focusIR May 2024 Investor Webinar: Blue Whale, Kavango, Taseko Mines & CQS Natural Resources. Catch up with the webinar here.
https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2021/W13/747765928
Published two weeks ago, just sourcing transport for daily deliveries (UK to UK - so not Innova as they utilise freight of course).
"The Test & Trace programme requires logistics capabilities to enable the storage and outbound distribution capabilities of Lateral Flow Devices (LFD) to support the Government’s ambition to scale up and increase the volume of testing available across all pharmacies in England from April 2021."
"The DPS is expected to launch on 16 April 2021 and will run for an initial period of 12 months with the option to extend the DPS for a further 12 months."
Responses for this contract by 06/04 so I'm sure they've sourced the winner of that contract after the webinar, now they just need a good LFT to load into thousands of trucks a week.. anyone know any potential LFT ready soon?
Have a great rest of week.. :-)
Jar, there is an image just below (not one above with a glucose meter) that sentence with a picture of LFT's lined up with one being held close to the camera. Dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Buckle up.
Aptamers - burn it! :-) Great spot, seems like it really has legs as an option. The glucose machines are a lot more expensive (at least to buy) at $20-$50 but unsure whether they are single use, if they aren't and you can re-use it's a fantastic idea (don't worry - LFT still has huge huge upside and probably preferable, out the packet, test and in the bin).
Note they used the S protein over the N - and S/S seems pretty unflappable. Whack an a few Affimers in and it's unbeatable.
Oh most definitely RNmyS, looking at the Google Search of the image it is just described simply as a 'Measuring Instrument' so as I said - perhaps looking too far into it. Just very interesting, never a bad thing to keep the mind active investigating whilst the hours tick closer to one where we all rejoice. :-)
Perhaps looking a little too far into the website update teaser that was showing a picture of what seemed to be a glucose meter (with AVCT badge branded upon it) in relation to COVID testing.. that or I'm bored at work. Could such a test have legs? I'm not insinuating a link-up with the below company, as such, but a glucose meter style small portable machine reading results of COVID-19 test isn't unfathomable. Albeit unlikely/non-starter with UK Gov.
Marc Green (Head of Product Development at Avacta) worked for start-up company Luas Diagnostics previous to this job.....
"Luas Diagnostics: 1. Covid-19 testing
Luas has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Chembio Diagnostics Systems in the USA to market their Covid-19 antibody and antigen tests in the UK and Ireland. These tests will be sold for use in the workplace, pharmacies, care homes, airports, police forces and many other market segments.
Luas has signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Birmingham to develop a saliva based, rapid Covid-19 test. Saliva is a convenient sample to obtain and has been shown to be as accurate as swabs.
The COVID-19 test will run on a small, low-cost, portable device, providing results in minutes. The eHealth enabled device, similar to a glucose meter, will not only provide rapid results at the site where the test is performed, allowing immediate patient management, but will use Bluetooth to transmit the results directly to a Smartphone App and a secure cloud-based server which can then be accessed by health care professionals."
Food for thought none-the-less. Off to take my meds..... ? “The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
Most definitely Monkshood, no way to factor in the weighting of probability (at least from myself) of potential cross reactivity etc. I doubt even Innova know fully, nor want to know! Also just don't know the time between testing, the manner in which the person carried out the test etc.
Multitude of reasons for it to occur, there is also a huge variation in conditioning of Innova packages according to reports, so all tests may be from same dodgy batch.
Hopefully soon this need not be a topic, Innova tests will have their purpose and that will be to fill any gaps in the extremity of size of market required for LFT's.
Also, as an aside has any one got the link for Government desired timeline LFT-wise. I believe it had 19th April as a key date in regards to rollout, has been put here a few times but my investigate skills are lacklustre at best to find it again. Cheers in advance
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/968095/lateral-flow-device-specificity-in-phase-4.pdf
Recent Analysis on Innova. Using relevant (real-life situations) data, Innova go at 50.1% LFD sensitivity and 99.72% specificity - this is on the pre-requisite of PCR sensitivity being 100%. Pooled estimate of 94% on the sensitivity may perhaps be closer but using the 99.72% (comparison to PCR) is the known benchmark.
Going at 99.72% the chances of having 3 false positives, from let's say 20 tests. The chances of this person's story being true is 0.00239%. 3 from 50 would be 0.03771%.
If anyone wants to know how I worked that out then I'll try explain but after a coffee..
