Member Info for Qd22

In January my 40 year past biology training woke me up re Covid and I sold my easy to sell core holdings including SMT. A bit early in the event but no timing's perfect. Then being nervous of the wider economy when it all fell I started to drip feed back in to individual stocks I thought wouldn't be too hard hit when the economy hit the wall: Covid related, technology, etc.

I would probably have done better to have just bought back in here - or even sat tight all through, as I recommended friends and family to do.

It's a good, good trust. What happens when disaster strikes is always a good measure. Arnie will be back! Sometime.....

PS If anyone knows a company breaking new ground in the arthritis field I will be very interested to know!

"nice to get another poster here" - thank you Trek.

If it goes as we would all wish you'll find yourself with over 300 posts daily to wade through! Indication: time to topslice. I managed that with ODX, getting my stake back out in the spike, but not with Avacta.

I can't say I have your expertise - and never will have - so I tend to have small holdings in a lot of stocks. Which tends to lead to higher costs and a lot of 'story' stocks: not ideal, but seems safer to me. Always glad to see posters on the board who have a handle on the financial side of a stock, and who post their reasoning, both positive and negative. Welcome the negative, if it's reasoned! And those who say when they take profits or sell out. It's all grist to my mill. I hope I'm learning, if slowly. It can be expensive, so open ears can be a great blessing.

So, thanks, and keep posting!

Feels very risky taking a stake here after such a rise... but I bet none of you are selling out. The potential is so vast, and it seems they've got over the big hurdle of initial recognition and first contracts. So often small companies with good products can't seem to get noticed, but from what I can see we have been. The NHS will do anything to save money, and they've smelt a money saver here. And it will be so much more convenient for doctors, just in the surgery to take the blood test and send it off, results back in 3 days. The next bit of course is... how to treat it. 4D Pharma is looking really exciting to me for that - and perhaps some way down the line even Avacta.

PS. If they can prove themselves to the Chinese... wow! SO MANY smokers.

It's also proof of concept for a lot more than just Covid-19. They can make affimers to bind to the surface of probably whatever external problem they choose. We didn't just get lucky that they worked for this particular disease. Think about it.....

Glad to see they've doubled R&D spending: 4m to 8m in the half.

Hmmmm. They said sales and marketing and R&D last year. OK. Does that mean they are deliberately making loss making contracts? Sadly I'm no accountant and wouldn't know a balance sheet if I was forced to eat it. Deliberate loss leaders doesn't sound good, but may be a necessary evil in early days? Amazon springs to mind.

The positives for me are (a) operating cash outflow has reduced since H2 19 - probably not by much or they would specify it, but at least it has stabilised (b) Revenues continuing to increase strongly even in this last half year (c) 98% revenue retention sounds like once they are in they are found to be essential, so loss leaders may be strategic. Quite what 110% net retention rate means I am not sure - the upsells? (d) The upsells sound like very good news: 373 customers out of 1609 at start of year upsold in just the first 6 months? These 6 months. I expect the margins on upsells are better. It does sound like they are making themselves useful. It also sounds like the marketing dept are earning their money. (e) I'm sure there's a lot they can do in the NHS which will be mutually beneficial, and to us taxpayers also. Glad to see them helping there, and glad they are in there too. (f) Institutions in general seem to be increasing, though it looks like Fidelity cannily took some profits in February. (g) If strongly impacted sectors such as aviation are being good markets it looks like companies desperate to survive are turning to automation to save money. I would think this is going be a big post-Covid trend - for distancing as well as finance - and it's good to see Prism in on it right at the start. Tough for workers though. Very. ATB all.

"Operating cash outflow reduced from 2H19. The Group plans to reach cash break-even in 2021"

That's what they say. What is the cash going on?

Given it's work in both healthcare and pharmaceutical supply I'm surprised that this has moved so little. And especially in these sectors robotic packaging and handling is surely all the more important now.

Cannacord (of Canada?) taking nearly 6% stake.

Must look cheap to them.

"Bango launches SoftBank payment option for Amazon.co.jp
· SoftBank customers can use carrier billing to purchase retail goods on Amazon.co.jp
· Bango now powers carrier billing for Amazon customers in Japan across big three mobile operators"

The forward march continues. It's good news, and I'm very much looking forward to the next update as well.

I have an ignorant question: I suppose that Bango-enabled payment performs the same function as Paypal in that the buyers details are not revealed to the retailer? Which would make it a win for security, a win for ease of purchase ie the purchaser, a win for the mobile company through the data analytics (as they say in the RNS), and a win for the retailer which gets more business.

