the times | Saturday April 9 2022 K1 47
Business
Alex Ralph
Lord Drayson, the former science and
business minister, has been ousted as
chief executive of Sensyne Health as
part of a planned emergency refinanc-
ing and restructuring that is set to lead
to “lots” of job losses.
The departure from the distressed
health technology company he found-
ed was announced alongside an emer-
gency financing that secures up to an
additional £15 million, but will all but
wipe out existing shareholders, includ-
ing several NHS trusts whose patient
data underpins the business.
The listing of Sensyne, which has had
a tumultuous time on Aim, the junior
London stock market, since floating in
2018, is set to be cancelled.
Sensyne, which is based in Oxford
and employs 165 people, seeks to
analyse anonymised patient data and
to work with pharmaceuticals compa-
nies to discover medicines.
In a statement, the board warned
that without the financing “the com-
pany is unlikely to be able to continue to
trade beyond this month”. Sensyne had
just £1.52 million in cash on Wednesday.
Shares in Sensyne, which floated at
175p, collapsed by another 78.2 per cent,
or 7¾p, to close at 2¼p last night.
Lord Drayson, 62, the founder and
chief executive, is stepping down with
immediate effect and will be replaced
by Alex Snow, the former banker who
founded Evolution. Snow recently
stepped down as chairman of Exscien-
tia, an AI drug discovery company,
ahead of a $2.6 billion Nasdaq float.
Snow, 52, will lead a restructuring to
refocus Sensyne on its core patient data
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$101.37 (+1.49)FTSE 100
7,669.56 (+117.75)Mar 10 18 28 Apr 5 Mar 10 18 28 Apr 5 Mar 10 18 28 Apr 5 Mar 10 18 28 Apr 5 Mar 10 18 28 Apr 5 Mar 10 18 28 Apr 58,000
7,500
7,000
6,500Official figures are expected to lay bare
the fall in take-home pay and the first
signs of the hit to the economy from
price rises, household bills and the war
in Ukraine.
Data on inflation, jobs and growth,
which will be published next week, are
set to show that the cost of living is
continuing to rise and that wages are
Crisis in cost of living to be laid bare by stark official figures
Arthi Nachiappan
Economics Correspondent
not keeping up, contributing to a fall in
overall living standards.
GDP figures will cover February,
when the hospitality and retail sectors
benefited from the rebound in activity
after the lifting of Omicron restrictions.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which
began on February 24, is not expected
to show in the data, but inflation figures
for March will offer a first glimpse of the
impact of the war on consumers.
KPMG, the accountancy firm,expects growth to have slowed to
0.3 per cent in February after exceed-
ing pre-pandemic levels in January,
when monthly growth reached 0.8 per
cent. Its economists expect inflation to
have risen to 6.6 per cent last month, up
from a 30-year high of 6.2 per cent in
February, while unemployment figures
are set to drop further to 3.7 per cent in
the three months to February.
“We’re looking at something around
negative 1.4 per cent [real wage growth]for private sector regular pay excluding
bonuses, more than negative 1.2 [drop]
in January,” Yael Selfin, its chief econo-
mist, said.
The Office for Budget Responsibility,
the official forecaster, warned in its
March forecasts that take-home pay
this year would fall by the largest
amount since records began 66 years
ago. Real incomes, or the value of earn-
ings after accounting for the impact of
inflation, will fall by 2.2 per cent in the2022-23 financial year. The OBR ex-
pects inflation to reach a 40-year high
of nearly 9 per cent this winter when
the energy price cap increases again.
Bethany Beckett, at Capital Econ-
omics, said that it was the “start of the
decline in real wages in our forecast”.
The consultancy’s projections are
based on assumptions that wage rises
will not keep up with inflation, despite a
surge in pay settlements at the start of
Continued on page 48, col 5Recovery plan effectively wipes out investors
Sensyne boss
ousted in bid
for survival
business as it looks to continue working
in partnership with the NHS.
Sensyne has been undermined by the
departure of directors, a settlement
after a claim brought by Lorimer Head-
ley, its former finance director, a cen-
sure and a stock market fine of
£406,000 in November for “serious
failures” relating to the secret payment
of £1 million of executive bonuses.
It secured emergency financing of
£6.4 million in January to stave off col-
lapse, when loan notes were purchased
by Lansdowne Partners, Gatemore and
Sand Grove, three existing investors.
Under yesterday’s new financing, an
initial tranche of additional loan notes
of £5 million will be issued, which will be
accompanied by the grant of warrants
to subscribe for 8.2 million shares at an
exercise price of 10p. Further loan note
financing can be drawn to a maximum
of £15 million. The additional notes will
be convertible into shares and existing
loan notes will be amended to provide
for equivalent conversion rights.
Sensyne, which requires shareholder
approval at a vote next month, said it
would have a “highly dilutive impact”
on shareholders. The noteholders are
set to end up with between 90 per cent
and 95 per cent of the company.
A formal sale process was launched
in November and it said yesterday that
talks with parties over a potential
investment or acquisition continued.
A source close to the restructuring
said Sensyne’s problems stemmed from
the pressure to generate revenue as a
listed company when the potential of its
data business with the NHS trusts was
taking longer than expected to develop.
Caught in a “death spiral”, pages 48-49SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/GETTY IMAGESMusk hails his self-driving taxi in Texas
Callum Jones
US Business CorrespondentElon Musk trailed a dedicated self-driv-
ing taxi and promised that Tesla would
start making its delayed Cybertruck
next year as he opened the carmaker’s
$1.1 billion factory in Texas.
Wearing a black cowboy hat and
sunglasses on stage at the site’s grand
opening, the world’s richest man also
said that his company hoped to start
manufacturing a humanoid robot
from 2023.
Musk, 50, has a history of laying out
ambitious timelines for vehicles that
materialise later than billed. The
Cybertruck, Tesla’s electric pick-
up, was unveiled in 2019. A metal
ball was hurled at the truck’s windowsto show its toughness, only for them
to crack.
Apologising for the delay, Musk said
that the company “can’t wait” to build
the Cybertruck. “You’re going to have
this next year, and it’s really going to be
great,” he said.
The world’s most highly valued car-
maker is increasingly focused on devel-
oping autonomous technology. Musk,
its chief executive, said in 2019 that it
would have a fleet of taxis without
human drivers on the road a year later.
He announced at the party on the
edge of Austin that Tesla would start
making futuristic autonomous taxis,
but did not provide a timeframe. “Mas-
sive scale. Full self-driving. There’s
going to be a dedicated robotaxi.”
Tesla, founded in 2003, has a marketvalue above $1 trillion after a surge in its
shares in recent years. It has stepped up
its production and moved its head-
quarters last year from Silicon Valley to
its Texas plant.
It has yet to reveal a functioning
prototype of Optimus, its humanoid
robot, but Musk has said that it will be
designed to eliminate dangerous, re-
petitive and boring tasks: “We have a
shot of being in production for version
one of Optimus, hopefully next year.”
Shares in Tesla closed down $31.77,
or 3 per cent, at $1,025.49 in New York
last night.
It was revealed this week that Musk
had taken a 9 per cent stake in Twitter,
the social network, which makes him
the company’s largest shareholder. He
has been handed a seat on its board.Elon Musk opened Tesla’s new $1.1 billion factory in Texas with a promise of its delayed Cybertruck arriving next year