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I think the move is a reflexive one. Griffiths has been the seller here. If he's now done then the stock price was always going to move higher at that point - particularly as there's a psychological threshold for it to break at 200p.
More interestingly, if he has been selling to an institution, perhaps that institution is still looking for stock and we can continue to move higher ?
It's difficult to see how the results will disappoint early next month. Although typically I'd prefer to go into a results RNS with the stock price under-cooked rather than than overbought, this is such a strong secular growth story that I don't think it matters either way.

now we know. It's Richard Griffiths...he has been doing the same at Circassia, funded by sales of Ceres Power (CWR), by the looks of yesterday's RNS there and the large volume going through today. This is excellent news. The Woodford overhang is being worked-off and we have the comfort that Griffiths and his team have done their due diligence and see substantial value in 4D.

Griffiths bought £20mn of Circassia last week so that might be the reason...probably makes sense for him to profit take in some of his winners to pick-up dirt-cheap Woodford stock...
I view it as a positive. Griffiths has provided liquidity to allow other investors, more likely to be proper institutional investors, to start to build their positions.

the most likely buyer will be monitoring management. in situations like this, it's almost always the local managements that have the insight and confidence to bid. The monitoring biz is still just too small for most larger companies to bother with.
So, my money is on an MBO. That doesn't mean they're going to overpay or underpay. It does mean that both managements know each other well and can hopefully get the deal done and dusted with a minimum of fuss and limited risk of it falling out of bed.

See quote below from Endpoints News, the US biotech daily.
Life is still tough for those pursuing fibrosis as a targets into phase 2 & 3. It works two ways for us. On the positive side, the failure of a competitor program increases the potential value of our own. However, too much failure in a therapeutic area causes risk aversion amongst larger biotechs and an unwillingness to licence in.
On balance, I think it’s a positive for us. IPF, NASH, fibrosis is such a large area of unmet need that the big guys will have to keep on paying to play. We are expecting a deal via Pharmaxis by year-end....

“UPDATED: Biogen pulls the plug on prized IPF drug from $562M+ Stromedix buyout”

It's been tough sledging here, with the Woodford overhang and a funding need ahead of us...However, there's nothing wrong with the Microbiome field and 4D's IP and clinical exposure to it. My bet is that the management of 4D, who have seen a thing or two in biotech and capital markets, can clear the Woodford overhang and get this repositioned and on its way, well-funded. Let's see...It's going to be a challenge for them but a lot is in the price.
Today's buying follows on from Friday. We've seen the Circassia overhang clear, are we going to be next??

You’re right. My bad. I can’t see electrolyser element to the contract. I didn't read the full release properly. Still, I guess it all feeds into the hydrogen economy case - particularly when it’s in emerging markets and involves methane/ industrial waste recycling. How the hydrogen generated will be used is perhaps the most relevant question.

well, the bid is about to break 50p and this board has no traders trying to ramp it or zealots finding religion. In fact, there have been no posts today at all (until I've broken the duck - apols). There's a lot to like about the lack of hype.
below is a link to a big deal signed y'day by Shell with Air Liquide in the Far East. It's relevant because Shell is a partner of ITM's, as we know. In this case, they're going with Air Liquide. Some might recall that Air Liquide bought a stake in Hydrogenics, the Canadian competitor to ITM, just prior to Hydrogenics getting taken-out by a big US industrial. My point is that this tech is really taking off now, globally, and there really aren't that many players like ITM around for the big industrial gas players to back. All good...We will be supported all the way by both strategic investors from industry and financial investors like Allianz.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190911005807/en/Air-Liquide-Signs-New-Long-term-Contract-Supply

It’s all here in this excellent link posted by gameangler. This is an arbitrage / special situation investor’s wet-dream so lots of stuff won’t make short term sense. For instance, the Amryt stock will be shorted by those going long Novelion stock so they are hedged and their gain is near risk-free. As the seeking alpha article points out, there’s a near three-bag opportunity in Novelion stock in the US because it will own around 8% of Amryt post transaction.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4290742-novelions-8_1-percent-stake-amryt-worth-1_50-share?dr=1

I think it’s all to do with the chapter 11 bankruptcy agreement. The £1.48 price is about raising a specific amount of capital which satisfies the judge that the restructured assets, now part of Amryt, will have a good chance of returning as much value to the debt holders, who will now received equity in Amryt as part of the chapter 11, in which they wrote off hundreds of millions.
If they raised the equity at this current £1.15p price, the proceeds to the company would be reduced and the judge would be miffed and the new combined business less secure/ more fragile. The last thing the judge wants is to see is this business in his courtroom-ever.