Now let's get everyone the AVCT gold-standard LFT's! :-)
Shares are shares, you're working against the elements in these situations so well done on slipping a few more into your pocket!
Avct have inadvertedly built themselves into an astute situation, the news has near limitless upside once it starts to flow. Its not one piece of news we're awaiting, it's the floodgates that open from the first. It suits all types of investors to get a few to hand and thats showing in the SP the past few days.
Risk/reward at play and perception from me is less and less are taking the risk of getting out, and are seeing more reward for the potential risk of short term news.
Fun last 3 hours of trading all!
I'm not one for conspiracy but I think that was a show of as close to the proverbial writing on the wall as we are to get here at AVCT. Every share into the 250s and low 260s has been absolutely munched up by some whales. The fact similar happened over at ODX (would be interested in seeing a timed graph comparison for all), shows something is all but signed on the dotted line UK consortium wise.
Never nice to see for any share, voltures swoop in for crossramping too. Hopefully some got out of alive.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/private-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-validation/private-covid-19-testing-validation
Apologies if posted previously, some good reading on importance and longevity of testing (as we unfortunately know, years). Also hammering home a message on the UK based production.
"The UK government has a number of objectives in relation to facilitating a thriving private sector market for COVID-19 detection testing. One key objective is about enabling and supporting innovation. We are keen to grow the private testing market, enabling domestic innovation to improve testing effectiveness and efficiency"
"As the private sector market for the manufacture and supply of COVID-19 testing grows, it is important to drive up standards of performance for tests on the market and provide clarity for consumers on the performance of tests detecting the presence of COVID-19. Removing tests from the market only after they have been reported creates a gap during which the virus could spread. This could result in local outbreaks and subsequent negative health and secondary economic impacts resulting from any necessary measures implemented to control the spread of the virus."
"There is evidence that some COVID-19 tests do not perform as expected and as disclosed in their instructions for use (IFU). For example, only 25% passed through all stages of DHSC lateral flow validation to be considered of sufficient quality for procurement. Currently, (with the exception of self-certified IVDs) tests are permitted to enter the market without going through the process of an independent validation of their performance and not all tests are performing to a sufficiently high standard. This is despite 9 in 10 suppliers having the CE mark, with three-quarters meeting the ISO 13485 standard in relation to post market surveillance."
"The current lack of transparency over the performance of tests also has negative impacts for consumer choice. Test kit selection based on manufacturer declared performance is currently based on suboptimal, unstandardised data, making it difficult for consumers to compare performance of tests."
"Currently the data used by each manufacturer to achieve its CE marking is unique and designed by each manufacturer. This allows manufacturers to tailor their use cases to ensure the most optimal performance of their tests."
Good to know AVCT are doing this the proper way. We will play our hand and I sense pocket Aces.
https://avacta.com/diagnostics/products/ > "Gov.uk Getting Tested for Coronavirus" > "rapid lateral flow tests – only for people who do not have symptoms, they give a result in 30 minutes using a device similar to a pregnancy test
Both tests are free."
Up to 100m tests per month has also been quoted for Medusa. https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/founders-lancashire-based-boohoo-launch-18952163.amp?__twitter_impression=true
They're not half-arsing this, I haven't dismissed them since first collab. Their links are worldwide, also. The opportunity for them is lucrative as anything. The Madrid link-up (our CV & Medusa's current Spanish RSPT) isn't coincidental for me, I think Medusa may surprise us pleasantly.
I think they may go at £15 per test to allow some affordability, £10 for bulk. Guess work but the potential profit for AVCT is exciting, if they managed the original 50m and we went at £5 per LFT takehome.. you've underpinned the SP within less than 2 months @ a PE of 2.
All ****ing in the wind guessing figures and manufacturing levels but good to see HUGE ambition on these from both UK Gov & Medusa.
People fed up with the time to market but I'm seeing it as time to prepare (manufacturing), time to perfect (LFT s/s) and time to plan (replaceable Affimer strip for variants).
https://medusa19.com/ is looking raring to go, too.
Ducks, lining and all that.. Good luck all.
"As far as we are aware, our spike protein ELISA test is the most sensitive test of its kind"
RNS also refers to the sensitivity as 'high' and specificity as 'excellent'.. if 'high' can be global leading in its accuracy (within ELISA) and what only insinuates 100% specificity (my intepretation)..
