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Treeshaker; I would point you towards this article, in response:

https://www.biospace.com/article/cell-and-gene-therapies-shatter-prior-records-with-continued-growth-expected/

“2020 was a record-shattering year for financing, with $19.9 billion raised in 2020, up from the $9.8 billion raised in 2019 and the $13.3 billion raised in 2018 – the previous record,”

“More than 100 clinical trials commended in the fourth quarter alone,” Lambert said. “Roughly, they are divided evenly among cell, gene, and IO. With 152 trials in phase III and nearly half of those in gene therapy, this offers strong support for predictions by both the FDA and EMA that there will be 10 to 20 advanced therapies approved each year through 2025.”

'What people often forget, Lambert said, quoting Amy Price, a mother of two gene therapy recipients, is that cell and gene therapies aren’t “some fantastical futuristic thing.”'

With regards to exosomes; clearly they don't even have to be at clinical stage to generate potentially huge collaboration deals, as outlined with the Codiak and Evox deals that have come out in the last 18 months, when all they had was proof of concept data from animal models. They may never translate to actually approved treatments, but as long as some deals come, then the Rene share price will be substantially higher. That's the point.

Ok, well I think what you presented was misleading, and I would like to expand on my point in relation to your “The chance of even a small molecule preclinical drug making it to market is 1.in 5,000 and exosomes are a novel biologic which is riskier. Let's be generous and say they have 5 candidates - that"s a 0.1% chance of success” comment.

On the basis of the probability levels you have set-out above (a 0.1% chance of success for the 5 five drug candidates, which equates to a 0.02% chance of success per drug, i.e. 1 in 5000 probability per drug), I would refer you to the collaboration deal signed by Codiak and Jazz.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jazz-pharmaceuticals-and-codiak-biosciences-announce-strategic-collaboration-to-research-develop-and-commercialize-engineered-exosomes-to-create-therapies-for-hard-to-treat-cancers-300772647.html

‘Collaboration strengthens Jazz portfolio with novel therapeutic approach that has potential to provide transformational benefit to subgroup of patients with modulations in well validated but previously undruggable targets
Codiak to receive $56 million upfront, up to $200 million in milestones for each of five targets, additional preclinical development milestones of up to $20 million, a co-commercialization option on two products, and royalties on future net sales’

Obviously without knowing the terms of the deal, all we can do is robustly speculate. So, if we were to very conservatively assume that Jazz only ever paid on average $20m in milestones for each of their 5 exosome candidates, then based on your ‘1 in 5000’ chance hypothesis, Jazz would be expecting to pay around $100 billion per successfully approved drug candidate ($20,000,000 * 5000 attempts = $100,000,000,000). i.e. not even remotely realistic.

The drugs they are looking to deliver are, themselves, not preclinical. These are promising drugs that have generally failed to get approval in Phase 1, 2 or 3 due primarily safety (severe adverse effects) or efficacy (unable to cross the blood brain barrier or reach target) concerns.

I hope you will agree that your stated odds of success, when vetted conservatively against figures calculated by industry professionals (i.e. the terms agreed by Jazz and their directors), do not stand to reasonable scrutiny.

Treeshaker - with regards to your comment;

"The exosome program is preclinical. The chance of even a small molecule preclinical drug making it to market is 1.in 5,000 and exosomes are a novel biologic which is riskier. Let's be generous and say they have 5 candidates - that"s a 0.1% chance of success."

Clearly, based on some of your postings, you are knowledgeable about biotech stocks, the risks, the FDA process etc. So perhaps you will offer comment on the following (which is a summary of my thoughts regarding exosomes - a subject up until about 8 months ago, I didn't really know or care about).

Codiak released an RNS today: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/02/04/2169830/0/en/Codiak-Reports-Additional-Positive-Phase-1-Results-for-exoIL-12-Confirming-Local-Pharmacology-and-Dose-Selection-for-Safety-and-Efficacy-Trial-in-Early-Stage-Cutaneous-T-Cell-Lymph.html

In short summary, it is a follow-up study in relation to their testing of exoIL-12, which is the drug IL-12, loaded to exosomes and targeted to solid tumours.

IL-12 is a drug that was developed in 1986, and has been the subject of number trials due to it's promise as an immunoregulatory anti-cancer agent:

"Based on subsequent research studies, IL-12 seems to serve as an immunoregulatory anti-cancer agent for oncology patients. However, the adverse events related to IL-12, including fever, chills, decreased peripheral blood cells and organ dysfunction, have limited the clinical application of IL-12."

An RNS from Codiak a month or so ago discussed how the payload drug was tested phase 1, and the initial five cohorts of five patients displayed no observable side effects from the treatment. This despite the drug being delivered at equivalent levels that had previously shown severe adverse effects, when the drug has been administered via means other than exosomes. This is consistent with pre-clinical findings they presented from animal models (i.e. what Reneuron are currently pursuing).

The RNS today states "IL-12 was not detected in plasma at any dose of exoIL-12 tested and plasma IP-10 was only detectable at the highest, 12 µg dose. . . As previously described, no detectable IL-12 was present in plasma and no drug-related adverse events were observed across the entire dose range."

Codiak are in the process of validating a delivery programme for drugs that have been around a long time; drugs that are designed to target hard to reach/treat diseases. The drugs have previously been shown to be effective at treating the diseases, but have an intolerable safety profile, which is why the have not previously been approved.

Codiak and Rene are offering the potential means to load these drugs in a way that will target the disease, but potentially without the side-effects.

