Member Info for Titania

See below. How many existing shareholders had their broker tell the bookrunner that they were existing shareholders?

genedrive plc (AIM: GDR), the near patient molecular diagnostics company, confirms that, further to the announcement on 5 May 2020, the Broker Option has now closed. The Broker Option was oversubscribed, will be exercised in full and will raise a total of £1 million for the Company (before expenses).

The Bookrunners had regard for soft pre-emption rights of existing shareholders in respect of the proportion of Broker Option Shares received relative to their existing holdings as were confirmed by their stockbrokers, however, due to the issue being oversubscribed by Shareholders alone, allocations have been scaled back. Therefore, being an existing shareholder in genedrive will not guarantee a full pro-rata entitlement or any allocation of Broker Option Shares.

The Bookrunners expect to notify stockbrokers of the number of Broker Option Shares they have been allocated later today by way of contract notes. Stockbrokers who have placed an order will receive a single allocation, and are in turn responsible for apportioning their allocation to their underlying clients and for confirming whether the shares should be EIS or VCT qualifying, any allocation being subject to the relevant limit of eligible shares.

As already confirmed, Peel Hunt and finnCap have determined all Broker Option Share allocations at their discretion (after consultation with the Company) including any scale back of orders for this purpose on such basis as Peel Hunt and finnCap may determine, including scaling back to zero allocation.

Does anyone know if the relevant Cytiva operation is in the UK or US? I seem to remember that GE bought Amersham in the early 2000s. Clearly Cytiva is global.

One question; do we think the Saliva test picks up infection before someone is contagious?

If so, I think we are seriously under estimating the market size. Just look at air travel. The airlines and airports are saying that social distancing is impossible (eg John H-K, CEO Heathrow). One way around this is for everyone entering the airport to have to take a saliva test. In the same way as we run security screening to ensure passengers don't have bombs and guns, we will have COVID screening prior to entry.

I could see for incoming passengers, a saliva test could be required daily. See below from the FT. Very few will fly to the UK if they have to quarantine for 14 days. Instead they could be required to take a daily saliva test. With perhaps an app in support - or just required to photo the test strip.

Heathrow had 80 million passengers a year in 2018. Assuming every outgoing passenger had to take one test and every incoming passenger had to take 7 tests, then Heathrow would be 320million tests a year. Maybe reduced by those with immunity certificates (assuming antibodies work). If this was grossed up, we could get to 16billion tests a year globally for air travel.

Better make sure the tests strips can be recycled.

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British Airways parent IAG warned on Thursday it would not restart flying if the UK imposed a 14-day quarantine on passengers arriving in the country.

“If there is a 14-day quarantine, I wouldn’t expect us to be doing any flying in that situation, or very little flying,” Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, said.

He added he could not see “an environment where people will want to fly into the UK if they are forced to quarantine for 14 days”.

Grant Shapps, UK transport secretary, is considering quarantine measures for all arrivals into the country once travel restrictions are lifted as part of the government’s phased exit from lockdown.

Agree. Any guess on the drug partner for the 2 drug trial?

Today Boris is probably going to explain how hard it going to be to move out of lockdown while keeping R <1. While we have not seen the impact of a full week’s numbers in Germany, we can see how hard it is for them to open up the economy without R becoming greater than 1.

As a reminder the UK had a R of 2.5 to 3 prior to lockdown and we are now with a R of around 0.7. Simplistically 0.7 is much closer to 1 than 2.5. So, the new normal life after lockdown needs to be much closer to current than the old normal. The economic consequences of this extended lockdown will be felt for generations.

The R<1 constraint is a lot less binding if we can live with Covid-19, like we live with the flu, at least until a vaccination arrives. Interestingly, Trump has decided to do this – with an eye on the election.

How might living with Covid-19 outside lockdown work in the UK? Maybe:

1. Lots of testing (ideally pregnancy strip style, maybe even using AVCT reagents) and tracking.
2. The extremely vulnerable remain in isolation until they can be vaccinated.
3. A great home treatment programme. The moment anyone tests positive or gets an isolation ping from the tracking, they receive next day (via Amazon, Royal Mail, etc) a home kit. This kit would contain some of the newer or repurposed drugs such as, Remdesivir and Dexamethasone. A SNG001 inhaler; antibiotics such as Moxifloxacin, Azithromycin or Ceftriaxone to deal with secondary infections (realise that the medical establishment will not like this, but secondary infections are part of the problem for some); a pulse oximeter for monitoring; testing strips. They will have a daily check in from a 111 doctor by video who will advise which drugs to take when, and advice such as breathing interventions like lying earlier onto their stomach.

The SNG home inhaler could be core to us getting out of lockdown, not just helping cure people infected. It might help if more people knew the SNG story.

Have I got this right? Bergenbio is actually 4 weeks behind SNG. They are starting their phase 2 trial, potentially funded partially by HMG and I assume with some future pricing cap. They will test 120 subjects (60 hospitalised COVID-19 patients and 60 control group patients receiving standard of care treatment) across 6 UK NHS hospital trusts. SNG are testing 200 across 10 trusts.

