Member Info for Michaelhighbar

Thank you for highlighting this but GSK is not acquiring the company. It's a joint-development agreement, with GSK acquiring the majority of the rights, re an oncology drug in early stage trials that has shown promising results so far with patients at an advanced stage. It seems they are still planning to start the combination trial:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/gsk-ties-up-with-iteos-develop-cancer-treatment-2021-06-14/

We have been aware of the Mrx 0518 potential but it's good to see that an oncology biotherapeutic drug at a broadly comparable stage (perhaps slightly advanced, if at all, in monotherapy trials but less so in combination trials) has attracted such attention and been valued at that level by a global company.

Hi Sangijuelas
Re your 12.44 "If 0518 meant that it was enabled to work in an additional 10% of patients then that would increase their annual Keytruda revenue by $1.4bn." ... what if 0518 was also shown to enhance significantly the performance on the percentage Keytruda works already? And there's a chance the monotherapy might be effective too in a small number of cases.

It's almost 4 months since last update on oncology. So news is likely to arrive soon. Given the success in part A and the very positive early omens in the RNS of last February followed by directors' big endorsement of their own business, how likely is it the update won't be good news?

Does the additional analysis show the data in a better light and in a way that looks more promising than October or is it my idea?

It's excellent news and I was pleased to see that Blautix is still very much on 4D's radar screen which would imply that phase III preparations and / or commercial negotiations are on-going.

The main strength of 4D is the PLATFORM out of which putative therapies can emerge. They may be very diverse in terms of applications but the platform is at the core of its technology. Oncology clinical trials, if successful, would be of greater significance as they would address a greater and acute medical need. No doubt about that. However, the success regarding each programme would be a big step in demonstrating the VALIDITY of the MircroRx platform. The VALIDITY of the platform has not yet been proven - programmes can succeed, partially succeed or fail but if the platform is successful then fully successful programmes will come out of it eventually.

A big effort, no doubt, has gone into IBS and there was a lot of anticipation in the run up to the announcement of the phase II resutls - a lot of it was generated by the publicity given to it by the company. It would be a great pity if it had been quietly set aside. It maybe investors that have recently arrived with a very short-term focus did not want any issues or questions to be raised or questions asked re the other programmes. However it is great for other investors with a slightly longer horizon focus to have the company itself reiterate that:

"The Company has six clinical programs, namely a Phase I/II study of MRx0518 in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in solid tumors, a Phase I study of MRx0518 in a neoadjuvant setting for patients with solid tumors, a Phase I study of MRx0518 in patients with pancreatic cancer, a Phase I/II study of MRx-4DP0004 in asthma, a Phase II study of MRx-4DP0004 in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and Blautix(R) in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) which has completed a successful Phase II trial. Preclinical-stage programs include candidates for CNS disease such as Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. " Looking forward to the next few months!

Wigs & Nightmare,
One is well familiar with the merits and the drawbacks of the company so feel free not to waste your time unless you really want to! I rest my case.

A red herring and you can't compare different companies which only have SPAC in common. Do you think that the recent fall is related to a cash shell which gave the company bit of runway? Maybe think again: the market even anticipated the nasdaq listing with optimism and share price actually rose. The whole thing run out of steam when there was no obvious consequence of the listing. It's the sector situation that affects the company and the lack of recent updates on the various programmes.

For those familiar with the company or at least who have followed it / been investors for about a year so, the trading pattern is not atypical at all of the company. Suffices to recall when it was trading in the 35 to 50p range. It's been a relatively longish period of no major news from the various programmes -since the RNS in early Feb and longer on some fronts - and that makes the SP more vulnerable. However that's likely to change soon.

Nightmarewalking
I don't agree at all: we are owed updates on mainstream projects that the company has told us that it embarked on and we were told the results were good enough to carry on and that commercial negotiations were already ongoing month ago (IBS) or they are projects / partnerships with multinational pharmas (antibodies), as simple as that. Furthermore, phase II covid-19 trial results were due last year.
You may want to note that one of the attractions of this company is that there are multiple projects iongoing so you can't claim arbitrarily that something ceases to be of strategic importance - please refer to the management presentations that are quite helpful. So I'm sure most of investors are looking forward to updates on the various fronts alongside the ones from MRx0518.

