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Paul you are right and so is Glebe from what I understand. The MWG box is what picks up the toxin. Rinodrive however is the heart of the machine and tells you what toxin/virus it actually is and from what I understand from GB's last interview can now actually derive the viral load from any given location. In other words estimate how many people have that particular virus be itCovid, Norro or ecoli ............. which to me is quite incredible.
The big question is which nobody knows at present is what the split in revenue for the Microtox units will be !!!!
My thoughts are that yes this could be a £1 share and possibly sooner than people think provided that everything goes according to plan and schedule and before media focus is taken away from the coronavirus pandemic .
There is a lot of talk about cruise ships here and for me that is great, but the real prize is a government contract. I just read that Carnival are disposing of 13 of their ships and that their fleet currently accounts for 40% of the world cruise trade. That means by my calculations that there are 250 cruise ships out there.
In the uk alone there are circa 7500 sewage stations of which circa 5000 are in England.
The Main Microtox server (Big Box) we know sells for circa $60,000 and the portables for circa $10,000.
Then there are the recurring revenue consumable reagents to factor in.
https://www.thomassci.com/Laboratory-Supplies/Water-Quality-Test-Kits/_/Microtox-FX-Portable-Toxicity-Luminometer
Will let you do the maths, but by my reckoning it works out to be a big number and provided that institutions and businesses are as hungry for this product as we believe they are, then I think that once we announce we have a fully operational and approved product the share price will move rapidly.
All IMHO of course
They could be talking about SKIN here
https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/testing-waste-water-to-find-covid/21161
Hi Argylerich,
I've seen that, but collaboration only goes so far. Just the simple stuff like manufacturing reagents for world consumption, I can't see as being done from a medium size lab out of York, let alone increased staff costs to do it all. I hope I am wrong and I will be the first to admit that I am no businessman and certainly I will take my hat off to GB if extra cash is not needed somewhere along the line upon disclosure of a successful outcome in Aberdeen.
ATB
Agree with Retireby40 but would add my thoughts on the choosing of how to weight any investment:-
As stated above , MWG has a significantly lower market cap by around 50%
At the moment, we really do not have anything concrete to sink our teeth into. As it stands, we do not have a product that can detect Pathogens in waste water in real time which is why the SP is volatile but not seeing any real gains. We do expect to have such a product at or I am assuming close to the completion of the works being done up at Aberdeen University. I would imagine that an RNS would be released at this point and at this time you would see a significant re rate in SP and possibly Media coverage.
For my part, I am assuming that the product will come to successful fruition and will be desirable to multiple clients. Much of this belief is based on GB's credentials, not least in which he took a company called Altracel from 0 to £50m before selling it.
As to future valuations between SKIN and MWG, therein lies the question as there is quite a bit for me that is not clear.
a) It will be MWG kit that is sold and hence I assume that all profit from this will go to MWG. That said, SKIN will be bolting on it's AI which would otherwise make MWG's microtox servers somewhat irrelevant. We do not know what the revenue share split for this would be. We do know that the consumable recurring reagent revenue share is 60/40 in MWG's favour.
b) It is apparent that should all go ahead according to plan, this could be a blue sky scenario where demand could be huge. Unfortunately, we also know that neither company has much cash in the bank and for a project of this size and scale, significant cash injection will be necessary. Where this cash will come from is unknown at present. If governments and large businesses are interested then grants/low interest loans may be available. Outside that we may me looking at another placing and subsequent dilution of shares. Taking this path though at today's Market cap and share price I doubt we would be able to raise enough if we are talking about global production taking into account all the extra infrastructure and staff that would be needed.
There is also a very real possibility in my opinion that once everything is in place the companies may be merged and sold off to a larger player with far greater working capital available.
Hopefully GB has a plan :- ))))
Still think it might have something to do with a tie up to google.
GB's first tweet stated that the successor to the computer Deep Blue was "Deep Thought" It wasn't. It was AlphaGo which was manufactured by a company called Deepmind. Deepmind was bought by Google in 2014 and recently has been moving the AI technology from game playing to science:-
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/google-deepmind-alphago-buzz-dissipates.html
We also know that from AlphaGo they have developed Deepfold which they are using in the fight against COVID 19, something that we are also heavily involved in :-
https://singularityhub.com/2020/03/17/how-deepminds-ai-is-working-to-decode-coronavirus/
Not directly the same target, but never the less in the same field.
My guess anyway as if you type in deepmind, you also get all the deep learning, deep web etc phraseology ............ not that I can be bothered to read it all.
My guess anyway
ATB
Deep Blue, Deep thought, Deep learning .......... my brain is slow, but the only thing I can come up with are these are all terminoligies used in the processes of a company called Deep Mind. Which is an AI company that was bought by Google in 2014.
