Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
From what I understand, there's virtually no chance of Affimers being used with a vaccine - that would involve Affimers being introduced into the body which is totally untested and a world apart from using them in test assays. It would presumably carry all the same hurdles that the therapeutic use case (for treating infected patients by binding to the virus spikes) presents and we know that is a long term play. It would be a completely novel approach with no historic data to draw on, so it would take years to get through the clinical trials (essentially following a process akin to the cancer therapy, which has already advanced through a number of pre-clinical trials).
I do think we're in for a surprise product announcement (AS has suggested as much), but it seems that's more likely to be in the diagnostics space rather than a vaccine or therapeutics.
17 current vacancies! Isn't that about a 50% increase in the Manchester workforce?
Thought there was an Interesting additional word in this week’s tweets from the company - the word is ‘fully’
“We continue to make very good progress with a rapid antigen test and with the laboratory based mass spectrometry test. We are preparing for the first clinical evaluation of the rapid antigen test and will update the market fully when that study begins.”
We normally just get “update the market” but the addition of the word “fully” suggests to me that we can expect a comprehensive update on everything about the LFT very soon - not just the study starting, but progress with manufacturing scale up, commercials and expected launch date etc.
We may get other updates before then on the other products in development, but I now think the LFT news will all arrive in one mega RNS.
Al also teased us with the possibility of additional ‘undisclosed’ Covid products at the AGM, which presumably could lead to a wild card announcement at any time.
Just some musings in the absence of anything else to go on.
OK, have it your way Cooper - there are some people on here that have been invested since the Vialogy days, so we've been around the block and pay attention to what's going on. Some of us have also developed a very detailed understanding of how the financial dynamics of the business have been evolving and may even have modelled projections of our own that show eye-watering potential for future revenue growth which, coupled with the huge operational gearing, suggest that this company is poised to become a money generating machine in the coming months / years.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that we are not free to point out things that we believe have been poorly communicated or inadequately explained - it's what these forums are for.
PS even a cursory glance at my posting history would clearly demonstrate that I have no hint of an affiliation with Twix, but I guess you didn't bother looking before making that wild assertion.
Cooper, I have no desire to enter your personal spat with Twix, but this is a discussion forum not an appreciation society - it's OK to have a positive outlook about the totality of this company as an investment choice, while questioning certain aspects of their performance and the quality of their communications. That's what these boards are for and we can all then make an informed choice about our investments. You don't have to agree with everything a company does to regard it as a good investment.
I agree that the update today was disappointing - not particularly because of the actual numbers, but because they are out of line with what we have been told for the past 6 months and especially that the core business was remaining 'incredibly resilient'. That set a clear expectation in everyone's mind that the additional revenue streams from new products, the Illumina product launch and Covid etc. were all incremental revenue on top of the previous forecasts, whereas the reality is that it has been largely substitutional year to date. If the narrative throughout the period had been different (core business has been hit, but we're bringing on line other income streams to fill the gap), then today's update would have been a strong validation of that story and good news in the context that every business is currently operating under.
I still can't get my head around the limited capacity for Covid testing - Lyn said that they were in talks with the Govt over moonshot, but surely that can't be on the basis of packets of 10,000/month (which is 333 per day)? Surely he can't be going into a conversation about increasing national capacity from 360,000 per day currently to millions per day with an opening gambit of 'packets of 333'? Anything less than thousands (probably tens of thousands) per day simply wouldn't register on the radar.
One thing we do know about Lyn is that he always wants to be certain that he can hit his numbers - maybe he doesn't have the stomach for going large? The only other explanation I can think of is that further capacity expansion is aligned with contract wins, which would make some sense, but it would be good to hear if that's the case.
Interesting find - shift pattern suggests they are literally working around the clock
Agree with others that the webinar presented some interesting insights into how the Covid-19 testing is developing. My reading of the reference to saliva testing is that they are looking at whether they can adapt the existing tests that they have to use saliva rather than nasopharyngeal swab samples. So not a fundamentally different test, just a different sample medium.
On the capacity side of things, I was initially disappointed to hear a repeat of the reference to routinely testing 10,000+ per month and growing, as that's what we heard at the AGM, but I think this sort of presentation can only really use information that's already in the public domain, so any update to those numbers (actual or forecast) would presumably have to be released by RNS in the first instance.
One way or another (Covid update, trading update or full year results) we will get some new numbers over the next weeks / months. With everything that’s been going on, they will surely start to show at least a glimpse of the cash machine that’s been built over the last few years, at which point the market will respond accordingly.
We know we’re probably there already Florida, so is this back to you’re previous thoughts about published data and trading algorithms etc.?
Surely a stonking trading update would move things earlier?
Care to elaborate on what that milestone might be Florida?
Hopefully it's just that the Covid testing money is taking longer to count than envisaged.
