Thanks Troajan,
TLDR:
Reiterating its 'buy' advice and 30p a share price target, the bank said: "We continue to see significant value in Scancell's highly innovative approach to cancer vaccine development.
"We see the next 12 months as a potentially transformative period for the business and view Scancell as an attractive investment at these levels."
So this is the wording on Modi-1 in latest RNS:
"I am also looking forward to presenting early data from patients receiving Modi-1 as a monotherapy in range of hard-to-treat solid tumours, which has shown good T cell responses, safety and tolerability"
We already knew results from mono-therapy had not been as as good as some had hoped/expected.
Careful avoidance of the combo results though - is this simply because those results are not being presented at the conference and/or possibly are not available yet (in statistically significant numbers at least).
It seems modi-1 has had the desired T-cell outcome, so combined with checkpoints one would hope for a much better efficacy read.
I don't think LD would be presenting modi-1 at all if it was dead in the water.
Thanks jb1, so it is seems likely Richard Goodfellow has sold a million recently, unless he exercised them for a different reason than to raise money (only thing I can think of is to gift the shares to someone else?).
Would explain a lot, and as he is now retired, understandable he wants to cash some in. Reassuring it was only a million as he has a lot more options than this I think.
"The goal is 43 patients enrolled by end of the 1st half 2024, that would mean 19 more in approx 12 weeks. Which seems to be a high number."
When you can show such high response rates, it makes it easier to recruit. I think it was mentioned in one of the presentations that they are not struggling to recruit.
I imagine it's a snowball effect - the more that show response, the more that will be prepared to try the treatment. So, hopefully (for investors and patients) recruitment will be faster as the trial progresses.
Not only does it address 100% of melanoma patients, but it has been enhanced with avidimab, so should perform better.
From Trinity Delta report:
"Second-generation iSCIB1+ could broaden the addressable market Scancell’s AvidiMab platform has been used to enhance SCIB1, with SCIB1 limited to the c 30-40% of patients that have the appropriate human leukocyte antigen type. The enhanced second-generation programme, iSCIB1+, can address 100% of melanoma patients, broadening the target market, and is also more potent. Scancell intends to transition the SCOPE study to iSCIB1+ in combination with doublet therapy in Q423 for initial data H124. Preclinical data suggest the benefits of iSCIB1+ (performance, efficacy, and ease of admin) are a significant advance over SCIB1."
https://www.trinitydelta.org/research-notes/upcoming-scib1-data-could-provide-first-proof-of-concept/
Absolutely chester, the sp is ludicrous - the time, money, effort, not to mention finding a genius such as LD to build this from scratch would be 'many multiples' of the current market cap. And subject to massive time delay and risk - at this stage, SCLP is about as risk-mitigated as a small bio can be.
I will wait as long as it takes and enjoy the journey, but I suspect once results from scib1 and iScib1+ start coming through we will re-rate at some speed.
Not sure who the seller is - obviously someone who needs the money desperately, individual of fund, who knows. It does present an opportunity for those with the knowledge and the cash though.
WTP,
My view - Scancell are planning to put scib1/iscib1+ through phase 3 in the not too distant future.
Hence the hires and reorg - to put it place the finances and the mechanics of the phase 3 trial.
Possibly via a move to Nasdaq and a fund-raising - fund-raising at a much higher price after SCOPE data readouts.
Of course, plans may never get this far if a buy-out or partnership is arranged beforehand, but Scancell putting a plan B in place shows they have an alternative, which will be invaluable in any negotiations.
All just my opinion!
There is now incentive from the major holders for the price to rise in the short term, so their 5% premium (should they take it) is worth more.
It is these major holders that lend their shares to the shorters, so is there an incentive to 'call in' the loan to cause the price to rise?
Genuine question - I have no idea how these share loans work, but e.g. if they are renewed monthly, can the loaner just say no and then the shorter has to buy back on the market?
Predicting future prices is a mugs game. Lots of unpredictable/random factors, anyone who makes such unequivocal claims is deluded. Ultimately it's down to demand and supply and any tinkering with prices by governments.
Supply is industry production, which will naturally reduce as prices fall, so something of a self-regulating factor. i.e lower prices = less supply, which will lead to higher prices (works in reverse too)
Demand largely determined by weather, secondary factor being local politics.
Then you've got international politics, wars etc.. that can effect both demand and supply, though the internal US market is somewhat shielded from this I believe.
So good luck predicting weather - accuracy reduces with timescale, anything over about 2 weeks notoriously inaccurate.
And good luck predicting politics, especially in an election year!
The most predictable factor is probably supply - you can be reasonably sure that low prices will reduce supply, but this is also low accuracy stuff.
It's a great move, I can see the point of it now -
1) Offer people who are already long the opportunity to sell shares at a premium - a lot will take them up on their offer, and those shares will be cancelled thus improving the value-per-share of DEC
2) Many of those who take the offer, because they are already long, will buy the same number (or possibly more as they will also have the 5% premium) of shares, thus creating demand for shares on the open market.
It's a double whammy to pee off the shorted - very creative, I approve!
Whether it's worth it or not depends on:
a) If you want to exit / reduce holdings
b) the sp at the time which determines whether the 5% is more than the dividend
It does seem a rather complex arrangement - I imagine it's designed to shaft the shooters in some way, but haven't thought it through properly yet.
Traditionally, the sp would fall by the amount of the dividend the day after ex-div, and slowly climb back up for the next ex-div date.
However we are not really in a traditional market here, lots of factors at aply:
- how many shorts will close before ex-div (to avoid paying the dividend - if you are short, you have to stump up the value of any dividend payment)
- what other news will be released before then
- will buybacks kick-in after the dividend, if the sp drops, thus making any drop short lived.
Timing is everything - let the shorters have full exposure before final results in March?
Then a massive short squeeze if the dividend policy is maintained and the accounts look as or better than expected?
As much as we would all like instant gratification with buybacks and sp rise now, If DEC can time buybacks at the lowest possible price, and at the time of maximum short exposure, this would be a better medium term result.
In the meantime, a 7-8% dividend at end of Feb to look forward too.