Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Pretty much every public health professional is pessimistic - globally - as the current approach is completely moronic. I’m sick to death of the restrictions like everyone else, but the current approach reminds me of the closing scenes of “Chernobyl” - where the physicists explains how all controls are removed until the thing explodes. More transmission = more mutations. Allowing the virus to uncontrollably bounce against a partially vaccinated population dramatically increases the risk of vaccine escape. I don’t think this policy will last long as fear grows TBH
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/07/living-with-the-virus-uk-vaccinated-covid-cases
"The £22bn NHS test-and-trace system risks being overwhelmed by surging Covid infections after the planned wholesale lifting of restrictions in England this month, a leading academic has warned.
Jon Deeks, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, said at least 660,000 gold-standard PCR tests are likely to be needed each day to discover 100,000 daily infections this summer – the number forewarned by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, after the government announced plans to drop restrictions from 19 July.
This level of testing is almost three times the current rate in the UK, more than double the highest volume achieved at any point during the pandemic, and at the peak of the system’s theoretical laboratory capacity calculated this spring by the National Audit Office (NAO)."
Maybe the idiots will start using that domestic LFT infrastructure after all...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/lifting-covid-rules-in-england-will-overwhelm-testing-capacity
Avacta's clinical trials don't need to prove efficacy, only safety - the drug is already known to be efficacious and is a front-line treatment. The improved safety profile is the point of the the entire PreCision platform. First data readout's are expected at the end of this year.
They've also signed an array of new partnership deals in addition to expansion of existing programs, with the potential for significant long-term royalties and near term milestone payments.
The company is fully funded until 2023 and is a radically different proposition to what it was twelve months ago.
In addition, it now has the prospect of generating revenues through a best-in-class diagnostic during a period of extreme demand. Yes, commercialisation is taking longer than anticipated, but even modest sales will be transformative for the company.
I did not - I ordered a copy, waited a month for it to arrive and the guy cancelled on me and doubled the price!
It is, however, high on my list of books to purchase - so I will make a note of p184 and let you know my thoughts.
Thank you for the recommendation regardless!
One of the highest death rates per capita in the world, while achieving the worst economic damage despite the some of the most prolonged and severe lock-down measures in the Europe, suggest to me the statement "the government is out of its depth" has a strong basis in fact, especially when led by a serial liar who proclaimed "let the bodies stack up".
The only aspect which hasn't been a disaster has been the vaccine roll out, principally because it was carried out by the public sector and overseen by actual public health experts, not some gang of £5,000 p/h management consultants brought in to oversee the palm greasing.
For all the criticism of Al and his timescales, it seems abundantly clear to me the primary route to market was through these charlatans, who proceeded to lead him - and the entire British diagnostics industry - up the garden path, while they handed out contracts to their donors/neighbours/siblings/pub landlords in exchange for little brown envelopes.
It's clear something very untoward has gone on here - and reasoned view of Avacta should take this into account.
Thanks all!
Got a link please mate?
I'm one Covid episode and one jab in already, yet I'm still currently isolating in bed, feverish and coughing, awaiting for a PCR result. Lots of my peers are starting to go down with it and we are months away from our second vaccine appointments. If it's going to be like this all summer its going to be unworkable...
From the Guardian:
"Two million people could contract Covid this summer, potentially meaning up to 10 million must isolate in just six weeks, Guardian analysis shows, prompting warnings over risks to health and disruption to the economy."
Plus hospitalisations ticking up sharply; we've already seen one hospital go 'code black' - I have a feeling Sajid Javid's 'Ayn Rand' approach to public health is in for a sharp U-turn soon enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/06/data-predicting-2m-uk-summer-covid-cases-prompts-health-fears
Isn't the reason investors here dismiss the webinar as pointless and the share price tanked because he led the market to believe the roll out would take longer than many expected?
My guess is that said we have a M/C of around £500m, which presumably was true when the video was made, but as of today is £390m.
Maybe also they thought better of putting the chemical formula for Precision up so clearly but who knows
Hopefully the dross will now disappear and we'll be on for a 10% bounce tomorrow once they take their positions and start ramping.
Why gamble when you can invest in AIM!
He said ten percent because that's where the gap which just filled at 154 is - its what half the dross on this board today has been hoping to achieve
Al's timelines are bunk, sure - but his main gambit was to produce the worlds best performing LFT, which he has delivered. |
Today's slide is being driven by the UK Government saying 'it's your problem now, good luck' and in doing so generating additional doubt about sales volume/route to market.
I don't think that's easily pinned as a consequence of the CEO, who seems to have been ****ed around by the government as much as anyone else TBH
The company has fundamentally transformed from what it was twelve months ago - with multiple revenue-generating partnerships and licensing deals signed, clinical trials about to start, the first diagnostics products on the market and multiple new products in development. Plus fully funded until 2023.
Frustrating to see the (predictable) slide today - but the global market for LFTs is bigger than the UK government, who in any case have stated a test to release system is on the cards.
No way this is going back to £1!
Riesgo - IDK the answer and without trying it, no-one will. Unsurprisingly, manufacturers tests their product against the designed performance envelope and defined failure states, not for the more outlandish ways users could intentionally manipulate it - so I doubt Avacta know either.
However, while not being a scientist, I would suggest that given the way in which LFT's work - migrating a conjugated label (Affimer) from an immobilized reservoir to a signal line (if the target is present) - it would be possible to trigger a false positive in any test with the right solvent.
I would hazard a guess that given regents can be released from binding sites through changes in PH levels (elution), the use of a suitably alkaline or acidic (Orange Juice) solvent can release the regent from the reservoir in the absence of the virus, triggering a false positive signal.
That might be complete *******s, but I think its a vaguely coherent answer...
Also of note:
"The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, the Technology Strategy Board and Avacta"
Heavy hitters there...
Thanks to Dave on Twitter!
Bumping this thread back up in light of this nice little synopsis - https://scienmag.com/new-treatment-options-for-deadliest-of-cancers/
Further to yesterdays discussion of the new Tomlinson Lab paper in Nature, there's a nice summary here in Layman's terms, including this rather encouraging paragraph:
"Co-first author of the report and PhD student, Amy Turner, from the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, said: “Because it causes 20-30% of all known cancers, RAS really is the Holy Grail of therapeutic targets. The fact that it has previously been termed “undruggable” has allowed us to demonstrate the huge impact that our Affimer technology can have when it comes to treating challenging pathologies. We have already identified small molecules that bind to RAS, so it will be very exciting to be involved in developing these over the next few years.”"
Huge potential!
https://scienmag.com/new-treatment-options-for-deadliest-of-cancers/