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Actually my thoughts would be more like events earlier in the day (eg update followed by analyst briefing) …..followed by Board meeting…..followed by AGM.

Just on that topic, has anyone else wondered whether the AGM timing is significant? I don’t think I’ve ever been to one at 3pm on a Friday before…..

I doubt it, Chelsea. But the timing is significant in the wider context, being very shortly before some crucial upcoming strategic choices that will be made during Q1 next year. The Board is properly beefed-up and capable of taking the company in several alternative directions very rapidly.

My guess would be that they will be keen to monetise where possible but the focus will ge on retaining control of development and working with partners to provide financing for that, without issuing material numbers of new shares. I can see deals for further trials in which partners provide the finance in exchange for stakes (or rights of some sort) in each of the products and/or options to take such stakes.

Indeed. If you compare the management and advisor structure and personnel now, with what existed three years ago, you can clearly see that the company now has an A-team structure, instead of being an expanded “kitchen-table” outfit.

The reason for this is very clearly the clinical successes, that have yet to be numerically-quantified but are qualitatively obvious from all management signals, as well as the hiring.

The one thing that hasn’t quite changed yet is the share price…..but I don’t think there is very long to wait at all on that.

Good move. Lindy’s two hats were never sustainable at this point.

……”showing INCREDIBLE potential”……mmmm…….that is a very bullish adjective!

If you read this transcript, you’ll see that the industry has no idea what is in the Moderna contract with the government - and whether it extends beyond Covid and Flu vaccines.

This session should actually be a massive wake-up call for government - because they think the UK has gone massively backwards since 2020. In fact, if I was in government with responsibility for vaccine strategy, I would be sh***ing myself:

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/21939/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

In the context of this session, I think Vallance (who appeared a week later) got off far too lightly. I hope there is an absolute stack of follow-up on this!

This is also an interesting (though less directly-relevant) evidence session to the committee…….it makes one realise just what levels of luck were needed to get the vaccines developed for Covid……!!

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/21939/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

Perhaps someone with a higher scientific pay grade than me would like to look through the transcript of this week’s Lords Science and Technology Committee and the comments of Lord Vallance on this topic, which takes a tour through the state of UK science and the potential:

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/14940/html/

Disappointingly, no namecheck for Scancell - though there were a number of questions to Vallance that were quite penetrating and relevant. If I were Scancell’s PR, I’d be sending a summary of the upcoming results to every single member of that committee - and its Commons counterpart - as well as the health department.

In particular, the committee seemed concerned about how to build UK capabilities of scale and stop £200mn cap companies leaving the UK. This is an area (vaccines) that Vallance and his department (OLS) are directly responsible for (as the Committee repeatedly pointed out!).

Come on Brains……Rachel Reeves will never reach her tax take and growth objectives like that…..😉

My targets are the same as RuckRover’s £2-4 , though I missed his first eight years of “excitement” and so have an average in-price around Redmile’s (but sadly without the CLN kicker).

Still on-course for that, even with a year or so more delay than expected.

I have had some experience with a company that needed to guide shareholders on timelines without misleadingly them. We had a clear plan, with a clear technical timeframe so IF (and it was a big IF) we controlled all the variables, then the timeframe would be pretty well predictable. But we didn’t control everything……we had to contend with politics, government action/inaction, footdragging by state organisations, random unexpected geological factors and occasional equipment failures. And circumstances, opinions and the corporate context changed. The outcome has been that, nearly ten years on, one important event that we thought at one point would happen in 2015 has still not happened (though much has been done to monetise the benefits when it finally occurs!)

It is not dissimilar here. Management gives its best estimates of timings and events but then (as in life in general) “things happen”. But we also know that management are doing their best to deliver in a timely fashion. There have been very substantial upgrades in the board, advisers and staffing right across the company and all the controllables are being addressed. But they can’t control the rate at which patients present for the trials, they can’t control government actions (supportive or otherwise) and they can’t control investor sentiment and impatience.

And it is the latter which is the biggest problem, especially for those afflicted.

VD writes…..

“ I just find it increasingly difficult to understand why Scancell, with all the incredible data published so far, has failed to attract a deal……. If other companies get snapped up so early in their development are their products so superior ??

The ONLY HOPE on the horizon is the mystery mAb……”

…..and you wonder why I think it seems you are wanting failure? 🙄🤷‍♂️

1. Scancell hasn’t tried to “attract a deal” as yet. Why would they, until the results of the trials are out and the share price fairly reflects the value? The “deal” is 2025 business…..what they have been doing in 2024 is putting out groundbait, to ensure that all the right people have a heads-up and are watching for the data.

2. The fact that other companies want to sell out early is irrelevant. Scancell is in control of its own destiny for the next year or so, thanks to control over its shareholder register. No deal will be done unless Redmile, Vulpes and LD all consider that it is in the company’s best interests to sell - and my guess would be that they have rebuffed a number of proposals already, preferring to wait for the final trial data.

3. “Only hope”??? As Joe Biden might say, “Come on man!!🙄🙄”

I don’t see why one should assume that huge pharmas are forced to pick only one potential treatment. The fact that deals are done with others does not preclude deals being done with Scancell.

In particular, you have no basis whatsoever for thinking that Merck don’t think Scancell have potential…..although this is yet another of your posts that seems to be yearning for that outcome 🤔

Good spot. But it looks to me as if an original draft has simply been amended and I would read too much into it. However, an announcement prior to the presentation would certainly clarify matters.

I don’t expect to get one though……but it suggests they won’t simply be presenting the data that is already public domain and has been presented many times already.

Timed agenda is still there. Paston scheduled for 16.30 Basle time on 16th. Durrant not scheduled. Its a fuss about nothing.

Total planning to drill an elephant off Namibia….

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/its-an-elephant-totalenergies-next-namibia-probe-to-target-1-billion-barrel-resource/2-1-1719231

M&P plans:

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/french-player-lines-up-80-million-tanzania-drilling-campaign/2-1-1723281

You can trust me on this…..if the results are good then LD will hit all the buttons to get the story out. They have hired specialist advisers and they have specialist fund investors….and these folks: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/SCLP/update-from-iscib1-clinical-advisory-meeting/16582684

I have one or two contacts who may be able to raise the profile too.

Does anyone happen to know when parliamentary debates on related topics may be due? I think the government will need a major wake-up call to the effect that personalised vaccines (and the Manifest study aiming to resurrect an underperforming dead duck) are an enormous waste of public money …..and Wes Streeting needs to stop the NHS sucking up to them and letting them spend/waste NHS money and resources.

Jamboian,

I would think her focus would be on presenting the results to the market and the media in London and (for example) being available for TV interviews. The data will mostly speak for themselves when the audience is composed of scientists.

Chelsea,

I have established that the Crick study is only on personalised vaccines and, though Scancell tried to get involved, they were not allowed to because their vaccine is off the shelf.

I suspect someone somewhere in Crick has a massive conflict of interest - and is only interested in promoting personalised vaccines rather than actually improving patient outcomes…… 🤔

…..so it will be very interesting to see how they go about defending that position and continuing to encourage the public purse to pay for research into personalised vaccines, when the government and the NHS remains very cash-strapped and (we hope) a much more effective, cheaper and off-the-shelf vaccine treatment has announced completed trial results. 😏