Firering Strategic Minerals: From explorer to producer. Watch the video here.
Made some notes just now as CF was answering questions - please add anything I missed or got wrong.
You’ve previously said dividend before Christmas for Imutex, wearables etc. - why have you moved the goalposts?
--- Wearables deal not far away - first mentioned this opportunity just 6 weeks ago, it takes longer than this to complete a multi-million pound deal. Expecting around turn of the year for Imutex, maybe a little longer - perhaps February ‘or so’. Patience needed but process is well underway. A lot of Covid stocks have had a ‘bounce’ - we do not want that and we are not just a Covid testing company.
Are you still going to develop the genomic data platform or is this postponed as well?
--- All work in progress, nothing has been postponed.
Collaboration announced today with Wellcome - any financial gain for this or just ‘kudos’?
--- Yes, Wellcome are paying a monthly fee, we are not working for free. The ethos of the company is not to work for free. ORPH is getting a ‘very attractive monthly stipend’. Any large company approaching Wellcome Trust (very well respected group and a large funder of research) will be pointed in direction of ORPH/Hvivo - great exposure and a vote of confidence in the team.
SGS - what is the relationship with ORPH? Possible takeover approach from them?
--- 20bn market cap, ORPH has ‘borrowed back’ staff from SGS who previously went the other way. We have maintained a good relationship with SGS. We are curious as to their next move, and vice versa. SGS has struggled to grow their challenge study business so staff have left. ORPH managed to get approval and buy in from the UK government. CF imagines we will see ORPH using SGS facilities in mutually beneficial arrangement - SGS gets revenue from ORPH, ORPH gets the scalability that SGS can provide.
Potential new challenge study models - malaria, pneumococcal and others - what is development time per model?
--- Malaria complete in 2 - 3 months from now, dengue fever and Zika are both work in progress. (I was struggling to keep up here, did CF say malaria can be completed so quickly because of Wellcome?)
Any interest from any pharmas apart from Pfizer in new models?
--- Huge interest apart from Pfizer. 17% of Pfizer’s revenue comes from Pneumococcal (strep throat), illustrating the size of the opportunity for them
What’s the evidence for 6-12 months effectiveness of current vaccines?
--- Lancet article 2 days ago not yet picked up by the media
Share price?
--- Nobody expected Pfizer to approach us so soon. Huge Covid bubble recently. CF emphasised again that we are 90% non-Covid - don’t want to get caught up in the bubble of Covid stocks. A lot of investors taking profits if they bought in early. Going into next year, ORPH has a really exciting pipeline, CF is even moving to London with family in January as the opportunity is so huge with Hvivo.
Why don't you think the wearables deal will happen Wayz? CF seems pretty confident.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/register/event_details/296
Tonight's event is a Proactive webinar Fishboy.
Hvivo and ORPH named in this Vox article from yesterday - thanks to @bagger_aim on Twitter for sharing.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/11/17/21540773/covid-19-vaccine-human-challenge-trial-ethics
Toro_AIM on Twitter posted this the other day showing major shareholders in ORPH, might be useful.
https://twitter.com/Toro_AIM/status/1328078033283067904
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKFWN29W0U2
Bodes well for your theory Trader_3.
Interesting reference to Iqvia - could they be one of the big CROs CF hinted that they 'might' be talking to in the presentation last week?
Less acquisitive than the likes of ICON but they could be interested ORPH for the data. They also specifically reference orphan drugs on their site - potentially a good fit.
PrepBiopharm's PrEP-001 drug works on upper respiratory tract infections, not malaria. Imutex's AGS-v works on mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, and is Phase II-ready.
ORPH got a mention in the Telegraph today - only very briefly unfortunately but still a bit of exposure. Also their numbers are incorrect, even looking at their own chart, ORPH is 400%+ up since January, depending on when he bought, not 85%.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/isas/made-30pc-flipping-blue-chips-still-love-aim-stocks/
"The quick-fire profit taking was a sea change from the way Mr Humphreys normally invests. A relative newcomer, he only started investing five years ago investing small amounts in lots of stocks. He whittled down the number as his confidence grew.
The young investor now has the bulk of his £25,000 portfolio in smaller businesses listed on London's junior Alternative Investment Market, where he has also made substantial returns.
Healthcare stock Open Orphan, medical equipment maker Polarean Imaging and technology firm DeepVerge are three that he has owned for some time but have jumped in value this year.
Polarean, which he bought in September 2019, has been the best performer of the three, up 135pc. Open Orphan, bought in January 2020, has made 85pc while DeepVerge, which he first took a stake in in May 2019, has made a respectable 32pc."
It's exactly one year today since I first bought into ORPH at 6.1p - bit of a slow start but it's great to see how far the company (and share price) has come in the past 9 months. Much more to come too.
Original message didn't seem to publish so I retyped it, then the original appeared after all...
I'm assuming ORPH would only be paying 49% of the costs of a Nasdaq listing, with SEEK Group paying the remainder as the other shareholder?
I'm assuming ORPH would only be paying 49% of the associated costs of any Nasdaq listing, with SEEK Group paying the remainder as the other shareholder?
You were right!
Questions 2 - there were a lot this evening.
What has been uptake on Covid-clear?
--- Work in progress, £30m revenue possible but will be eliminated if vaccines are available. Units used for screening challenge study volunteers. CF forecasts that testing will not be around that long, and that annual Covid jabs will be done in the same way as current flu jabs instead, eliminating the need for testing
Any plans to develop bacterial challenge studies – norovirus, c difficile for example, using current quarantine facilities?