What about combining it with a credit card system as well? Then I would certainly want to use it.

Last week's RNS said they were looking forward to updating us on further partnerships. The below is from the 15th May RNS concerning the potential "several of these Affimer reagents" had now been found to have for a TREATMENT as opposed to testing.

"Recently GSK invested $250 million in Vir Biotechnology Inc3 to develop potential antibody treatments for COVID-19 by selecting antibodies from recovered patients, and AstraZeneca also recently announced that it would start a programme to find new monoclonal antibodies that block the spike/ACE2 interaction4.

There is significant potential for a therapy that could help prevent infection and limit the progression of the disease, providing immediate benefit to patients. With a large and well-resourced partner, a neutralising Affimer therapy could potentially be developed more quickly than a vaccine and we believe that the likelihood of success would be high."

So, yuh, that's what I'm waiting for.... Could be huge.

PS. Could be even huger (!) if they could combine with Synairgen and deliver it by nebuliser straight to the lungs, rather than via the gut and the bloodstream.

I don’t think Dave Sweeney was ever active on this board, unless under another name.

Not me, but pleased to have been able to top up this morning in the 44p area. I'm down 20% on this, but find it an exciting share to be in, not so much for the Covid side, but for the incredible range of possibilities elsewhere.

From the 11th May RNS:
Dr. Jean-Pierre Bizzari, chair of the New Drug Advisory committee of the EORTC1, and formerly Executive Vice-President and Head of Clinical Oncology Development at Celgene, commented:
"The data from Part A of the study are very encouraging and quite promising, with the drug combination exhibiting an excellent safety profile and early signs of clinical benefit in heavily pre-treated patients with advanced metastatic disease. Further studies are warranted and I look forward to working with 4D in evaluating this treatment in a larger population of patients in Part B of the study".
4D pharma previously reported positive interim clinical observations from Part A, in which three of the first six patients enrolled achieved a clinical benefit (complete response, partial response, or stable disease for six months or more), evidence of increased tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) following treatment, and no drug related serious adverse events. These patients continue to show clinical benefit and have now been on study for between nine and twelve months.'

This was only 6 patients, the trial done for safety assessments, not clinical benefit, but 3 out of 6 very ill patients with 4 totally different kinds of serious advanced cancers - "this particularly difficult-to-treat patient population for which all other therapeutic options have been exhausted." - and 50% have shown clinical benefit.

Yes, not counting chickens, but it's exciting.

Nice analysis, Trek. I especially like your final 2 words!

I say that genuinely, that's the realism you need as an investor. Thank you. Down 20% here, waiting for the top up moment...

Last year there was a trading update on the 10th of July. I must say I am very curious to see how it goes.

Going by my awful memory, it was primarily problems with their Wipac division, which has been disposed of a few months ago. Both the plastics and aviation divisions been fine. On top of that a major pension deficit, still under negotiation.

Corrections/additions welcome!

This share taught me a bitter lesson: cash more than market cap doesn't mean anything! It was way over the market cap in March 14 when I first bought, and I couldn't believe my luck. It had to be a winner!

It wasn't, has remained within touching distance of the cash reserve all the time, and has lost me a load of money. Crazily, I still hold. Normally I wouldn't now touch anything oil related, but this has skills in geothermal energy drilling as well, and is the only way into that that I know. I want that to come good and so still hold. That's about the worst of reasons. Martin Perry also came with a good history, and I think he has done a good job through a few difficult years for the oil market. Never raised more money, or diluted, that I can remember. Over 6 tough years that's pretty good. They've guarded that nest egg for the right time, right from the very beginning. Without it they would have been in trouble. As it is, they'll survive this.

Frankly I think that the idea that the actual flight is lower risk than the airport is self-serving tosh, from the airlines. But you can understand why. If they can't afford to fly without spacing passengers I wonder if they could (a) both scan for fever and use a cheap antigen test before flight (these are coming), (b) have a handheld scanner on board for regular checks and to check any passenger showing any signs, and have an area of perhaps 10 seats that can be isolated and any passenger with issues has to agree beforehand to go their if asked.

They have to do stuff like this or they will not regain passenger confidence for years - and go under in the meantime.

Thank you, MikeGP and Smithers, really helpful. 2nd really helpful board today, (check out EMH). Really encourages you to buy: tells you there are well-researched people, probably much more knowledgeable than you, who believe in the share.