Member Info for dustofnations

Ian will be focussed on non-challenge study aspects of the business. You can get some additional context on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hvivo_newhire-growingteam-hvo-activity-7185920971818586113-hFFA

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In his new role at hVIVO, Ian will be responsible for targeting non-challenge studies (Phase II full service), site services (Phase II-III), and virology laboratory services, and he will play a key role in diversifying and expanding hVIVO’s portfolio of services in these areas.

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Egle Pavyde also celebrated his return on LinkedIn, so it all seems fine.

I suspect this hire is part of pursuing the strategic expansion of the non-challenge study service aspects of the business that Mo has touched on a few times. He believes it will be highly synergistic, allowing cross-selling of challenge studies in a seamless way.

Probably just something to do with your broker taking a while to do the necessary administrative actions.

My Interactive Investor excess shares only just came through a very short while ago.

Fyoz - I agree, I think the algorithm used by the open offer itself encourages people to apply for greater excess (by rewarding larger excess applications in the case of a scaleback). At least if I understand what they've written correctly.

Whereas when the 100% cap is hit, IMO, brokers should consider more factors, such as how large a holder's original shareholding is, fully fill modest applications first, etc.

Most retail investors are hidden behind a broker nominee, so the company only sees a single account from your broker that aggregates everyone together (i.e. thousands of accounts).

As far as I am aware, the broker has the ability to distribute that (aggregated) excess allotment amongst their retail nominee accounts according to their own procedures/algorithms. So what you get might not precisely match the methodology described in the circular because of your own broker's procedures.

Mr. Singh always feels the need to latch onto new tangential topics where he believes he may get some purchase, having been thoroughly debunked.

His behaviour is definitional Sealioning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

Demanding evidence and debate, faux expressions of 'concern' and civility, filling the boards with bad-faith nonsense designed to exclude beneficial conversation.

Sealion Singh outwardly humiliates himself on a frequent basis, but is undeterred from his mission.

For example: Air pollution is well demonstrated in the literature to be a significant cause of asthma exacerbations.

Ideally, you would want to control the quality of the air participants breathe during a pioneer/challenge clinical study, given asthma is a respiratory condition.

Outside of a challenge model in an advanced facility such as those offered by hVivo that is very difficult to achieve, given this is an ambient factor that one cannot control (e.g. traffic, poor indoor air quality, etc).

Here's a meta-analysis:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00302-3/fulltext

You will find numerous studies over decades showing this. There is nothing to argue about.

The team have mentioned this is an area of interest for them to get into, regarding challenge studies.

Yet Sealion Singh will continue on arguing regardless, because it's his job. He has not even the most rotten of wooden legs to stand on. He's the equivalent of a pub bore talking over everyone else.

Sealion Singh doesn't deserve the expertise or insight of this group; he humiliates himself with his lack of knowledge of science, finance, business, and accounting.

For example, Sealion Singh doesn't seem to understand how fixed instruments work.

Sealion Singh has more than earned his place on my filter list, and no doubt his various aliases shall join eventually.

Hope nobody was getting a high blood pressure from some of the nonsense posted implying that the OO would be undersubscribed and the team were scrambling!

In the last raise, the results were announced a short while after 15:30. There's probably a variety of administrative stuff that needs to be achieved before the RNS is released, so it will vary depending on procedures/timing, etc.

My understanding is that Valkor are pursuing *both* surface and subsurface approaches in parallel with different partners in different areas.

Trio Petroleum and Lafayette Energy are funding partners on the downhole project;

Ecoteq + private financiers on the surface tar sands project.

As you say, Valkor seem to be struggling to finance either initiative. Which is odd, given the amount of money sloshing around from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Huff n' puff is injecting steam (water) into the subsurface to heat and liquify the solid bitumen. In later phases, they say they will inject CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which will generate "low CO2 oil" as much of the CO2 remains in the subsurface. It sounds like an accounting trick, doesn't it (too good to be true)...

I agree that the path is long for either Utah project. In theory, the downhole project should be very simple, but due to Hoodoo, they're likely to be embroiled in legal shenanigans for years.

A shame, but I've personally put Utah into the "bonus if it happens" category.

Well, Mr Singh, your response amply demonstrates that you have no domain expertise to make sensible comment on either the business model nor the biotechnology aspects. And you have subpar reading comprehension skills.

I'll explain it in very basic terms given your simple-minded nature.

Many clinical trials are disrupted by participants not being in a controlled environment, this is because statistical "noise" is introduced into the data by uncontrolled variables which are difficult to eliminate without greatly increasing the size of the trial and/or trying to control participant behaviour (which is difficult).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding

This is especially true of environmental and dietary factors, which are very important in autoimmune challenge trials. For example, if one is doing an asthma human challenge trial, then it is very obvious that air pollution is a highly salient factor.

The inflammatory markers that would be observed during an autoimmune challenge trial are quite fast acting and could easily be captured during the normal challenge trial period (up to 14 days). As you would expect, the immune system is very capable of acting quickly, especially the inflammatory part, which is the "first responder".

