The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
I think he is referencing a break out rather than a buy out… follows on from Zak calling out 3p end of month in his weekly tea leaf reading.
Given we are at c2.6p and have been in the c2p range before, break out was already happening imho…
We don’t know when there’ll be an update, could be tomorrow…could be April.
What we do know is that we are increasingly hearing positive soundbites…
Directors Talk interview 20/09.
02:05 - “We have a 95% sensitive test for the presence of CIZ1B and therefore able to detect very early stage 1 lung cancer”
03:43 - (referencing Bio-Techne) “Great endorsement and credibility that our assay works extremely well on their particular piece of equipment…”
07:29 - “complete clinical tests with our US partners”
November 9th on a Corepath video call - “…in the market in the very near term…”
January 10th - Cizzle on LinkedIn
“Our low-cost, highly effective blood test can detect CIZ1B…”
It can only be considered low cost if it works as high throughput, this suggests it does.
January 11th (in response to Cizzle LinkedIn note)
Corepath who have been doing the clinical testing…
Aamir Ehsan, MD
President/Medical Director, CorePath Laboratories. Certified in Hematopathology, Molecular Genetics & Blood Bank
2h
Stomp out Cancer
Hope and desire of all of us.
Some success and some not that much success. We have high hopes in CIZ1B and other biomarkers on horizon. Early detection is the key
Hoping tonight will give a decent forward looking view…can only recognise revenue over the length of the contract period so actuals might not show full picture (e.g. they might sign a 2 year CDMO deal, but can only recognise 1/4 of the revenue in the first 6 months), so hoping there’s a clear forward trading picture on both in flight signed contracts and pipeline…
Revenue is down from £2.9mn in the previous 6 months to £2.4m in FY23/24. Referencing H1 over H1 is only credible if there is seasonality.
It’s still heading in the right direction but more work needed to translate what seems to be a promising portfolio into £££ imho.
Did feel light on content…hopefully get more detail tonight, still feels some way to go to firing on all cylinders…
Had hoped for £4mn rev for 6 months but has gone backwards, h2 £2.9mn, h1 £2.4mn, wouldn’t expect seasonality particularly…
Cash runway down to 9 months.
Moving in right direction but slower than expected…
Interesting post LB…
“That is why we are transforming testing strategies; to help detect early-stage lung cancer. Our low-cost, highly effective blood test can detect CIZ1B, which is highly associated with lung cancer at its earliest stage”
Well…the only way it’s low cost is if it works on a high throughput platform… 😀
Reading through it does suggest there is a long way to go for Novelna, sample across 18 cancers, but only 440 total patients. Also curious to state 90%+ at stage 1, when there were 440 people in the study all confirmed with cancer (and typically don’t get diagnosed till later, granted breast cancer is picked up in 80% of cases at stage 1/2, but lung cancer is down at c 25%).
Feels like they are 5+ years away, but it’s a busy field and can think of another 5-6 trying to crack this nut - not aware of any as close to a market offering as Ciz (with high sensitivity/specificity) but does show competitive threats both through traditional scientific approaches aswell as AI/machine learning.
I think the volume is so low TT, it just seems to be PIs moving the deck chairs as they see short term potential elsewhere - saw 3-4 100k buys last week and then moved back out again when no news Mon/Tues this week…
Personally, would be gutted if an RNS landed and it opened at 6p, so willing to sit on my hands while it bounces around in its current range 🤷
Definitely think they could be better at comms VV, and agree some of the steps that aren’t RNSd are material such as clinical trial start, just accepting that it’s the lay of the land with this one…
He did mention completing the clinical trials in his Sept Directors Talk interview which would suggest they had started (but hadn’t RNS’d it) and in November stated they hoped to have it in the market in the very near term which would suggest they had gone (or were going) well, but all conjecture on our part…
“Very significant updates” I suspect means the next news we’ll get is the clinical data from the trial and that could be any point in the next few weeks, but there should in my mind also be significant updates around other areas (breast cancer, lft’s, commercial relationship with Bio-Techne, China etc…)…hopefully!
