Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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DA needs to consider the M&A strategy. We are getting left behind here whilst competitors grow. Biosynex seem to be aggressive with their strategy with 75% taken in BHR. We seem slow, they already said they will use the cash to grow even with claim going on in background.
Something for da to consider?
We are animals after all and we eat them.
READ MORE
Scot Bio biotech firm secures £2m-plus in funding deal
The technology provides vets with the ability to test for and diagnose potentially fatal diseases in cattle on site and within the same day, allowing farmers to isolated an infected animal quickly and limit spread of the disease within the herd.
Traditional processes involve off-site lab testing which can take up to seven days for results to come in, significantly the risk of other animals being infected.
The Kelvin Capital syndicate, led by directors John McNicol and Angus Hay, represents private investors in the UK, Europe and the US.
Alan Hale, CEO at Biotangents said: “The global medical diagnostics market is vast and presents a range of opportunities for us to become a global leader in the engineering of biology to produce fast, sensitive, reliable and easy-to-use diagnostic products.
“We already know that our diagnostic platform technology can have a real impact on identifying infectious diseases, quickly, in animals and that our patent pending design can be adapted for use in many other products and applications.
“Our focus right now is on addressing the diagnostics of Bovine viral diarrhoea – a highly contagious viral disease of cattle.
“The financial costs alone of failing to diagnose that disease early can cost farmers up to £470 per animal, and it is responsible for £61 million of losses each year in the UK alone.
“If we can successfully roll out our test internationally then we can realise an enormous market opportunity.”
John McNicol, director of Kelvin Capital, said: “The diagnostics market for livestock infectious diseases is growing due to increasing awareness of the impact that disease outbreaks can have on food security and public health.
“We need only look back to the £8 billion cost of the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak to highlight the enormous cost that infectious diseases can have.
“We invested in Biotangents in its first round of funding in 2017 and we are delighted to continue to back the business with a further syndicate investment.
“It is a business that is not only bringing rapid improvements to livestock care leading to public health improvements but it is also disrupting a traditional industry with its advanced technology which is very exciting
I prefer to read the sentences rather than listen to DA's staccato verbal delivery.
If I didn't understand or catch what was being said, I can easily re-read.
The result for me is greater understanding.
There are a few statements here that answer questions posters have posed since this presentation, and as I say it's all word searchable later.
The stuff about US wasn't specific enough, and of course we were offered nothing about TATA.
These kind of omissions have to be rectified if we are to see any real hope of II investment.
James McCarthy's
"So part of the strategy - giving all future investors more certainty about where we are going to invest our money how big a business we think we can grow, - our right to succeed in the chosen areas we compete, - that’s part of building the strategy and the story and I think and hope it will attract institutional investors and reward existing shareholders, that’s clearly a priority." is pie in the sky IMO, of not useful in attracting II's.
If they (BoD) really were interested in II involvement (which might calm the sp instability somewhat), we would see them making more obvious II overtures, press releases, organise opportunities for II's to meet the board etc.
As things are they don't have to worry about keeping II's happy, they just do what they want when they want and are not phased by insufficiently informing PI's about certain subjects.
I lay this attitude firmly at the door of James Wakefield.
JM "The first thing is to acknowledge and thank the existing retail shareholder base, we are conscious of the twists and turns along the way, it hasn’t been an easy ride."
- Not planning to do anything to improve that situation though is he.
All my comments have become available since creating the transcription.
It was all just a mush of words before, when it existed as a set of sentences .
Great that youve posted this stuff on here, dont forget many (but not all) are a bit clueless or lazy like me
Transcription of answers to investor questions at Investor Meet dated 28.04.2022
The investor questions are poorly written, and the responses rambling, but for those who subsequently might want to word search DA's Answers:
Q1 Can you give further detail on your product pipeline? And how do you anticipate bringing this beyond Covid 19?
Hopefully I have given some of that detail in this presentation and there is more to come.
A couple of points:
One is to underline the point I made about initial focus. Yes we’re going to go broader in respiratory, yes we are going to develop GI, transplantation, and insect borne viral panels.
Later we are going to consider other areas, which may involve sexually transmitted infection, Urinary tract infection, hospital acquired infections, anti-microbial resistance issues etc. Meningitis and Sepsis, there are so many, but I don’t want to embark on any further commitments until more homework has been completed. In terms of instrumentation, we have been enhancing the instruments. Future instrument development will be done strategically, I flagged some of the instrumentation where we are working with partners, the Co-Prep, the Biosensor platform, we have a strong team at Stokesley form design to execution in the instrument space, so we continue in that area, and as you all know we are a global leader in respect of research portfolio, and we are going through the key Primary probe / master mix combination to ensure our research use portfolio is fit for purpose. For targeting pathogens in a research complex we will be launching that shortly. This is an area where we need to execute , we need to supplement the inorganic piece as I’ve described, then keep you up to date with our progress.
Q1a What update is there on the DHSC dispute and what impact do you expect Tuesdays 26th April 2022 RNS announcement to have?
James McCarthy answers: The confidential dispute resolution process restricts what we can say.
I see Tuesday as just another step along the process, it doesn’t change the fact we have strong grounds to assert our contractual rights. We will commit to update you on this as an when appropriate.
Q2 what the primary use will be of your cash in the bank. Will it be for organic growth, for M and A, and if both, what split do you anticipate?
James McCarthy answers: If we take our cash resources that will be primarily used for inorganic so third party acquisition and partnerships etc. The growth so far the organic the internal resources we were funding from the business, so it’s been internally funded. That’s been absolutely true in 2021. The commitment in 2022 to maintain double digit EBITDA margins would mean from an operating cash flow point of view would also be positive so we would have funded our internal costs, so that’s really how we look at it, it’s primarily cash will be used primarily for M&A and partnership type activity.
