The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
I think it’s increasingly clear that Avacta are dividing everything below the board of directors into Therapeutics and Diagnostics divisions.
For example, the 2nd September RNS “Appointment of Dr Fiona McLaughlin as Chief Scientific Officer of Avacta's Therapeutics Division”. Previously did they not just have a group CSO?
It leads me to think either:
- As they grow, they want to increasingly silo the different divisions.
Or:
- They are paving the way for a potential split of the business, and/or sale of either therapeutics and diagnostics, in a way that will leave both parts of the business capable of immediately operating independently with minimum disruption.
Thanks, great find.
Looks like a really astute move from Point to agree the licensing deal for the PreCision platform just before it goes into clinic with AVA6k - if the platform is proven by AVA6k, they got in early, and get info to support their own development. Conversely if unforeseen issues emerge, it gives them the opportunity to cut and run before they spend too much on development.
From our point of view, while AVA6000’s ongoing clinical trial is highly commercially sensitive, is it reasonable to assume Point are being kept in the loop? If so, yep, any signs they are ramping up work on their PNT2004 drug while trials are ongoing would seem positive.
I think everyone here for a year or more has seen enough “positive clues” not resulting in hard news (yet) or sustainable SP movement to respond to this appropriately: with an interestedly raised eyebrow and the confidence and patience to keep holding. The signs are of a plan progressively coming together, but it hasn't yet landed.
Indications from our golfing sources are they will assemble the kits, but outsource the manufacture of the strips and cassettes. Also fits with the Abingdon Dx tweet about them offering manufacturing of part-tests I.e. test strips.
https://www.medusa19.com/en/business-solutions/
From FAQs in the Business Solutions page, “How many tests do you have in stock?
“We always aim to have at least 2 million units in stock readily available. Our production line is entirely scalable to meet customer needs.”
Admittedly this presently relates to the Rapid Saliva Protein Test, not AffiDx, but gives an idea of the minimum scale of operation Medusa19 are targeting. I suspect the moment they launch AffiDx, they’ll be set up to provide it at large scale.
Indeed, MrA. I am aware that Affimers are not explicitly involved, just curious what gives this carrier entity/cleavage process such exquisite specificity to FAP-alpha, and if there might have been some shared know-how involved.
In the last interview with Paul Hill, Al said other FAP-alpha targeting approaches had failed because they were not specific enough to the target molecule… And exquisite specificity is the forte of Affimers. So I wonder… Is there an Affimer incorporated into the PreCision chemistry that does the targeting part? Or were related science/personnel shared/involved in its development in some way that gave Avacta a shoe in the door to license it?
Thanks Poirot for this video of James in action. I understood the bit about lung cancer, then it gets a bit more technical - need to do more research to understand it! Glad he’s on our side.
And the other related snippet of information on this forum, below. If all this is taken at face value, perhaps Medusa19 are getting strips from Abingdon (and others?) to assemble into complete tests. This could be one reason why Abingdon are quiet on manufacturing capacity… They could have capacity for millions of strips, but might not be able to claim it as capacity to make that many completed test kits?
Of course this is the word of strangers on the internet so take it as correlating rumours, not facts, and DYOR as ever!
Robbo89
Posted in: AVCT
Posts: 148
Price: 111.50
No Opinion
RE: Medusa 1925 Aug 2021 08:10
The information I have Re manufacturing and I will re quote the information I have been given “Medusa assemble the components or outsource it, they have capacity upto 25m at present. Medusa is a sales and distribution business and as soon as HUA is granted they will be focusing on this”
This talk of outsourcing test strip or card manufacturing chimes with something Ophidian posted the other day, and dovetails with other mentions of Medusa19 having facilities only to assemble the tests, but not making the actual strips…
“Ophidian Premium Member
Posted in: AVCT
Posts: 4,576
Price: 115.00
No Opinion
RE: Rumours23 Aug 2021 16:18
@jmfw - your point is reasonable, I would just say that in each case BBI, ABDX and GAD those entities were performing some aspect of product development not just transferring an already established process. So they were development partners who then TT to Industrial scale.
We have been told by AVCT that there are other potential manufacturers out there including in Europe and Asia and nothing specific has been communicated about TT to those sites so I'm afraid I cannot answer your point definitively.