Just a waiting game…
With AS and DC sat on 4% and 6% of the company respectively, and if they believe in the outcome here (which you would assume they do given low salaries, Bio-Techne feedback, intention to launch in very near term etc…), you can understand why they will let the material news do the talking rather than trying to release “fluffy” RNS’s…
Not a share for those wanting a regular bone to be thrown their way…
Great posts Brondby…
I would have though once Corepath had completed testing, that wouldn’t need to be repeated for other labs - can see some sort of calibration, but if they are adhering to the Standard Operating Protocol I’m assuming they would be good to go (based on them being an accredited oncology lab).
On one of your other points, I did get in touch with Allan late last year re the continuing debate on the diagnostics reform bill (Verifying Accurate and Leading-edge IVCT [In Vitro Clinical Test] Development (VALID)), and he was obviously aware of it but wasn’t phased about it impacting their LDT strategy…
Think we are coming to an interesting period…as you say, LFT concurrent progression will be interesting especially given Bio-Techne’s skill set in consumables here, and due a China update…as they don’t do “fluffy” RNS’s hoping the next ones will be very material 🤞
Hi, it was a little bit hidden..,
If you have access to twitter, go to Corepath laboratories, look on media and scroll down to around 8th November… it was World Immunology day (or something like that) and Allan had VC’d into their team meeting - it’s only 30 secs or so (there are 3 partners talking, Allan on first one), but a comment he made there..
hope that helps :-)
Https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/interview-how-i-learned-my-ps100000-masterpiece-was-a-fake-1845669
Martin Lang article a few years back (fluechem director)
The key part for me here is that Allan Syms stated he “hoped to have it in market in the very near term”, to me that reads weeks rather than several months… if it was another CEO (ok, exec chairman) I’d be cautious, but find AS very understated in his behaviour, doesn’t do comms for the sake of it, so confident it’s a Q1 thing…
Picking up on others, the clinical testing is on retrospective blood plasma records in an accredited LDT oncology lab so quicker completion - in the prospectus they referenced doing something to Higgins et al which was a scientific study from 2012 as an example of the expected process (Prof Dawn C was part of the research group).
Morning…
The Hardman report is coming up to 18 months old so value will have increased since then, now close to being in market. My personal view is that it should be in the £30mn-ish bracket now, which is where it IPOd. (I thought the Hardman report was quite bearish but did reflect wider market sentiment at the time).
When OBD announced their PSE test recently, their SP climbed to just shy of £100mn, settled a bit now, and that was with a test that achieved 94% sensitivity in conjunction with a PSA test, whereas this is standalone, and hopefully has scope for other cancers. I would think Ciz will be in a similar bracket after clinical testing results and start of market launch.
If you look at some of the high valuations that are floated, there is logic to it given the market reach, unit price point, royalty payments etc…
Personally, I don’t see it getting to that point - think they will get acquired in the next 18 months, but time will tell…
While it has been quiet in terms of news re China, AS was talking about the partnership there and aim to get the LDT launched ahead of his visit late September (was talking about it briefly in the Directors Talk interview 20th Sept).
Other things of note:
1) Allan was previously in UK Trade and Industry supporting US and China so not surprising that is where Cizzle focussed initially.
(from his LinkedIn page)
Sector Specialist: Life Sciences China and USA
UKTI
May 2010 - Mar 2013 2 yrs 11 mos
London Area, United Kingdom
Sector specialist in life sciences developing trade and investment opportunities in China and USA.
2) The incoming CEO at Bio-Techne,Kim Keldermann has decent China experience which may help with leveraging commercialisation.
Guangzhou Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostics Co., Ltd. China
Member Board Of Directors
Guangzhou Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostics Co., Ltd. China
Jan 2016 - May 2018 2 yrs 5 mos
3) A number of the Bio-Techne guys, CEO above, Will Geist, head of Protein division etc… have been at Thermo Fisher which has an extensive Chinese operation - $3.8bn of Thermos $45bn revenues and growing quickly, and that is mainly consumables…(reagents etc…)
Nothing is a given but experience in the Chinese Market is there…so hopefully helps with making a success there…