Member Info for rhubarbmk2

VAL is certainly testing the theory that AIM trading is a method to transfer funds from the inpatient to the patient, I'll give it that.

PM2022 - you've been here long enough to know better.

Shameful.

You missed this one:

236p = 154 million.

:-)

It's good cobalt. Albeit not VAL, I think it was insightful to discuss briefly, and I'm glad you raised it. You never know, Suzy might be tapping someone up now, what with the clause (5?) passed at the AGM ;-)

I don't disagree, but what extra have the advisors seen would be my comment. Because looking at what's in the public domain, that's arguably now a fairly high MCap for what looks like a lot of work and cost to come, to get to a comparable level of clinical development, compared to peers at similar current valuations.

Maybe they've been snuck some juicy insider info, and good on them and the company if they have, but it's easy to make money when you have it, and if you're going to sink a million into an AIM share under a HNWI umbrella, you're pretty much guaranteed an immediate return, so I'd always temper my thoughts that it's 100% long term confidence driving that alone.

What I'd be interested in seeing is when these HNWI pull back out.

That all being said, I'm all for other peers to ascend to massive MCaps, as it spills out to others, and makes VAL look laughably cheap.

And of course if someone does it with VAL, I'd hardly be complaining :-)

I'm wary of these HNWI scenarios.

Unless they're privy to bona fide inside clinical/commercial and sensitive information, they're great mainly for the HNWI themselves. Beware of false prophets.

This board wouldn't divulge anything sensitive to a HNWI. So they'd likely not attract a similar investment ballooning effect, vis a vis SAR.

Whilst their conservatism can be a bit frustrating to us shareholders in general, being as tight as a duck's ar$e would be the right and proper way to seal confidentiality with any third parties.

I'd take a 13-15M MCap, with a pretty indisputable and clinically-proven drug candidate, over a purely speculative punt, any day, but good luck to them and the other outfits that want to entertain this route.

As much as paper value, I'm particularly restless to see who the partner will be. Suzy is smart, and so she will have plugged this to those both already in the area, and also those wanting to be in it. The Prostate field is on fire at the moment, needing better drugs.

It could be anyone from an underwhelming tie up with Billy Bob's university biotech, to an absolutely doesn't-get-better, never-sell-your-shares scenario, such as Janssen (JandJ), who even own the drugs to potentially trial it in combination with.

Chuck in a couple of -preferably top UK institute- preclinical candidates, and we'd be like a ferret out of the drainpipe. 301 would merely be an entertaining side show, just to see how long someone can trial it, preclinically, whilst keeping a straight face.

Before I go off to my own beer-swilling festival, staged by myself, in my own gaff, I should also say that there was an informed gentleman who was asking about patents here, recently.

From the public domain, I whizzed some info around 201 to some pals, who are more informed than I about product lifecycle maintenance and potential patent lengths. I've been told that VAL have done a very nice job of ever greening and extension, and that this should (as far as they can tell) not be an issue for a potential suitor - so there's something positive to take away.

I don’t think VAL would buy PYC.

Well, to be honest, they couldn’t (even if the piggy bank was enlarged). An IT-based image analysis oncology software company (Definiens) was acquired some time ago by MedImmune, I think for about 150USD. The PYC shareholders will likely know this and are probably, like us, laughing at their own market cap. Again, like us, they have several irons in the fire, that have yet to reach fruition. In many ways, the two companies are in very similar positions. This may very well have greased the wheel of the no-win, no-fee arrangement, and both should theoretically be attracting relatively high-risk and relatively high-reward investors as a result. More exciting and better than buying into a ballooned company, with a 300M MCap, and unproven clinical data, IMO.

I’ve probably said it before, but short of acquiring more and more shares to get a good 40-50% stake (don’t forget a TR-1 comes in at 3%), there’s no practical way of taking over a company on the sly. I don’t think Suzy and the team would entertain/recommend a price-per-share pay-out either, although that would ultimately be up to the shareholders. At 90%, they can force the remaining and stubborn ones (like oldbaldy) out. But if 2-3 of the contributors just here held firm, they couldn’t, so I just don’t see it. Every other forum has pages and pages on who will buy them out. It's nice to be practical.

201 will get sold or partnered; absolutely convinced based on the dataset.

Don’t forget though that CRUK hold a royalty in it. I don’t expect it to be very significant, as they handed it to VAL very early doors, but they will have a say in the proceedings.

Charity research finance/lawyer/BD sets can theoretically be somewhere between an astute, business-savvy, and private enterprise-minded brainbox, who are as desperate as we are to progress these things into more patients, and enrich their own reserves; or, a bunch of self-congratulating, right-on, Trotskyites, currently out of office at some fly-blown festival for the unwashed.

