Member Info for chantico

Spread Betting - in a 100 odd comments relating to taxation, I didn't see one comment about trading using a spread bet. If you trade profitably and once you have used your ISA and CGT allowance, the only sensible strategy is to trade using a spread bet where all (winnings) profits are entirely tax free. Yes there is the funding cost, but this will be significantly below the CGT rate. The only instance where it doesn't make sense is if you are holding shares for many years and don't require / want to use the leverage available within a spread.

Interesting news below. I don't know anything about the relative efficacy of the CD24Fc treatment v SNG001 but this is the kind of acquisition offer SNG may be receiving. Note the additional payments for sales and milestones. As a private company it's difficult / impossible to see what these may represent - it could be 10% or 200%....

Oncolmmune at a very similar stage to SNG having just commenced a phase 3 trial.

Merck & Co. agreed to acquire privately held biopharma company OncoImmune for an upfront payment of $425 million in cash to gain a potential therapy for severe Covid-19. OncoImmune shareholders will also be eligible for payments based on sales and on the achievement of certain regulatory milestones, the companies said in a statement Monday. OncoImmune recently announced positive interim findings from a late-stage study evaluating its lead candidate, CD24Fc, for the treatment of patients with severe Covid-19. The therapy is designed to tamp down the inflammation caused by virus-induced damage to human cells, an underlying cause of complications in patients with severe disease. The announcement by Merck comes as a slew of potential vaccines and treatments for the deadly disease are becoming available or approaching use.

“Recent clinical investigations support the view that CD24Fc may provide benefit beyond standard-of-care therapy for
COVID-19 patients requiring oxygen support,” said Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories.

OncoImmune has initiated a Phase 3 trial of its therapy, involving at least 10 U.S. medical centers. The study will
accept patients undergoing or intending to enroll in trials for other treatments as well, since CD24Fc has a novel mechanism of
action, according to a statement by the closely-held company.

Numis had an updated note out this morning. Their price target remains unchanged at 990p. To a degree they have egg on their face having jointly placed £80M at a level 40% above where the stock is currently trading so there will be some pressure to support the stock.

Highlights below:

An early analysis of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has shown that individuals who
received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than
90% fewer cases of symptomatic Covid-19 than those who received a placebo
in patients without evidence of prior infection. The data appears better than may
have been expected and has driven a substantial rally in global equity markets.
However, the data has also raised concerns about the potential future need for
Synairgens SNG001. For several reasons we continue to believe SNG001 could
have an important role to play alongside vaccines for the treatment and protection
from SARS-CoV-2, especially in the more vulnerable patients and against future
seasonal and pandemic threats.

Vaccine update: The efficacy data released thus far is very impressive. Pfizer and
BioNTech will continue to collect additional safety data, which is expected when half
of the patients in the study have been observed for at least two months following their
second dose. Submission for Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) to the US FDA is
planned for November with 50 million doses prepared for FY20 and 1.3 billion doses
ready for FY21.

Challenges remain: While clearly a relief for global equity markets, numerous
challenges remain for the vaccine not limited to the manufacturing scale up and
global distribution in a super-cold supply chain (minus 80 degrees), patient acceptance
given the potential side-effects, duration of protection as well as the efficacy against
emerging/future strains of the virus. For each of these reasons we see an important
future role for SNG001.

Implications for Synairgen: As it stands we do not know if the vaccines are effective
in higher risk groups, whether they reduce hospitalisations or indeed whether the
associated vaccination programs can stop transmission of the virus into the at-risk
groups, that are candidates for treatment with SNG001. With over 1,000 patients being
admitted to hospital per day in the UK alone, the need for effective treatments prior to
the potential availability of vaccines remains significant. We therefore still expect the
Phase 3 trial of SNG001 to start in November, and will be focussed on the increasing
number of hospitalised patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2. On this basis, SNG001
remains an important asset under investigation and our forecasts and valuation are
unchanged.

As I said earlier, the majority of sales will have been existing holders arbitraging around the higher price that existed for a few days. They could also of course be naked short the stock knowing that they will be able to cover at a fixed price.

@dumbpunter 1/3 of the placing was non conditional "the firm placing shares" so I knew on the evening of the 14th October how many shares I had been allocated on both a firm and conditional basis and the reality is that there was zero chance that the general meeting wouldn't approve the conditional placing shares. There isn't much borrow in this stock so most sellers will have been selling existing holdings.

That RNS is L Licht reducing his holding, not a new purchase. He's been a long term holder and the RNS is him reducing his stake. In July he owned 7.7M shares and he now owns 6.5M so a modest reduction.

Correct except that they can do with the consent of the bookrunners which shall not be unreasonably withheld. In practice this means they can if they have a good reason to do so - i.e. if they got an order for 5 million doses and needed to raise working capital to fulfill etc. Exact text below:

"The Company, subject to certain exceptions, has agreed not to allot, issue or grant any rights in respect
of its Ordinary Shares in the period of 180 days from the later of the date of Firm Admission and
Conditional Admission without the prior written consent of the Joint Bookrunners (such consent not
to be unreasonably withheld or delayed)."

No lock up in this placing. Very unusual for placings to have a lock up. You generally get lock ups when management are floating a business but not in placings where the idea is to raise money for the company rather than to take it off the table. Whilst it might not be good news for long term holders (like me), it does mean that the company has achieved its objective and raised the funds it needs for operations. Whilst management always wants the share price to be high, they can now focus on the business having raised the funds they need to take the business to the next stage and if the share price dips whilst they do this it makes no difference to the final outcome.

Placing misconceptions..

There seems to be a lot of people believing that the £80M placing was made up exclusively of institutional investors. In fact there are many private investors who participated. The only regulatory requirement to participate in placings is that you must elect to be a "professional" investor which is a fairly low bar for any frequent trader / investor.

My broker for example applied for £5M of placing stock and received a 50% allocation i.e. £2.5M and this was all for private investors. The majority of that stock has already been flipped - they were selling relentlessly immediately they had the allocation. Unfortunately this is typical of the "hot" money that often chases stocks like this which makes it a much more volatile ride for the long term investor.

Without doubt there will be some institutions in the mix given the size of the placing, but don't be fooled into thinking they won't flip some stock for a quick profit either.

Interesting article in medRxiv on Thursday reporting on a trial using injected Interferon beta (IFN).

medRxiv is a medical archive that publishes preprints of medical research before peer review.

SNG's nebulized treatment should have higher efficacy than injected treatments.

Conclusion was this:

The 28-day overall mortality was significantly lower in the IFN then the control group (19% vs. 43.6% respectively)

.....significantly increased discharge rate on day 14 and decreased 28-day mortality

Bottom line - IFN works for significantly improved outcomes.

Report is here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.28.20116467v1

New York Times coverage - hopefully this will get picked up by more press shortly:

www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/health/coronavirus-drug-treatment.html

Here is the link to the publication in The Lancet (The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is among the world's oldest, and best known general medical journals)

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31042-4/fulltext