Phil, good news re Mrx0518 combination therapy is almost in the bag, because of the successful results so far. Nonetheless we are owed updates on what's next re phase II IBS (more than six months re last announcement), on covid phase II trial, on the vaccine and other programmes. It only partly accounts for weak price, I d think, but lack of updates re above isn't helping.

Broker valuations make much more sense for companies with on-going cashflows and even more for companies that are profitable. IP is much harder to put a value on and especially for companies in novel sectors such as biotherapeutics. That's all the more the case for companies such as 4D whose programmes/projects are described in their own (recent) investor prospectus as "very early stage". OK that was probably deliberately conservative language by lawyers for investors in the US that are not averse to litigation. But, objectively, 4D is still at a relatively early stage.

Having said that, if one or more of the oncology projects continue to show strong signs of success and look more and more likely to continue into phase III, then a valuation of £3.50 will begin to look increasingly conservative. So between now and the completion of phase II of oncology trials and IF we get positive readouts, the gap between current valuation and the one at pre-phase III (possible uplift in valuation 5x to 10x from here) will be progressively bridged.
The uplift in Seres valuation gives us a rough indication of what we might expect. Whilst the uplift of Seres valuation was after successful phase III trials in CDI (vs. a putative success of a phase II 4D trial), AND it was the first major demonstrable success of a biotherapeutic, it can't be compared to the significance of a putative success of a biotherapeutic in the fight against cancer - especially when it could be to an extent agnostic to the type of cancer.
Now, without underestimating at all the importance of 4D's work on fronts other than oncology (notably on neurogenerative diseases and pancreas), the curent valuation is, probably, largely on the back of the oncology programmes (e.g. 60-80%?).
I'm surprised that the company has gone relatively or completely quiet on three fronts:
(i)phase II ?f covid trials especially since the fast tracking was portrayed a year ago as a success (rightly so). Also as of management report last October the results were due by Dec 2020
(ii) next stage re IBS: is the company going to proceed with phase III with a partner or without? Or, will the project be parked for some time?
(iii) the vaccine project. Yes we do understand there are confidentiality provisions in place but we can be told in general terms about progress to-date and what's expected to happen in the next quarters.
Hence, an update re (i) to (iii) above can't come early enough.

Finally, short contracts remain below 0.5% according to short tracker which - that's hardly a conclusive piece of evidence but coupled to the fact that some important updates are expected to come in May / June, we can afford to be slightly more optimistic than we'd be normally...

we may have got to the final lap before news starts coming. Like in last August when we saw waves of re-rating even before news arrived and continued afterwards. Or, today's rise is one without much significance happening within a narrow trading range. Time will tell but I'd like to think it's the former explanation.

Just on the off-chance information on this has not been posted on this board:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/26/volunteers-hired-for-clinical-trial-of-covid-vaccine-made-in-scotland-valneva
"Because the vaccine incorporates the whole virus, rather than only the surface spike protein, it may produce broader protection against the disease and worrisome variants that have mutations in the spike protein."

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/the-dark-horse-of-the-vaccine-race-may-be-this-french-biotech-firm

https://valneva.com/press-release/valneva-initiates-phase-3-clinical-trial-for-its-inactivated-adjuvanted-covid-19
-vaccine-candidate-vla2001/

On another site I read that UK has a conditional agreement to order 190m doses until 2025 if Phase III trials are successful.

The acid test for Scancell will be by the end of Q2 or even Q3: even taking into account the sector the company operates, it seems to take the company an unusually long time to show progress the various programmes. Whilst the IP is very promising and worthwhile, is the Scancell team capable of functioning as a proper SME pharma company and conquering scientific & business milestones or is it, effectively, acting like a research entity with ill-defined targets? This question is to be answered well before the end of 2021. All the right ingredients are in place: funding, removal of the final FDA obstacle to proceed to phase II SCIB1 trials and an opportunity to start demonstrating the versatility of the IP in terms of a second generation covid-19 vaccine that has seen some initial endorsement. Hence, no excuses for further delays! But the company has yet to convince the market of its capability of managing its own IP as a business or at least as in a project-like fashion!