A cursory look at CRUK thankfully tells me that they are more likely the former, so that gives some solace.

Needless to say, when negotiations are three-way (possibly four, if additional questions are needed from PYC), then that may go some way to explaining the delay we’ve seen, and that, at this time, is what I’m personally putting the time down to.

I'll happily have a jar with you on a lifeboat Valtree (I'd enjoy the banter and chat), as long as you promise to tell me why you haven't sold your shares.

False dawn there Iceman. Just wait till I tell your sister, young man.

Knowing how Suzy can let slip from time to time, I'm going with:

"Load up to the hilt, before the herd arrive Iceman, and don't be out for the weekend".

:-)

"Set your clock for 7am, fella".

Everyone from the cleaner, to the CEO, will have to "buy-in" to any deal for 301, in Japan. NtD is spot on.

No one will want to make a decision, so it's no surprise that it's taken an age.

Someone else could still take it (hope they do tbh, in a slightly childish two-fingered salute). The fact that (I assume) they've not allowed VAL to give any meaningful update to the shareholders, in the form of at least a scheduled interim update, is pretty poor in my view. As a public company, they should understand the necessity of providing material shareholder updates. I do understand that the management have progressed it to a point, in the meantime, but it's a shame that it hasn't already completed a Phase 1.

That being said, the management are stuck firm in wanting 201/301 to partner/outlicense, whereas they are going to push 401 themselves, with finance. They have a comprehensive argument for wanting to do this, and it is a solid rationale in my view. If they weren't confident in this, then I expect that external funding would already be secured to develop 201/301 in house.

I like that Goomer, but my personal opinion is that we left any sort of predictive movement territory about 10 months ago. The prolonged 19-25p resistance level was broken with, I think, medium term holders getting board.

18p represents us LTHs, who have probably amassed, combined, most of the shares. Great news with a positive RNS, not so great for a regular dopamine fix.

The science is pretty settled, but I've come to realise that my investment is now all about "trust". That's probably a base, unusual, and highly frowned upon way to invest, but I have a feeling that it's common amongst us LTH's. If we are honest with ourselves, would we have bought in, purely based upon the RNS releases since last September, or the "official" news flow?

Maybe we're an unusual bunch. Maybe we're totally off with our inter-personal radar and others (IAR, inanaco?, Valtree etc) have been correct all along. Or maybe we're bob on; know a Billy b0ll****ter when we see one, and will be rewarded with our instinctive gut feelings and character judgement.

What's it going to be? Most left here seem pretty like-minded; I see not just optimists, but folk with nuanced approaches to investing.

Are we potty? Will the itch be scratched? Will we revert to textbook agnostic investing? I think we'll find out soon enough.

I though he only ever made one point:

301 was killed, by the Japanese, with a phone.

That being said, we all enjoyed a good ribbing, and I would very much like to see him back. With George and Satu. Oh - and StTropez - just for balance.

In fact, on reflection, I'm going to hold until news - excellent, good, or bad. I've put my money where my mouth is, and will sail with some of the stragglers, or slowly sink. I don't see an iceberg scenario. :-)

DrShan - absolutely. Not sure if it was intentional conflation, but there's no way on earth that the current board would ever consider doing anything that was rumoured previously re. IP capture.

They're doing their best, I'm certain of that. What does worry me is that there seems to be a groundswell of posters/holders, who I greatly respect, looking to exit September. Me; I'm giving it a bit longer, even if the SP ends up at 10p by October.

Well - there may be rumours around that this may, or may not, have been the plan, NH. I do not know myself.

What I would say, is that when a company has a MCap of just a few hundred grand, and sentiment is so low that you can accumulate cheap shares pretty much unhindered, whilst continuing to dilute, and then potentially delist, then it could make logical sense for Directors to do this if they thought that they had potentially good IP (with interim results available), that they could take private.

Despite the flatlining SP (I would respectfully disagree with Kevin that it has "stabilised", at this juncture), we are definitely not in the same sentiment/value territory now. Also, there's no way, and I can say this with 100% confidence, that the current Directors would now want to do the above.

I think that the chances of a buyout are low. Most potential approachers would think that the shareholders would bite their hand off if they offered 1.5-2X the current share price. I bet in the past, that Suzy has informally communicated that it would be unlikely that the LTHs would fall for that.

I'd encourage (for a laugh) anyone who wanted to do this (because they thought it would be the "cheap" route to get 201) to start accumulating shares, and try to get over 50%. They'd need 90% to push the rest out. But once they hit a mere 3%, they'd have to issue a TR-1. That would probably lead to a 400% SP increase within a day or two.

One trade - number 17,439.

Wake up RB/OB, FFS.