Agree that the uplift looks extremely modest compared to the opportunity ahead, but for the first time these figures demonstrate how the operational gearing is starting to kick in. As we move past break-even, with the fixed overheads covered, every additional £1m in additional revenue flows through to £633k in PBT.
So if each 10k package of monthly C19 tests is genuinely worth £5m in annual revenues, that means that each 10k tranche of tests is worth something like £3m in PBT, or roughly 0.44p per share (on a 12 month basis with no multiplier). OK, so 0.44p per share isn't very much, but the Govt is looking to increase it's capacity from 250,000 tests per day currently to 500,000 per day by October and on towards millions in the future. That's another 7.5m tests per month from October's uplift alone - 7.5m tests is 750 'packages' of 10,000 tests, so the opportunity is absolutely enormous. If we got just 5% of those additional tests, it would equate to something like 16p per share in additional profits over 12 months.
Lyn is playing it cool, but any significant Govt contract will be completely transformational for short/medium-term revenues and profits - and we already know that Yourgene's test is a gold standard test, so any update on Moonshot is going to be very interesting indeed.
Isn't Lyn planning to launch an all-employee share option scheme shortly? I think it was mentioned in the video? If so, I would have thought they will want to get that sorted before we see any numbers.
This seems like quite a limited market, but I wonder if the industry is thinking of developing a version of this tech that could be retrofitted at key inspection points throughout the whole sewerage network? May not be in time for Covid, but it's clearly looking for a broad spectrum of pathogens, so might be an interesting future development. You wouldn't even need to check any of them until you got a positive result at the treatment works - you just follow the trail upstream until you find the source.
Not sure that's quite right Gunnerbgood - I think they showed that they could raise the dose to 18 times the current level before they hit the same levels of cardiotoxity that they have today with the current therapies, but in practice they wouldn't use that dose because even at that level, there is some damage to the heart and you can only have four or five cycles before you have to stop completely. I think AS said in the Proactive Investors video that they would probably keep the dose at the same level as they use today, because at that level there is little or no cardiotoxicity and therefore you can have as many cycles as are needed to eradicate the tumour. Presumably there may also be an option somewhere in the middle, where you could zap (I think that's the technical term) the tumour harder but still not damage healthy tissue. Either way, it's a lifesaver.
I agree and also think that too much focus is being placed on a vaccine, which will be subject the concerns that have existed with most vaccines in general usage in the population, namely that sooner or later someone finds a link with some condition that appears to have been triggered by having the vaccine.
Compare that 'new' vaccine risk to the same risk with a 'new' therapy that may carry similar risks - the risk equation is completely different. With a vaccine, you're taking healthy people and asking them to take a risk of having a new vaccine (with relatively unknown side-effects) to protect against the risk of getting a virus they may or may not get. With a therapy, you're dealing with people that already have the disease and may be seriously ill with it/deteriorating. That population would be prepared to take significantly more risk with a new therapy because they have far fewer options open to them - it's a completely different choice.
I think there are five pillars to the Covid response:
1. Science / pathology of the virus - this underpins everything else, but has little commercial value in its own right. Avacta is contributing, but no commercial developments.
2. Antigen testing - critical to control the spread of the disease and probably even more critical to sustainably opening up economic activity. Massive commercial opportunity because of the potential to unlock domestic and global economies. Avacta is developing multiple mass-market products in this space.
3. Antibody testing - important to understand the pattern of the spread of infection levels throughout the population, but opinion divided on whether knowledge of whether individuals have had the disease is of any practical help in terms of what that then means in terms of both personal immunity and propensity to infect others. Uncertain commercial opportunity and Avacta isn't playing in this space.
4. Vaccine - seen as the holy grail, but huge obstacles to overcome both in terms of efficacy, scale and speed of production and competition, any of which could scupper an individual company's product. Huge potential to ultimately resolve the pandemic, but major uncertainties and likely to take significant time to build public confidence. Avacta isn't playing in this space.
5. Therapy - seems to be developing at a much slower pace than the other pillars, but good medical practice appears to now be having a significant impact on patient outcomes. It is, however, predicated on using established drugs (e.g. Dexamethasone) to treat the symptoms rather than inhibit the spread of the disease. Commercial potential for a novel therapy would seem to be very high. Avacta is seeking to break completely new ground in this space with a treatment that could have both therapeutic and prophylactic potential.
Looking at it this way, Avacta really does seem to be playing in the three areas that have the most commercial potential.
Welcome aboard Rtest - you've basically asked the question that everyone else has been asking themselves since the litigation was resolved over a year ago. This company has huge potential but none of the future potential is reflected in the share price. At some point, the reported numbers will prove the point and we'll get the re-rate that is so long overdue, but until then, it's a rather pedestrian affair compared to Novacyt. However, the tortoise and the hare may yet prove to be a suitable analogy.