The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
You need to decide that mate! But lack of conviction is why the MMs make easy money when they yank the share price up and down, and why certain cynical players post negative views in online spaces when they want to erode conviction (or positive views after a gain, to create liquidity to sell their position into). It helps to be aware of these factors and avoid letting the online “mood music” guide your decisions.
That said, I think it’s a fantastic investment if you have patience and a position size that reflects your level of confidence and the perceived risk. But I’m biased so don’t take my word for it.
Loads of good content, annual reports and investor presentations on the company’s website. Some highlights:
- 3 clinical trial read outs expected before year end.
- World-leading micro bio-therapeutics discovery platform based on understanding function, >1000 patents, considerably undervalued to US peers that are arguably less advanced clinically.
- Sector of pharmacy that is growing in recognition of its importance, with many potential applications.
- Partnerships with Merck and Pfizer
- Merck own ~5%
- CEO and CSO together took $2m of shares at £1.10 in March 2021 placing.
- Relatively strong cash position from said placing.
- MRx518 oncology immuno-modulatory drug proven safe. Being trialled for effectiveness both on its own and in tandem with global blockbuster drug Keytruda (Merck partnership) and Bavencio (Merck/Pfizer partnership). Phase 1/2 Part A Keytruda combo trial results last year showed clean safety profile and very encouraging early indications of effectiveness. Phase 1/2 Part B read-out expected soon.
- Blautix (for IBS) between phase 2 and 3 pending strategy update. Phase 2 results were good though not great, but at least as positive as existing approved drugs, and could be the first IBS-M single therapy, which addresses a completely unmet need.
- Phase 1/2 asthma trials preliminary data expected by year-end.
- Phase 1 MRx0518 mono-therapy in pancreatic cancer trial preliminary data expected by year end.
- MRx518 / Bavencio combo trial Phase 1 due to start by year-end.
- Parkinson’s / Neurodegeneration therapy planned for first in-human trial next year.
Check out:
https://www.4dpharmaplc.com/en
This whole thread - https://twitter.com/aimhardy/status/1444933982508957699?s=21
There was a lot of hype and ramping, and I guess that should have been a red flag - as regards potential share price movements.
However i did my research into the company and bought in off the basis of that. With terrible timing in hindsight. The investment case is stronger now than when I first bought, but the share price lower. In other words, now looks like a great time to accumulate or buy in. But certainly not time for me to sell.
Lessons learned for me: let the hype draw my attention to a stock on AIM and do my own research, but use a watch list with patience, and be wary of buying too chunky a position after a recent rise, especially if everyone is talking about it, and there is a long timeline to revenue. Everyone might stop talking about it and the share price will then drift. When no one is talking about it, usually is a good time to review the company’s progress and if positive, buy and hold patiently, ahead of the next cycle of good news.
On which, 5 trial read-outs expected between here and year end. I suspect the first one will catch people off-guard.
All IMHO, DYOR, no advice given, etc.
Indeed gje it could be any one of the “chatty” trolls sent here to try to drive buys/sells whichever way the MMs want to push them, usually 1/4 of a wavelength behind the corresponding SP movements.
Though Mercury is here described as “chatty”, which would be an understatement for wyn, and to be Mercurial is traditionally to be hot-tempered, which would certainly not fit our expansively loquacious friend.
The rest of that is so bang on that I’m asking myself who is this Mercury?!
That is a good point for the current state of the market. But do you think we are the only company scaling up to sell into the shortage of LFTs? I’m thinking of the longer term market.
In the current setup, the consumer is not trusted to do their own test and report an honest result - which is why NHS free tests can’t be used. Hence third party suppliers providing antigen tests with a £20+ markup to provide the service. Unless this setup changes, it would be hard for the airlines to mandate use of a specific test.
I think the sort of customers that will care about test quality is companies testing their own employees, and conscientious people who want to test themselves before going out, especially if seeing vulnerable family and friends.
Maybe another group would be older people who want to know if a respiratory infection is covid or not, so they can watch for warning signs of breathlessness etc, and seek out appropriate treatment early.
You have to wonder if the UK gov agenda did not involve high quality LFTs for mass testing. There has to be some reason that Surescreen was the only “UK test” to get rapid approval, while failing to pass an independent test to meet the basic sensitivity standards required for sale in the EU. Of course, maybe it’s just because it was a rebadged Chinese test, so it fit the “from China” selection criterion.
The noble thing would be to ignore this thread, but I just had to react.
Monoclonal antibodies can be created these days from phage display using libraries of human antibodies created from certain human white blood cells, I.e. with no animal involvement. The library of human antibodies avoids the need for that initial animal immune response to create the cells used in the old hybridoma method.
So some MABs can be ‘vegan’. Not all the providers use the new methods yet, but it's what the EU and others are trying to push the industry towards. Just saying Affimers are not the only vegan option on the table. And AffiDx could potentially still include polyclonal antibodies on the control line strip, as they’re relatively cheap and don’t need to be exquisitely specific for that purpose.
Well, it was submitted no earlier than ~June when Medusa were running user trials, and no later than September 30th, when Avacta told us it had been submitted.
