focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
While reviewing Datar Cancer Genetics' Trublood progression with the FDA, I had a closer look at the FDA approval for Parsortix and found a severely limiting factor visa vie commercial application (not mentioned in any of Angle's communications).
Parsortix is only FDA approved for harvesting CTC from patients who have already been diagnosed with cancer. Thus Parsortix cannot be used in a cancer screening process. That severely limits its scope of application and potential commercialization.
As regards the path to commercialization, we have yet to receive a substantive presentation from AN as to how this will be acheieved. By substantive I mean a document that provides estimates of addressabe market value, revenue model (royalty in use, leasing, unit sales etc), operational characteristics and so on.
Just a thought. We have had the medical and commercial (potential) advantages of Parsortix made clear to us by AN. One would have to wonder why Bill Gates doesn't pocket the company tomorrow for GBP 50m and turn it into a charity for the purposed of early detection of cancer.
I was about buy Craneware this morning but first had a look at the management updates / outlook.
In Sept'22 one year after acquiring Sentry and COVID out of the way, Management made a point of expressing their confidence. What I read was ...Sales growth outlook - no comment, no figures, Earnings growth outlook - no comment no figures, Prospective cost / operational synergies - no comment no fugures. Just hot air.
So what was a beautiful company generating circa 26% ROI in 2019/2020 acquired $210 of intangible assets, added $226 goodwill for an operation that generated $10m net profit (ROI 3%). You better expect another $80m of impairments on top of the $20m they made in 2022 in the coming years.
Furthermore, at 3% ROI you won't be generating much cash to pay down those loans in a hurry.
Exit now, wait for some real upside guidance from Management and re-enter.
Please join me in this exercise....
I like to speculate how we get from here to a company up and running with revenues, cashflows and trading on a multiple of earnings.
So, at 80p/share that's a Market cap of circa USD 252m - take a mid range growth stock P/E of 20x - we get earnings of $12,6m - Let's say $20 per test @ 20% net margin = $4/test - so we need to perform circa 8'800 tests per day.
I had a look at the costs of a blood test excl. the doctor/nurse taking the blood ... ranges from $30 to $700 which includes all the lab procedures of which Parsortix is only perform one - the sample isolation. Thus, (very) conservativly I took $20.
So, if my calcs are in the ball park we need to be cranking out 8'800 test a day @ $20/test or optimistically 4'400 test @ $40/test. So, how many staff and how many Parsortix unts does one need to get there assuming the clients are knocking the door down?
Although the U.S is the richest market, Vifor's accounts make it clear that there is plenty of profits to be made in the Europe.
Accrufer appears to offer substantive cost savings to the patient and the health systems, this must be true for Europe not to mention the NHS. I can't understand the slow rate of sales in Europe?
Every salesman gets asked the question "so how well does your medicine sell in your home market (U.K)". It cannot look good that sales are non-existent in the U.K.
Like many others here, I believe a rights issue is coming in April/May and it will likely be deeply discounted.
We can all see the clear potential of Shield’s iron deficiency treatment. I got on board at 34p then added more at the rights price of 30p. I got kicked out at 28p. I will now await developments in the coming days.
The clear world leader in this field is Vifor, Switzerland with their FERINJECT®/INJECTAFER® treatments and annual sales of USD 1,8bil Vist their website, have a scan of their presentation [vifor-pharma-investor-presentation-september-2021-3.pdf] it provides encouragement but also begs caution.
They are a formidable competitor and will not relinquish market share lightly, despite Shield’s product advantage. They have an experienced salesforce, long-term relationships with all the key players and they spend circa $440m on marketing/distribution annually.
So, Shield, in the first instance, is going to have to eat into Vifor’s market.
So far the results have been disappointing. In Europe, where Vifor has annual sales of $570mil, we are three years on the market and have little in the way of sales related royalties to show for it.
Management have been reluctant (loath) to provide a clear picture of the number of packages sold to patients each year. The leaves a major question mark over the product’s ability to take market share. Europe accounts for $% of Vifor’s sales roughly similar to the U.S.
Until management start to feed us with hard numbers on final sales and do so on a regular basis, I will hold off re-investing.