Member Info for Trinityman

Bantham - The train is waiting, so step off the platform and climb aboard before it leaves the station, but mind the gap as we'd hate to lose you.

Completely agree with you Phantom, trying to call the bottom (or indeed the top) is risky and a bit greedy. There's so much potential upside here, why wait?
Impossible to predict when news will come, but when it does this will move North quickly and those waiting on the platform will miss the train.

Before 'the herd' arrive, well done to the company and all LTHs.
Many thanks to those who posted such great research and news items over the years, especially in the bleaker times - much appreciated.

So to the burning question - What is a fair takeover price? What would you be happy with?

ATVB T.

Although we know SNG’s drug is not a ‘cure all’, we also now know it has the potential to successfully treat specific types of covid patients at specific stages of illness both at home and in hospital, nothing else has come remotely close to doing this.
It’s frustrating for both shareholders and clinicians alike that this life saving drug is not yet being administered to patients, surely a JV will provide the required momentum to get this to market.

In this limbo period, rumour and speculation are rife, which only leads to a feeling of unease for many, but with Polygon increasing their holding and the recently announced plans to present Sprinter deep dive results in May, plans appear to be covertly advancing at some level, however limited that may be.

The problem we currently face is politicians and scientists have completely opposing narratives but we only have to look at recent lockdown images from Shanghai to confirm that politicians can only pretend that covid has gone away for so long and as covid doesn’t have any boundaries, new variants will ensure the virus once more gains the upper hand.
More than ever, we need antiviral treatments to tip the balance as we move further into 2022 and beyond.

You can read the daily ‘drip, drip’ drivel from the flawed characters on here if you like (I have 40+ filtered in 25 months) or you can follow the recent guidance from the senior front line consultant who treats covid patients on a daily basis – Your choice.

As a footnote, a number of years ago another fledgling company lost 90% of it’s share value in a short space of time and disgruntled investors wondered if they would ever get their money back, let alone make a profit. That company was called ‘Amazon’ – Wonder what happened to them?

Still all to play for….

ATVB T

Last weekend I put forward the view that significant Sprinter P3 deep dive results should reverse the share price action, but maybe not to previous levels. I’m more inclined to put my faith in the more influential high profile Activ-2 programme, as I doubt an application for EUA would be successful without American backing.

The total cost of the Activ programme must be eye-watering, given that over 200 drugs began the initial trial stage, with the failed SAB trial costing the U.S. taxpayer 100 million alone.
With only one safe, directly inhaled drug remaining, I can’t imagine the Americans will abandon SNG at this stage, as they have too much to lose, both in reputation and cost.
Activ-2 phase 2 data must be more than encouraging, which is why lead investigators from both parties are currently redesigning new trial protocols.

On 17/03 poster Joey Diamond confirmed the Activ programme is already evolving in his post:
‘Yesterday another drug S-217623 was enrolled on a newly designed trial activ-2d for outpatients. This is an NIH sponsored trial against placebo in outpatients with a high risk. The trial has sites across the world and not just USA.
So activ-2 is continuing but in a different form, so there may well be an activ2-e trial.’

87% of Sprinter P3 patients were on steroids – You can be sure that won’t be the case in future, a different comparator will give a different set of results, though actually finding enough willing patients with breathing difficulties who are not currently being treated with steroids must be one of the biggest challenges faced by clinicians going forward.

The emphasis on the Sprinter trial was on hospitalised patients, which rather took the emphasis off the vast cohort of patients who could be treated at home in the early stages of illness.
The ‘sweet spot’ i.e. the small and crucial 2-3 day window of how many days the patient has experienced severe breathlessness should be determined by Activ-2 data.

Remember, the NIH are looking closely at ‘telemedicine’ as a way of reducing costs and delivering treatment more efficiently as part of their new ‘preparedness’ programme for future pandemics, in addition to stockpiling.
Synairgen have already proven it is possible to deliver their nebulised treatment safely in a home setting via video call in their small, but highly significant P2 trial.

I highlighted in an earlier post that safe, broad spectrum drugs of this nature are only discovered every 30 – 40 years, the blue and brown inhalers that are now so commonplace were introduced in 1968 and 1972, the forward earnings potential of treatments like this are difficult to calculate, but are immense.

(Cont above)….