Whats the difference between national clinical trials and a new early phase clinical trial platform? These are the ministers words. Is the first phase 2 and the second phase 3?

What he said is below. My guess is that we are one of the 6 but not the 1 - unless the results of the trial are know and have been shared with HMG. It's seems a little early. The good news is that the platform is ready for us!

"Next I want to update you on our covid-19 therapeutics work. This is research to understand whether existing drugs could be used to treat people more effectively once they develop the disease. Currently no drugs in the world have been clinically proven to treat COVID-19 but our therapeutics taskforce has identified a number of promising candidates. Currently six different treatments have been entered into national clinical trials and the first is ready to enter the next stage: A new early phase clinical trial platform that we are launching today. This is a national effort made possible by government, academia and industry all working together

"In addition, we have to make the best possible use of all the medicines that we have…" (message is that medicines that have been labeled for use by one patient can be used by another in care homes).

Gilead's market cap has fallen by around $6billion on the news.

I thought the home side was very interesting in the video. If SNG001 works at home, this could be way out of lockdown for the world by Autumn - ie without waiting for vaccines. A home kit of a pregnancy style tester, pulse oximeter, a SNG001 nebuliser, maybe an antibiotic and an antiviral (eg remdesivir) all home administered. The illness could be no worse than flu for perhaps all but 0.1% needing hospital, we could have 25 million infected each month. Even next day by Royal Mail and Amazon logistics after a 111 call. Standard treatment for all who are infected. Herd immunity by November.

Think about the economic impact. Look at the impact the Gilead leak had on the whole S&P500. This could be literally trillions to the global economy, saving jobs and lives. Of course it needs to work...

If the trials are a success, the company is going to need further funding, a licence deal or a takeover. Being blunt, the longer this takes, the more people die. And maybe, even the longer we have to stay in lockdown as herd immunity with better treatment, tracking and tracing is the way out of lockdown.

Compare the efforts to build the Nightingale hospitals, and fund and fast track the Oxford and Imperial vaccines including manufacturing ahead of time (which SNG is doing) with HMG's efforts on PPE, Testing and Tracking . It could be argued that with the latter, it was too slow, though we will get there eventually, partially because of pushing by the media and HM's Opposition. It would be great if SNG001 is more like the former than the latter but this might need pushing.

I agree it's not the role of PIs to raise the profile, and if the only thing we are worrying about if the share price, the right thing is to sit it out. But I wonder for the sake of all of the deaths and the need to have a route out of the ruinous lockdown, someone needs to push the government so that they help accelerate the roll out if the various drugs are a success (think the approach to vaccines not to PPE). It's hard to see that being on the NIHR list is enough here. This is probably a problem for all of the recovery trial drugs.

Hence the LBC push makes sense. This should be around a drug that could help - and that it's one we believe in as we have helped fund.

If we want to raise the profile of the company, the local MP might be an option. Does anyone know Alan? Or live in his constituency? As far as I can tell he has never mentioned the company.

Can someone remind me on the AIM disclosure rules around delayed publication?

Have a read of this. City chiefs demand fair shares in equity fundraisings in the Times today.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-chiefs-demand-fair-shares-for-equity-raises-hr9fhzzb8

The SNG offer was not on Primary Bid. Though FinnCap did use it for their fund raise.

I wonder whether we should write to the board, SID and FinnCap saying next time please allow Private Investors in.

Investing in the existing shares in March did support the prices and so allow the share issue to happen. The money raised from this has allowed the testing to start quickly and the build up of manufacturing. I understand that this is one of the factors behind some family's decision to invest. It seems likely that there will be a further share issue at some point if the trial is a success. There are opportunities for alpha but this one also could accelerate saving lives.

Sarah Gilbert on Marr was interesting on this. Potentially the antibodies from a coronavirus vaccine could last longer than the antibodies from catching the disease itself. But the vaccine has not yet been tested on anyone yet.

I have become less sure that a Vaccine will be the bail out even when it arrives.

But in South Korea there is no evidence that 100 people have caught the illness again. And today WHO have raised a question on antibodies not working. The connection people are not making is that, I think, a Vaccine works the same way as antibodies from catching the illness. So a vaccine might not work. Or have I missed something.

See below. Assume this is a npn nebulaised version.

https://tecnologiaconmario.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/merck-realiza-donacion-de-interferon-beta-1a-a-la-oms-para-encontrar-la-cura-al-covid-19/

rough translation

As part of the global effort to investigate potential therapies for COVID-19 and our support for independent research, Merck is donating 290,000 units of its interferon beta-1a to the World Health Organization for use in the global SOLIDARITY trial, the which investigates various potential therapies for the treatment of COVID-19 and which, currently, has received expressions of interest from more than 70 countries. This action complements our previously announced donation for the international DISCOVERY trial, sponsored by the French institute INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research).

To date, interferon beta-1a is not approved by any regulatory authority for the treatment of COVID-19 or for use as an antiviral agent.

Would an alternative to a takeover be a set of licences to scale operators?

But surely the vaccine will have the same effectiveness issues as antibodies that come from having the illness?