Q3 Do you white label any of your tests at present, And will this be a focus of the business post covid 19. And if so, where do you intend to form partnerships?
Take this question in two halves - One is Inbound White label and one is Outbound White label. Yes we have OEM product inbound. We have a LF portfolio that covers twelve pathogens including Covid-19 named Pathflow. We are not the primary manufacturer for that. As I said we want to accelerate the molecular portfolio while we turn the machinery of our own R&D on, so we may see some more OEM chemistry if it’s fit for purpose for our workflows to either broaden our portfolio menu or be front runner to our organic R&D when we may come with a preferred product or a lower at cost for example. So there is a whole piece around the incoming white label portfolio.
In terms of outgoing, absolutely, we are willing, and are in discussion with, large corporates who approach us, there is no news today about anything signed up. But we are absolutely willing to discuss either through chemistry or instrumentation or both to work with partners to supply OEM products to them, case by case, but that is absolutely an opportunity, we are in some discussions, and if there is any material news on that, you will be the first to know.
Q4 How do you anticipate increasing institutional support in the business, and is this important to you?
James McCarthy answers: The first thing is to acknowledge and thank the existing retail shareholder base, we are conscious of the twists and turns along the way, it hasn’t been an easy ride. I think institutional investors, - yes it’s desirable, it’s something I think the strategy will attract. So part of the strategy - giving all future investors more certainty about where we are going to invest our money how big a business we think we can grow, - our right to succeed in the chosen areas we compete, - that’s part of building the strategy and the story and I think and hope it will attract institutional investors and reward existing shareholders, that’s clearly a priority.
Q5 In the presentation you talk about no oversights, global capabilities. Can you give us some specifics? You highlight your capabilities in the U. S. but can you explain how these have changed in the last 12 months? Is there any update on interactions with the FDA?
Going back to the global slide I showed, the US we continue to do significant business through the distributors, we have boots on the ground. One day we may be able to enhance that, it’s in our mind to be more substantive in the US, but I think today the focus is we have the E marked product that the whole of the European economic area that can be commercialised with limited regulatory hurdles with some exceptions. We need to optimise that while continuing to support the US with boots on the ground in our distributor network. We’ve done the same in Latin America, we have significant business, and Asia Pacific. So with our NGO and WHO successes and a dedicated team now which was put onto that global key accounts and Asia Pacific, to drive and support those businesses as well.
And in terms of the US specifically – the question about the FDA, - well we do have Emergency Use Approval for one product, we are pursuing it for Lateral Flow, and in the future if we decide to invest more substantively, we have to go into more appropriate clinical research, 510K regulatory filings, and that’s a significant time and money investment, and you’d have to have the strategy to commercialise either with partners or directly, and I’m not saying we are not going to do that, but one step at a time. Lets get the business transitioned to non-covid reliance, lets grow that base , then conduct the M&A and the business development activities, and lets consider our strategic options for the next move beyond what I have shown you today.
Q6 Historically, you mentioned the U. S. And European markets such as Germany., such as that of Germany is high importance. Are these still the key targets? And what's split revenues from ex U. K. Cells?
Today Germany absolutely is a key market and we have now deployed head count in Germany to assess how best to develop that with partners and directly, so yes absolutely Germany is key. There are other key markets in Europe that we are starting to address with a dedicated EMEA team that come with years of experience in building commercial success across the region from Europe, Middle East and Africa. That’s well on the way, but we are judicious with SG and A (Selling, General & Administrative expenses), we are not going to deploy huge sums of money and headcount and hope they will come, we will build one step at a time as we generate success. In terms of contributions, UK in 2021 was less than half the business, so I’m glad we are not over reliant on one market, - you’ll see that trend continue as we enhance our global revenues, Europe was 34%, then you go to 10% range for America’s and APAC, then some other smaller pieces. That mix I think you will see UK come proportionately down as we grow the other areas, Europe we are going to leverage the CE marking. And certificates of free sale from CE marking ex-Europe and then America’s and LATAM that continue to support our distributors with direct presence managing them on the ground. So you will see that mix grow Ex-UK over time.
The investor questions are poorly written, and the responses rambling, but for those who subsequently might want to wordsearch DA's Answers:
Q7 Have your bio surveillance activity has highlighted anything in the last two years beyond Covid 19, which might highlight a future outbreak. We'll split. Do you think there is? There will be between base and global first responders activities.
The surveillance capability we have is largely deployed to ensure our Covid portfolio is current and relevant for all variants of concern. Since day one our follow up with the ORF1ab targets and other targets chosen by that team remain relevant for all variants of concern including Omicron. From a specific Bio-Surveillance point of view, that is the strength of this company and we’ve got a great design team. They are also freshening up the Primers and Probes for the multi-pathogens we can cover in the research use portfolio to ensure they are current and relevant, but I guess the broader question being asked is around general surveillance for outbreaks. What we are going to be doing is putting together in a systematic way, a method of scanning through internet based algorithms, media, social media, also scanning for third parties who focus on this, they are large organisations around the world who do this very work so that we are on the front foot of hearing about outbreaks and issues. Whether we respond to them all is a matter of judgement and we will install a Cobra like taskforce mentality, in that if something is significant and we need to move quickly, we will have the internal wherewithal to consider those as the company proudly has done with Covid. I don’t pray for another major outbreak, but it certainly will happen. At some point there will be other viral disease outbreaks etc, and we will be responsive, so yes we are enhancing it and yes we continue with the rigorous Bio-surveillance of our existing portfolio.