Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Clicking on the link above and selecting the latest 7 day moving average gives 6,788 deaths per day globally.
There are currently 69,287 serious/ critical reported cases.
Up to 40% of these lives could have been saved and those on ICU wards could have a better outcome with the correct medication.
If only....
EUA - Only a matter of time.
Patience = Profits.
ATVB T
Nigel2509 - Re your 12.01
'We may as well tell jokes because nobody knows what will happen with this stock....'
Here you go then:
The AIM market is worse than a divorce, you lose over half your money but still keep the wife.
(Apologies Manifesto).
All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. (Spike Milligan).
Q: How do I find a good small-cap fund manager?
A: Find a good large-cap fund manager, and wait.
Q: How do you make a million dollars in the stock market?
A: Start with two million.
If you're 85% down, you have to smile at some point, may as well start now. :)
ATVB T
gggg21 - re your 11.51:
Many thanks, but the excellent poster Gunto2020 already gave us the 'heads up' yesterday -
Mon 03/03 @ 08.47:
Quality systems manager – started March - Has previous relevant experience at three other companies.
I took a close look at what a QSMs do:
Quality systems managers are responsible for developing the quality strategy and ensuring that manufacturing industries run efficiently. They prepare and conduct plant staff training on quality principles and identify areas to minimize waste and enhance efficiency.
Note the word 'manufacturing'.
Gunto also gave us this link recently - Take a special note of 'Goal 2'.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/peruse-pandemic-preparedness-plan
Keep Gunto on your list of posters to take note of, he has a talent for finding nuggets of highly relevant information and also fends off the riff-raff on here in fine style.
Keep up the good work Gunto - much appreciated.
ATVB T
Kevin - Yes, but I think the top line death reduction figure for baricitinib was only around 13% from memory and there were some ongoing safety concerns post discharge.
ATVB T.
I have taken the liberty of re-posting the following from one of the most respected long term posters on this board, as I feel the weight of significance was lost due to the sheer number of ‘dross’ posts during the day.
The post is succinct and to the point and sums up why anyone still holding shares has more than a fighting chance of not just fully recouping losses, but eventually making a decent profit. We are not called long term holders for nothing.
Beforegolf 19.20 Thursday 03/03:
The secondary end points were significantly better than SOC.
Progression to serious illness/death within 35d was 36.3% better
Progression to intubation/death within 35d was 32% better
Progression to Death within 35d was 40.5% better.
Conclusion. It works. Of that there is no doubt. The safety profile alone is immense.
The trial 'failed' for 3 reasons
1. Improved SOC & Vaccinations changed the playing field
2. The trial design was based on the P2 trial and not seriously changed to reflect the new landscape
3. Even though 6 times the size of P2, it was still not powered enough to drive out statistical significance.
NOT because the drug doesn't work, because it obviously does.
The deep dive into the P3 results being undertaken will, I think, drive out some much better and statistically significant results. We just have to wait, patiently.
Good ACTIV2-p2 data and/or better Sprinter analysis will pave the way to a very quick EUA from FDA.
And there will be a Polygon TR-1 tomorrow :-)
Beforegolf was right in regard to the last sentence and I believe the same applies to all of the above.
This is NOT clutching at straws, this is solid analysis in the cold light of day after the dust has settled. Much appreciated by me and I suspect many of the ‘silent majority’ that read this board but prefer not to comment.
The recent panic selling and dramatic 85% drop is a classic example of why company management prefer their shares to be in the hands of institutional investors and not the general public.
As a fundamental investor, I’m asking three questions this evening:
1 Does Synairgen have a treatment that is commercially viable? Yes.
2 Is the drug safe and free from side effects? Yes.
3 Is there any direct competition the can get a similar product to market first? No.
We already know Activ-2 Phase 2 results will be decent, as the ‘Kansas doctor’ virtually told us several months ago, without actually mentioning Synairgen by name.
Hard to believe that before any human testing results were announced the share price was 35p.
Two years later, with clear evidence this treatment works to a degree in both home and hospital settings the share price is now languishing around 24p.
No wonder Polygon are adding, follow the money....
ATVB T
27 posts in under 2 hours - A new record for this board?
If I remember rightly Dactions, you were in the room when RM made his original AJ Bell investment presentation back in 2016.
I genuinely feel for you having been part of this story for so long.
I see the story that broke around 3.40 has contributed to another round of panic selling.
Nervous investors haven't fully digested the contents properly, big thanks to Tommy D and Brighty for providing detailed clarity for those like myself just coming in from work and trying to get our heads round the latest development.
More than ever, we need word from SNG to confirm they are still included on Activ-2 Phase 3 or not.
As it stands, we appear to be tainted by SAB's failure today.
Are we in or out? We need to be told and soon.
ATVB T
TommyD 19 - Re your 16.20:
Joe Walsh 1976 Album 'You Can't Argue With A Sick Mind'.
No surprise my conversation/ thread with Massive Ray with was deleted abruptly today.
Many thanks for your input here over the past week, I know it's a form of talking therapy for you.
I'm sure we'll get something out of this, probably later rather than sooner now though.
ATVB T
Brand - 100% Agree with all of your post, probably the best and most considered summary of events seen on this board over the past week.
I would add that the CEO should speak publicly in the near future, in order to address the real concerns of retail investors and also give the views of the company and institutional investors in light of recent events - That is a significant element of his role and should not be neglected at this difficult time.
ATVB T