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Is that a £365k buy on friday i see?!?!

In the long run, it doesn't matter who wins the race. They would not be able to name companies that hadn't already announced news in by official terms.

We will not be making money by being the ones that come up with the solution. We will be making money from manufacturing tests. These cause of events are elevating companies like Omega to be a significant part of our national infrastructure going forward to get home made diagnostics to the capacity where it should be.

We have capacity to make 100s of thousands of tests per week. That capacity will be used.

The most key statement for me is MH saying there has been false hope before and we will make announcements when we are absolutely ready. It supports what we have been saying here that they dont want to disclose something until its 100% validated and they are ready to get moving with it.

Note that it was mentioned people would be tested several time to see how antibodies evlove.

You can see the government starting to move through the 5 testing pillars... good news

ah ok

Tricky - sorry i think you are still missing the point....
The lab test is a Mologic test which we have been contracted to produce.
The RTC test kit we are involved in development and manufacturing design.

Our success doesn't necessarily rely on the success of these specific products. If someone else comes up with a better rapid test and the RTC pulls the plug and says were all going to use test X, the better test will be mass produced and it will be all hands on deck with the spec rolled out to whoever can offer capacity. We have capacity to produce. Whoever comes up with a better test will need that capacity.

If the mologic lab tests are not in demand, maybe we can adapt that space to manufacture more Rapid tests.
We are a manufacturer of tests. We have capacity. If another test wins the race, we will get a production contract of that i am sure.

To put it more simply.... the value is in manufacturing capabilities and capacity. The opportunity is orders to make a product. The size of orders will be driven by demand for the product.

Our capacity and capability is already there. That's the value to us not the product.

It doesn't matter if we make product A, B, C or D. What matters to us is that we can manufacture millions of tests. Clearly plan is is for the RTC to be the gold standard test. Plan B.... hello whoever has the gold standard spec... we can produce x million per week... contract will be done and dusted before you know it. Ability to produce is where the value is. Mass market demand will always outstrip supply.

There is one final point that makes this massively derisked.......

Following on from the point about Pillar 5 regarding manufacturing capacity.

ODX is a pure manufacturing play. It is variable cost of production vs selling price. We are not reliant here betting on a product. We are invested for how many tests can be produced in relation to demand. What we are waiting for is the design freeze to give us the specification to make the test. (for what it's worth i already think they are in production, but worse case scenario assume not)

Even in a world where someone else comes up with a specification for a better test, whoever it is will not have the capacity to produce anywhere enough tests. But the infrastructure set up by the UK RTC has that testing capacity available. So even if the test that the RTC are working on ends up being surpassed by something else, i would expect whatever test does turn out to be the winner to end up being produced in Omega facility. Lets say another company come up with a test, and gains the gold standard. x hundred millions are ordered. Not even the big boys could produce these. So if the government cut short the RTC test we have spare capacity that can produce however many millions. What do you think will happen? Do you think the creator of the test would be able to sit on the design, massively under producing knowing that the survival of the human race is dependant on these products. Of course not. You could have every facility in the UK producing the exact same test and it would still go nowhere near meeting demand.

Our value is in the manufacturing capabilities and the ability to roll out mass products. It does not matter what that product is, who designed it as long as we are commissioned to produce it. We will sell as many units as we can make.

Just look at the governments 5 pillars of testing....

Pillar 3 was identifying appropriate antibody tests. They rejected those available and commissioned their own. It is clear they want an at home test to roll out to the masses.
Pillar 4 Surveillance testing. The Government are moving ahead with surveillance testing. You cant get to 4 without getting to 3
Pillar 5 - I am going to put this word for word as its important
"The fifth pillar is the most ambitious. We want to build in a short space of time, the large
diagnostics industry that this country currently lacks. Just as our top end manufacturers
have joined the national effort to build ventilators, so our life sciences companies will do
the same for testing. UK pharmaceutical giants which don’t have a tradition of diagnostics,
are now working with our world leading but smaller diagnostics companies, to build a
British diagnostics industry at scale. This new national effort for testing will ensure we can
get tests for everyone who needs them. "

The UK have been caught with their pants down in terms of infrastructure to manufacture the required testing capacity. There is a clear desire to us UK companies. The large pharma and bio companies in the UK lack diagnostics expertise. This is why the government have come to the likes of Omega and other UK RTC partners as they have the capabilities but not individually the scale. These companies are not only important for the fight against corona virus, but they will be part of the nationwide strategy going forward to equip the nation with the requisite infrastructure for any future disease.

