The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Biodegradable LFT cassettes would be big USP - any thoughts?
Good question, significant competitive advantage and would underline our commitment to sustainability - exploratory work being carried out with injection moulder but this is not a trivial matter - cassette is an integral component so material properties are very important. Will update ASAP
Japanese distributor or manufacturer currently for LFT?
Not currently. Japan is not top of the list but is on the list.
Has company been given any clarity on why Conifer have reduced their shareholding?
They remain an important shareholder, unsure why anyone would think they’ve reduced their shareholding to zero, they are currently at 2.99% so TR1 had to be issued when they crossed the 3% threshold. They are a “very supportive” shareholder.
Closing comments - period of huge progress and many ‘firsts’ for the group - commercialised diagnostics product for the first time with huge commercial potential. On therapeutics side we have transformed into a clinical-stage oncology drug company, huge step forward which has brought us much attention from other pharmas and investors. Looking forward to more value inflection points in coming months.
- AVCT LFT has market leading performance - significant commercial opportunity remains
- UK manufax capacity 2 - 3m per month, can be scaled in UK and abroad
- Commercial traction is building
- “Extremely pleased” to have achieved goal of bringing AVCT to clinical stage for its cancer therapies
- IND filing for AVA6000 before the end of 2021 for P1 study in the US, “confident we will achieve that”
- Strong balance sheet - support core business and working capital for Covid testing opportunity
Questions
How are you following PKP and toxicology of AVA6000?
Measuring levels of dox in plasma and urine - straightforward way to do that in 72 hours post-dose and measure how they are eliminated by the body
When will shareholders be given indication of how AVA6000 is going?
Positive guidance today, totally inappropriate to talk about data today as there is only a single patient currently having been dosed, but we are very pleased with progress - new sites and new patients in trial soon, no concern re: scheduling, we will update the market as soon as we possibly can, escalating dose and starting next cohort is strong indicator that regulators are happy with safety
When is HUA expected for LFT, and any clarity on why the process has taken so long?
Additional lay user study focuses on usability rather than clinical validation, this is combined with technical data for test performance, full technical file submitted for review - M19 have led this process and done an outstanding job - taken a long time but notifiable body review can take many months even under ‘normal times’ - ‘sincerely hope’ we are close but it’s out of our hands
Why has there seemingly been no commercial interest in LFT?
This is just not true to say there has been no commercial interest, we are clearly not the first test to market but we are an extremely good test, will take time to build market share, business development, marketing, approvals in new territories and potentially licensing. Covid testing will be around for years, seasonal element and risk of new variants. This is a long term commercial opportunity and we will build on it
Comment on significant share price decline and how you will address it?
Falling share price clearly not desirable, however AS remains focused on driving business forward, which means a profitable diagnostics division and unlocking value in therapeutics initially via success of AVA6000 - this will unlock a further ‘incredible’ pipeline. Potential value of Precision platform working well in humans and enhancing the effects of chemo ‘dwarves’ the value of Covid testing
- Significant milestone achieved for XT, progressing into pre-clinical development
- Affimer XT - small drugs can get cleared too quickly through kidneys, longer exposure is desirable, Affimers can bind to a large protein (missed the name) present in blood, too large to be cleared in kidneys, can achieve exposure of many days if not weeks of serum half-life - benefits of doing this mean that drug can penetrate tumour tissue more deeply - very significant milestone for this project
- Point Biopharma - Precision platform used for development of tumour-activated radiopharmaceuitcals, potential to improve targeting of the radioligand treatment to cancer cells
- ADC Theraputics - not taking their project further after initial evaluation
- Daewoong - next generation cell and gene therapies using Affimers - good progress in both in vivo and in vitro studies of lead affimer molecules and engineered MSCs - modified stem cells to secrete affimers in situ within the patient - “very novel next-gen stem cell therapy, really good progress so far”
Diagnostics
- AVCT is now an ISO13485 accredited company with first product launched
- AffiDx brand is for whole diagnostics division, not just Covid LFT
- Antigen test intended to identify infectious individuals accurately within 20 mins
- Avacta is unique in having published its LFT data on the Delta variant - not aware of any other LFT manufacturer that has done this - very good performance against Delta for AVCT’s test
- Customers are very interested in the new technology in the test, company didn’t anticipate this interest and expected customers to be purely focused on the test’s performance - they are surprised by the level of interest in the Affimer technology
- Current manufax capacity c. 1m per month at GAD, “can be scaled”
- TT complete to Abingdon, validation batches now entering production, should be saleable products
- ABDX could add 1 - 2m capacity per month
- Manufax partners in Europe and Asia with further significant capacity under evaluation - this scoping is “well advanced”, AS made a point of emphasising this - process will be driven by demand
- Direct sales being made to large corporates, elite sports clubs, travel and testing services in UK and Europe, in addition to Calibre distribution
- Regulatory approvals and distributors being established in APAC and other overseas markets - APAC accounts for significant proportion (37%) of global antigen test sales
- “Excellent progress” being made towards HUA with Medusa - “probably the most important point on this slide” (interesting to note!)
