We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
Indeed, and none of us has a crystal ball to tell us if that will continue or for how long.
But it’s the same for most BioTech stocks as the average performance across the sector is similar.
I expect FARN will drift up or down with the market and down further in periods of no news.
But news of a pivotal trial (or even conditional approval through Bexmab) would rerate us significantly and we’d all be smiling.
It’s not rose tinted specs. There’s a risk I lose it all and I wouldn’t invest a penny in an AIM stock like this if I wasn’t prepared for that eventuality.
My point is that the maximum we can lose is 100% of whatever we’ve invested. But we all stand to win many times whatever we invested, and whatever price we invested at - IF they get a drug to market.
The risk / reward equation is very similar for all of us at the end of the day. You just stand to win more in percentage terms than people who are currently up.
Interestingly I must have put money into my SIPP at about the same time you invested because I’m about the same %age down. But my other holdings are up. Should I believe my SIPP telling me it’s an awful investment or my other holdings telling me I’m a genius?
I ran a comparison last week of FARN vs XBI (For Biotech index) and there wasn’t much in it over 12 months. Of course I could run it against other periods and get wildly different results either way. But today’s share price is not just a reflection on FARNs progress imo.
So I’m sticking to my guns and I’ll trade on trial results, not market sentiment.
Why does the share price today matter? If the drugs work we make many multiples of todays price. If they don’t we lose everything.
The end point is the same.
Whether our screens are blue or red right now is an accident of timing, nothing more.
The end point is the same.
I could go on, but you get the gist :)
It could be argued that they have added significant value over the last 18 months, it just hasn’t been reflected in the share price. The biotech index as a whole is down about 30% over the last year which shows it’s not all FARN’s fault.
I listened to the results presentation last night and had to listen again this morning to check that I wasn’t imagining things. But Markku did say that approval for Myeloid cancer could happen ‘really, really fast, potentially as soon as we give the first dose - and that will be in Q2’.
Now that really would be a game changer!
QD - For early stage drugs like Bex the fastest route to market is normally to start with last line patients, and we may be able to apply for some form of early use in these patients as they have no other options.
Having said that, the NSCLC trial (with Keytruda) is tagged as 1st line and the neoadjuvant trial on solid tumours (RENACOL) pretty much has to be earlier stage as it's a treatment ahead of an operation. So we are progressing at all levels now.
My big question still remains - how on earth does Marrku intend to fund all these trials?
We have data from over 100 patients now, I wonder if it's enough to start striking deals. The value to Merck of Bex working in combination with Keytruda would be enormous and surely it would be "unfair" for Faron to pay all of the costs....
They haven't RNS'd the link with Merck/Keytruda yet, the only reference is on clinicaltrials.gov. And yet, the trial is due to start shortly. Let's hope there's a deal in the offing.
Totally agree TC. This is the only forum I’ll post on.
I think most of us here are true investors so short term share price is irrelevant other than when they need to raise money.
Ultimately we’ll win huge if the drugs work and lose it all if they don’t. We’ll be the last to know either way. So share price in between doesn’t really matter and we stick to discussing the important stuff.
I do find myself increasingly speculating about what's happening and on Faron's (undeclared) strategy regarding funding and deals. This is my list of the clues we have been getting recently:
1. Corporate presentations started focusing pretty much exclusively on Bex well before XMas
2. Dates for Hibiscus trial were extended on clinicaltrials.gov without any mention until prompted by a question on interim readout dates in the Proactive session
3. Bex NSCLC trial appeared on clinicaltrials.gov as a combination with Keytruda. No mention of Merck or Keytruda in any presentation and the written question about it in the Proactive session was ignored.
4. New CMO RNS focuses on Bex. No mention of Traumakine in responsibilities.
5. New COO RNS focuses on Bex. No mention of Traumakine in responsibilities.
6. Timo adding shares outside of a raise - seems to indicate that either he's expecting short term value or he wants to keep the share price stable at this level to prevent a raise diluting his existing holding too much.
And in the Proactive Session Markku says:
7. (Are you going to sell, partner or go it alone?) It's a combination of going alone and taking partners, but we are not ready - only now are we producing the data for dosing and patient selection, and the recent recruitment of a CMO with an oncology background will really help.
8. (Are you going to need to go to market to raise funds in the near future?) The board is well aware of the situation, we have many options and hope to be able to talk about it soon. Can't say anything definite at the moment.
