The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode with London Stock Exchange Group's Chris Mayo has just been released. Listen here.
I had a quick rummage through my portfolio this PM and found a few quid to buy some more here try and offset the dilution. Not sure my wife is impressed, but have to say the atmosphere here seems to be improving! I guess we might slide back a bit up to the next news but I'm so pleased to be out of the 5s... onwards and upwards!
Crumbs, I think you are right about the UK trials. It seems to me the FDA is less than impartial where non-US companies are concerned. If a deal can be done with BioNtec to give us the cash needed, is there any reason not to take the Scib and Modi products all the way through P3 in the UK and start providing to the NHS? It may not actually take any longer than US trials and FDA considerations and would increase their values exponentially whilst providing a more than tidy income from deals across Europe and Asia. Clearly, it all hangs on the single question will it work in humans as we think it will? I think I now much prefer that we negotiate from real strength i.e. a proven product, than to do deals on half-tested products and end up with a thin slice of our own cake. We have been patient so far, a couple of years longer with a rising SP hardly seems like a hardship. we are too quick to assume our fortune lies in the USA with a big US Pharma when so many other markets seem easier to enter. and may well get us to where we all want to be just as fast. We know how to manufacture these products and if they work half as well as we think they might, there will be queues around the block from companies and countries wanting to use them
It seems to me we are now in salvage territory. There are not many companies in the US or Europe that will now touch this with a bargepole so the challenge is to take the IP somewhere that might.... China comes to mind. They are trying to develop new antibiotics, they have a burgeoning pharma presence and might not be as worried about some of the more esoteric aspects of the FDAs comments . Maybe one of their pharmas would be interested in putting in say $50m for use of the IP across asia and carry out the trials the FDA need in china, see what results they get and if needed try to make changes to the product . then we could use the money to carry forward European and US trials. We might end up with a bun rather than a cake but most of the other alternatives just seem to screw over the investors.
I think one of the problems of attracting new investors to SCLP has been the complexity of what they are doing and a clear roadmap. If a new website can explain the science here in relatively simple terms, I think it would be a most welcome step. Maybe this is the start of a more business oriented position as the science starts to make its way into trials and discussions become more focused on monetising all the hard work that has gone before.
On the other hand its probably just a new website or a transfer to a new host.
No buys in 24 hours is hardly a panic but it does seem like the MMs are trying to stimulate some buiness . 400,000 shares sold without a buy according to LSE. Seems like everyone has got as many as they want at the moment. Fingers crossed good news is just around the corner.
If the FDA wont approve a British cure for multiple cancers, then we should just open a private hospital next to Heathrow or Manchester and fly in thousands of Americans each month for treatment.. at a premium of course. But I have no doubt there would be huge queues. £ 100,000 per patient would be peanuts for US insurance companies.
Given where our SP is at right now, and that BioNTech is possibly looking at an $800m IPO at the end of 2020 which could value them at $4+Bn . Would we be interested in a cash deal with them to keep the lights on for now followed by a shares-plus-cash or even an all-shares buyout in due course post IPO? I am not sure about the mechanics but I would have thought some sort of deal involving BioNTech shares should be possible once a public offer goes ahead.
And here too ... apols if this has already been posted
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/jFgTuKCPDhlK5THpN5Euqg2
Saw a tweet this morning suggesting that Deutsche Bank are advising Rio Tinto to buy into gold mkners and that Newcrest would be the target. That might throw the cat amongst the pigeons you might imagine.
6 days ago · Rio Tinto should get into the gold business, according to Deutsche Bank analysts, and use its strong recent run on the market to target Newcrest Mining with an all-scrip takeover offer. ... Both Rio and BHP have spent much of the past five years slimming down, reshaping their ... the rest is in The Australian behind a paywall.
I think we have to regard this as good news, maybe not enough to start the SP moving North but definitely another brick in the wall for the company and at least a promise of better things for the future assuming we get the hoped-for results.