- Can’t give precise timescales for home use CE mark but good progress being made
Summary and closing comments
- First ever Affimer IVD product launched and first-in-human P1 study of Precision pro-drug launched
- Covid testing requirements ongoing for many years from now
Made some notes as AS was presenting just now - a great presentation in my opinion and very refreshing to hear so much continuing positivity about where Avacta is going in the long term.
Intro and financials
- “Genuinely transformative period” for both divisions
- New office in White City, London
- £2.32m revenue for 6 months to end of June 2021 does not include LFT sales as this was launched post-reporting period
- LFT sales revenue will strengthen balance sheet further
- £53m net assets at end of June
AVA6000
- Doxorubicin used in AVA6000 is not a modified version, it is the original drug - this smooths the regulatory pathway
- Global market for generic Dox is $1bn - improved safety could permit many more cycles of treatment per patient at the same dosing level
- For ASTS/breast/ovarian cancer only, peak sales for a safer/more efficacious form of dox in US/EU alone is estimated to be $1.5bn annually with a 5 - 10% royalty to AVCT plus development milestones in near term
- AVA6000 aims to provide 18x more active chemotherapy in the tumour compared to the heart (12mg/kg AVA6000 dose versus an untargeted 2mg per kg as standard)
- This huge increase in the therapeutic index is “driving our excitement” for this drug and clinical trial - potentially a very significant commercial opportunity
- Up to six study sites in the UK - “very shortly” will have three more sites online
- First patient dosed at RM but would be “wholly inappropriate” to go into detail at this point - end of this year / start of Q1 2022 will be the point where we get more detail
- “Study has been designed to be extremely data rich” - PKP, safety indicators etc - this data adds value to the asset but also the rest of the Precision pipeline and how the substrate behaves in humans
- Starting dose 80mg/M2 AVA6000, equivalent to 54mg/M2 of dox
- “Very pleased with positive progress at this stage”
- Expect to go through 4 cohorts, up to 15 patients, in the next couple of quarters for Phase 1a, generating a huge amount of data for AVA6000 and confirming the maximum tolerated dose
- Phase 1b will follow which is the dose expansion phase
- AVA6000’s Precision technology can be applied to various other chemotherapies in a market worth $56.5bn
- Example given was Velcade, annual sales of $1.2bn in 2018, drug has dose limiting toxicities similar to Dox, drug is coming of patent in 2022 - preclinical development of AVA3996 pro-velcade will be restarted using placing cash
- Taxanes drug further example given, drug also has toxicity issue, estimated $6.6bn by end of 2025
- Candidates for further development include Velcade, Paclitaxel, Oxaliplatin, Gemcitabine, Capecitabine and others
Partnerships
- LG Chem is hugely important partnership
- Multitarget agreement to develop Affimer therapeutics, agreement expanded last year to include Affimer XT
- Significant milestone achieved for XT, progressing into pre-clinical d
- With US expansion, is iteasy to get staff (not sure I caught this question correctly)?
ORPH was in WSJ multiple times recently, will be in the New York Times this week, staff love coming to us
- Merger, 2021 or 2022?
