Member Info for shandypants2

don't think this will have any impact, regardless who wins.

Really though the China deal would fix price prior to US deal but it seems to have had the opposite impact.

It would appear US deal has been slightly delayed and that combined with market jitters have seen quite a large price reduction.
Business case is unchanged for STX and US market is massive.

This deal will get done - if anything China money has enabled STX to toughen their bargaining position.

I've topped up - this will be well above £2 the moment US deal is announced

yep i think update for Feb will be tomorrow based on Jan one - i've topped up too in anticipation.

Would be nice if we got a little more info rather than just BTC mined and revenue for month, although may have to wait until year end figures in April.
BTC appears to be recovering a little too

popped into a large H&B in Manchester over weekend and looked for Slimbiome.

Firstly had problems locating it - right at back of shop with weight loss products.
Then found it mid shelf with no great shelf appeal.
Price is high and active ingredients not really explained on packaging.
Unfortunately can't see this being a big seller.

Still think cholesterol reduction is the key here - a food that reduces cholesterol is our golden ticket if we get it right

later in week if UK goes into lock down you may want to review your last comment.

It's all about bums on seats - so if people go out less, and eating out will be the first to suffer, then revenues will drop like a stone.

Coronavirus rates will increase - it's a when not if

cash is 158k - up slightly from previous year end.

Cash in operating activities was only -8k was -650k kast year so a big improvement.

However, cash is still low, it is imperative to be cash positive in operating activities and despite being EBIDTA positive the company still lost c 1m so it is still loss making.

I think results are ok and showing improvement but not amazing - IMHO

would be nice to know impact of corona, if known, else this will keep falling

well if Moni can be positive there is hope for us all!!

with the terrible market conditions, unclear cash position and FDA process about a year away i can see this dropping back into the teens. Will definitely top up if it does.
Bargain times

Tesco deal - 714 stores.

I think this is for an initial 5 SKUs. As these are larger Tesco stores maybe 10 units of each at £8 per unit (if retail price is £19.99).
So that's over £250k initial order which will drop in H2. FinnCap has H2 ST growth of only 3%. 3% is c£250k so any uplift in sales via Boots, SD or DTC is not included here.

decent interview and they seem quite positive. Good to hear that choc range of ST is reaching a younger audience too.

KC mentioned that with the increase at Boots SKU coverage has increased from 8,700 to over 18,000.
Does that mean if 500 stores display 10 separate SKUs then that's 5,000 SKU coverage? If so whilst the initial 8,700 looks a little low as the really big stores (c400) had at least 15 SKUs so that's c6k SKU coverage alone.
However, more than doubling it for 2020 is clearly a massive positive.

I do think the negativity regarding the H1 loss and Roots performance has meant the massive positives re ST have been overlooked. Yes we are becoming a 1 product company, which is a concern, but that product is flying.
100% growth in C+L and Prolong is 1 or 2 % in ST which puts things into perspective.

New presentation released too (under company documents) - interesting that the DTC figures of 684k customers is ST only.
It is not IDP customers as a whole.

https://www.innovaderma.com/company-publications/

well it cost £400k to create the 100% extra lab space. If GB states this could increase by an additional 100% then that's c£800k.

That will need to come from somewhere

sorry should have mentioned this re presentation.
Cathal after speaking to Prof Oxford summarised the corona threat.

Essentially whilst very contagious it is less severe than the flu as symptoms have shown.
The initial spike in China came from animals and this is a more serious strain and hence the death % was higher.

The human to human strain is less severe so death rates should not be compared to initial rates in China - most people have not made this link.

Also as with flu is doesn't like warm weather so hopefully should recede in a month or two.

So essentially be careful but don't panic

Blah - it is the viral lab not the quarantine facility that is relevant for corona. The challenge study is for existing viruses that HVO 'own'.
It may get used, it may not. Cathal suggested that Prof Oxford would be able to potentially get access to the virus and undertake tests on it. Clearly all speculation at this point.
Also Corona has focused minds on other viruses which is where HVO should add value - e.g flu jab etc

the interview does give an element of confidence , however, remember it is effectively a PR exercise.

Confidence in the £4m is good and i think he said he has visibility of 75% of this but i'm not sure how he can come to that figure.

As GB is a salesman little things he said need more detail - we will be cash positive this year - so June 2020 or Dec 2020 etc.
He also mentioned bank facility - as a loss making company not sure if this is realistic, and why needed if we are cash positive??