Finally - I would just add that making LFD's from components one of which includes the "Strip" as opposed to manufacturing the "Strip" too is a totally different kettle of fish.
Ophidian”
Thanks xyz/Templar, you do keep good records. Love it when you’re on the long side of the trade.
Shame about that nucleocapsid clause 4 in the govt guidelines, but they remain a bunch of ****s who talk a good game about helping UK diagnostics companies, while putting extra barriers in their way, and are reluctant to pay bills when they do award contracts.
It is mostly about home use for major LFT sales imv. Better margins, better customers, huge market and opportunity. It’s clear that’s where the focus has been for the past few months.
Cynical detractors do tend to turn up and focus on one tiny detail to derail discussion, don’t they!
Ultimately the question is does it help patients achieve better clinical outcomes? The viral load data doesn’t tell you that directly. SNG’s clinical data is focussed on clinical outcomes, and it’s very positive.
Ask yourself why is there an emphasis of interferon lambda’s impact on viral loads in Phase 2, rather than clinical outcomes? Of course, great if it all works, but it smacks of grasping for a positive spin.
Good point Wiggly - 25m/month sounds pretty close to the 30m European capacity AS talked about in previous updates.
Indeed Ophidian, didn’t you say something the other day about it being a different thing making the test strips and bringing them in to assemble the test?
Robbo - any idea if that would be 25m per month/year?
Actually, I see no option for the £5 bulk discount on the Bioserv-UK website atm. Has the offer been withdrawn? Guess that tells you they don’t need to offer the discount to sell out.
To add to MrA’s point that £7 a test isn’t much, the professional use test is available in bulk (250 or more tests) at £5 a test, from Bioserv-UK, I.e. with a distributor mark-up. For an even larger bulk order, direct to a government, it’s not hard to imagine plenty profit could be made at a lower price point if necessary.
So can this compete with £4/test for a crappy test? Hell yes!
Always good to keep an eye on other approaches.
Not a medical/pharma expert, but my understanding is that the personalised medicine approaches will be inherently more expensive and time-consuming to produce, and thus available to fewer people. Highly promising, but if you can achieve a step change in treatment without the need to personalise the medicine - like eg AVA6000 could, then even better.
I’ve used it for a few placings, and requested a few shares here. Always been fine. There is of course a lag between handing over your money and the shares landing in your account - maybe people get nervous and post negative stuff during that time window?
Unless you’re a particularly High Net Worth Individual, you otherwise don’t typically get the chance to take part in placings. Primary Bid at least gives you that chance, so not sure what cause there is for people to complain. Sure there isn’t long to react, but you can set the app to notify you when an offer comes up, and I tend to ignore them unless something comes up at a reasonable price that’s already on my watchlist, like this one.
Assuming you are genuine and not just wanting to get us all to talk about shorting Avacta!
It’s disclosed short positions in Avacta. Shown with different formatting here:
https://shorttracker.co.uk/company/GB00BYYW9G87/
It means unless they’ve closed it very recently and not yet notified the regulator, Jupiter still have their short open. They went above the disclosable short position size of 0.5% of a company’s shares on 7th July (so about £1.5m for Avacta), and they added slightly to that position on 12th August.
Other funds/individuals may have short positions <0.5% in size, therefore no disclosed.
Since this disclosure gets updated with a lag, that’s why until it is notified as dropping back below 0.5% in size (which must be by 15:30 of the following trading day, before it can be updated in the database), we will see every large set of “buy” trades accompanied by people speculating that Jupiter are closing their short.
Personally I think it’s even better when chunky buys are going through and the short stays open. If the price starts properly rising and they still haven’t closed the position, that’s a whole lot of stock demand still to come.
On the flip side, an open short can be accompanied by cynical market/SP manipulation, especially on AIM, so people are usually happy to see the back of it.
Present bias is the tendency to see the future as a slightly modified version of the present.
I note that when it comes to valuing a stock’s potential, this tends to hobble share price watchers more than those with a firmer grasp of fundamentals. Hence a 20 bagger is seen as inherently unlikely because it’s just so different from the status quo. Regardless of underlying potential value.
That said, on this discussion. We could say what we think fair value would be after success in AVA6000 trials, and with the LFT sales ramping up, but how long the market cap would take to reflect that is anyone’s guess! Mind you, the range of possible outcomes for LFT profits - both run rate and longevity - is still so broad.