The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Thordon: Many thanks indeed for your fantastic listing of products. A great service to us all. Brilliant work!
Unlike you, I'm slightly late to the party, but regard ITX as more or less bullet-proofed. As I said in a previous posting, I regard this as a Warren Buffet type investment and I shall continue to hold for many years as the potential is so great. The Company has stated that, in years to come, it may see something like $75M of revenue per annum. If we call that a profit of £30M p.a., a normalish P:E of 15 would give an SP of over £1.00. That would be worth waiting for! GLA.
MIKODX: I think the issue for government ref. concommitant antibody testing and vaccine roll-out is that it does not want to introduce an extra layer into the challenge. The scientists will be screaming to have antibody tests done, particularly in view of the rapid mutation rate and the extension to the interval between first and second inoculations.
Gratifying to hear that ODX is working on the anterior nasal swab science for Avacta.
Fourfiguresbull: Indeed they can't. But, with BJ's nationalistic tendencies, that bodes very well indeed for any decent British-made LFTs that are awaiting the big Go-Go-Go. War-footing happening at long last with more Service personnel being recruited for roll-out of testing and vaccine. We really only need a modicum of patience, here, to see big returns for this decent company.
Not deliberately ramping, just anticipating a day when fair value will be reached. GLA.
GlossyCherry and JHolder: Well said! I'm gratified to hear that I'm not alone. I'm not resentful at being played by the MMs. Superb opportunity to build a bigger position in an undervalued company with significant potential. Best wishes everybody.
MIKODX: ODX has been one of my most perplexing investments. I've come to the conclusion that, without serious institutional support, the MMs are very much in control here. They know that the SP gyrations put folk on edge and they are very clever at shaking out weak hands.
On a balanced judgment of risk, I take account of CK's stance of avoiding over-promises. I take into account the near doubling of ODX's in-house staff. I take into account the duplex products of both antigen and antibody LFTs. I take into account ODX's ability to service international demand. I take into account the deplorable state of the UK as regards containing this virus and its highly transmissable variants, with only the poor quality Innova antigen LFT available at present. I take into account the huge stresses imposed upon agencies capable of delivering the vaccine and testing. I take into account the rather uncertain scenario regarding the roll-out of the AZN vaccine, with delays in bottling the vaccine, changing governmental advice about delaying second inoculation and the immunological uncertainties implied by this.
Thus, on any rational basis, the indications are that the need for both antigen and antibody LFTs has increased dramatically. Why, oh why then, does our SP decline by 6%? My balanced judgment, therefore (FWIW), is that any weakness in worth buying into, despite wobbly sentiment and MM's clever tricks. GLA and please keep safe.
AfamaMan: We can't be sure of anything. It is, however, very likely that vaccination WILL suppress the transmissability. There are some who take an either/or approach to strategies to suppress this virus. As we are beyond tipping point, we will need everything in our arsenal. This will include mass inoculation and antigen testing and quarantine measures. Your point about "we need clear messaging on that" sounds loaded to me. You could also apply a similar "clear message" to antigen testing: "Look folks, a negative test only means that you were NOT infected at the exact moment of the test. Oh, and by-the-way, with present testing, the result is only about 58% accurate."
That's exactly why the govt has at last got the plot about raising the bar on S and S. There is a common delusion that science can provide absolute security. Please believe me when I say that, in biology/medicine, there is absolutely no such thing as "always" or "never". Nature does not work like that. So, it's a matter of risk management and the more intelligent will know how to respond for their own and everyone else's sake. A lot of this is down to us, folks. Please be smart.
Some very interesting posts today. Owing to staggeringly incompetent and ideological thinking by government, I regret we are heading for :
1) Imminent collapse of the NHS's capacity to handle serious Covid-19 cases.
2) Total lock-down, although the govt may finesse this with extension of their Tier system.
The ideology of the govt is that it can "win" with a down-to-the-wire, horn-locking confrontation. They do not have the wit to understand that you cannot negotiate with a rapidly mutating virus. Owing to an almost complete lack of scientific understanding, the govt cannot grasp that, by the time you get to "tipping-points", it is already too late. We are beyond that tipping-point. I predict that:
1) We will see patients turned away from hospitals.
2) Ambulance crews/front-line A and E staff will have to perform triage; those deemed less in danger will be sent to the Nightingale centres.
3) With medical/nursing staff pushed beyond limits, medical teams from Army and Air Force will staff these centres.
4) Rapid training of Armed Forces personnel to administer testing and vaccines.
5) Ancillary ambulance services and first-aid personnel such as St. John's will need to be recruited.