If the results of this trial indicate much-improved outcomes, am I right in thinking that whilst Keytruda is the checkpoint inhibitor chosen for this trial, in the event of a really good result, we can expect other CI owners to be much more interested in Scib2 and 2 ?. October November for results ... tick tock. Who knows, we might be at 6p by the end of the year!! I just hope the board have their ducks in a row now and enough in the bank to get the next funding at a decent price or better still a deal of some sort.
I think Inan is suggesting a Price/Earnings ratio of 10
Below is the Price /Earnings ratio for Pfizer based on last years earnings which at 9.9 suggests it is undervalued when seen against a Biotech average of over 23x
Formula:
Price-Earnings Ratio = Price per share ÷ Earnings per share
P/E Calculation for PFE
Price per share = $35.17
Earnings per share = $3.56
? Price-Earnings Ratio = $35.17 ÷ $3.56 = 9.9x .. an industry avg P/E of 23 would suggest a share price of $81
so £300m Scancell earnings x P/E of 10 gives £3000m / Circa 400m shares give a £/share of £7.50 and a ratio of 23 gives a price of £17.25
The RNSof 20th March told us about the award of patent in the US and Europe for Modi1. It also included the following
: Additional claims that aim to protect other aspects of the Moditope® platform are being pursued in the US. Grant in the US follows grant of corresponding patents in Europe, as announced last year, South Africa and Australia, and acceptance for grant in China. Counterparts to these patents are being prosecuted in other territories of importance to Scancell.
So is the continuing radio silence from HQ a symptom of ongoing talks which are ultimately dependent on further IP protection? Eg China ... Head and neck cancer?
The SP decline is a buggeration and one might have thought that a few director purchases might have been made at these prices if only as a small gesture, but, if there are talks afoot, might they be locked in?
Interesting thoughts. On the other hand there are thousands of people dying from the infection this drug is designed to stop and this antibiotic is resistant to the declining effectiveness of the existing go-to drugs. For the FDA to ditch this antibiotic at a time when governments are offering cash for new AB developments seems extreme to say the least. I guess its about the balancing of risk and if that means warning hospitals about a small risk which might turn out to be no risk at all then I guess thats acceptable. To demand huge re-trials at this stage strikes me as completely unreasonable . Time for some common sense to prevail. To kill this drug now sends out all sorts of wrong messages.
I think there are lots of shareholders across the board getting a bit spooked by the shenanigans in Parliament and with the EU who are perhaps taking some profits off the table and will continue to do so until we see where we are on March 30th. I really don't have the cash to keep trying to average down so I guess my options are to hold or sell and maybe buy back later. Not keen on selling good companies at evens or a loss though, particularly when transformational news could drop any day. Decisions decisions.
This is hard to sit and watch... down nearly 10% now. Thoughts?
From the FDA Website:
What FDA Is Doing:
FDA combating antibiotic resistance through activities that include
"Encouraging the development of new antibiotics. FDA is actively engaged in developing guidance for industry on the types of clinical studies that could be performed to evaluate how an antibacterial drug works for the treatment of different types of infections".
I think this has all been caused by unintended consequences from the US Government shutdown.
Running out of money, the FDA prioritised companies that had paid a fee, Motif hadn't and was pushed down the line. By way of keeping the ball in the air a CLR was issued to buy time, but to ensure a simple resolution they targeted the main USP of Iclaprim as a reason for needing more information... so far not good but not devastating.
What they didn't anticipate was a huge sell-off by UK institutional investors thus jeopardising the whole company and a valuable new antibiotic in the process. Lumsden needs to get back to the FDA on Monday morning and tell them he needs a quick decision or the whole project could fail. The FDA will not look good if they kill off a new, much-needed antibiotic because they made a poor scheduling decision. And even if it is bought by another company, how will they then approve it without new trials and a huge waste of more money? They can hardly say it's all OK now an American company has bought the dregs of the company we killed off because we couldn't meet our own statutory time frames.
In any other circumstances a new drug like this could have cost $Bns to develop, everyone is desperate for new antibiotics and to treat the final hurdle in such a cavalier way and to simply issue a letter is frankly amateurish by the FDA
Pizzed off LTH