Member Info for Muck165

Just another (potentially immaterial) snippet re Upfront, but back in Feb they appointed Karl Hick as a Director. Karl is married to Helen Hick, of the Helen Hick Stroke Foundation.

So in the last year they’ve appointed recognised people onto the Board, attracted personal investment from some very heavy hitters in the life sciences space (Francois Maisonrouge), and continued to get accelerator grants/awards.

Quietly optimistic here, which I haven’t been for a while, largely driven by the charts, the strengthening book, and the potential near term news.

Thought I’d post this while we wait. It’s a piece about the IDAP pilot that our clients Upfront and 52 North secured 2 of the 8 spots in, which we all know was intended to accelerate implementation of transformative diagnostics into the NHS. The pilot finished in March and government reports on it are expected shortly. What I didn’t know was that (as stated in the piece), the pilot received 10x more applications than available slots.

So not only did our clients get in, they each beat 72 other applicants to do it.

Add to that, both have also received other funding from bodies designed to accelerate innovative technologies in the NHS (SBRI, and the MedTech Accelerator Reg Support Fund), with some of that very recent.

Both are near certain to be destined for the NHS in my book - it’s just a matter of when. But with Upfront nearing CE Mark (hopefully!) the NHS might just be a launchpad into other EU health systems.

https://mtechaccess.co.uk/idap-medical-devices/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

True! And could be the same here. But a raise is coming.

Thanks Oz - so we get something for nothing? Believe me, I like the prospects here but I’m not blind to the fact that we are going to have to bring something to the table! And Nag has all but said what that is - liquidity and access to capital markets.

Great collaboration and plenty of exciting projects to choose from, or should I say invest in. And there I think lies the answer to why the market is holding us back, because what have we got to invest with? Cash is going to have to come from somewhere peeps.

In the short term possible news is

- Launch of Salistick in Germany -we were told Q2 calendar year 25.

- Commercial launch of AppDx - we were told April by Hand

- Possible Upfront CE mark - they were targeting this quarter

- Possible Loop CE mark - their timeline currently says this quarter, although it’s already slipped a few times.

Just on AppDx…

- We allocated £1m of the raise to advance it.

-The chap who actually developed it (A Neeraj), and who is also on the patent, rejoined Abingdon in Jan this year having left in November 21 (I suspect as part of the redundancies caused by the DHSC welch.

I can’t see why Abingdon would do either of these unless there was sufficient commercial expectation.

Another snippet, but in the Interims IMC presentation we were told that AppDx was ready and would be launched commercially in H2 2025, with Hand then saying it would be April 2025. Unless they didn’t think it newsworthy then that seems to have slipped, but he did say we have current and new customers expressing interest. Monetisation to be through bespoke set up per test, then usage licence and on demand data fees.

In the same presentation Hand also talked about NALFIA molecular testing, specifically referring to ongoing work with STD tests that need high degrees of sensitivity. So, my guess is that at least 1, and more likely all 4 of the FOFH tests are molecular.

In that last respect, I wrote to Wallbrook/Abingdon last week to ask if we are now a shareholder in FOFH, and if Yates is now a Director. It’s been 14 months since the announcement was made and 2 months since the presentation, when Hand said the delay was due to an admin whilst FOFH changed its corporate legal status to an “Inc”, but that would be resolved “shortly”. Personally I think that’s guff - it’s already an Inc and has been for ages. I don’t think there’s a problem necessarily (we wouldn’t have agreed a new £2m contract if there was), but the delays are a puzzle nonetheless.

Upfront (Pockit Diagnostics) filed its annual confirmation statement last month, detailing current shareholders. Comparing to the one filed last year means you can see who has come on board over the last year.

There are quite a few, but of particular note is Francois Maisonrouge, currently Senior MD at Evercore but previously MD and Chairman of life sciences at credit Suisse. You’d think Upfront must have some legs to attract personal investment from someone like him.

https://www.evercore.com/team/francois-maisonrouge/

Just to throw one other thing in, but Yannick Namia spoke at our US launch event.

Interesting! Had a few more this morning - possibly the last chance under 6.5.

Few more snippets

360dx, the most regarded media outlet in our business, put out a piece on Tuesday talking about the malaria test were helping to develop. This follows their recent coverage of the Upfront funding.

https://www.360dx.com/business-news/institut-pasteur-led-effort-aims-deliver-lateral-flow-test-combating-malaria

Interesting to see two ABDX posts about sustainability this week. Something in the offing in that respect? Don’t think so given we’ve been told first tests will be next year, but who knows.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/abingdon-health_sustainableinnovation-plasticfree-greenhousing-activity-7331622322404999169-yxIL?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEuI5eIBooawepY_Ubn_CKcFOzTXAaBN1HA

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7330282427426222080-cxLZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEuI5eIBooawepY_Ubn_CKcFOzTXAaBN1HA

Posting this for info. It’s a DARPA presentation from November last year, setting out the four pillars of its work which includes cybersecurity from slide 64. Well worth looking at, but two things of note for me are;

Slide 66 - Confirms a continuing huge exposure to OSS risk, with 84% of all codebases scanned having vulnerabilities across practically every industry or infrastructure service you might think of.

Slide 69 - lists the various DARPA programs combatting this risk, and how they sit together. They include Social Cyber, ie our IP.

And as I say, this presentation was from just 6 months ago.

https://www.darpa.mil/sites/default/files/attachment/2024-12/i20-office-wide-proposers-day-presentation.pdf

Thanks Wyn.

The “weirdness” continues. We’ve just had a small sell go through at 6.138p, the same dummy price I was getting at the time. Immediately following that sale, I’m being offered 6.151p. Its a pattern we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks (ie a rising bid despite sales) and all seems counter-intuitive to me! Can anyone offer an explanation?

What is it about the chart you like Wyn?

I like the upward curling 20DMA, and it seems we are bouncing up off a rising 8EMA. But that could be tosh - Im no Chartist!

Welcome aboard Basil - maybe you’ll bring fortune with you!

Just another snippet a short video posted today featuring our new NED, Dr Katie Brenner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faKUI7r8-Cs

Don’t know if I could be in the same room with her for too long, but she certainly exudes energy.

Seems to me the bit they posted was part of a larger interview - would have been nice to see the whole thing.

Posting this again for info. It’s a presentation Upfront did back in March 24, giving various timelines (page 25).

https://www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/240305-Upfront-LVOne-full-deck-1.pdf

As you’ll see, H1 25 was expected to see both the first U.K. contract, and CE approval. It does seem to me that both have perhaps slipped a little but, whatever, both are near term announcements I should think (hopefully not “wishfully”!)

Interesting to see the £8k buy earlier (any of us??), and noting again that the real bid keeps ticking up.

Another from the last hour

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/upfrontdiagnostics_big-milestone-were-thrilled-to-share-activity-7330877905197068289-8PpB?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEuI5eIBooawepY_Ubn_CKcFOzTXAaBN1HA

And this is a really interesting piece from McKinsey that neatly encapsulates why Im so bullish about Narf in the current environment.

https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/new-at-mckinsey-blog/ai-is-the-greatest-threat-and-defense-in-cybersecurity-today

An interesting piece..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3372vl3yo

And this about the most recent spate of cyber attacks on banking/ retail, confirming them as social engineering attacks (precisely what Social Cyber defends against).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgnndrgxv3o

And then of course Trumps new “Golden Dome’. Who reckons that is going to rely massively on software open to attack, and which will therefore need defending!!