Member Info for CautiousOptimist

Wouldn’t be surprised if much of the guaranteed revenue from that IGS contract is back-end weighted, but we’ll see! Just trying to keep my expectations in check, while my hopes remain high.

$250-300k would represent the same sort of % growth as in the last quarter, but who knows what the growth rate of LiveScores is doing, and meanwhile there are new sources of revenue like this IGS contract, that could surprise to the upside.

Looking back through past RNS’s:
- 1st December 2021 trading update - >$80k/month revenue
- 1st March 2022 - not labelled a trading update, but we heard them that monthly revenue was now >$150k. Also stated intent to move to trading updates every quarter.

Seems very likely we’ll get the latest trading update in a couple weeks, and a chance to see where we lie vs the exponential revenue growth trajectory that started last year. Would be nice to see >$250k, but I’ll settle for $200k/month. ;)

Regarding the invention(s) itself being patented - let me share and test my understanding - any experts, please do set me straight if your understanding differs:
- This is basically pre|CISION (or anything like it) with a serum half-life extending part bolted on.
- The serum half-life extension enables the “safe” full form of the drug to circulate in the body for longer - specifically, extending the half life to 2 or more days, or >twice as long as without. This allows more of the drug to get to the tumour and activate there, and less of it to be cleared from the body before it can activate.
- The half-life extension is similar to the mechanism that was licensed for use along with PD-L1 Affimers by LG Chem in their collaboration. But instead of being attached to an Affimer (as in the LG Chem collaboration), it is attached to something like a pre|CISION drug in these patents.

And some speculation:
- The recent AVA6000 poster showed that the half life of AVA6000 in rat serum was about 4-6 hours. In dogs it was about 1/2 hr. I don’t know how this would translate to humans, but Avacta suggested it was sticking around long enough to have a good chance of clinical benefit. I think Al said something like, the PK data was suitable to support progressing the drug to clinic in humans.
- One tiny nagging question occurs that it would be good to put to bed. Was this newly patented invention sparked by any data suggesting that they needed to increase the serum half-life of pro-doxorubicin to enhance therapeutic efficacy? Or aimed at different potential drugs which have a lower residence time in the body in their pro-drug forms? I suspect no link at all to the ongoing trial, given the amount of work that has to go into these patents, and the fact there is a date on it of October, only two months after the trial began. Also, the AVA6K poster showed that in vivo the clearance rate of the pro-drug was lower than that of doxorubicin, which is known to be already efficacious in its pure form. Perhaps this invention could make the great even greater? But it would be good to be sure of this.

Gmcc - great info on Point - that deserves its own thread! Interesting that the second amendment was made on Jan 5th 2021, 2 days before Avacta announced the partnership. This fits the interpretation that Tufts did a cheeky deal with Point before Avacta found out and got its lawyers on the case for a cut.

But why would they be changing the terms on 5th May in tandem with the new Avacta patents? Maybe since the new patents by Avacta reduce the possibility space for Point to adapt the tech with half-life extension in their development efforts…

Not an expert, but to me it just looks like a reference database of synthetic binding proteins identified in scientific literature and other online sources. Search by scaffold = Affimer and you get this list, probably all with references to papers or documents affiliated with Avacta:
http://synbip.idrblab.net/search/result/sbp-by-list?name=Affimer

Black cat - I’m sure you know already, but June 2023 is the estimated completion of Phase 1b. At that point the drug will have been trialled in 10s of patients and we’ll have a very early view on efficacy.

Phase 1a (dose escalation and initial PK data) due in Q3 this year.

While Phase 1b (dose expansion) is primarily about determining the safety and tolerability at the recommended Phase 2 dose, there are some efficacy-related “Secondary outcome measures” from the trial plan:
- Objective response rate (ORR) [ Time Frame: Up to one year ]
ORR is defined as the proportion of patients achieving a best overall response of confirmed partial responses (PR) or complete response (CR), per Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST 1.1).

- Duration of Response (DoR) [ Time Frame: Up to one year ]
DoR is defined as the duration of time from date of first response to date of disease progression, as per RECIST v1.1

- Progression-free-survival (PFS) [ Time Frame: Up to one year ]
PFS is defined as the time from the date of the first dose to the date of the first documentation of confirmed disease progression or death, whichever occurs first, as per RECIST v1.1

- Overall survival (OS) [ Time Frame: Up to one year ]
Overall survival (OS), defined as the date of first dose) to the occurrence of death from any cause

I’d just be careful comparing that 80-4000 factor with the 18:1 tumour:heart ratio - it’s apples to oranges. That is from in-vitro studies, and means the ‘inert’ un-activated form of AVA6000 is that much less cytotoxic to cells in controlled culture conditions. Once doxorubicin is released it is just as cytotoxic. So the 80 to 4000 factor is unlikely to bear any relation to the ratio of Dox in the tumour vs healthy tissues, or relative impact of the side effects, unless by coincidence.

You just want it released (and then as much as possible staying in and attacking cells in) the right place. We’ll find out soon enough!

Let’s not forget a 1% total declared short position is only about 2.5m shares. Since 30th March the daily volume has been over 2m/day (sometimes up to 8m) on all but 3 days.

They could have snuck in lots of buys over that time, but given they were each just over the notifiable threshold of 0.5%, it would be naughty if they had sold any and dropped below the threshold without notifying the next working day, so if they were following the rules, since they dropped off the list of shorts at the end of this week, it would suggest they started to reduce their shorts Thursday, maybe Wednesday at the earliest. We had under 2 million trades on each of Weds/thurs, another 2.5-3m Friday… no major bump in volume over the background.

So if they were obeying the rules, and if they fully closed out it would mean half of the trades in the last two days were shorts buying. That would mean a massive drop in the background trade volume though, so my guess is they still have a sizeable chunk of the positions to close out. All guesswork though.