Other institutions already do such autoimmune challenge trials, but on a much smaller scale (e.g. a handful of participants at universities). This is fine for pioneer studies, but doesn't have the statistical power required for progressing to the next phases of clinical trials.

Autoimmune disease is a huge source of morbidity and it is notoriously difficult to study. There is a lot of unmet need. Hence, it is likely to be an excellent new area that HVO could grow into in future, whilst making use of their current facilities.

With that, we can dismiss yet another foolish screed by someone unwisely gambling against HVO.

An excellent presentation.

I was delighted to have my question about challenge trials for non-infectious disease answered in so much detail by Mo — thanks, Mo, as always. My example was autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis, but Mo also mentioned asthma and allergies.

Ultimately, there is a rich vein of data to be collected by monitoring inflammatory markets and other biometrics in response to therapeutics (and possibly challenges by allergens).

In the real world, trials are often confounded by environmental factors and the lack of continuous data collection on volunteers (e.g. did the patient breathe in some polluted air; did the patient eat something that triggered them; etc). Having a strictly controlled climate and diet controlled environment with continuous biometric monitoring would provide much better datasets!

Mo's answer was, to paraphrase: we're focussing on our core competency of infectious disease for now, but non-infectious challenge trials are a promising area of growth we could branch into in the future.

It was a wonderful answer; it shows forward thinking and planning from the team, yet acknowledges that there's current still plenty of untapped demand in the pathogen-based human challenge trial market to address.

My only minor nit is that I'd have loved a more substantial special dividend on top of the nominal dividend; but let's see what/who they acquire with circa £40m cash.

(p.s. I also was glad to hear that they're putting the cash into instruments that are achieving a decent yield of 5%+ — like UK Govt gilts or similar).

AIUI, you generally need a direct relationship with a broker to be invited to participate in a traditional placing.

Typically, those are people who are HNW, institutional investors, etc. I'm not sure whether placing shares can go in an ISA, whereas OO definitely can — I think you may also need to be classified as a sophisticated investor depending on specifics.

Hence, employees who wanted to participate using their ISA were likely best served going in the OO. Remembering that they committed before the rescheduling.

As a final point, some of the staff participating were either participating for the first time, or taking well in excess of their OO entitlement. They potentially would have fallen short of their stated figures if they relied upon the OO. This would have been negative PR. For example, Vicky had no opportunities to buy shares until now, and hence her OO entitlement would have been zero.

Incidentally, getting around these annoyances are where platforms like PrimaryBid are useful. They allow retail investors participate in the directly in placings, and it is now possible to subscribe inside of an ISA (unlike previously). It is also far cheaper than an OO to run.

Something for them to bear in mind for future... But you would hope they won't need to!

Superb results, congratulations to Mo and the whole hVivo team. Delighted to have this share as a core holding in my portfolio.

Fyoz, your definition is correct. If, in aggregate, existing holders take up the entire OO share allocation available (i.e. including any excess redistributions), then it is considered fully subscribed.

The excess you achieve won't be known until 12th, AIUI.

I expect a good proportion of shareholders will take up their OO allocation, given one can sell a small tranche at ~1.35p today and buy back at the OO price of 1.25p — it's a not too difficult to see why that's an easier choice than in previous raises.

Of course, not everyone will be aware of the OO happening — or have small holdings where the trading fees and hassle are not worth it — so I imagine a modest excess will be available.

Will be glad to have this OO over and done with. Please deliver us some positive news, Jason & Co!

HallsWorthy: add to that list contracts for difference (CFD) and spread bet gamblers speculating on stocks such as HVO.

They typically leverage/gear heavily, which greatly amplifies small price movements into more significant gains or losses.

Hence, desperate CFD/SB traders tend to pop up on the bulletin boards spreading whatever FUD or ramp they believe benefits their trading position.

Trading short CFD/SBs on HVO right now is likely an extremely painful experience. How sad for them.

> The extended offer period was probably to help reduce downward pressure

It was so that people could make use of their new ISA allowance whilst factoring in broker deadlines; it says that clearly in the RNS announcing the extension.

I think you may be confusing SoftBank and Salesforce.

Jackg, they don't need the ship in ARA region until the POC and LONO starts, which will take a good few months after the signature of agreements with the counterparties due to the installation of the MMU, establishment of supply, remaining permits, etc.

I don't expect the vessel will be used for any kind of PR/signatures; it'll just be an RNS.

Thanks, elrico.

It's something I've been advocating to the team for a long time.

Unfortunately, the UK market has stultified in recent years and offers very poor valuations compared to our brethren in Europe and US. There are many macro factors that have caused that situation, but they are those that readers likely already well aware of.

There's been an influx of UK businesses dual listing (or re-listing) on the US stock markets to achieve a fairer valuation in addition to the extra visibility associated with listings there.

Of course, Amryt was one of those companies that went successfully down that path.

I'm not saying there's any urgency on the topic, but I do believe it should be considered in the medium-to-long term. Naturally, the team's focus should remain on continued excellent execution and offering world-class services to their customers.

Well done to the team. Another fantastic bit of recognition of their achievements.