--- Adrian Wildfire involved tonight in an event relating to this. Working with major pharmas already in this area. Decade ahead will see huge demand for ORPH’s services.
Any dividends upcoming?
--- Two dividends upcoming. Excess cash returned to shareholders, plus anything from the outcome of Imutex
Questions
Are you deliberately restraining the share price to keep some of the IIs in?
---- we’ve set a goal of raising share price. If SP goes up in "hockey stick shape", too much too fast, IIs will cash out and we don’t want the volatility
Please can you expand on future plans to secure US and Australia CHIM contracts, and whether research unit at Royal Free will be utilised?
--- Absolutely at the Royal Free – up to £90m revenue with additional beds. 7 or 8 other pharma companies want us to test their vaccines, in the same way we are doing for the British Gov, at £10m a go. Antwerp and St Louis have only other suitable space – ORPH is in discussion with both for use of their negative pressure quarantine units
What are new US recruitment adverts in relation to?
--- we have north American clients, there is one unit available unused in N America – we don’t have use of it yet but if we can obtain a lease on it then we can increase capacity by 50%. Why should we limit ourselves revenue-wise if we can expand overseas and increase revenue further? Actively looking at other diseases, three additional conventional challenge models to be developed
Hvivo was one of the luckiest deals of your life – therefore are you looking for further acquisitions or has Hvivo “ruined you”?
--- Why would we risk shareholder money? We don’t need more acquisitions, we want to hand back money to shareholders, via Imutex, dividend or data deal – plenty of options on the table to keep us busy over next few months. 12 Covid vaccines coming soon, all will give max 12 months of protection
When are you going to sell ORPH?
--- “Let’s see”. If we fix the company and make it profitable, we have options. If we reach £300 - £400m MCAP then could we sell, or if we’ve come that far then could we go further?
Any plans for a new company after ORPH?
- One step at a time!
Wearables – how long til the data deal is sorted?
--- approacyh came out of leftfield 6 weeks ago. Dealing with big tech companies doesn’t happen overnight, give it a few months. We are the only company in the world with this data, great position to be in
Can we now expect £80m revenue from challenge studies in 2021?
--- we haven’t given any sales guidance but theoretically we can add £35m from Royal Free on top of £45m from Hvivo’s unit in Whitechapel. What we really want to do is use third party quarantine unit(s) on a lease basis for Covid challenge studies, Whitechapel for conventional
Why is the company not exercising its option to acquire CHIMAgents?
--- On CF’s desk, will be done in next week or two. Wildfire is loyal and valuable member of team now. Option is just a formality at this stage.
I was out tonight so couldn't watch live but just caught up on YouTube - great presentation again from CF!
Here are my notes:
- Highlighted again that ORPH is the world leader in testing vaccines and antivirals
- Profitable now in Q4, could have been profitable in Q3 but weren’t due to costs of developing Covid challenge model
- Can now sign up multiple Covid challenge study clients, UK Gov is the first client confirmed
- 7 other Pharma companies offered same deal as UK government
- Cash balance now £21.5m
- Slide 7 – still describes Quotient testing as “transformational” - interesting!
- Every 4 - 7 weeks CF expects to sign another £4m contract
- Cash upfront for conventional human challenge studies, done in 5 – 6 months
- £4 or £5m for conventional challenge studies, £8 - £10m for Covid challenge study contracts
- Emphasised 90% of business is non-Covid
- £40m contract value from UK Gov who have provided use of Royal Free Hospital free of charge for Covid challenge studies, as Hvivo’s own quarantine unit is booked out til September 2021 with conventional challenge studies.
- UK Gov as first client “probably makes things easier from regulatory perspective”
- £45m revenue with 24 beds in Hvivo's own Whitechapel unit, potential of £70 – 80m with additional beds now available from UK Gov
- Global coverage for UK Gov backing of challenge studies – over 4,000 global articles in 7 days after announcement
- Royal Free almost at capacity, Whitechapel unit at capacity – one suitable unit in Antwerp and one in America, there is talk of renting these for modest fee to increase space and sign up additional vaccine companies
- Hvivo has largest infectious disease progression database in the world (“world’s most attractive database”) – decades worth of data collected, additional data to be collected in upcoming Covid trials
- Amazon and Apple plus ‘one or two others’ have approached the company about licensing the data for wearable health trackers
- CF had previously been clear that exclusive rights would go to the highest bidder, now mentioned the possibility of licensing use of the data to all of them if they want it
- Data could be worth “potentially more than the whole company” (this was the highlight of the presentation for me!)
- £70m confirmed orders by close of the year
- Again emphasised aim for 50% SP growth every 6 months, 100%+ every 12 months
- PrepBiopharm – still working on divestment, no real update here
- Imutex - making progress, only competitor at the same stage was Biondvax which failed recently. Imutex is now the only candidate at Phase III so “we have already had more interest” – CF says they are taking our time with it, they want a large cash payment for takeover or there will be a reversal into Nasdaq SPAC – possibly Biondvax itself as they are Nasdaq listed
You should be able to register here https://event.webinarjam.com/register/711/mll7gt735
CF has previously mentioned CVRs in relation to Imutex too, so if this comes to pass then Flu-V passing P3 trials would presumably be the next milestone to unlock additional value for shareholders?