Member Info for extrader

And this is the rationale for Oxford's study :
.."'The aim of this trial is to find out what level of immune response - antibodies and T cells - we need in our bodies to prevent infection when healthy people are exposed to the virus. This is the immune response we then need to induce with a new vaccine.
'We have learned a lot about Covid over the past two years, but the emergence of new variants means that we will probably have to keep refining the vaccines. If we know what level of immune response we need the vaccine to induce it will make future vaccine development much quicker and much more efficient.'

Also worth noting that per the original April 21 news release
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-04-19-human-challenge-trial-launches-study-immune-response-covid-19
they expected to get the second phase underway 'by the summer of 2021', (where they're only now recruiting volunteers).

So we're not the only ones facing [ethical] headwinds !

If you look at the detail of the Oxford study, it appears to overlap significantly with hVivo/Imperial's, see
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-01-26-volunteers-needed-human-challenge-trial-study-immune-response-covid-19.

Started April 2021..."and is currently establishing the lowest dose of Wuhan virus which, in approximately 50% of people who have previously been naturally infected or vaccinated, can take hold and start replicating but produce little or no symptoms. [ Ed.: This AIUI is the characterisation stage ]

"In the second phase of the study, all participants will be infected with the standardised dose of virus which was established in phase one. " [Ed.: This AIUI is the 'challenge' phase, which I THINK we've done, results not published]

The significant difference - again AIUI - is that 'ours' is / was more of an ethical 'challenge' as the future Oxford volunteers will already have antibodies either from previous infection or from vaccination (type(s) not disclosed), whereas our lot didn't (I think).

I understand we'll be given summary results of Imperial/HIC-VAC's version of this trial tomorrow.

This is all very nuanced .
" I am a bear of very little brain , and long words bother me"

Hat tip to supernumerary for this gem :

Just been listening to PMQ reports - Boris is in trouble and really needs some red meat for the hounds.

"My earlier suggestion [ Ed.: that SRT seek exportcredit support for the MDA contract needed for Ecuador's new Galapagos-centred nature reserve . See https://www.dw.com/en/ecuador-expands-galapagos-marine-reserve/a-60436043]
was only half serious but the more I think about it, the more I like it. If Boris backed an MDM system for the Galapagos, he could burnish his image as a combination of David Attenborough (rescuing the oceans), Mother Teresa (helping the poor), Lord Nelson (sustaining Britain's proud maritime traditions), and Churchill (transatlantic cooperation). Throwing in a bit of 'win-win overseas aid' and 'levelling up the regions' as well, would produce a very welcome and highly newsworthy distraction from his current travails. It might even do the world some good.

Surely our chairman has a pol or two he could contact to push the idea upwards? Might be too late next week :¬).."

As it happens, SRT's MP is Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Watch this space !
;->

Confounded and DesertStar duly recc'd.

Confounded,

I'm not 'pushing negative sentiment', I'm an investor bemused by the continuing weakness in the share price over the last few months and disbelieving of the 'explanation' that it's all down to a disgruntled PI or II. People will be saying next that it's all down to those dastardly MMs...

I'm concerned enough to be trying to find out what - if anything - 'the market' knows that I don't. And CF's uncharacteristic 'radio silence' has - with respect - more effect on market sentiment than any PI's postings on a BB.

My interest should in itself tell you that, far from being 'on the wrong side' of a 15% move, I'm quite pleased at today's partial recovery. But I'd still like to know why the serious money hasn't moved in yet.

HTH

elrico,

I have no problem with you being a conduit and passing on in good faith to your subscribers snippets or insights that you've gleaned from your sources.
My gripe is that in this particular case your source was the Executive Chairman, who might reasonably have been expected to share this sort of positive news/commitment with ORPH's entire shareholder base, especially given recent 'radio silence' and a background of a declining share price.

HTH

Thanks Bazzaman

This was the response /news I was looking for.
Still not comfortable about learning this 'after the event' , from subscription-based sources, rather than 'planted' in the course of an open format Q and A, available to all...
Cheers

Apparently CF has been talking to TW (*************), hence this teaser :

.."Why no share buyback at Open Orphan?
Some folks are ****ed off at the share price and ask me why Open Orphan (ORPH) does not use some of its cash to buy back shares? I put this to Orphan’s boss Cathal Friel who says....."

and to LemmingInvestor
Hat tip to Judijudi on advfn
.."Anybody who is a subscriber to Lemming Investor/Small Company Champion already had the heads up on the share buy back scoop
https://smallcompanychampion.substack.com/p/open-orphan-plc-35a..."

Not impressed if CF has been releasing potentially price-sensitive info to tipsheets rather than via RNS.

Hi Millfield,

I don't think the situation you describe applies to SYME :

You're thinking of the situation described here https://www.fool.co.uk/2014/11/27/one-crucial-question-for-quindell-plc-iqe-plc-and-igas-energy-plc/. These are/were all AIM co's and the directors were reducing their direct holdings.

SYME isn't AIM; the loan pledge of 18% of SYME's shares was negotiated by 1AF2, for which AZ is only a director; this WAS duly RNS'd; and the share price didn't wilt, quite the opposite, in fact : it rose more than 10fold shortly after the shares were pledged.

The transaction certainly has a number of unusual features (esp. repayment terms), but not the ones you describe, AFAICS.

.."we have developed CHIM data it just hasn't been published yet..."

AFAIAA, hVivo has completed a characterisation study of the Wuhan virus and established the minimum dosage that will infect 50% of the volunteers who have received it....and it's the detailed results of that study that are awaited.