From today’s posts: Andy – Size – Tommy:

I posted on this subject at some length last week, referencing content from an earlier, but highly significant post from the working A+E consultant who works with covid patients.

Focusing on patients who present late with symptoms, have co-morbidities, are elderly etc should take the 36% baseline figure to 50% or above.

Preventing half of these patients from progressing to severe disease or death on a high dependency/ ICU ward would save global healthcare agencies millions per annum.

Why SNG didn’t lead with this and bury the primary endpoints in the RNS is hard to fathom, but they will be looking to tease out more meaningful figures from this specific cohort of patients IMO.

Obviously steroids are far cheaper to administer in the first instance, but taking the following figures into account, price is not going to be the overriding issue when dealing with patients who don’t respond to dex etc.

Estimated cost of 14 day course of ‘Synterferon’ when bought in bulk £1200 - £1500 (taken from 2020 conversation notes).

Basic daily cost of ICU occupation before ventilation:

USA £1334 ($1772) – Average length of stay = 6 days.
England £1621.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7045184/
https://today.tamu.edu/category/health-environment/

Anything around the 50% mark should raise the share price to some degree, but as secondary figures are coming off a trial with failed primary endpoints, I wouldn’t expect a return to the pre-results price of 171p, I think only Activ-2 results would have the power to do that.

The problem shareholders currently face is that SNG has been lumped in with the 200 plus failed drugs, which is a gross mis-conception, bearing in mind the share price was 35p pre P2 results, now we have all this extra data from P3 the share price is languishing around 24p.

I can’t say I’m comfortable that our fate now lies largely in American hands, if they abandon us this goes to 5p and we should all be mentally prepared for such an outcome, but I believe this is highly unlikely, as they would have done so mid P2. The ‘mood music’ coming from across the pond is positive, but it’s a case of ‘don’t count your chickens….

There is a growing body of evidence to bolster confidence in interferon b, before the circus starts again tomorrow morning, I’d like to thank Titania and Tommy for putting in the time and effort providing links with relevant evidence over the last couple of months – much appreciated.

ATVB T

Richlist – In reply to your 02.14 this morning:

You could try and obtain a definitive answer to your question by e mailing Jody Brookes, head of clinical operations at Synairgen and enquire if she or any of her colleagues showed any signs of arrogance or complacency during the Sprinter trial, expecting successful P3 results as a formality – I’d love to see the reply!

Seriously though, given that there are $billions of long-term earnings at stake, not to mention high profile clinical reputations, not forgetting the seriously ill patients who kindly agreed to take part, I doubt arrogance or complacency played a part. The stakes are high and the pressure to deliver must be enormous.

As mentioned previously, we’re all seem to be armchair covid experts now and we also have the benefit of hindsight.

It cannot be denied that mistakes have been made that have severely damaged the share price and dented clinical reputations. You can be sure Messrs, Holgate, Monk, Brookes and Marsden will have had their behind closed doors inquest and will now be regrouping for the next phase alongside their American counterparts. Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall in the boardroom on that day?

This is new ground senior clinicians, investigators and indeed ourselves as individual retails shareholders are all covering together, but the product that underpins your investment is sound and has commercial value, of that there is no doubt.

As we all now realise, unlike COPD or Asthma, covid is a moving target and it’s taking time to pin down the ‘right time, right place, right dose, right patient’ conditions to give figures that can make investors feel once again relaxed about their investment decision.

With regard to the framework in place to actually get this treatment from lab to patient, time will tell if the company is overstaffed or perfectly positioned to finally get this drug on the shelves. The question is, have they put the cart before the horse? I think not, but we’re all entitled to our own personal views.

This is AIM and if you’re after the big gains, you have to take the risks and the setbacks. Many, including myself, have had our ‘Marsden moan’ on this board, but I’m now trying to look to the future with a positive, but still realistic and more cautious frame of mind - Still all to play for in my book.

ATVB T

Matterhorn – Can’t fault any of your views expressed in your 12.13 post, thanks again for the considered input, although I accept others may have differing viewpoints, levels of trust and anger re SNG going forward.

I know many have completely lost faith and are no longer in this for the long haul and can’t wait to hit the ‘sell’ button when/ if losses are recovered.

The current sour mood is totally understandable, but I can’t square the circle - The previous actions of the company don’t appear to match the current situation.
The infrastructure is all in place, signing contracts with with Ashfield, Aerogen, Akron and Thermofisher etc without the surety of success seems implausible.