My question therefore is, in the context of what I've said above, do you truly believe that a 5 candidate programme would actually offer 'a 0.1% chance of success', as you state.

Interesting perspective, timeframes and valuations. I'm not sure I fully agree with any of them, but then it's extremely difficult to present figures that are any more relevant, due to the nature of the company. It's possible that they may not require any more rounds of funding (i.e. upfront fees associated with licencing deals, and examples being the $50m jCyte received upfront in their recent licencing deal with Santen; or the $72.5m Codiak received upfront from Sarepta, or the $56m they received upfront from Jazz for exosomes collaborations).

Should they start generating deals like the above, then fundraising may be a thing of the past. If we therefore assume the share issue stays broadly similar to what it is now, then your upper estimate of $8bn (your words, not mine), would see a tasty looking 150 bag proposition, which would be nice.

The more likely outcome, in my opinion, is a takeover in the next couple of years for a more modest valuation (probably shouldn't speculate, but if Nightstar was worth $800m, then perhaps that would be a good starting price?).

What I don't get here is that if Shell had pulled out of other projects and focused on VLS, then everyone would be saying what a great endorsement of the project it is.

However, the opposite has happened, yet people are saying that it's not a big deal and VLS never needed Shell anyway.

I appreciate people will want to protect their investments, but you have to accept that Shell pulling out can only be seen as a negative.

I don't really know what a fair value is for this company, but the drop from the Shell news looks modest to what it could have been IMO.

The project may ultimately succeed, but the risk of failure has surely increased by losing a major strategic parter.

Fair enough onceaday, at least you got your money back and didn't miss out on the recent rise. Agree with your sentiment about US biotech, and will have a look into Chimerix since you've mentioned. I've done well on Codiak in the past 6 weeks or so.

Would like to see Rene eventually listed on the Nasdaq, as I think that would be the best place for the company to realise its true value if everything goes to plan.

Onceaday, your posts have seemed rather negative in the last few weeks. You didn't happen to miss the breakout did you? In December you were commenting that any delay in treating patients was probably down to waiting to get the Oxford site on board with Robert MacLaren (Nightstar) and that owing to his exceptional knowledge and expertise, the wait was worth it. Do I gather this is no longer your opinion?

Good post, Chester. What I would add to that, and cannot emphasise enough, is that from a technical stand point the price has broken out of an 18 month descending channel. That is a really significant development as it now defines us as being in a bull market, as opposed to being in a bear market. It means (most likely) that bits of news will drive the price, as opposed to seeing spikes which rapidly fade (as has characterised the last 18 months).

Nobody can guarantee where the price will be in days or months, but the breakout means that the investor sentiment and outlook has changed and this will automatically attract a new (trader) audience.

14 years? That's incredible, truly battle hardened. I agree with your sentiment, however it may be something you have to get used to if 2021 ends up being 'the year' for Rene.

I think you'd have to agree that it's better that the price is going up and traders are trying to ramp it, rather than it going down and nobody caring about it other than the long term investors. A small (but necessary) price to pay IMO.

Thanks for the response.

Followed this company on and off for the last 6 months, but not currently invested. The question I have is how does the Enerkem technology and process differ from the VLS? Does the Enerkem technology purvey any particular benefit over that of VLS that would make Shell drop VLS and get behind Enerkem?

Or is it a matter of the Enerkem project having a funding pathway, and Shell seeing more immediate returns forthcoming when compared to VLS?

An update around that time would be most welcome.

I wonder if any further news can be expected with regards to the evaluation of the CTX line for brain diseases such as Huntingtons:

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/919038/reneuron-group-s-ctx-therapy-shows-early-promise-in-treating-huntington-s-disease-919038.html

Safe to say if they were able to move into human trials for this over the next few years and generate some positive data then it would add a couple of pence to the share price!!

Thanks grizzly.

Where did you get that info regarding stroke trial update in May? Ironic how the stroke programme was the main platform for a number of years, yet, due to the recent strength of the RP and exosomes developments, the stroke therapy barely ever gets a mention! But you are right, should that come in then all bets are off with regards to game changing value, as that would probably be the biggest of the lot, which is saying something.

I find it somewhat bizarre that they still do not assign any particular value to the exosome programme. It's perhaps because the market is (in relative terms) still emerging and difficult to accurately value. But they are at least now making reference to the fact that codiak are listed and have a MCAP in the region of $600m.

Anyway, all positive stuff, looking forward to next week.

https://www.edisongroup.com/publication/continuing-to-gain-clinical-data-in-eye-disease/28643/

Prospero - that is an admirable hold, really hope the company delivers for the true long term holders like yourself. I've 'only' been in a couple of years, and even that feels like a rollercoaster of a ride. Happy to have significantly increased my stake during the open offer.

Next leg up looks like it's on the cards after some consolidation. Long overdue bull market is finally here, makes a nice change!

I have only recently come across this company and have taken a small position, with a view to expanding this significantly if the market offers an opportunity to get in lower. Had a quick look at this board and I'm surprised how quiet it is given the recent share price performance and the potential on offer.

You'll need to click 'expand this thread' to see the full thing - it's around 20 tweets long in total. Some decent analysis.

Good summary thread posted on Twitter yesterday evening; worth a read whether you are new to the share or been here a while:

https://twitter.com/hareng_rouge/status/1348748130427285504

Positive start to the week, the bear market appears well and truly broken now, looking forward to the weeks and months ahead.