Overall more positives than negatives and panic in markets represents a decent buying opportunity

i see the 188% C+L increase was later amended to 88% so it would appear FinnCap numbers are more realistic, if a little conservative. Hopefully Roots and C+L will at least mirror H1 performance so maybe £1m and £400k respectively rather than the 900k and 300k quoted.

Still think ST rev of H2, our largest revenue earner by a country mile, is conservative especially as we've now got an additional 800 Boots stores (albeit the smaller ones) and over 700 Tesco.
Guessing this maybe as H2 large order from Boots may have been slightly lower than anticipated as they will still have some stock left over from last year.

With Roots not performing very well we do need another product to start taking pressure off ST. The life science division generates low revenues and C+L growth is disappointing considering stores has increased by a factor of 10.

Hopefully NUthink will fill this void.

Cash position is a bit of a concern but if £500k has already been spent on Nuthink (300k development and 200k marketing) and inventory has risen by c£1m to cover H2 demand then this should right itself quite quickly.

Hopefully rev of c£15m and profit c£2m are still achievable.

Hi, sorry was out most of yesterday with no access to my laptop.

The event was attended by c25 people which i thought was slightly disappointing - room could hold maybe 50.
I've been in ORPH for quite a while now so the presentation was merely a recap for me, although most people in the room appeared to not currently hold (3 companies presented in total) and some questions were quite general in nature e.g. role of ORPH during the vaccine testing i.e. are we at risk if patient has side effects etc. Answer NO.

Cathal did mention Immutex - called it our lottery ticket. Explained that this is currently valued at 0 on books, but clearly could have a great value in future. This flu vaccine would be a once in every 5 year injection so the potential upside is high , but Cathal said ORPH wouldn't be committing any money themselves.

In terms of contracts a couple of more points. He mentioned the Venn part of business should be break even Q1 and HVO Q2, so maybe this is where people have interpreted delays.
He did finish this by saying ONLY invest if we announce a constant flow of contracts so this shows me he must be reasonably confident.

Another question someone asked was around cost cutting etc. Cathal said he wanted ORPH to be more like a law firm with minimal admin staff and most staff fee earners. Personally whilst i agree with this you also need the right people to go out and get new business and sometimes these are different skills. Thought Cathal's answer was a bit vague here - did mention if not breakeven by end of Q2 there would be more cost cutting!!

Hopefully current share price reduction is just a reflection on general market concerns rather than ORPH specific.

that's a strange interpretation.

Cathal is confident about contracts. Feb one may be delayed by a week or two. Not really the same as "no near term contracts".

brain - did you attend either of the 2 presentations yesterday ? - if so you could have asked the question

Having attended the Manchester event yesterday, here are a few pointers.

Cathal is a very approachable guy and happy to answer all questions.
He has a stock broker background and is the first to admit he is not a pharma expert.

The presentation was as that provided recently by the company so no massive surprises there.

The big positive for me was his answers to my questions re the 24 bed facility.
He said it is being utilised by BIG pharma companies for challenge studies - testing their vaccines against small doses of known viruses - and is currently full. When pressed he confirmed Merck are currently using it (so the deramping comments on here over the last few days can be ignored).
He also said the facility is almost completely booked for 2020 - it was utilised 30% in 2019. So a massive increase here.

He also spoke about the lab space they have and this is where they create vaccines etc - this appears to be the area where Prof Oxford may add value and where coronavirus may provide some business.

Other comments re contracts were interesting. He is hoping to announce one a month this year. The last was in Jan - when i mentioned whether we would get a Feb one he said it might be a week or so late. I then asked if we would then get 2 in March and he said wait and see. He also told the audience not to invest in ORPH unless they see these contracts dropping, so he seems pretty confident.

In terms of contracts he did say that Venn contracts were steady and long term whereas HVO have the opportunity to do larger ones (£3m to £5m) so each new one would make a substantial difference to company's bottom line.

Someone did ask about the possibility of selling and he did say there were 1 or 2 interested companies already

So in summary progress is definitely being made and this will be evidenced by new contracts . I came away reasonably comfortable with my investment.

Anyone going?

Will pop along as although i'm not expecting any new news would be good to meet Cathal and see if any of these contracts are close to landing

why is this loan required? They did a placing for over £4m only a few months back. Is this money already gone??