Looking at the previous experience of the recently appointed chief commercial officer, chief regulatory officer and quality services manager (manufacturing), to name but three, I struggle to imagine these and several others would join the company in the mere hope that phase 3 results would be favourable and were a ‘given’.

There must be more information to which we are not privy to tempt them on board. I guess it depends on your stance whether this is wishful thinking or sound logic.
RM’s last words on the promo video, ‘We are ready to play our part’ takes me to the swan analogy, not much appears to be happening on the surface, but underneath....

I realise the depth of feeling and waning of trust on the board at present, but I can’t bring myself to believe SNG have not been given unofficial preliminary feedback regarding Activ-2, especially taking into consideration the comment from previous NIH director Francis Collins, ‘Antivirals for coronaviruses are task number one’. (Courtesy of poster Joey Diamond).

There are too many ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ for some, but I think the ‘Go’ button will be pressed at some point this year, but only with the assistance of a major player with a strong USA presence.
At the risk of repeating myself, I agree positive Sprinter deep dive results will lift the share price, but only Activ-2 can offer the rewards that tempted us to invest in the first instance.

ATVB T

Matterhorn - Many thanks for taking the time to post such an well considered reply - much appreciated.

I'll reply when time permits - The demands of self-employment running a small business won't allow at present.

ATVB T

Matterhorn - Thanks for trawling back and digging that out.
Obviously the company have long standing links with 'potential development partners', as Prof Holgate has been working in this field for four decades.
Do you see a JV as inevitable or do you think the company will make the unlikely transition (some would say impossible) from research and development to actual production?
I look at the calibre of recruitment over the last year or so and also the QSM who started work in March. As he deals with all aspects of manufacture, surely they would have deferred his start date if there were no plans, however limited they may be at present?

ATVB T

Seaboy - I pulled that quote from another post last Thursday. I believe it came from the ATS site from some years ago, as SNG attend regularly.
It shows the company have long standing links with potential partners. You could take it the other way though I suppose, where are these partners when you need them etc.
May/ June will be pivotal months for both the company and investors alike.

ATVB T

Kevin 1977 - I agree about the lack of clout, if you remember from this board a few weeks ago, a 'close source' said the company was 'pushing hard' for Activ-2 results. The following week they were told results would be shared sometime before 30th June (H1), so no apparent influence with senior Activ-2 investigators over the pond.

Politically, the only time I recall a UK government official mentioning Synairgen by name was the now disgraced former heath secretary, when he described SNG's drug as 'promising' in his house of commons statement immediately after the heady days of the phase 2 results.
Since then it's been 100% vaccines 0% treatments, especially the BBC coverage. The tide seems to be turning though, as the general public now realise that vaccines, although effective, are not the 'silver bullet' everyone imagined.

I totally agree that we need a JV to get this over the line. If this were in Pfizer's hands this would probably be on the shelves by now. I stress this is not criticism, just a personal opinion.

As regards Polygon, although their behaviour is welcome and has bolstered the share price in difficult circumstances, I don’t place too much emphasis on their actions as they are too opaque. They don’t have our interests at heart and they weren’t the reason we bought in the first place, so they are strictly a secondary element and not a principle reason for holding IMO.

Their increased holding from 25% to 26% is significant for the company though, as they have now upgraded to a ‘minority active position’, blocking any theoretical possibility of the remaining 75% scuppering any possible corporate decisions.

Good to see you are still holding and here’s hoping for a good outcome for all patient investors.

ATVB T

How do you put a price on a drug that can prevent around half of hospitalised patients that haven’t responded well to corticosteroids progressing to severe illness or death?
Worth more than 23p I’d say and if long covid results are significant we may well see a significant move in the right direction.

As we are looking for a 643%+ rise, I think only the Activ-2 programme can provide this going forward.
I stand by my previous view that this share will ultimately stand or fall on Activ-2 results.
As always, the USA end up in the driving seat. They provide the way forward, but crucially Synairgen hold the patents to the ‘golden goose’ that can recoup losses.

Time will tell, but it’s still all to play for, as with no other proven, safe reliable treatment out there, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

We’re down, but definitely not out!

ATVB T

Many thanks to fellow posters for contributing to the recent ‘line in the sand’ thread, interesting to see the level of angst and frustration from several well respected long term holders and also new posters alike.
Having raked over the coals of the P3 debacle to death now, it’s time to look to to the future.

