Member Info for Noise

Nice to see that VAL301 is essentially almost ready to begin the IND clinical trial application to the regulators. Sounds like VAL101 will follow in 2H 2019.

I am pondering whether George is lining up the end of November presentation for the VAL201 efficacy update - plenty of exciting things happening, just need a modest rise in SP to support assistance paying for the blessed things ;)

Is anyone else a bit excited about VAL201 updates...could be disappointing, but if the theory works then we should see serious improvements in PSA/longevity, and if that works it's straight into phase 2/3 for breast/ovarian/hormone driven cancers.

VAL101 could also be a giant drug, although I have to admit the theory on this is quite complicated and I am unclear what the situation is with other BCL2 targeting agents, Venetoclax seems to be the closest drug and that has a spotty history of achieving FDA breakthrough therapy status (following failure of other treatment protocols), but also having a couple of weird and serious side-effects. VAL101 may be more natural than other drugs.

I did not get an RNS email about this. Interesting note

HE3DA are attending a battery conference next week. They seem to have a radical new electric car solution, perhaps in addition to their classic battery solution:

http://www.solarninovinky.cz/?zpravy/2018102303/co-takhle-dat-si-kavu-uvarenou-na-baterii-od-he3da

"The new HE3DA vision envisages that electricity for charging electric vehicles will be produced locally from hydrogen via a fuel cell. The electricity produced will then be stored in high-capacity batteries to allow electricity to power electric vehicles. According to the HE3DA, it is a revolutionary solution that will allow for a fast and easy way forward in the future to a massive transition to electromobility for both households and petrol stations."

Simon, thanks for that, I am largely ignorant of ASX regulations and it explains my worry as a bit silly now.

Mea Culpa!

This bit irks me

"The Company also reported the completion of the initial 4 geotechnical holes reported on 4 September 2018 (CINOVEC PROJECT UPDATE - SIGNIFICANT ADVANCEMENTS), for the portal area. Geotechnical logging of the
four holes was planned to be completed in early October 2018."

Umm, yes, it is the 31st October, I don't mind if it's 1-2 weeks late, but saying it was "planned to be complete by the end of October" is just silly.

Weird, no update on October's drilling, did they snap the drill? ;)

Yeah, my alarm clock goes off at 7am so I guess I'll wake up to a new RNS with quarterly update from Keith.

Not expecting rockets, but reassuring new information would be lovely.

Last we heard, the DFS drilling holes had been permitted, 4 of the 13 drills had been completed and the Lith hydroxide process/costing had kicked off about 5-6 weeks ago.

Typically it's 99.5% for 'battery grade' Li-Carb isn't it?

Quick google: "battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate: (min 56.5% LiOH.H2O)"

Old RNS:

"The table below shows specifications for the two batches of lithium carbonate produced from a sample of Cinovec ore. The first had a purity of 99.56% and the second 99.66%. Significantly, levels of transition metals and arsenic are very low."

Hi LawrenceH,

Great points and I have to agree. I think Cinovec is almost large enough to be considered a strategic business and military asset to the EU (I am not joking on this point). However there are a few minor de-risking newsflows I await to convince myself it is as great as it looks. The fact BCN started up a 2nd mine suggests to me there might be a tier 1 "dual supply" agreement somewhere in the chain.

Long term, I see no reason why this won't become an EU behemoth with an SQM/Albemarle/mid-sized oil company size, but I would like to see how pure we can make Lithium Hydroxide and hear happy customers reporting that Zinnwaldite is definitely suitable for electric cars. I get the feeling there's a few major chemical processing companies that want to dig their heels into EMH, especially on the Zinnwaldite processing level.

Would love to see one of the European autos or HE3DA take a serious offtake with funding the initial stage of the mine. Not sure HE3DA have the funds for a major funding input, I assume they might take 10-25% of the initial phase.

Keith is a solid MD, it probably helps having an Aussie mining hat on (the Aussies do mining properly!), if he keeps it up he could be sat on a £1bn+ company here.

Interesting article on VW's electric rollout plans, what cars will be built at the Zwickau plant (first dedicated electric car plant for VW) and curiously around 60miles from Cinovec.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/97043/volkswagen-id-neo-latest-details-on-vws-2019-electric-hatch

I love the photos of the ID Neo car - very modern.

I'd be a bit wary of public announcements from large corporations about hazy details about opening new battery factories.

They might be. Or they might be publicly haggling over cost and threatening to open their own battery factory. VW did this last year then announced a raft of deals with various battery makers. Interesting the bit about bi-weekly raw materials meetings with large battery manufacturers though. Must be going through various supply deals.

I wouldn't worry too much about huge numbers of posts disappearing. Frankly the admin at LSE are constantly being bombarded with abuse/garbage, so often they will just delete the whole 'thread' of a discussion. So where someone clicks 'reply' and there may be 5-20 messages in a sequence/thread, the admin will delete all of them, rather than waste time picking apart the 'he said she said' of it all.

Interesting that since the UK government showed it's backing of the Valirx model of building UK biotechs that we are actually seeing a number of portfolio companies coming into existence.

We now have Valirx (4+ divisions), Arix Bioscience (13+), Syncona (10+). Admittedly Valirx are on the lower end of the funding scale - oh how they could do with a £30m injection....

Thoth more or less nails it, for a development company with several different assets it makes sense to put certain assets/businesses within the same business into several smaller entities.

Imagine someone wants to buy say VAL401, or start a co-development, it is so much easier if all the staff/patents/commercial transactions are held within a small business, if nothing else having a full set of accounts for a specific drug is quite useful.

As such, Satu manages the Valirx umbrella holding company, with a number of smaller companies underneath. If we get lucky, we sell off the whole sub-business, or potentially have some kind of licensing contract revenues passed upwards.

Kumar Nawani is the current Head of Operations at Valirx, interesting to note Kumar is the MD of the new company, aligned with the Mystic pharma MD as a director by the side of him. A pharma company and an operations director - does that imply a buying/selling trading relationship?

GENX - what can we imply from the name? GeneICE? Manufacturers of the various GENE ICE drugs?

So...what are we saying here? This guy seems to be a director at a new division of Valirx, is this part of the news announced last year where mystic were going to be selling VAL201/VAL401 in a variety of Middle eastern/Asian countries where VAL had no patent coverage?

He also seems to be a director at 20+ other companies. Although he seems to be the Managing Director of Mystic Pharmaceuticals.

Going out on a massive limb, within 2 days of this new company being incorporated between Valirx and a pharma company, the company RNS'd the following: "the Company has geared up the compound supply chain to meet increased demand for the drug, as a result of the higher dosage to be administered."

Are Mystic making VAL201 for us?

It's interesting that newsflow and the 200ma crossing have recently aligned, I think we need to temper expectations, we're still 2-3 years from production, but a slow drift back up to 50p by the summer is practical, provided there are no surprises.

Lovely start

Just looking over those 3x 2.8M share purchases (£50k a pop) over the last few days.

End of day broker tidying up? That's some serious cash changing hands

Just reading about the 11GW wind+solar renewable energy hub being built in Australia, surely that cannot be a coincidence that it's being built in Pilbara (a giant lithium mining hub in development), so perhaps they're trying to drive a lithium/solar/wind hub?

I also didn't realise that Pilbara also happens to have a modest resource of Zinnwaldite in the ground.