The rumour is that Medusa were expecting approval in September, and if you believe that, it would have been submitted around June/July, and could come any time.
Otherwise, anything from weeks to a few months post-submission. And hopefully before Christmas! Of course there’s a chance it might come back with some additional requests for info or changes, but I reckon odds on that are slim (albeit non-zero), given how much the test and process have been honed already, and the high performance of the test itself.
I’ve looked on the Abcam site a fair few times for the Affimer SARS-cov-2 spike ELISA test and not seen it come up yet. Don’t know what became of that deal… Maybe they sell it through other channels without a listing on their site catalogue? Or maybe they just didn’t make it from agreement to sales for some reason?
It would only be small sales in any case, and at the time, most of us suspected the main point of releasing the ELISA test was to talk about its performance and show how good the reagents were before they had results from a finalised LFT product to talk about.
On the TMAC, I’ve been musing about this. I believe it was Bill Pachovchin of TUFTS that came up with the concept and has been involved with the development work. I wonder if it was the prospect of working with Affimers on the concept of TMAC that opened the door to us getting the exclusive licensing deal on PreCision in the first place..?
Just an idea, and of no real bearing on the company value except to provide a possible narrative to the sceptic as to how a tiny UK biotech could have landed an exclusive licence to one of the most promising cancer therapeutic platforms from one of the top university biotech labs in the world.
“One of our better sellers”…
You reminded me of a local bakery in Aberdeen that proudly proclaims on its sign to be “One of the better bakeries in the area”.
Just a couple steps up from “probably won’t give you food poisoning”. Gotta love British understatedness.
Anyway back to the quote. Was that deadpan or with the vocal inflection of a cheeky wink?
My numbers come through a bit more conservative in the “not bought out” case.
It takes significant further investment to take the drug through to approval and manufacturing. Hence we’ve been told we will likely license to a larger partner at some point and take up front payments and 5-10% royalties, which means for Pro-dox alone, assuming 10 years at 5-10% royalties from an eg £2b average annual revenue, Avacta would get £100-200m per annum. Ie with a 10x multiple on this, £1-2B ish in value, plus whatever the upfront/milestone payments might be (any ideas or precedents here?).
Of course, if it proves to be a spectacular breakthrough blockbuster therapy and expands the market further, you can increase that. And then total value of Avacta to get bought out would have to value the rest of the business and associated IP on top.
Great spot, Poirot.
For those spotting the inconsistency with the latest validation results released 28 April 2021, this was the initial test validation study, results of which were released by RNS 16 Feb 2021.
With the carbon-capturing algae, and incremental improvements in emissions vs shipping waste abroad for it to be incinerated, as well as piloting tech that can be rolled out and reduce emissions from coal-fired stations globally, this is exactly the sort of project we need to be doing.
But we hear they’ve stated they want no “new energy from waste” projects. They need to realise this is totally different from legacy energy from waste and get over that title of this is really the case.
It just seems so backwards thinking for the Welsh Gov to fix a tactic (no waste energy) and let that get in the way of following a green strategy. You should decide where you want to go and continually assess how you’re going to get there. You don’t fix the route and fail to reassess when conditions change. Unless you’re a politician who doesn’t get these things, I guess.
Very frustrated this morning. UK government messing with my investments again. I can see why many international companies consider political risk “high” on starting new business ventures in the UK, due in large part to lack of regulatory stability.
Finally! Only what they should have been doing at a much earlier stage to diversify and mitigate such legislative risk.
But I doubt they will have the capital to go it alone on another venture in parallel. Might we see them look to license out the tech/expertise?
Just someone else getting another plant up and running could make recurring revs from selling them the fuel pellets through the JV.
So much potential in the tech. Very frustrating where we are today.
Picking up on speranza’s point about endorsements from elite sports clubs... There would be no sense in paying any prestigious clubs or businesses for this named endorsement until HUA, of course.
But when/if HUA approval arrives and the Medusa marketing machine kicks in, then the partnerships and customer base Avacta is building now may very well become a part of the marketing and we may find out who some of these customers are. Then the work to date in securing these orders from discerning and influential customers will help to grow further orders. “Trusted by top premiership football clubs such as…?” “Test of choice for international corporations such as..?”
The cream rises. It just takes patience.
It is commercially sensitive. If Avacta disclose that information it will weaken their hand in future commercial negotiations. As a shareholder I’d rather they don’t disclose that information!
But you can assume it will be lumped into the results at the end of the period. On the basis of which, the lump sum payment in 2020 can’t have been more than a couple million GBP, and probably much less than that.
It’s fair to assume though that the milestone payments are heavily weighted towards the later stages of development as the commercial risk reduces, so this payment will probably be more than the last one, but the bulk of the £100m’s will be weighted towards the back end of successful clinical trials.
Thanks marik - I had wondered where that little nugget arose. Wonder if they were there as informed private investors or gathering competitor intelligence! Certainly interesting and if the latter, it might suggest they are following all possible leads for an early heads up on how the AVA6K trial is going.