Good to see that the vast majority of board members are more or less on the same page now, having been immersed in ‘the science’ for several months, we’re all armchair experts in anti-virals and steroids now aren’t we?
I must confess before I invested 25 months ago, I had no idea what interferons were or what SOC stood for – I do now and I guess it’s the same for fellow posters.

Moving forward, the burning question is, can the share price recover?

Fri 18th February – Share price 171p
Mon 21st February – Share price 27p = 84% drop
Mon 11th April – Share price 23p = 87% drop

Percentage rise required to return to 171p = 643%

Can this be achieved? Let’s take a look….

‘We have observed an encouraging trend in prevention of progression to severe disease and death (36.3% in the per protocol population)’.

With reference to the working A+E consultant’s recently posted viewpoints on this figure, focusing on patients who:

Present late with symptoms
Have underlying health conditions
Are unvaccinated/ partially vaccinated
Have a high body mass index
Smoke
Are over 55 years old….

Would significantly increase the baseline 36.3% figure.
I think it would be reasonable to expect this figure to rise to circa 50%. This would be ‘statistically significant’.
There will be accurate figures to pore over when the deep dive analysis is presented in San Francisco, possibly earlier.

Sprinter P3 deep dive results are unlikely to bring the share price back to the 18th February closing price of 171p, unless the 90 day long covid data is spectacular.
Manifesto quoted +523% on the day of P2 results, that’s a ‘big ask’ as a fair percentage of investors now have doubts about the company’s ability to make progress, but surely there must be something significant in P3 to present to the conference in May to get the share price moving back in the right direction. Dr Monk isn’t going to stand on the podium simply to shrug his shoulders and mouth platitudes to an expectant audience is he?

I took particular note of the following:
‘The on-going American Thoracic Society meeting also provides an opportunity for Synairgen executives to progress the licensing process by meeting a significant number of the potential development partners who have either expressed or re-affirmed their interest in the programme since the results were announced on 19 April.’

The overriding view of this board is that a JV would provide the required impetus to get this over the line, most of us would welcome such a move with open arms. If any company needed a leg up at this stage it’s SNG.

(Cont above)....

In the weeks after the awfully worded Phase 3 Sprinter Results RNS was released, this board seemed to have a 50/50 split regarding the actions of CEO Marsden. It seems the balance has tipped more like 80/20 against him now – The knives are definitely out this week on here.

At the time I copped some stick for putting forward the view that he should have given a statement either to camera or in writing to steady the ship, but he chose to stay below deck as we ran aground.
A CEO’s job is to communicate with shareholders, especially when the share price is in freefall, but he didn’t and there may well be some ‘behind closed doors’ fallout from that in the months to come.

I totally understand the overriding frustration of the board, especially galling for me was reading Marsden publicly thanking Jody Brookes, head of clinical management, for all her hard work on completion of the trial, at the same time as we were losing approx. 85% of our money in a single day.

I know the CEO oversees the whole operation and is on four grand a day + shares, but he isn’t clinically trained.
Maybe board members should be looking towards Brookes, possibly Monk and dare I say it, maybe even Prof. Holgate for answers as to why the trial was designed alongside corticosteroids across seventeen different countries in the middle of a pandemic.
You sure won’t get any answers to that from the paid for Pilbeam ‘interviews’. At one stage she looked more like a trainee bereavement counsellor than a financial journalist.

The phase 3 trial seemed overly ambitious at the time in the middle of a global pandemic. Even a humble retail investor like me immediately wondered how they could keep their usually tight reign on trial protocol on this basis.
Easy to be wise after the event though, maybe at the start of a new week we should all draw a line in the sand and either walk away or stay and support, as constantly sniping from the sidelines does nothing for your own individual wellbeing, the company or indeed this board.

ATVB T

‘Retireby40’ - Thursday 10/03:

‘The most alarming report has come in a study at the University of Tokyo, which compared Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 and concluded that BA.2 is so different that it should be classified as a full-fledged new variant, the most dangerous yet to emerge in the COVID-19 pandemic, now in its third year.

“BA.2 is different enough from BA.1 that it should be given its own designation—its own Greek letter—according to the current numbering scheme. But that’s politically not very comfortable because people are declaring this to be over and having a new Greek letter would raise questions that require us to reevaluate what’s going on.”