These Affimers work and they work well as we know. All I'm seeing is the Affimer tech being put in to every BioTech supermarket globally, we are now lining up down every aisle and company's are having to take notice. Research may feel an anti-climax but look at Daewoong for example, these can lead us to further licensing deals from large companies satisfied with their R&D. Can easily accumulate a huge warchest and global affirmation of Affimers without us lifting a finger.
Great start to the trading week - SP can and will fluctuate, I'm looking forward to the next imminent news.
Ca. 90-95% of the UK's population are eligible to pick up a carton of 7 LFT's from their nearest participating chemist (requisite of being 18+). This will be just one methodology of receiving a test within UK, hundreds of thousands of businesses are participating and will have their own collection of tests. I know it is currently England and not UK-wide, but there's no chance the devolved nations don't include themselves in such a level of testing.
Just on the basis of a 50% UK-wide take-up of 1 box (containing 7 LFT's) every other week, you're looking at over 15 million boxes a week. Chances are many will grab more than one box fortnightly, if able, could quite easily go through 7 just to feel confident in travelling to/from work. 105M+ LFT's a week just through the pharmacy collection. The figures are staggering, even if we only get a cut (say one third) of a percentage of these. It would be a shock if UK based manufacturing could cope with the levels required to execute this plan perfectly.
For me, if we are to replicate the 100% specificity, specific being the word so often binded to Affimers, we have a real ground-breaking product (99.xx% would still be fantastic). Instantly shoots down the consistent worries of false positives, it would be a shame to have low performing LFT's mixed in amidst ones performing at 100% specificity - as it would convolute the good work by generating false positives and undermining efficacy of the testing as a whole- although unfortunately the demand will force the market to be as such. We are certainly eating up a lions share of the UK's manufacturing capacity, no coincidence there.
£29.6BN chucked at testing over the next two years, considering uptake reached over 1 million tests per day in March (during lockdown), is a very understandably gargantuas figure. One million tests per day (which will be made to look miniscule shortly) at 1/3rd of cost going to AVCT already would underpin our MarketCap after a year, without scaling in any PE factor. Nor touching the potential AffiDx (not AffiRx), nor global potential..
The Affimer production line is working over-time, that's all I know.
AVCT have an entirely different projection of a task to the majority of the currently saleable LFT market.
We are tackling a multitude of problems and seeking full enhacement and preparedness pre-roll out. Adaptability is to be consistently tackled by us, hence the stringent testing already for this. This prevents a cliff-edge scenario for the company, it looks likely testing for COVID will be around, sadly, for years and years. Decades is sadly not a small possibility, but a real one. This versatility also can potentially transfer to other pandemics, diseases etc.
Secondary is the global affirmation of affimers. Hey look, this product is great and here's the reason why, our magic bean. Easy to say this has not been proven, but it has. They work, there are thousands of pages of scientific backing for this out there on the interweb. Perhaps the negativity roots from the fact it has not been showcased in an LFT - understandable; however this is a pandemic that none of us forecasted. The compant didn't have this plan in their business forecasts, it has arisen and they have jumped at it and had to utilise help of a company with proven trackrecord in this realm.
Another, which is key to me, is the commercial relationships we have confirmed. We aren't now a lone soldier, we are a cog in an evergrowing machine; not the small cog either.
Lastly on CE M & CV. These are likely to come as one, if not with more. CV has been de-risked as we have ran an essentially parrelel test in terms of its requesits, and hit incredible figures. AS didn't have confidence of a larger scale study for no reason, and he won't sweat CE marking as it is essentially a formality. Any (unlikely) problems will have their fixes also.
Lastly, so we don't forget. The test works, it has been manufactured in its thousands and is currently being or is ready to snowball into the millions.
Time doesn't bother me, the SP is fluctuating around double the levels of the placing price along while ago - SP rarely tells us the true picture of worth but I'm quite sure we'd be staring at a gloomier number if this was all built on lies. It's a very tricky oppprtunity to take for, what was, a smaller company - and AVCT are now close to taking that opportunity (albeit after ca. a year) and running ahead of the pack. Whilst making some very handy friends along the way..
GLA. Enjoy your Easter holidays!
https://avacta.com/investors/avacta-regulatory-news-service/
(on the Avacta website under regulatory news service if link not working)
To sign up for RNS via e-mail. Instant distribution service.
Sure we will all have some nice bits of information dropping in our inbox within the next week. :-)