The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
Hello, this is what I sent (on 29th September) if helpful to anyone else. I kept it short as am sure MPs get so much volume of email.
Dear MP,
We are now progressing into a second wave of the Covid pandemic, with unbearable costs in terms of health (physical and mental) of the UK population as well as devastation to the economy.
There is mounting evidence that Covid works by suppressing Interferon production (an early part of the immune response). Two papers published in Science last week show that many people with severe illness either have antibodies to Interferon or genetic mutations rendering their interferon response less effective.
This increasingly raises interferon treatment given early in the illness as having huge potential to reduce illness severity. The Southhampton based company Synairgen is currently trialling their nebulised Interferon beta treatment, with excellent results in a study of hospitalised patients. Their trial of 'at home' treatment to evaluate whether this treatment can prevent illness progression and need for hospital admission is currently struggling with recruitment in the light of government support (as per their RNS of today).
I am shocked that there is allegedly a plan to spend a further £100billion of UK citizens' funds on operation Moonshot, while failing to support assessment of this treatment which could be a game changer if given early in Covid infection.
Please could you place pressure on the Government to precipitate support for assessing this treatment (perhaps through the RECOVERY trial) with a view to urgent licencing approval if data supports efficacy.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Yes, I do live in a 'shadow' constituency. Was very impressed by how informed he seems to be and supportive of advancing interferon as a possible treatment though.
May be we really can exert pressure and spread the word to speed this up if more of us write to MPs. I expected to just get a fobbed off reply.
Just got this response from my MP - every little helps after all!
Thank you for your email, which I have forwarded to the shadow health team. I am aware of studies suggesting a link between auto-antibodies to endogenous interferons and COVID-19 severity among patients. I believe this emerging body of evidence provides another means of identifying at-risk groups. I also think that the Government should now consider all available evidence around the effectiveness of beta-interferon for use in treating COVID-19 with a view to urgent licencing approval should evidence indicate this would be an appropriate course of action.
Once again, thank you for contacting me.
Best wishes,
There is an obligation to update price sensitive information to the market.
If AFC think this standard of communication meets their obligations and any standards of professionalism it might be
because what they have to say about Alkamem is not positive enough to move the share price and be defined as price sensitive.
RM is doing a great job of getting SNG001 available.
For a tiny company to take a drug this far alone is truly remarkable.
Well done Synairgen.
But, these diagrams about the best use for Interferon early in the infection make a lot of sense. We may be the holy grail of treatment as early a possible, rather than restricted to treating only very sick people. We really need progress on the home trial. I have written to my MP asking what the government is doing to support progress of this trial.
I would like to see SNG001 available immediately to everyone with a positive test result. Hopefully a vaccine will be cavalry, but in the meantime and even with a vaccine.
UK population abour 60 million.
Before 70% herd immunity about 42 million.
Some will be asymptomatic and never be tested diagnosed, so maybe 30 million positive tests.
At £1400 per treatment, this would cost £42 billion.
Very cheap compared to current economic carnage and operation moonshot allegedly another £100 billion of our hard earned.
If this meant people were kept out of hospital and could feel that getting covid with treatment was as scary as flu currently is we could return to more normal life and economy.
Please support the home trial Uk Government!
Good point Mouchers.
This sounds like excellent progress and Alkamem really could be the holy grail for AFC.
If the presentation is restricted to information currently in the public domain about Alkamem it will be very short.
If it is to include information not currently in the public domain the presentation needs to be made public at the same time, or the attendees will need to be added to the AFC insider list and unable to trade in AFC shares. Failure to do this would be a matter for the FSA.
I hope AFC will be meeting their legal obligations.
I only partly agree with you Tornadotony.
I know you are very well informed and respect your posts.
However, scientific peer reviews are there to be very critical of the science. We know they will say the study is small and the groups not completely matched for comorbidity. They may also nit pick about things like statistical analysis not including multiple comparisons.
This is a different thing from does the drug have benefit and do more harm than good required for it being used. The tie up with Clinigen required due dligence and it is already a vote of confidence to get this far. We may or may not get approval without further trial data (hope we will), but it will not be decided based solely on scientific peer review.