All over the papers today
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/coronavirus-sewage-wastewater-infection-spike-test-a9598916.html
UK is not the only one. Wonder if we could get in on this. Would save a placing and share dilution further down the road:-
(vi) Support for coronavirus related research and development (R&D) to address the current health crisis in the form of direct grants, repayable advances or tax advantages. A bonus may be granted for cross-border cooperation projects between Member States.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1016
Hi Truffle,
Indeed an interesting article and particularly the amount of funding the project is able is able to attract.
I did a bit of research into Biobot a while ago and it would appear that they are a company who analyse waste water as a tracking mechanism as opposed to be working towards an early/immediate warning solution in that they take samples back to the labs.
As such I personally am not unduly worried and indeed would see this as a company under the business model we seem to have adopted as actually collaborating with in the future.
I posted an article some time ago about a scheme in Wales which claims to be a pilot project for the UK; funded with £500K
by the Government.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sewage-systems-analysed-coronavirus-human-22223335
Both the Bangor university and the Biobot studies bear many similarities in that they are taking samples from just about every wastewater stream they have the resources for and then taking them back to the labs to analyse them. The majority of their tests will no doubt be negative (due to the trial and error nature of the sample taking) and subsequently a waste of time , money and resources; but from the few that may be positive they would be able to analyse the viral load and make estimates of the number of infections there may be upstream of that particular waste stream.
If they were to incorporate the SKIN/MWG solution, they would only need to go to those sources where the alert has been triggered, they would be guaranteed a positive result from the lab and thereby save a lot of time, money and indeed resources.
Interestingly, the UK Pilot project in Wales has been funded for 6 months and hence by my maths takes it up to a point shortly after when the SKIN/MWG solution is slated to be completed and operational.
Fingers Crossed and ATB
Many thanks GB and AJS once again for your replies which have severely distracted me from the roast I'm supposed to be cooking.
Whilst I won't pretend to know exactly how it all works from your explanation as I am getting old, I do get the gist that Rinodrive AI remains at the heart of the wastewater solution, the reagents are still critical to said solution and that the Aptamers are an opportune enhancement rather than a replacement for anything.
Once again , many thanks to all .................. and finally , can rinodrive AI detect when a roast potato is perfectly cooked?
First of all thank you GB for your detailed explanation.
I think the long and short of it for me is:-
a) Will the use of aptamers ultimately impact the sales of reagents (circa 500k a batch if I recall correctly?
b) Since the aptamer coating will target and only capture a specific target pathogen; does this not make Rinodrive and it's AI somewhat redundant in it's purpose of identifying a pathogen?
Many Thanks once again
Hi AJS
Completely agree with everything you say. What puzzles me though is that the RNS released 3rd June was headed :- "Labskin anti-viral COVID19 skin and dental tests" and the commentary focused solely on that. Whilst we know from Gerry's tweets that they will be using this study to advance their waste water early warning system, there is actually nothing that I can see within the RNS that suggests this. So as a layman supposing I was a dentist, would I buy from Aptamer a disposable no nonsense real time test kit and add a couple of quid on to each patient for such or buy an extremely expensive analyzer which will need servicing, probably more man hours in processing and warranty payments etc. This being the case, why are Integumen doing the research up at Aberdeen and not Aptamer.
I am not a scientist and confess to being ignorant on such matters, but as a pleb, whichever way I look at it (and believe me I'm hoping that I'm wrong) , this is how it appears to me. I do get that it's not a 24 hour monitoring system, but for all I know it might be possible to engineer one of these things to be stuck down a sewer with a transponder that is activated if it detects a particular pathogen ! Same result without the expense.
Basically, what I really would like to know, is was this RNS about
a) Us assisting Aptamer in forwarding their product with a view on making revenue from the manufacture of Aptamers.
b) Aptamer assisting us in forwarding our product
c) Bit of both ?
Guess we'll have to wait and see ATB
Hi Glebe,
Thanks for your reply and to all others for replies.
I appreciate the explanation, but my point is that Aptamer seem to have a real time product akin to a pregnancy test that when the blue line shows then you have the virus. It doesn't appear to need all the very expensive AI technology/equipment that goes with the Integumen real time solution which many of us are counting on as barrier of entry for other competitors. It has been mentioned on here several times before that we are years ahead of the competition, but here is something that apparently will deliver a real time diagnosis without the expense of the technology and equipment (appreciate it is not 24/7 monitoring.)
I'm not trying to detract , just trying to understand fully where all the pieces of the puzzle fit.
Bronx, completely agree with you re Integumen being the better/safer investment as they are not tied to supplying their products solely to Modern Water. I also agree that if the stars do align, then there is no question that the wastewater side alone could be massive and certainly they will need money to fulfill the potential .............. quite a lot of it I would suggest. That said , if it is the only viable real time solution available for this particular project , I would imagine/hope that there would be various financial options available other than a placing . I would like to buy more here, but the finances of any future expansion/ramp up is currently what is holding me off.