Regarding L&G its important to understand why they are selling.....

They have been in this before Covid was even anything any of us knew about. They never would have expected to make this gain so quickly. The gain would have unbalanced their book on their risk strategy. These companies exist and make consistent profit because of discipline to a risk strategy. Them selling has nothing to do with the future outlook of the stock price. Look at Oryx they were selling out sun 10p and had started offloading before Covid. That doesn't appear to have worked out too well.

So this is the Governments plan for Antibody testing.....

1) a number of different antibody tests will be assessed for their accuracy and ease of use at home. Rejected all of them, making their own
2)Rapid test prototype test carried out on in testing environment on know positive cases.
3) healthcare professionals will take the test along with professional tests to compare results
2&3 are Probably the exciting data that Sir John Bell referred to last week
4) A few hundred public volunteers given self testing kits to assess ease of use and reliability
5) On success of this a wider test sample will commence to ensure ease of use - Scottish and welsh governments have noted commencement of testing this week. Antibody tests have also been included in England numbers.
6) Mass roll out starting with government priority
7) Mass roll out via distribution channels such as amazon

I think we are currently at number 5. We will likely get the big announcement just before number 6.

Sorry Novacyt are up 300% since Roche announced they are shipping hundreds of thousands of Cornoa virus swab tests, over 100% was selling it a bit short!!!

The thing is Roche have been banging out hundreds of thousands of Antigen tests which are in direct competition with other Antigen stocks. Fact is there is no competition as demand is so much greater than supply.

So on the same theory should this not make the Antigen testing companies worthless. Novacyt are up over 100% since this announcement. I rest my case.

https://diagnostics.roche.com/global/en/article-listing/general-information-cobas-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-test.html

If you never hold for longer than 5 minutes you will likely burn your account before you know it.

Its interesting looking at the share price movements for each piece of news.

9th April the UK RTC took it from 11p-27p
20th April the MTA with mologic took it from 27-40p
27th April CE mark took it from 40p to current range.

The HIV news was commercially sound too, which hasn't really done much for it.

So basically Rapid tests have taken it up 16p, mologic lab tests have taken it up 33p. We know which is the bigger opportunity. Lab tests have CE mark, so how high does it go when quality assured for RTC tests?

BBI Solutions is private equity owned

I can go on the Government website now and book an Antigen test to see if i have corona virus...

I can't go on there and book an antibody test....

So if all this news from other companies is so fantastic, why can't i book one?

New facility was operational from 27th. Could have over a million units produced by now. COlin King suggesting they already have initial orders.

Could you imagine the government announcing there this test but we haven't actually made any yet? THink you need to stock pile first.

"The project was worked on w/c 20th April, competed Friday 24th and 16 staff moved into the new packing area on Monday 27th."

"The speed was required due to the ever-changing nature of the project and Coronavirus crisis"

"Colin King, Chief Operating Office at Omega Diagnostics added, “I would like to thank Ceteris and Howdens for the speed of response to our request to fit out additional lab space. This was truly exceptional and has allowed us to be positioned to commence production of COVID-19 tests and meet our initial orders."

wait until they can do a home test live on TV... that will be interesting!

Every company out there are racing to find a test, yet our government have not come out and said they want it.....

We are not in the same race. We already have the government on side. They have a plan for how and when they want to roll this out. If they come out today and said they have a test they would be under the cosh with people saying they want it now why can't we have it now etc.... So i believe they have a specific window for when the test needs to be signed off, tested, communicated, rolled out. This is bigger than ODX. This is part of Government policy. Timing of news will be lead as such.

We have evidence that Omega and Abingdon are going into production.