9. (Further EIC support?) Share dilution is not my favourite either as I'm one of the founders and I hate to be diluted out before the final outcome. So we are looking at other options as well but EIC has the capacity to invest further. Hope to be able to tell you rather soon what are the next steps.
So reading between the lines my guess is that they are:
- in discussion with ano party about licensing / selling Traumakine
- in discussions with Merck about a partnership deal for Bex in combination with Keytruda
- trying to get one of those over the line before they have to come to market for more cash
At the last raise they said they had enough cash to last until Q3 2022 at current activity levels. But activity has increased and they are recruiting. If they have this quarter in mind (as per Markku's "rather soon" comment), the data release ahead of Feb 23 could be the catalyst for increasing the share price for a raise in March.
The last raise was for about 5% of the share capital and I doubt Markku would want much more dilution at these levels - so maybe something similar if they need it.
But let's hope they do a deal first!
These large trades do seem too big for the retail market so it is odd. Unless they are Timo's shares being moved across to Nas - not sure how that would get represented. But he's still accumulated a lot of shares in a short period of time somehow.
I would doubt a consortium would try a hostile takeover as the Jalkanen family and Timo hold too many shares. My guess is it's something more benign, but who knows!
Yet another communication focusing on Bex and not mentioning Traumakine. Same was true of the CMO RNS.
Surely a COO would be responsible for both programmes… something is going on here. I can almost smell a transaction of some kind being worked on…
I’m half expecting them to sell / out-license / split off Traumakine.
The Bex programme is growing arms and legs as the potential grows and it will need significant funding. There are options with partners here too but all the indications are that they are focused on creating value in Bex rather than Traumakine.
Traumakine hardly gets a mention in the company presentation these days, but there’s huge potential for it. Covid trials are progressing too slowly and the broader ARDS agenda is on the back-burner. It needs funds too.
If the biotech market wasn’t on such a low I would think they could split out Traumakine into a separate subsidiary and list it on Nasdaq to get the cash we need for both, but I’m not sure how feasible that is at the moment.
They’re going to have to do something, and I think they know it. Markku says he isn’t a fan of further dilution (nor am I, at least for Bex!), so there are limited options left!
All imo of course.
Interesting that there’s no mention of Traumakine. It’s often what’s not said that’s as important as what is said imo.
My instinct is (still) that they’ll do a deal if Hibiscus interims are good and use the proceeds to fund Bex internally.
Great spot Sax!
Looks like this is the “NSCLC in 1st line with a PD-1 inhibitor” on the Bex Clinical Development slide in the Sept Corporate Presentation. It also refers to the trial as being investigator sponsored but I’m not sure exactly how these are funded, especially with Merck (Keytruda) in the mix. There would be massive value to them if this works too.
Whatever the funding, imo it’s fantastic that this moves Bex to 1st line and better still that it’s with Keytruda, the biggest of the PD-1 inhibitors.
I’m dreaming of a news-rich Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
When the share price glistened
And PIs listened
To Markku doing One2Ones
I’m dreaming of a news-rich Christmas
With every lse post i write
May Hibiscus interims go right
And may Bex cure everything in sight.
Merry Christmas everyone (and sorry for the dodgy scanning!)!
Well they have three conference presentations lined up between 10th and 25th January and a Proactive One2One session on 27th. Results on 25th too.
So whilst I’m not particularly expecting more news this year I imagine there’s something lined up for Jan. Hibiscus interims and / or Bex dosing most likely.
Who’d be a CEO in this environment? The biomarker data was really important but it did nothing to stem the drift. Ultimately exec teams can’t do much about the market so we just have to wait for the science and any deal making to play out.
Good spot! Looks like there’s at least a possibility of more funding.
I wonder what influence they might have in our broader direction as they clearly want to foster European innovation and companies. How would they feel about selling out (or even out licensing) of Traumakine / Bex / both to a US Pharma? Would be interesting to know if there are conditions attached to their support.
It’s focused on Colorectal Cancer (CRC), the cohort in Matins that showed early stage promise but has been dropped from the cohorts being taken forward.
Unfortunately it didn’t prove much from what i can see, and it showed a lot of complexity in the effect of macrophages in the different stages of disease progression.
I think Markku said they might return to CRC later, but I’m not sure if this was before or after he would have known about the results of this study. He would certainly have known early as Sirpa (his wife) was involved!