There is much mis-understanding about what is achievable. THE priority is SUPPRESSION of viral transmission. Whilst vaccination cannot eradicate the virus any time soon, if ever, vaccinated people will mount a rapid and hopefully largely effective immune response. So, even if they become temporary carriers, the transmissability of the virus will become notably suppressed and abbreviated. This is exactly how the traditional vaccines such as MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) work. In themselves, these diseases are largely non-fatal, BUT, in rare cases, infection can lead to serious consequences(pan-encephalitis from Measles; infection of pregnant women with Rubella leading to major birth defects).
The aim (largely achieved with MMR) is to inoculate a high enough % of the population to suppress transmissability- so called herd immunity. If you can suppress transmissability, you also suppress the mutation rate of the virus. The virus can only mutate as it is reproduced in the victim's living cells. Outside of living tissue, the virus is latent. It is a parasite which can only feed off its victims.
I hope that the intelligent folk on this board will readily understand that Covid-19 is capricious. Its short and long-term effects are NOT predictable. Even though we live in a fragmented society where individualism seems paramount (Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society"), any consideration of the PUBLIC good might suggest we respect the needs of our fellow men and women in suppressing the widespread health and economic disaster that confronts us. New Year is a good time to wish better health for everyone. Keep safe, best wishes.
jdt1990: I listened very carefully to both Pascal Soriot and Matt H. on Radio 4 this morning at 8am. I came away thinking that Matt H. is not very bright. He displayed the shallow triumphalism common among members of the Cabinet. I just think that he's incapable of considering two or more major priorities at once. He did not mention testing at all.
I've said before quite recently on this board that the government should have put rapid antigen LFD testing on a War-footing months ago. Despite Matt H.'s dimness, I do detect that they have at at last begun to get the plot. The December 28th "bidstats" protocol repeatedly used the words "emergency situation", to facilitate the requisitioning of a variety of production machinery and raw materials at the greatest speed, thereby avoiding unnecessary bureaucratic delay.
Recently I heard a headmaster of a 1200 pupil secondary school saying that his school would need 20 people to supervise the antigen testing of the students. Self administered LFTs, under sensible supervision, and throat/anterior nasal NOT the ghastly naso-pharygeal swabbing (the govt has acknowledged this) looks to be an intelligent solution. Once students have self-administered under supervision, repeat testing becomes much easier for everybody. I note that the Abbott antigen LFT instructions are given on line and this, again, sounds like a sensible solution for self-administration by the general public.
Whilst I have little faith in our politicians and am disappointed that the scientists seem incapable of demanding the obvious DUAL priorities of BOTH vaccination AND rapid LFD testing on a nationwide basis, I do believe that the massive health and economic imperatives will impose some sort of coherent plan. Otherwise, God help us.
Basscadet: There's no question about the original derivation of the the term QNED and it meant Quantum Nanorod Light Emitting Diode (ref: OLEDNet; ZDNet Korea; UBS Research) as talked about by Samsung.
Samsung must be in a bit of a muddle in not registering the term, as they did for QLED in July, 2016. LG have stolen a march on Samsung and cleverly modified the original meaning to Quantum Nanocell Emitting Diode. The original Samsung concept explicitly used nanorods sprayed on with TFT (Thin Film Technology). From the sound of it, LG's QNED does not use rods. Thanks for explaining the difference.
Equali and others: Most intrigued to hear of LG using the name QNED (Quantum Nanorod Emitting Diode). As we all know, Samsung is fighting three law suits in the US: ours in East Texas; a second in West Texas and a recently announced third.
I have a copy of the principal Patent at the centre of our law suit in front of me and, as I've said before, this Patent appears both fundamental as far as the molecular seeding process is concerned (size and purity included), and also comprehensive in terms of what structural shapes may emanate from the process and I quote from the Patent:
"Nanoparticle shape: The shape of the the nanoparticle produced according to embodiments of the present invention may be spherical. In other embodiments, the nanoparticle has the shape of a rod, disc, tetrapod or star."
Thus, it will be most interesting to know whether LG's claim on the name QNED ( the name QLED was registered to Samsung Electronics on 27/6/16) and any subsequent production relies on the crucial Nano Patent. As many here know, LG rejected the Nano/Dow QDots after failures with red-bleeding in early 2015. LG have majored on OLED ever since. I understand that one of the Quantum Nanorod gurus is Professor Moonsub Shim at the University of Minnesota, USA. Interestingly, some of his academic work has had financial backing from Dow Chemical.
Combine all this with the rather strange tension between Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display (S.E. owns 80% of S.D.) in that S.E. is not keen on QD-OLED, but S.D. is converting its LCD production lines in L8 Fab in Tangjong, South Korea, to QD-OLED and plans to convert all its 8-Gen LCD lines to QD-OLED. S.D.'s customers include TCL ( in whom Samsung has a major investment), Sony and Panasonic. TCL is scheduled to introduce its QD-OLED products at IFA in September, 2021.