I tried to spread the word about the home trial via facebook. A non-medical scientist (quite high powered) replied that the study was 'flawed' because it did not specify whether it was UK or internationally based. I pointed out that having MHRA approval was specified and defined the study as UK based in the absence of other approvals. But, we should expect peer review to be very critical, it is how science works. It does not mean SNG001 is not great or won't get approval and save a lot of lives.
This is a great RNS and happy to see this treatment with huge potential to prevent a lot of deaths and economic carnarge now available to select patients.
However, I see the most benefit potentially as a treatment early in the illness and this will need verification with results from the 'at home' trial. I can't believe that Boris plans (allegedly) to spend another £100 billion of our hard earned on 'Moonshot'. yet the at home trial is struggling without sufficient government support. I will be writing to my MP today.
Synairgen are currently getting their covid patents sorted and this IP protection is vital to get right for all territories.
For most territories this needs to be submitted before the invention is published.
So publication and the peer review associated with it needs to wait until after all patent submissions are completed.
Great perceptive post Ghia!
The proactive interview certainly gave me the impression that approvals, supply chains. funding perhaps from government, etc are very active and a priority while a partner may have been described as 'later' or 'ultimately'.
Either this is tactical to let prospective big pharma know SNG don't need shabby deals from them. Or, RM really is progressing SNG 'business as usual' as far as it can go without needing a partner. The more boxes he can tick, the higher the value when a partnership is finally agreed (or otherwise). Very exciting to see what happens next!
This is fantastic news re: patents.
The previous patents were not covid bulletproof. How could they have been when covid was unknown when they were submitted.
Well done to RM for submitting them so fast after 'the invention'. Impressed by organised getting ducks in a row so far and waiting to see what happens next and hopefully very soon.
This extends duration of protection to maximum for covid which is great news in terms of value.
May not have increased the share price, but another piece of risk removed for me.
Thanks Bumble! I still have a few and may be back if I feel more confidence here in the future.
I just wonder if the price of product is a reason for limited sales and whether that will ever be resolved.
I note it is now a year since the last De Nora joint development with reducing price as one of the targets.
No news on progress there yet. Perhaps there has been great success, or maybe another year of JD with a view to further price reductions. I no longer assume that no news is good news and lack of communication remains a big problem.
Other fuel cell companies have foundered on never getting down to a reasonable price point for mass sales. Options are either no sales, or death spiral of repeated dilution with sales at a loss. AFC have always promised their product would be cheap enough to make profit, but not clear to me this is the case when everything is so secret squirrel. Possibly the secret squirrel is because they don't want to clarify that problem.
Valuation will depend on business model.
1) This could selling products to paying customers and making a profit - good.
2) It could be the way many fuel cell companies have gone. Getting product out there but below cost (perhaps claiming that costs will reduce with economy of scale). Doing this will mean continual loss and repeated fundraising and dilution. This model probably not really an investment.
So details of deal size are important and I can see why the market is not impressed when they are not mentioned. This may be ominous. After 14 years I have sold most of my AFC shares and very relieved to have made this difficult decision. Just could no longer feel confident in this BOD with everything shrouded in secrecy. The bits you can see seem pretty disorganised and chaotic which does not inspire me with confidence for the bits being kept secret. Worse is when any questioning of all this is met with no response or arrogance and contempt. Still have clear recollection of 'that' AGM and I don't see lessons have been learned.
Awonda, I understand what you are saying. I have sold a patent to a drug company from non-commercial research. I was very surprised at the verbose and pedantic way patents are phrased. But, where billions of pounds might be at stake, patent lawyers may go through the small print to present legal challenges if it is profitable.
However, covid is a new illness and they have only had 'the invention' since the results on 20th July. RM is expecting to take this forward to be an amazing treatment and probably involve drug company partners. He will be fully aware that needs robust IP protection. He will either have taken advice on the wording of existing patents, or in my view more likely there are new covid specific patents being prepared for submission as we speak. Patent lawyers take weeks to produce them and only 5 weeks have passed since 'manic monday'. I don't have any concerns that RM has overlooked having robust patents in place for this new covid application.
SGN001 is being used with a mesh nebuliser which gives a fine aerosol.
Nebulisers are very common, such as the ones used for salbutamol for asthma. These are just a pot where you bubble the air you inhale through the liquid. They can be added in to the breathing tube of ventilated patients. They do not do the same thing as a specific mesh inhaler delivering a fine aerosol.