very true! i did consider that! you could be right. the amount allianz has sold down is tiny....
I think the sheer number of trades, the volume and the price action in recent days suggests to me that a grown-up is trying to build a position. let's see....

gameangler even!

thanks, game-changer. the seeking alpha piece was very helpful. i note that a delay/adverse court decision was NOT one of the three risks identified by Taub, the author of the detailed seeking alpha note....hope he's right to dismiss the possibility. not many of us know the 'rules' around chapter 11 court hearings here in the UK....

given the share price strength, the slight reduction in the Allianz position indicates to me that another institution is desperate for stock and is building a position. My read is that the Allianz dealers have sold down a wee bit to facilitate because the market makers have gone around the houses, desperate to find stock. Having another institution on-board is a win-win for Allianz - increases the profile of ITM and liquidity, also means there's another deep pocket for any future fund-raising.
If they didn't sell, the new investor may have decided ITM was too illiquid to touch, which would have been a shame. All just ideal speculation of course, but i'd expect a TR-1 from a new institution before month-end. It's probably also worth mentioning that management may chose to raise a few million quid. That would NOT be an excuse for we PIs to sell. The stock would be placed with the new institution and others and would re-rate even higher in that scenario, in my view. ...

All good re newsflow, I agree.
Another really well-balanced RNS - good momentum in the short term via global distributors, tightly controlled costs, a great return on capital profile via the US production set-up - which can take sales up to $15mn with no further funding (and even then, only another 500k needed).
The CEO also reminds us that there's some great novel chemistry and new product potential lurking in the background. As the global green product revolution accelerates over the next few years, this portfolio of assets will start to acquire a real value.
As for the churn this morning, i think it reflects the fact that such a lot of stock was placed via the woodford clear-out in mid august. Some of the buyers would have been looking to sell into the higher liquidity of a results release day. It's all good. This is wood that needed to be chopped, so it might as well be today...

It's worth having a look at the half-year report from IP Group, released today. They're a major shareholder. The tone is very optimistic - particularly around Chronocort and Market Authorisation in Q4.

it's a quality problem to have, but i'm still worried this will go the way of Hydrogenics in Canada and be bought out on the cheap by one of the big guys. Hydrogenics went for 2x the very approx share price over the previous few months...If ITM were bid for, it that would imply something like 60p a share. Sure, better than a poke in the eye but I think most of us on this board think this stock is a multi-bagger over the next few years....

picking up on your point, CashFlow, the overhang pressure on the stock is probably the reason we've heard very little from the company. management told us that they'd let us know anything materially negative linked to the RP trial, and so far we've heard nothing. but equally, there has been no real incentive to release anything materially positive in any of Reneuron's programmes ahead of the Oct data release because any positive price momentum would be quickly overhauled by the Woodford sell programme.
IF i were management, I'd be waiting for the October data release. If the RP data holds up it should allow a book-build with institutional investors to clear the overhang in one 24hr period, and/or the Woodford position is bought by a pharma or large biotech with strategic ambitions. Either way, the balance of probabilities is that the stock will reset materially higher at some point in Oct and we could have other news from other programmes to quickly follow it.

agree with your points, Compound. I like the ETX / Novo tie-up but it's not yet commercial, as you well know.

This headline today from Fiercebiotech, a US daily widely read in the biotech community is a reminder of just how competitive things are out there...Schrodinger recently raised $100mn and their modelling capability sounds similar to C4X's..... I would love a technical evaluation of C4X vs Schrodinger if someone is clever-enough to manage it. I'm not up to it.

"AstraZeneca to adopt Schrödinger's molecule-modeling platform for drug discovery"

Worth looking at the ETX chart, I think. It has a very similar play-book to that at ITX, only difference is that the large Woodford block was cleared in late June not in mid August.
You can infer from the ETX chart that there's little downside from owning ITX here, although being caught on the spike of the initial post-Woodford rally wouldn't have been ideal. Another reason to buy and hold ITX rather than trade it over the next few months is that we're going to get operational newsflow thru Sept/Oct, so the take-off we've just seen at ETX will come at an earlier point for ITX holders and could be any day.
(there's no point releasing operational newsflow in july/august, as a rule - no-one is at their desks at the industry partners to sign-off the RNS wording, and there are few grown-up investors around to buy it). GLA.