Not sure if we can be certain that they have closed, just that they have dropped below the notifiable 0.5%. Odd that the system doesn’t say when they did that.

Thanks Lovebug1 - the Q and A always arrives just when you’d forgotten to expect it!

Lots of new text around existing answers. Love the confidence.

“Q4: A licencing deal for AVA6k or the PreCision platform as a whole has been mentioned previously. Are you able to provide a feel for what level of interest there has been? I appreciate that these discussions will be commercially sensitive but it's fairly clear that many shareholders are concerned about the company's cash runway and would like to avoid / minimise dilution. A feel for the level of interest would ease many shareholder's concerns.

There is a strong level of interest in the preCISION platform and this will be driven further by the Phase 1a data in the middle of 2022 since this is a first in human study for the platform. Activities such as the poster presentation at AACR are also generating strong interest, but it is the clinical data that will be key to future significant licensing deals.”

WILL be driven. Not “will potentially”. Strong words.

Ah, I love the taste of crayons melting in the morning.

The price per share shouldn’t matter to anyone with a large pot to invest, who tend to be the ones that move the price. You allocate as much money as you want to, and get the same fraction of the company depending on number of your shares vs total shares in issue.

Look at market cap instead. The share price is purely cosmetic. It should only make a difference to an investor/trader who wants to buy into a company and can’t afford a single share, or can’t buy fractional shares to the approximate allocation they’re looking for, e.g. if I want to invest $5k but the shares are $3.5k each. Most US brokers now sell fractional shares in US stocks, so it’s not really relevant for the likes of Google and Amazon anymore, and to my knowledge there aren’t many UK companies with such high SPs to worry about.

Anyway, Audioboom… They’ve have been my best ever investment so far. I was lucky to get in just under £2 (with an unfortunately low allocation, unfortunately outside my ISA), and of course it’s nice to see how much bigger that number is now. A lot of success (or a T/O) priced in now perhaps, but so far they just keep on delivering. Just popped in to sample the mood before thinking about a slice for some ISA money. Knowing my skill at trading it’ll lurch upwards the minute I do it.

GLA, have a great day.

Yes… I think there’s a balance between announcing progress in detail to show the market what’s going on, and not giving away info to competitors on where the most money is to be made. As a holder, I’m happy for them to err on the side of the business’ long term interest rather than the share price’s short term gain.

So we’ve moved to quarterly updates… The latest business period update was 18th March for the 6 months to end-December 2021.

Since then we know the revenue run—rate continues to increase every month ($150k/month reported on 1st March). Should be a nice Q1 2022 update when that lands (shortly after end April?).

Oh and expecting more news on GFIN, Jio, NFTs, etc, any time. But it seems the market wants concrete numbers as until things hit the bottom-line most people are pretty skeptical of AIM CEOs talking up potential. Perhaps as “yesterday’s” potential continues to become today’s impressive results, the market might give ME and team more credit for “tomorrow’s” potential.

MWH - if you read the board like the output of a single mind yes it would seem that way. There is, granted, too much hyperbole. But the individual characters on here are mostly pretty consistent. Some always negative, some rampy without substance, some rampy with substance, some balanced, and a few who swing both ways like the wind and are obvious traders.

Most of the negative trolls are taking a breather now though while the share price goes up. It was generally they who were calling for the head of the CEO previously, and even a few genuine folk jumped onboard that train of thought, you could perhaps say justifiably irate at the LFT debacle.

Most of the sound minds have always been willing to cut AS some slack though. The covid LFT opportunity was just one Diagnostic shot on goal. Sure, we missed (for the time being), but now we’ve got a new Therapeutic striker on the ball. Our wunderkind poached from the Americas is in the penalty box, with a 1-on-1 situation against a backup keeper. And there’s a few of his mates on the bench looking pumped and ready to go.

Is this a personal experience, QR, or just something you’re sharing for info?

Comes off patent next year anyway… Are there any rules against taking a drug through development while it’s still under patent?

I did wonder when AS said the drug was a similar form of velcade… Who would have a better understanding of effective velcade-like drugs than Takeda? I think in earlier presentations it was just stated as a precision form of velcade, so could there have been some co-development already?

Several ways I can think of to defend against a cheap takeover bid, and I think we’re seeing this play out:
- Attract more “sticky” and/or knowledgeable shareholders
- Educate existing shareholders about the potential value to make them less likely to accept a cheap offer
- Get the sentiment and share price up appreciably before results are released
- Generate interest across the industry such that any low-ball offer on good results is likely to be met with counter-bids
- Keep a strong balance sheet

I feel like we’re seeing a lot play out to support these lines of defence, one way or another:
- The total pause of LFT sales, drop to 40p and subsequent rise from there has done a lot to shake out many fickle holders that might have been in it for a quick LFT buck. It is a bummer that a lot of PIs will have sold early and lost money, but many of those are likely the sort that would take a £2/£3 offer just to get back to about breakeven with a sigh of relief.
- Shareholder education has been ongoing all along to explain how the chemotherapy is the main value driver, and that has finally landed I’d say.
- Experienced industry/oncology advisors brought in to advise on strategy ahead of the big reveal.
- They are talking up licensing out AVA3996 to provide working capital to support going alone on AVA6000, to give balance sheet confidence.
- Avacta being put in the shop window with the AACR presentation, IND filing and trial hospitals brought on in the US. I’m sure a lot has been going on behind closed doors as well, and I’ll bet the new advisors have made a lot of connections for us. The big players are definitely aware and watching.

Even more succinct take, from Ophidian:
https://twitter.com/ophidian18/status/1513816448057155585?s=21&t=01qD9QqSLu8HjAvyeIn26Q

Nice find Poirot. Finger on the pulse as ever!