S.E., with their preference for QNED, is said to be concentrating on a major splash of its QNED products in 2022, but now we have LG in the mix !! Anything to do with Samsung is Machiavellian to say the least. Watch this space for more smoke and mirrors!
Scotlouie, researcher1, Morgank, hooray, MissBMW, BOJO2020 and other good folk: Thanks so much for your encouraging remarks and observations. It's interesting and gratifying that quality companies tend to pull in quality investors and the bulletin boards then reflect that intelligence and decency. I've been in AGL for quite a while and it's my worst performing asset by a long shout. I made the mistake of over-commitment in the first instance and then chasing a falling knife as Jupiter pulled out. I'm a retired medic, so follow the science, attended the AGM on October 30th, 2019 and reported back to the ADVFN board.
I like Newland and he is very responsive to direct emails. I like the fact that he both a Cambridge graduate (engineering) and a chartered accountant. He has been very astute in de-risking the FDA de-Novo application with the Q and A. Once AGL gains FDA approval, I do hope he forges stronger links with Abbott. From what he said at the 2019 AGM ( and I can tell you we gave the Board quite a grilling), he would not grant any one collaborator exclusivity. His eventual ambition is to gain Nasdaq listing as you all know. His vision is for a $5 Billion dollar market-cap for AGL. I do believe that FDA approval would lead to several US majors courting AGL.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on! Very best wishes to you all. Keep safe and thanks again.
Wyndrum: I am sad for you that your AVCT investment has been so fraught. I do hope that you may feel able to wait a little and see how BAMS and AVCT's LFT develops.
OK it's anecdotal, but I know people who have already had the first dose of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine. Our local Baptist Church, a new building with good car-park, has unanimously voted to devote itself to being a vaccine station. I know former nurses and docs who have volunteered to man these stations. I have volunteered myself to the local secondary school for antigen testing the students.
For the UK, this is all about politics now and the machinery IS being cranked up for a tandem roll-out of vaccine and LFD testing. The AZN/Jenner Institute vaccine is almost certain to get approval this week. I believe that AVCT and ODX will sell everything they can make. There is a massive economic imperative to get this virus contained.
jdt1990: I have really appreciated your intelligent, balanced posts. You and some other good posters today have raised the quality here by a mile. Thank you very much.
My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that the political agenda will, with a Brexit deal done, change massively over the next few months. It is deeply regrettable that the government did not put antigen testing on a War-footing months ago. Instead of pandering to their sleazy chums, they should have sought out the British diagnostic companies and given these every hand-up they could, facilitating research, development, manufacturing capacity, etc. Any infrastructure usable for mass testing would then have been primed for vaccine roll-out.
Anyway, it would appear from comments by Ophidian ( I am deeply saddened that he has been trolled and he has withdrawn from this board) that Porton Down has become deeply dissatisfied with the Innova tests and had therefore put the skids under government to encourage other higher quality antigen tests. Government has, I think, at last got the plot. Belatedly, it will now be facilitating both the vaccine roll-out and high quality antigen and antibody LFD testing. There is no way that Johnson will neglect a company such as AVCT with its main facility in Wetherby, a regional target for so-called "levelling up", and a company that is perfectly capable of delivering a major component of what this country needs.
I do not believe that we can blame AS for a mis-step on saliva testing. He has indicated to us that the conversion of the AVCT technology to anterior-nasal swabbing is going well. Timeline on this conversion is unsure, but I anticipate a statement in mid to late January.
Thus, to my mind, antigen LFD testing will increase seriously in the coming months. I absolutely agree that AS has every right to aim for the best possible quality. So much depends on Affimers being perceived as a top-flight product. A major flop now would have disastrous reputational consequences for Affimer applications in other medical applications.
Thus, I am optimistic for the the next several months. I am very optimistic in the much longer term regarding pre|CISION.
Declaration: I hold both AVCT and ODX and regard the simplistic binary as deeply unintelligent. Status: retired medic.
Above all, wishing health and happiness to all. Please keep safe. The outlook for 2021 is optimistic.
Basscadet: I agree. Quietly, I have never given up on the Apple collaboration. Tim Cook, their CEO, is incredibly smart and has said several times that "We at Apple always take the long view." That was confirmed by they not seeking financial redress for their investment in the new plant at Runcorn. For a Company as rich as Apple, why not wait for another day: some millions of $ is pocket change. They would have sussed out the intellectual talent at Nano and Nigel Pickett in particular is world class, comparable to the very bright Dr Charlie Hotz of Nanosys.
