Member Info for Sangijuelas1

Also once on Nasdaq probably going to need to raise some serious cash for the new MRX 0518 trial with Merck/Pfizer and the Parkinson disease trial that they want to get going later in the year

Partly because not a single LBP has been approved by any regulator anywhere. This may change when Seres or Rebiotix get a product approved by the FDA. They seem to be closest

Holding since 2017, not complaining.

The rainbow is that way - - - >

The Woodford sell off caused the price to drop to 25p at one point last year. It would have collapsed again when the shares were being dumped by Acacia if 4D hadn't sent out an SOS to their other investors to buy them and support the price.
4D have made it clear that they want experienced and specialist US healthcare investors from now on. Hence the Nasdaq listing

I don't really think 4D would want him back as an investor. He caused enough problems last time out.
He is also facing a potential FCA ban from managing funds according to Bloomberg.

Vedanta's treatment is for IBD and 4D's trial was specifically for IBS, although 4D also have stuff on the back burner for IBD like Thetanix.

https://www.healthline.com/health/crohns-disease/ibs-vs-ibd

It is certainly a big question whether the consortia or single strain approach is better but it may be that the approaches both turn out to be worthwhile.
4D have previously stated that the potential partner for Blautix could be one of the mid-sized companies that specialise in IBS.
I don't think doubts over the approach are holding anything back. It's more the case that it's still early days for Blautix and potential partners would take time to fully review the data and consider the design and costs of running a P3 trial. I say it's still early days as the average time for bringing a new drug to market is 15 years.

Part of the investment case for 4D is the potential to discover, develop and bring candidates to market quickly given the probable favourable safety profile

The comments in the article seem to be more directed at a buyout once there's enough clinical evidence of safety and efficacy accumulated

4D has been collaborating with MSD for about 2 years with the Keytruda supply agreement and the vaccines collaboration the latter of which triggered a $5m equity investment last year.
The agreement with German Merck and Pfizer is new.

Wonder if there is anything to read into the new collaboration with German Merck since them and US Merck (MSD) have had a long running legal dispute over the use of the Merck name

They are probably trying to distinguish themselves from others in the field who are mainly focused on intestinal and gut disorders like Chron's and c difficil, whereas 4D can point to their oncology, asthma and neuro degenerative disease

Also forgot to mention Parkinsons and other neuro degenerative diseases

The most up to date corporate presentation also referenced the new generation of candidates for oncology

Yeah I just think they are concentrating resources on the oncology programme and maybe asthma and waiting for a partner to take on and run the Blautix P3 hopefully with an upfront payment

At some point IF crosses a point and becomes WHEN. You want to be in when that happens

Definitely think this is more interesting than the Pfizer article. 2 years ago the head of licensing at Merck (MSD) is talking about making an informed decision when there's more results from larger studies. Read this and then consider the ecpanded MRX 0518 trial that is already delivering preliminary data.

Links
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-invests-120-million-biotechnology-innovation-through

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210112005289/en/Vedanta-Biosciences-Announces-25-Million-Investment-from-Pfizer-Inc.

This is also interesting from a month or so ago. Pfizer has this funding model for small biotechs where they take an equity stake and a seat on the board.
They have recently invested $25m in Vedanta to take forward a P2 trial in IBD. Vedanta use a microbiome consortia approach, similar to Seres which involves combining various strains of bacteria. This is in contrast to 4D, which goes for a single strain. Both approaches may be equally valid.
(I prefer the 4D approach as I think it might be easier to demonstrate clearly the mechanism of action and you can get multiple effects on the immune system from a single strain, which is the logic Seres and Vedanta have for combining strains.)

The Pfizer investment in Vedanta is a good sign of growing confidence in microbiome and who knows, a possible future scramble to buy up promising microbiome companies.
MSD originated their partnership with 4D with MRX 0518 and then requested 4D find them vaccine candidates on the Micro RX platform, so maybe Pfizer or Merck Kgaa will also come back for more.

I messed up with the quotation marks. The paragraph starting "one of the things" are my words, the MSD quote starts "There's not much"

From 2 years ago but has quotes on the approach by Big Pharma to the microbiome and specifically quotes from MSD that I haven't seen before. 4D mentioned.

"One of the things worth considering with this investment is that we are very lucky that this is available as a publically traded company. Many in the microbiome are privately held with investment only possible through large investments made in funding rounds.
There’s not so much science behind the first products. Luckily, we’re starting to see more and more companies that are really looking into the mechanism of action,” said Michel de Baar, who is in charge of business development and licensing at MSD.
THEN THE ARTICLE MENTIONS 4D

"We’re definitely waiting for the first positive results from larger clinical studies in terms of live biopharmaceutics,” said de Baar. “To be really convinced that it works, we need at least two or three studies reading out very positively in terms of efficacy and safety. I think that’s for us a very important point after which we can make a better informed decision.”

"If you look at the number of papers published by very good labs, the list is growing every week. We are unable to catch up with everything,” said Rawadi, who agrees it’s only a matter of time for microbiome therapies to become mainstream. “Think of what are the best-selling products in pharma: antibodies. Twenty years ago, people were saying, ‘there’s no way a mouse antibody will work in humans.’”

https://www.labiotech.eu/in-depth/human-microbiome-research/

It certainly is hard to understand. I am not a scientist by any means. It's just the more I look into this company's work the more I like the investment.