 best way infectious illnesses are identified” with Ellume.
“I’m extremely pleased with Ellume’s achievements in what has been an unprecedented, difficult, and dynamic time” he stated.
“We’re getting 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 will probably be held in mid-September.