As I've said earlier, I'm more than happy (as a shareholder and citizen/taxpayer) to be corrected on this.

I hope to find out more from the Imperial/HIC-VAC focus group meeting on Thursday and will update accordingly.

No-one's suggesting that DIM is 'just a covid play', but having data about the pre-infection markers in the disease progression was noted by CF as increasing DIM's attractiveness to the wearables and medical markets.
If we haven't been able to develop CHIM data, that presumably no longer applies.

HTH

Thanks for what sounds like an informed view ;-> !
My related concern was that - if ORPH haven't got as far as the CHIMs yet - it might not have as much disease-progression data for DIM to commercialise as we might hope.
Is that concern also misplaced, in your view ?

TIA

Has ORPH's coronavirus CHIM boat sailed ?

Pfizer has today announced hxxps://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-initiate-study-evaluate-omicron-based

.."initiation of a clinical study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of an Omicron-based vaccine candidate in healthy adults 18 through 55 years of age. The study will have three cohorts examining different regimens of the current Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine or an Omicron-based vaccine.."

The cohorts will be 615 with 2 Pfizer jabs; 600 with 3 Pfizer jabs; and 205 vaccine-naive (ie unvaccinated)participants.

It's not clear whether this last 205 will have to be 'totally naive' ie never contracted covid.

AIUI, ORPH's studies are still stuck at the characterisation study stage, based on the Wuhan variant and 110 volunteers in the 18-30 age group and a decision hasn't yet been taken about expanding this to the (also somewhat overtaken) Delta variant...The CHIMs themselves seem to be somewhere in the long grass.

I'd love to be corrected on this.

I don't want to rain on the parade, but I think you're misreading this :

.."What is really interesting though is the statement about Sangha Mining Development interested in mining another iron ore deposit. Couldnt possibly be Zanaga .....could it !!!!!.."

All the IMF report says, AIUI, is that ZIOC/GLEN are hoping to mine one deposit...and Sangha ANOTHER. Not 'another in addition to its own'...

These are the under-litigation exSundance concessions upcountry from Zanaga on the Congo-Cameroon border.

https://www.mining.com/web/congo-republic-signs-deal-on-revoked-iron-ore-licenses-with-sangha-mining/

The government handed the licenses to Sangha Mining Development Sasu which is registered in the Congolese city of Pointe Noire.

Sangha Mining said on Saturday that it will invest $10 billion to develop the projects.

“We plan to start work in the fourth quarter 2021, with a plan to start exporting in 2023 and eventually have an annual production of over 100 million tonnes of iron ore,” Manuel Andre, the chief executive of Sangha, said at the signing ceremony on Saturday.

Sangha is a little-known company backed by Chinese investment which is embarking on its first mining project. Andre did not comment on how the investment would be financed.

The usual fantasy-land stuff, IMO.

Guys,

I'm not talking about the NHS ,or about how HMG has handled the pandemic, or about conspiracies. The clue is in the title.

You're both missing the point : these ONS statistics are specifically based on 'no underlying other causes'; ORPH's CHIMs are targeted at young healthy volunteers, for whom there is prima facie little risk ; my observation is that the CHIMs have been delayed because of agonising over the ethical risks of putting people in harm's way ...and that these concerns re potential harm have clearly FROM THIS LINK been overstated.

HTH

Should add that , of these, 'only' 3,774(22%) were in the 'under 65' age group. CHIMS are to be undertaken , we're told, on medically fit 18 - 30 year olds......

Here's an interesting stat from the ONS

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsfromcovid19withnootherunderlyingcauses

that appears to address the nuance between deaths FROM covid and deaths WITH covid, and cutting through all the guff about 'deaths within X days of a positive covid test' (which AIUI technically includes a completely unrelated cause of death eg a road traffic accident)....

Only about 17,000 deaths attributable to covid, in most cases it appears to have acted 'merely' as a contributor or accelerant to deaths from other underlying causes and pre-existing conditions.

Or, in the graphic but insensitive description out of Sweden, ' helps set fire to the tinder'.

Against this backdrop, the snail-like pace of ethical clearance for covid CHIMs is, on the face of it, particularly galling .

Ho hum

Today's FT headline not particularly encouraging :

Rising number of blank-cheque companies call it quits before listing
Spacs cancel IPO registrations in fresh sign of fading investor enthusiasm.

Ho hum

Dines might get a chance to earn his NED salary...

https://gb.wallmine.com/lse/zioc/officer/2019507/clinton-dines

.....Clinton James Dines is Non-Executive Independent Director of Zanaga Iron Ore Co Ltd. Clinton Dines has been involved in business in China since 1980, including senior positions with the Jardine Matheson Group, Santa Fe Transport Group and Asia Securities Venture Capital. In 1988 he joined BHP as their senior executive in China and, following the merger of BHP and Billiton in 2001, he became president, BHP Billiton China, a position from which he retired in 2009. ...

..Clinton is a fluent Mandarin speaker and after 14 years in Beijing relocated to Shanghai in late 2002 to run the merged and restructured BHP Billiton China operations from there. He was a prime mover in the establishment of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in China in 1993 and chaired that organisation again from 1998 to 2000. He is a Founding Governor of the Capital Club in Beijing, served as President of the Board of the Shanghai Community Sports Club for nearly a decade, was a founding Member of the Oriental Mining Club Board and has been involved in various charitable and not-for-profit organisations. In 2006, he was the only non-Chinese person invited by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to sit on the judging panel to select the design for the Beijing Olympic Medals and he was also named by the Australian Olympic Committee to be the Attaché to the Australian Olympic Team for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008....

etc, etc