Hopefully the SCIB1 trial should start imminently: having waited for years for FDA approval what is the state of play on US trial sites? In fact, what is the state of play on phase II SCIB1 trials in general? Covid-19 may have played a role delaying the start of the oncology trials but not to such an extent. At least one SME UK pharma company performed oncology trials last year... in the US as well.

Also having selected the prototype of the covid-19 second generation vaccine in December where are we more than 4 months down the road?

The funding that was raised relatively recently, including significant investment from IIs, was very positive news and must be coming with some (external) monitoring of the progress.

Whatever the situation, one thing is for sure: SCLP seems ill-at-ease communicating with investors and that is something that needs to change. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that the progress on the various fronts will match and exceed the successful path of the share price in the early part of this year!

Sangijuelas, you may well be right.

It's not news but when you see that the CEO and CSO now own 10% - in aggregate - of a company that now has a market cap of over £200m then you take notice;
all the more because:
(i) that 10% (or the bulk of it) is made up of share purchases by those directors and
(ii) the recent share purchases were made after the early results in part B of the MRx0518 combination study (Feb RNS) among other developments.

Re the job annoucements on Linkedin, because they are seeking people with strong background on Immunology, I wonder whether they might be related to the sleeping giant i.e. the vaccine development project with Merck - as opposed to the - under construction - giant i.e. oncology.

Historically - and last year in particular - 4D hasn't left much time to lapse between placements and significant news. Just one example: there were roughly 5-6 weeks between the July placement in 2020 and the oncology readout in late August.

Maybe it is a coincidence and it's because of the multiple projects going on. Or maybe it isn't and the fact that the recent placement coincided with the, long awaited, nasdaq listing gives an additional reason not to leave it too long before something positive is announced. Also, the shorts have disappeared or at least are below 0.5%.

Certainly not holding my breath and thinking that by mid to late June we'll have some news. Unless of course history repeats itself and the time lag isn't that long.

Also, was having another look at the February RNS and noticed something I hadn't before or at least hadn't realised its potential significance:
"Target tumor reductions in Part B patients have been observed as patients reach the first scheduled restaging timepoint (nine weeks). These include the first signals of anti-tumor activity for the combination in bladder cancer, adding to the previously reported activity in RCC and NSCLC in patients in Part A." So we have observed anti-tumour activity against three different cancer categories.

Looking forward and hoping to see that trend continuing in the next follow-on readouts - whenever it is they are announced.

Sangijuelas
You don't seem to have got my earlier posts quite right, sorry to say. Whereas it is correct that some posters had high expectations from the listing, I was actually not making the NASDAQ point about them.

It was about the ones who seem to be making (unfounded) links between the recent share price retraces from the peak where it reached and volatility, on one hand, and listing on the other. Furthermore, attributing the bulk of TILS's share price movements to NASDAQ seems arbitrary - to say the least - to those who know a bit about the company. More importantly, not only there are no grounds to draw parallels between 4D and TILS but also isn't it misleading to pretend otherwise?

Hope your investment / trading approach works but the alignment with your posting pattern could do with more subtelty.

Not sure why some people seem to think that nasqaq listing is a very important factor in determining the share price of a company. Is the implication that it is more imporant factor than the company itself?!

Also, TILS and 4D are two very different companies. The only things in common is that they operate in the health/pharma sector and that they have drugs in clinical trials for covid.

... has been falling for three consequtive days and the lower bollinger bands have been hit. Profit taking from the placement must be over probably in the knowledge that it was unlikely that news would be released in the very short term. Also, in the knowledge they could buy back in.

Even accounting for the general market retrace selling is probably overdone. In my opinion, it is likely that we see a steep rise tomorrow. Let's see. Either way, this is a year where 4D management seem to think that the company's profile will be significantly updated.