In particular, BA.2 was found to be 30 percent more vaccine-resistant than BA.1 and 17 times more vaccine-resistant than the Delta variant. It has significantly more mutations than BA.1, including four unique mutations in the receptor binding domain, the key area for attaching the virus to cells in the body and invading them.’

The main takeaways from these studies are:

1 Inflammatory cytokine storms are not nearly as common as first thought.
2 Corticosteroids were administered too freely and often at the wrong time.
3 In many cases corticosteroids had a negative effect on patient immune systems.
4 A significant percentage of the global population are more vulnerable than others to corticosteroids.
5 The new covid variant(s) are more resistant to vaccines.
6 Anti-virals have a significant role to play in relation to the treatment of all covid variants.

Two years on and there is still no globally recognised standard of care package for covid patients.
The new variants will require a new approach and new solutions for covid patients.
The void needs filling – Will SNG be able to step up to the plate?
Food for thought as we wait….

(Many thanks to Tommy, Gunto and Retireby40)

ATVB T

For those busier shareholders who work full time and simply don’t have the time to delve into the vast swathes of science-based Covid info on the web, here’s the most relevant points taken from recent articles provided by three SNG sleuths, giving results from the latest international studies.

TommyD_19 – Monday 15/03 @ 11.05:

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/serious-cytokine-storm-covid-19

‘Cytokines are inflammatory proteins produced by cells of the body in response to any illness. Cytokines play an important role in the immune response. An overactive cytokine response, a phenomenon known as the ‘cytokine storm’ can harm the patient by causing inflammatory tissue damage.
Overall, the average patient with Covid-19, even patients with moderate-to-severe disease, had less inflammation than the average patient with flu.
Dispelling the myth around ‘cytokine storm’ is the need of the hour, and will help temper down the use of corticosteroids.
While dexamethasone and other steroids are prescribed to treat cytokine storms, the drugs can backfire in patients whose immune response is already suppressed, as happens to be case in more than 90% of Covid patients.
The emerging evidence strongly cautions against use of steroids in all but the most severe cases of Covid-19. Irrational exuberance in use of corticosteroids such as dexamethasone may only further damage a beleaguered immune system.’

Tommy_D19 Monday 15/03 @ 07.55:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34473766/

Conclusions of the report in the above link:
‘Administering steroids prior to antiviral drugs soon after symptom onset can aggravate disease severity. When administration of steroids is considered soon after symptom onset, it may be safer to initiate antiviral drugs first.’

Gunto Monday 15/03 @ 09.43:

SNP rs9984273 is a relatively common polymorphism according to available data, carried by approximately 45% of people with African origin, 34% of Caucasians and 10% of Asians. This difference in the appearance of this SNP makes some populations much more vulnerable for steroid use.
Our research also shows that this relatively common polymorphism, which until now has not been recognized as having any clinical significance, actually plays a critical role in disease states where interferons and glucocorticosteroids have an impact on mortality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs9984273#frequency_tab

(Cont above…)

Wow, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than Scinv and Ndn71.....

Going put some some science stuff on here this eve now :)

Total covid deaths = 6,076,247 to date.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

How's your Polymetal shares doing this month?

TLW – Re your 9.14 – ‘there are too many unknowns.....there may well be darker days ahead....the company has totally gone to ground for nearly three weeks’.

Apart from one poster in particular, who as a shareholder is perfectly entitled to his opinion, no one else is asking for the CEO’s head on a stake, there is no witch hunt here, but at present the silence is deafening.

The duties of a CEO include: ‘Communicating, on behalf of the company, with shareholders, government entities, and the public. Maintaining awareness of the competitive market landscape, expansion opportunities, industry developments, etc.’

I know RM only ever speaks when there is something concrete to share with retail investors, most of us have been content with months of silence in the past, but when the share price plummets from 171p to 25p we need more from a CEO who only appears to face the camera with good news.

It would be reassuring to shareholders if he made an appearance to clarify the current position and the potential pathway forward. Leaving the director of comms to deal with the aftermath of the failed trial is poor form.
None of us need our hands holding, but is it too much to ask for some forward guidance?

May I take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of the many who have read your concise, well written summaries over the past year or so, they were often the only posts worth reading when this board descended into a circus on more than one occasion.

Back to work for the rest of the day now. ATVB T