(AOF) – Novacyt, an international specialist in clinical diagnostics, announces that the High Court has served notice on Novacyt that the hearing in the case between Primer Design Ltd / Novacyt and the UK Department of Health (“DHSC”) has been scheduled to start on June 10, 2024 and is expected to last 16 days. On April 9, 2021, Novacyt announced that it was in dispute with the DHSC regarding its second contract for the supply of Covid-19 diagnostic tests, announced on September 29, 2020.
On April 25, 2022, the company was informed that the DHSC had filed a claim against Primerdesign Ltd and Novacyt SA in the £134.6 million contract dispute announced by the company on April 9, 2022. April 2021 regarding its second delivery contract, announced on September 29, 2020.
On June 15, 2022, the company filed a defense to the legal claim received on April 25, 2022 and an £81.5 million counter claim against the DHSC. The amount of the counter-claim is in line with the levels previously announced by the company, plus associated interest.
Novacyt remains convinced that it has solid arguments to defend the claim and assert its contractual rights, in particular the recovery of the sums owed by the DHSC.
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Loss of speed in European research
European research is losing ground to American and Chinese research. In twenty years, Europe’s share has fallen from 41% to 31% in global R&D. China’s share jumped from 1% to 8%. As for the United States, which supplanted Europe, in 2001 it devoted only 2 billion euros per year more than Europe to R&D, whereas now this gap has reached 25 billion! Some experts accuse the European authorities of not having deployed effective policies. The financing of pharmaceutical research should therefore have been better targeted via the “Horizon 2020” programme. France only comes in eighteenth position in European funding despite the quality of its research. Conversely, the United States concentrates funding on Boston and a few centers of excellence.