In latter 2016 into early 2017, the Lithium market went through a temporary uplift, sparked presumably by the slowly increasing interest in EVs. Perhaps the influence of Trump, as a climate change denier, quashed that. With Tesla on a roll and all things ecological brought back into focus, the Lithium and EV market is now in uplift.
Whilst I agree, BTB, that Level 5 autonomous vehicles may take considerably longer to evolve than predicted, and may even never catch on, I do believe that there will be a thrust towards smarter, and safer, motor vehicle technology and that will include infra-red sensors. I am not going to bank this thought as a sure-fire investment case as far as Nano is concerned, but Dr Chris Richards' share purchase is perhaps a timely indicator. He will know exactly the quality and potential of the STmicro collaboration.
GLA. Health and happiness to everyone for Christmas and 2021.
Thank you Chilting and hello to you, Thordon. I am most grateful for your highly intelligent, always polite, inputs. The bio-degradable plastics potential is on my radar as "something to be wished for". I'm not going to count it in just yet, but, of course, it would be totally transformational for ITX and potentially significant for the world in view of the travesty of injury to marine life, and other ecological downsides, to which Sir David Attenborough has drawn alarmed attention.
Thank you and looking towards a very promising long-term outlook for ITX.
Wololol: Thank you and I know that you are a real stalwart both here and on the ADVFN board. Thank you for your further information within your most recent post.
I like to make balanced judgments and I'm struggling to find significant downside arguments against ITX. I would be concerned if this was a "blue-sky" project, with good ideas, but no revenue. We see this a lot in the pharma/biotech/special materials/oilers/miners space. That is absolutely not the case with ITX and that's what surprises me about the very undervalued SP. Again, if ITX's share issue was in the billions of shares, I would be a bit concerned, but, with just 432M shares, loose shares can be snapped up quite quickly and the SP can march on, even if the spreads widen.
I regard this as my second Warren Buffett style investment. My first is up 320% since I invested heavily in May. In that instance, I looked diligently for the downside and found none and I came to the conclusion it was very de-risked and way under the radar. I do believe that ITX is in a similarly de-risked category and am happy to wait for the market to catch-on and re-rate its valuation.
GLA and keep safe. Thanks to all.
AJP08, Chilting and others. Very gratifying to hear your views on this very decent and polite board. Good on yer AJP08 for buying your 400,000 shares today. I did a 200,000 purchase yesterday and noticed that today's price was just that little bit higher (1.94 vs. 1.86). On Monday, I could have bought 800,000 shares in one slug, so things are obviously tightening and the loose shares are being scooped up.
I've been slowly accumulating and have just recommended ITX to a very experienced ex-Warburg trader. I just think that, with CAGR figures as they are, ITX is VERY undervalued and very much below the radar. With $2.2M from the cash-call in July, plus the $0.2M as furlough payment from the US Treasury, ITX looks well set and unlikely to need a near-term further cash-call.
This may well be slow burn, but patience is likely to pay off. The SP has remained steady in a period of consolidation and that tells me that the investors here are for the long-term on the whole. I would like to see some more frequent RNSs as we were receiving them several months ago, but I'm not perturbed by this.
I believe that the trend for eco-products is our friend here and that will not reverse. We have some degree of IP protection. We have US $ denominated accounting and sales. We have a new sales director. There is a vision of further product development. I'm not going to make any rash prediction on the SP, but I do think that, one day, ITX will be taken out by a major.
Thanks to all and every wish for health and happiness for Christmas and 2021.
Thanks once again to all posters to this board. Great news that Apple is moving into the EV market. KC doing a brilliant job promoting EMH to the US markets. Very exciting times indeed. GLA and thanks again. Health and happiness to everyone for Christmas and 2021.
Zeratul: Welcome aboard! I, too, hold both ZNWD and EMH. My calculations were a bit disturbed by coming to know about the Vulcan geothermal Lithium prospect in the Upper Rhine Valley. Although geothermal has very low carbon footprint, I have subsequently heard that there are concerns about seismic disturbance. We wait to see. The only other viable competition is SAV's site in Portugal and the Rio Tinto site in Serbia. Rio Tinto has already committed $200M to that development. Serbia is aiming to become a member of the EU in 2025
ZNWD has, in my view, a very capable team, headed up by Anton du Plessis, and well supported by bods from the highly regarded Freiburg mining culture. Du Plessis has strong connections in the financial world.
Thanks for your link to the Daimler-Benz announcements. I was waiting for something from them as they seemed a little behind the curve- but obviously not!
I invested in ZNWD from the get-go. I think that its Lithium prospects may do well, running in tandem with the now separate Erris Gold prospect near Loch Tay, which has high Au yields and a potential of 250,000 oz of Au. We await the official IPO of the Erris Gold share. Good luck !