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So…..Radoff now over 20%……wonder what his plan is……

Yes I am. The Thai stock market bounced yesterday after the General Election. We need one of those in UK….

Would anyone care to speculate about the “novel co-dosing approach” for SC134 targeting SCLC?

Is there a patent for this exciting novelty?

Good post, Bermuda, fleshing out the details of the upfront workload. I’d guess some of these items may generate RNS updates.

You also make a very important point here, that some have simply glossed over in their rush to create negatives and generate an entry point:

“ Most of the discussions seem to assume that Scancell will either have to have a massive raise or massive deal to fund the trial, but they don't need to have all the funding up front and nor will all the study centres open at the same time. They could simply raise enough to start the trial and the deal or further funding could come further down the line. There are so many possibilities and permutations in terms of funding, collaborations, deals etc. that it's hard to call.”

I suspect that the costs are likely to be in the ballpark of c.£40mn, mostly incurred on the first 2-3 years. So perhaps £15-20 mn tops for the first year. That isn’t a tough ask given the options at their disposal - and may be roughly matched by milestones on the two Genmab deals. And I also wonder whether renegotiating those deals could generate some material cash (you’ll recall they are back-end loaded).

Correct analysis, Ray. Getting regulatory approval for the trials is already well underway in multiple jurisdictions. Getting breakthrough designation in the USA will only accelerate that.

Once the trial is operating, the ball is mostly in the hands of the medical doctors who lead the trial, at least until the point where they unblind. Scancell have little to do but pay and wait.

As we know, they have delayed Modi1 for two reasons: getting a more mature data set and concentrating resources on regulatory approvals for the trials. When the iSCIB1+ trial is up and running in the summer, expect the focus to switch back….

Liz Truss? You kept that quiet……😂😉

FYI, FA, I made a very similar point to one of the analysts today. There is a risk of a surprise bid at a big premium that would be difficult to defend if analysts have been saying it is worth eg 37p a share and it has been trading at a lot less. At some point the valuation gap will be closed by one means or another - and I’d like to think specialist analysts and funds will do this in the coming months before the company and shareholders get shocked into surrendering too cheaply.

It is fair to say that Starmer and Co are more competent than the Labour alternatives. But that won't stop them being slung out and replaced by a team with 5 GSEs between them.....Only if there is a General Election can proper competent government be restored.

Tf, until yesterday I’d have agreed. But the Cancer Strategy just published shows clearly that Streeting is more interested in the novelty of Moderna’s personalised approach than in treating cancer for the masses in a cost-effective way.

Paradoxically, we may find Scancell gets a better hearing in the USA than in the UK, because Kennedy will likely be more against personalised mRNA vaccines than DNA treatments.

In addition, we may be seeing a changing of the guard in the Labour government in the UK with Starmer and his acolytes (like Reeves) getting binned and Angela Rayner and Lucy Powell taking over. Streeting will be marginalised and will lose his job. Further in the mire for the UK, but perhaps better for Scancell?

You’ll have noted that, in last week’s presentation, Phil was at particular pains to point out that the iSCIB1+ results are at least as good as Moderna’s personalised results but at a fraction of the cost, a fraction of the faff and a fraction of the time.

Scancell will find a way to market, if not through Moderna then via one of their competitors. And if we can get Modi1 into the CVP programme as well as iSCIB1+ for the next phase, the cost-effectiveness should be clear.

However, this government appears to be populated by stupid people who don’t act in the public interest and are open to “bribery”, so one can’t rule out big pharma lobbyists “doing an Epstein” and finding weak spots…….

No worries, roses. 👍

Roses,

1. I wasn’t making a comparison - I was simply saying what made me consider the question.

2. I stated the Board control half the shares so are much better- positioned than a Board controlling 20%.

3. The key point is that SOMEBODY might make an UNEXPECTED pre-emptive offer for Scancell at a price substantially above the market price in an attempt to control the IP from a position where they wouldn’t be favoured in a normal friendly deal. The stakes are very high for some of the companies approaching patent cliffs - and for most of them the odd £1bn here or there isn’t material. There is no doubt that if a global pharma made an indicative bid at a multiple of the market price, that approach would need to be announced.

Cronin and the Board would have no alternative - the Nomad would have insisted.

The share price rise this week should be investigated, as someone seems to have traded on the knowledge of an announcement coming out.

Whether the timing suited some is by the by…….the company is finally in play and the Board controls only about 20%. So the market will decide - the question is how many industry players are there who would want the company…..

Another company I hold has just received an unsolicited takeover bid today at a level which looks substantially too low but is nevertheless termed an offer and added to what is a surprisingly-long list of London-listed companies that are currently the subject of bids.

In that case (Cyanconnode) the Board members speak for around 20% of the stock, so they are much more vulnerable than Scancell is…..but, even with around half the shares spoken for by the Board, Scancell is not immune from an opportunistic bid from a bidder trying to steal a march on its competitors and lock up Scancell’s assets before either the company develops them itself or a pharma competitor swoops in..

For example, could Vulpes and Lindy be tempted by an offer of 60-70p and peeled away from other shareholders?

I have no idea, but I hope the company has sound defences and puts all the price-sensitive info into the market in a timely manner, so that the market price can quickly move to track what is likely to be a fast-moving situation as news points are reached. I think the London market for smallcaps is so misvalued at present that bids are a serious threat.

As I said 14 hours ago…..

“ Cronin is now 70.

A monetisation event will be coming soon, even if he isn’t around to see it…….”

His task is now very simple - find other bidders and mount a proper defence that creates an exit at or above fair value. I was told by one of his former colleagues on the board some years ago now that “this is a product that sells itself”…….and I expect us to discover whether that is still true……

Indeed we were. I sold a few at 14p. Before that I sold a few at 24.35 (an intraday high)

I would think that a bid midway between those two levels (c.19p) would stand a fair chance of success but not at half the price - they are nowhere near the level that could get shareholder support, I think.

Nowhere near enough. Needs to be 15p or more.

Correct. The name of the game is to induce people to sell.....hence fixing the close high last night to create a drop today. Then try the opposite. Etc

Its all about the number you hold (as someone once said).

At some point, if they can persuade traders into the closing auction to "offer above the market" in size, they'll probably take a bunch out that way.

Thanks for that, Chelsea. The politics of those aspects are very clear: earlier detection for at-risk groups and under-served communities. But that cannot be all there is - finding cancer earlier is only half the remedy .. ...they need to cure it, when found.

The CVLP strategy must also be covered.

This is a reasonably interesting article on cancer care in Denmark (Genmab’s home country):

https://news.sky.com/story/denmark-has-become-a-cancer-pioneer-this-is-why-uk-is-lagging-behind-13501108

Towards the end it states that England’s long-awaited cancer care plan will be published on Wednesday. I rather hope that contains some matters of relevance…..