The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
From the front page of today's D Tel:
... a government source says “It’s worth just reflecting that we've now got decent levels of immunity coming up across a lot of the population and the concept of herd immunity, it's not an all or nothing.
“It's how much immunity you have which resists the ability of the virus to spread. And so a lot of the reason we are kept down is because we got more immunity across the population and making it a bit more difficult for the virus to spread.”
Although earlier modelling from government scientists suggested that a summer spike would occur once restrictions are lifted in June, experts no longer believe that will happen, and now think even the winter rise will be mild.
The Government is keen for workers to abandon the culture of "presenteeism" where staff feel they must go into work, even if they feel sick, and may be contagious.
Documents released on Friday from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) say that, for adults, the majority of contacts (who the virus could be passed on to) are associated with work.
"The trajectory of the epidemic over the coming months is therefore likely to depend to a large extent on the scale of increase in workplace contacts," the document dated April 8 says.
So I guess with the government on wanting as much of a return to the workplace as possible and on the other hand Sage being concerned about workplace transmission, there will be a great deal of pressure on employers to ensure workers only attend if they are virus free. So could it just be that employee testing is also going to be a massive market for AVCT, certainly through the next winter? In addition to travel, sports events, entertainment etc. etc
[Interesting assertion earlier that a fact can be established simply on the basis of an opinion expressed by a person or persons unknown. I always thought facts were demonstrable by a process of evidence based proof? Silly me.]
Brilliant Celtics - really appreciate your contributions here. Please share with DHSC/PHE ;-)
That would make sense - one of the "20 distributors covering 25 European territories" quoted at the top of slide 20 in yesterday's presentation.
You could be right, though given AS is a rightly a stickler for doing things properly I do wonder whether he would prefer to press on with full self-use validation and CE marking. It would certainly help re Europe and the RoW!
So how do you account for AS saying toward the end of todays Q & A that they are
"... working in PARALLEL for CE marking for consumer self-testing..."
Great read / listen today though too many posts for me to take in! So just a couple of points / queries.
Interesting they're prepared to say they are thinking ahead to a commercial decision:
"As part of the collaboration between the two companies, Avacta and Mologic are also exploring the possibility of combining Avacta's spike antigen test with Mologic's nucleocapsid antigen test in a single device which would be a world first and has the potential to deliver the most sensitive rapid antigen test possible. The two companies will evaluate whether the two tests can be combined in a single device and then make a commercial decision on whether to pursue this second generation COVID-19 diagnostic."
I noted slide 22 in the presentation was headed
"In Discussion With Over 20 Distributors Covering 25 European Territories"
Distributors, not manufacturers, surely an interesting distinction?
And toward the end of the Q & A I thought I head AS say something like
"... working in PARALLEL for CE marking for consumer self-testing..."
Given he also said a bit earlier GAD have already done some initial production I wonder whether this ties in with there being some sort of large scale self-testing pilot in the offing - say at the World Snooker Tournament at the Crucible. Pure speculation on my part! And given the now low prevalence rates maybe they left that sort of thing a bit late?
Not worrying about the share price here - plenty of orders incoming to take care of that.
And please don't email Tony Han**** - the last person I'd like AVCT to get involved with!
Cheeseburger-gate was seemingly a Bell curve ball - I wonder whether he has been more of a delaying hindrance than a help. Interesting Lancet article.
You are very probably right and anyone suggesting otherwise is just being a big tease:-)
Depending on whether/what BOJO says about a sovereign LFT, we could also be in for another interesting opening tomorrow. Anyone for 'will it be us' - a mention for us. With an afternoon of FOMO to boot?
Great news today, but hardly surprising, hence the so far muted share reaction - a confirmation relief rally. Further patience will I am sure be rewarded with big steady rises to come, as orders roll in.
"Specificity seemed to be affimer's key strength. Is there even such a thing as a false false positive?" Presumably there could be ? Would it not be down to the PCR test showing up a 'false' long-tail non-infectious positive whereas AVCT's LFT did indeed correctly indicate a non-infectious sample?
"Agnostic Holder" - there's an interesting concept!
Longbull, the thing you raise about a scientist pivoting to supply chain manager caught my eye too, not so much because at first glance it might seem odd, but because I thought it very encouraging - that it was thought necessary such an individual should be selected to make the switch. As a fully qualified chemist before retirement I spent my working life in quality control / process development functions, all of which required a full knowledge of supply chain issues, the complexity of which can be considerable. It requires complete familiarity not just of the usages and supply of physical product, but perhaps more crucially imparting product knowledge.
What does the last bit of this sentence mean, where it says they are generating "Affimer® inhibitors of the spike-ACE2 interaction."?
"Avacta has generated a large number of Affimer® binders to the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein including Affimer® pairs for sandwich assays and Affimer® inhibitors of the spike-ACE2 interaction."
OK thanks Raprap - I think I was aware of that (!) and so I ought to have given a bit of thought to it. But when I do think about it, it then begs the question is the £8bn DPS set up to procure for professional use, self testing or any mix of both? I think the answer is, its too late at night for my small size brain to be puzzling over such things!
Unprecedented - things have evolved rapidly recently, pivoting in favour of self testing with the widely discredited Innova tests are being delivered in volume for home use. And yet AVCT is apparently at present are validating for professional use only. Something does not add up. Can you enlighten!
Thx - so definition of professional use is essentially the same for both UK & EU.
In the UK professional use seems allow for a very broad range of people to be trained up to supervise testing - volunteers at schools, etc, etc. Not being strictly restricted to medical professional use provides a sizeable market before a manufacturer gets into seeking self-test approval. Does anyone know whether the EU is similarly 'lax' in its definition of professional use?
Very well said Doggy100.
It often gets to the point where posters who make some really useful contributions, regularly digging out interesting and valuable stuff, on the other hand are responding so much to the sealions that they become almost indistinguishable from the real pains in the neck.
You calling my wife not normal or healthy Baffyman?
Its called a touch of the Stanley Unwins!
But you are right - it was a very interesting point - I hadn't clocked either that the only Affimers AVCT will make will be for the Diagnostics business and that Affimers to be made for Therapeutics side would be produced under contract by an outside manufacturer. So AVCT itself will not want to set itself up to do this since much more stringent process control conditions would be needed - a different standard of manufacturing would be required. Interesting implications maybe?
It makes me wonder whether this means the two sides of the business are therefore much more readily separable with the Diagnostics side licensed to use Affimer solely for in vivo diagnostics, paying a licence fee, royalties whatever and producing their own diagnostics Affimers.
It would presumably also make it easier for a pharma type acquirer, allowing them to buy the whole of AVCT to realise its therapeutics potential and then offload the diagnostics arm?
I'm sure someone will shoot me down if I'm wrong!
Not that I would want this to happen until much more of the pharma side of AVCT has been realised.