Member Info for benbenbenben

I won't lie I am incredibly confused by this...?

..at the earliest.

Just out - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/no-covid-testing-decision-for-international-arrivals-before-november

They've got their first order for 1 Million - seems low considering it was once for population-level sampling; maybe they'll ramp it up in the near term, though there's been quite a bit of umming and ahhhing on the part of the Gov. so it'll be interesting to see how far they push it.

https://www.abingdonhealth.com/uk-government-confirms-order-1m-covid-19-rapid-antibody-tests/

"Britain’s health ministry has bought one million Covid-19 antibody tests that can indicate whether someone has had the disease within 20 minutes.

The Department of Health said it had bought the tests, which use a fingerprick device and do not need to be sent to a lab, from the UK Rapid Test Consortium, and that they would be rolled out as part of the government’s Covid-19 surveillance studies."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/oct/06/coronavirus-live-news-french-icu-patients-highest-since-may-trump-to-participate-in-next-debate#block-5f7c882e8f0875963515a189

Travel Light - 144,000,000 tests a year @ £10 = £14.4Bn + associated infrastructure costs.

National Audit Office estimate of Coronavirus Interventions to-date: £210bn, excluding lost revenue, GDP contraction etc...

The LFT sounds cheap by comparison!

Sorry, in the above I meant £1 profit per test, not revenue - always check your typing before you press send!

^I wish you could edit/delete unfinished posts

- 3 other similar size countries follow the UK, but capacity constraints mean they can only each get 40M a month, equating to £1.44Bn P/A at £1 per test

- Another 80m a month is sold to the rest of the world; £980m P/A at £1 per test

Obviously massively conservative numbers but you can easily see multi-Bn revenues within the next 6 months, and each Bn is around £5 on the share price...

Fag packet maths:

- 120M tests a month Uk; Avacta gets an 80M share at £1 revenue per test; £980m revenue P/A

- 3 other similar size countries follow suit, but capacity constraints mean they can only get 40M a month each

I guess it goes without saying that if this goes ahead, works and enables the UK to get off the international naughty step and reopen its economy, other governments will be falling over themselves to get hold of the tech - even just a couple of similar-sized countries copying the UK approach would lead to phenomenal sales...

Listening to the Stifel presentation just now and Al said:

'To meaningfully impact the R number need to be testing around half the UK population each week, so looking at a region of 30,000,000 tests a week'

We sort-of know this from the investor presentation when Al remarked on '100 million' tests a month.

However, what I find interesting is that LSTM guided Avacta on designing the initial sens/spec of the LFT; Al has always been clear that the LFT would enable population level screening and Al has intimated frequently that the British Government is aware of the LFT (as far back as June, at least) - with involvement of a state actor effectively a prerequisite for this scale of screening.

To me, it feels increasingly like Avacta have been key to driving the science behind the wider use of the LFT technology into Whitehall and has effectively created and now dominates it's own market with the government. Incidentally, have heard a rumour that Mologic are rather frustrated as they are not in advanced conversation with the government...

The scale here is mind blowing!

Questions now, nearly all of which are going to be from Avacta holders by the looks of things...

On BAMS - 'why the delay on clinical validation'? - 'We're in the government schemes; to be fair healthcare systems under huge pressure; we would have liked it to go much more quickly but we have access to samples now and are pressing on - we are encouraged from the data we have to date and will be looking for full clinical validation as an IVD ASAP'

Also looking to license the Affimers to other diagnostic companies and third parties

He's talking about Affimers and Diagnostics now:

- He talks about identifying 'infectious' as opposed to 'infected' people as the key benefit of antigen testing; PCR has a "long tail" which will detect very small amounts of RNA long after people are infectious

- 'To meaningfully impact the R number need to be testing around half the UK population each week, so looking at a region of 30,000,000 tests a week'

- Now looking for scalable manufacturing processes

- BAMS: 'gives you a very specific, highly sensitive test - we are not aware of any other BAMS test for that platform, so could be very significant'; will be going for CE/FDA marking ASAP once we get the clinical data we are working on

Use Cases

Direct link to the session here - it starts at one; you need to register as an institution on the main page (though I just fudged it and now my architecture studio is a venture capital firm, so clearly no-one is checking...) but might be easier on this link as just wants an email:

https://www.meetmax.com/sched/event_66791/play_presentation_video.html?presentation_id=182356

Thanks 91Divoc - that's useful to know!

Spike66 - L2 is shown from the markets perspective, so the 'sell' side is what we - the punters - would 'buy' from the market. The 'buy' side is what the market is willing to allow us to 'sell' it. Effectively, it's the inverse of what we see when we trade.

RNS here FYI - https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AVCT/collaboration-with-mologic-mssz5lgzw5ts4us.html

@Jim - can't really go into details as I might get people in trouble; but a simple question was asked which the Captain was 'unable to comment on'...

If anyone has greater knowledge of the sector than I, it would be interesting to think through which other companies are able to bulk manufacture LFTs - presumably there aren't that many?

You're welcome!