Member Info for scardey_cat

Yes, nice find Energy, thanks for sharing. Quite a dilemma for the Aptevo shareholders - stick or twist? It’s a delemna Avacta shareholders might face this year. An offer comes in at say £10 a share, share price moves up close to that figure (£9 say) pending BOD deliberations. Do you sell your shares at £9, or hold out for more? Nice dilemma to have though.

It'd save a bit on the ice cubes, if you were putting it in the beer at -70c.

Great idea - is a vaccine counted as a substantial meal? - I mean can you have a pint whilst you're waiting?

Mologic have been working with the Aptamer group and Cytiva over the summer and beyond. You would think that if they'd tried optimers as a reagent and subsequently decided to go with something else, they must have found something more suitable/accurate. Unless, they decided optimers were too expensive (considering their target market is less developed countries - cheaper tests) or Aptamer have said 'sorry, you can't have them, we're putting our own test out there' (unlikely, I would think). Anyway, it will be very interesting to find out what 'mix' they finally went with.

I think the guy mentioned in that article (Darren Tomlinson) was the person who first invented the affimer, before it was spun off to Avacta for commercialisation from Leeds university. It's interesting that he'll be the one providing the affimers for this project. Guess he must have kept a few in his back shed for a rainy day. I assume Avacta would provide the affimers 'on mass' were this project to bear fruit.

[The proposed project is to fund an interdisciplinary collaboration with Dr Darren Tomlinson (from the internationally renowned Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds) to develop affimers recognising mouse aVß8. Dr Tomlinson has the library and the expertise for affimer screening, which we do not have in Manchester. Dr Tomlinson’s laboratory was the first to develop these reagents [9,10], and has successfully raised affimers against many different proteins ]

Got to say, hats off to The Good Law Project - they're right on this crony governments case.

Unpublished COVID-19 contracts
https://goodlawproject.org/update/unpublished-contracts/
Take PPE Medpro – the £100 company, set up by a former business associate of Conservative peer Baroness Mone, which was awarded contracts worth £200 million, just seven weeks after it was set up.

Vegas:
https://goodlawproject.org/update/trying-to-rewrite-history/

On the flip side of '50% false negatives' there is the 50% true positives that LFT's are currently detecting. So, not an unmitigated disaster at all, since without the LFT's these 50% true positives would be out there spreading the virus. That's not to say that a 50% detection rate is ideal, but that will greatly improve over the coming weeks with the advent of more accurate tests.

Participating in the LFT pilot is one way Durham University is contributing to the local, national and international effort against coronavirus. Experts from the university’s Department of Biosciences are working with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Medical Detection Dogs to establish whether sniffer dogs can be trained to spot Covid-19. The first phase of the trial is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

Rollyroll: Don't think the delay had anything to do with the new variant, I think it was just a straightforward realisation that either a) Saliva didn't cut the mustard or b) The sampling method was not suitable for target use cases. I tend to agree that Avacta doesn't have a 'special place' in the governments heart - I find this notion a bit self-indulgent. However, I do believe we will produce a highly accurate LFT and that the company will do very well by it's own merit.

From the Aptamer Group website:

Optimers are being trialled in a number of LFD tests including the rapid saliva LFD test for SARS-CoV-2 infection to support the COVID-19 pandemic, in conjunction with our partners Cytiva and Mologic.

2. TIMETABLE
DATE ACTIVITY
24/12/2020 Despatch of the OJEU Notice.

29/12/2020 OJEU Notice published on TED.

11/01/2021 Latest time by which any Potential Provider must have raised any Procurement Clarification Request, which must be raised in accordance with Section 9 (Procurement Clarification Requests) (the “Clarification
Request Deadline”).

12/01/2021 Latest time by which DHSC will endeavour to respond to any Procurement Clarification Request made on or before the Clarification Request Deadline (the “Clarification Response Deadline”).

15/01/2021 Deadline for submission of a Tender, which must be submitted via Atamis, in the required form, with all required parts completed and containing all Mandatory Supporting Documents (the “Tender Submission Deadline”).

15/01/2021 –22/01/2021
Evaluation Period, during which DHSC may raise any Tender Clarification. Requests with any Potential Provider, which will be made and must be responded to in accordance with Section 10 (Tender Clarification Requests)

During w/c 25/01/2021
Date on which DHSC intends to provide Notice of Intention to Award to the successful and to any unsuccessful Potential Providers that submitted a Tender.

Early-Feb ‘21 Expected date for signature of Contracts.

Early-Feb ‘21 Anticipated start date of Contracts

IFU = Instructions for Use

Also, these are the sampling requirements for the test in this tender:

Specimen collection method
2.4 DHSC requires Tests which have a specimen collection method specified in the IFU as one or more of: nasal (anterior nares or mid-turbinate), Oropharyngeal, or saliva. Tests for which the only specimen collection method specified in the IFU is nasopharyngeal are not eligible for consideration and will be excluded from evaluation of a Tender.

So, Mologic are certainly not excluded from this tender, as their sample is Oropharyngeal.

Okehurst, I beg to differ, this tender is not for self administered home test market. Have a read of the test specification for this tender:

Users permitted to administer test/ take sample
2.6 DHSC requires Tests which have a statement(s) in the IFU which confirms that the Test is
permitted for:
2.6.1 self-testing by any individual (“Full Self-Test”);
2.6.2 self-swabbing by a non-medically / non-healthcare trained individual without any prior training (e.g. a member of the public) either with or without supervision by an individual who has received training (but need not be a medical or healthcare professional), and subsequent steps must be undertaken by a trained person; but where that trained person does not need to be a medical / healthcare professional (“Self-Swab + Non-Med”);
2.6.3 the swab collection and test administration to be carried out by a trained
individual (but need not be a medical or healthcare professional) (“Non-MedSwab + Non-Med”);
2.6.4 the swab collection to be carried out by a trained individual (but need not be a medical or healthcare professional), but require the subsequent steps to be carried out by a healthcare professional (“Non-Med-Swab + Med”)
2.6.5 the swab collection and test administration to be fully carried out by healthcare
professionals (“Med-Swab + Med”)

Here is a link to the full test specification:
https://health-family-contract-search.secure.force.com/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?retURL=%2Fapex%2FProSpend__CS_ContractPage&file=00P4J00000DQNtPUAX

Okehurst:
Yes, but all we know about the Mologic sampling method is that it's a respiratory swab and whilst it appears saliva / lower nasal based swabs are the preferred option in connection with this tender, oropharyngeal swabs are not excluded. Anyway, nice to know that Omega has all angles covered.

JAdam: That's an important piece of information, if true. It's the difference between being eligible to apply for the tender, or not, as suppliers have to have passed through Phase 3A Porton Down to apply. Hope you're right.

Okehurst: Like you, I'm invested in both Omega & Avacta. I have been wondering if Mologic would even have presented their test for evaluation at Porton Down, given that their target market is 'third world' countries as opposed to the UK. I would find it surprising if they had gone down the Porton Down route, unless they had been persuaded to do so on behalf of Omega, which seems unlikely. What's your thoughts on this?

Unfortunately, having an argument with AP is a bit like a game of whac-a-mole. Very hard to pin him down on anything. When he's struggling he just goes off on a tangent. Bit of a waste of time really.

Just a bit of a tongue-in-cheek choice of name gbk47. Think in hindsight, I'd have been better going with 'ballsofsteal', but too late now, I'll have to live with it :-)