ATB
Having read through the latest RNS a number of times it would appear that Aptamer are essentially transferring the manufacture of their "aptamers" to the Integumen laboratories. Currently Integumen are working on the CAT 3 labs up at Aberdeen on the dental side of detecting COVID 19 as well as on their waste water real time solution.
Watching the BBC new clip on Aptamer, they claim that they have a real time solution which will be manufactured as a pregnancy type kit for real time identification of the virus . I assume you get a lucky blue stripe if you've got it :-
https://twitter.com/aptamergroup?lang=en about 7 tweets down.
Whilst the transfer of the manufacturing of said aptamers would be a welcome boost to revenue, does this not make them somewhat of a competitor in so far as their solution does not appear to require any of Integumen's nor Modern Waters technology (pregnancy type kit) which is where the real commercial value for both companies lie. Yet we are still working on the dental side up at Aberdeen which was touted as the main focus of the work ????
Any thoughts welcome ?
I recall someone posting similar before, but having revisited GB's last proactive interview it was quite an eye opener to hear him say that they would be talking to OEM's about manufacturing these devices "in the tens of thousands and not the one or two hundreds". It would be a brave man who made a statement like that he didn't have a very good reason for making it, which would suggest that there is a lot of interest in this from potential clients.
So I went on a search for what the figures might look like. We know that a main Microtox server retails for circa $60,000 dollars and although mass manufacture will I am sure bring the price down, it would appear that the portable equipment is at this time none too cheap either. As a guide :-
https://instruments.jjstech.com/search?w=Microtox+FX
Then of course there is the reagents .................... and warranties !!!!!!
Certainly hope Gerry's enthusiasm and optimism pays off ................ I can only say so far so good and I am happy with the way things are going !!!!
Hi AJS,
Not sure why you are assuming that they won't be via parent company Modern water. Modern Water has a long association with British Water and I strongly suspect they will be a key player and one of those holding court :-
https://www.modernwater.com/2018/09/28/british-water-has-launched-an-innovation-search-engine-reports-water-wastewater-treatment-wwt-magazine/
and indeed is one of the founding companies within the group of companies collaborating together. :-
https://www.britishwater.co.uk/article/monitoring-technology-guide-launched-by-british-water-592.aspx
There's a lot more if you look for it, but we mustn't get too excited when we hear of schemes being conducted that apparently do not include us. It's all good stuff and good publicity. I would only get concerned if I saw competitors coming up with an alternative real time solution.
The UK pilot scheme in Wales is excellent news in my opinion as at last the UK governments are prepared to start spending some cash on this. Bear in mind that our offering will as I understand it (and happy to be shot down on this)be working alongside those companies that sample and analyse pathogens. As I understand it, Rinodrive is designed to be an early warning system and can detect pathogens such as COVID but cannot measure the viral load. In other words it will not be able to estimate how many people from that particular sewer have the virus which is where the lab tests come in.
That said and assuming I've got my facts right, basically if you take today's news about the UK pilot scheme being conducted in Wales, at this moment in time they are going to have lots of people jumping into 20 sewers several times a day taking samples and then in many cases wasting their time analyzing most of them back at the lab. If they then install a Microtox server enhanced by Integumen's Rinodrive, they would be able to see from their office the exact one or two sewers that are reading positive for virus and thereby save huge amounts of time and money. Simples ................. provided of course my understanding is correct.
ATB
I realize that it is the Mirror :- ))) but it does seem that governments are starting to spend some real money on this. Just hope they're all aware of what's going on up at Aberdeen University; it will certainly make their lives much easier :-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sewage-systems-analysed-coronavirus-human-22223335
A quick thought and a question to anyone with more knowledge than me.
I've mentioned earlier that from the research I have done, to date I have not been able to find anyone competing with Integumen in the field of real time wastewater testing ...... which by no means doesn't mean there aren't any. There are however a myriad of companies engaged and working on the new trend in waste water sampling. To me , that suggests that a sample is taken at an instant in time and then taken back to the lab for analysis. My query is, how accurate is this? If on a sewage line you had say 1000 people and ten of them had Covid (or any virus), surely unless you took the sample at the exact time when that fecal matter was making it's way down the line it would be pretty likely that you are going to miss it. The only way you could guarantee getting the reading would be to sample right at the end of the line or the final holding tank in which case there is no way of discerning who has the virus other than by then sampling/testing all 1000 people. To my mind this would not be practicable, let alone cost efficient.
The real time 24 hour monitoring solution by Integumen therefore would have a huge advantage . One Box at the end of the line and then use the minituarized real time portable versions to literally narrow down the specific area in the town,ship resort etc from which the original sample came from.
To me, the sampling method seems very hit and miss unless you are going to use it at the end of the line for huge numbers of people and then test them all should a positive result become apparent. Expensive too!
Just wanted to know if my train of thought is on the right track or am I missing something?
Thank you GB ................ please advise when I'm safe to put a deposit down on the small yacht I'm after :- )))))