Didn’t say merger, Nasdaq is the plan
- Why no revenue streams prior to IPO for DIM?
Work in progress, no problem IPO-ing DIM, “trust me there”, will be around 90% owned by ORPH shareholders, small stake for management
- Is there a delta variant characterisation study underway or even needed?
We are the only people in the world who can do this, there will be a characterised delta variant in not too instant future available for studies
- Where will you recruit volunteers when most people are vaccinated?
Most volunteers 25 - 30, now we have characterised model why test it on covid-naive people, using vaccinated or immune volunteers reduces risk further
- Receivables are relatively high compared to turnover?
High level of receivables last year because of timing to do with issuing invoices to customers. A lot of that cash is now cycled into business in Q3
- Possible JV to go to Nasdaq - would this be with another pharma or CRO?
Makes sense, might be better to offer whole pie rather than just a piece of the pie
- Two malaria contracts by Christmas?
Watch this space, actively working on it
- Who is ORPH’s peer group?
We are the world leaders, we’ve created the peer group
- Can qualifying date for spinouts be the date of the RNS?
Mistakes have been made, EKF is the only other company doing this and they also made mistakes, “things we have learned”, recorded date will be before announcement for DIM
- If a new product provides multi year protection for Covid, will CHIMS still be required
Unlikely that a product will ever do this, Covid will be around for a while, more like influenza
- What IP do we have to protect challenge studies?
High cost of entry, staff required, lab required, regulatory requirements - big barriers to entry, and each challenge model is private and patented
- What is each bed worth to company and what is total capacity?
Don’t give much detail on value for commercial confidentiality, capacity covered earlier
- What’s to stop traders jumping in for spinoff shares then selling out?
It is an issue, we will have to think on this, we will try to be careful with remaining dividends in specie, ‘we won’t get everything right’ but will try to
Final word - bear with us, been a bumpy few months, CF has never been happier or more excited, aiming for 10x with Poolbeg, also wants similar for ORPH by getting on Nasdaq
- Gov Covid challenge study seems to have stalled, what are we waiting for?
Working with gov always a challenge, Britain is world leader in this, and is only country in the world that can do this, bear with us, it’ll come through
- £40m UK contract - delivered in 2021 and accounted for this year?
£8m so far, £12m for FY, substantially more Covid revenue to be accounted for later
- Beds fully booked, looking to expand?
Now have more clinics than previously, can easily convert another hotel down the road if required, not a problem with capacity, we don’t need to go abroad, more efficient and better margin if we stay nearby
- Dual listing for ORPH?
“Absolutely”, multiple times SP uplift if we dual listed on Nasdaq, “Nasdaq is the place to go”, watch this space over coming months, it’s work in progress, H2 of next year
- When spinouts complete, would you sell ORPH?
Everything is for sale, “vastly bigger uplift” if we linked up with a partner
- Lagging share price due to big seller, why has this not rebounded if selling has stopped?
Tony Richardson wrongly blamed, overall market has had a crap summer, optimistic between now and Xmas
- Cash and profit a little disappointing - won’t be affected by further spinouts?
Absolutely, cash will increase, Poolbeg model was correct, will be reused
- Open to selling Imutex rather than listing?
Yes absolutely, DIM will definitely be IPO'd, other two we will extract the biggest price possible, whether that is a listing or a cash sale
- Reconcile H2 guidance of £18m with previous comments of £40m?
We are aiming for £40m this year, 80% capacity in clinic is effectively full as you need to account for empty time for disinfection and fresh set up
- Will CHIM studies take place in 2022?
Yes absolutely, slots are on a “use them or lose them” basis, government has to come to us if they want the slots they’ve bought
- Can you remain independent?
Yes, being listed on AIM and Nasdaq will keep us independent. Sometimes CF gets too excited and sets expectations too high
- Clarity on why R&D tax credits are negative?
Expect shortly to get cash credits we are owed, it’s an accounting ‘quirk’ that explains this (I may have misunderstood this question and answer!)
- How much are you expecting to be charged for extra hotels?
Cost to convert is around £1m, many empty hotels in London so we can play them off against each other for best price, very modest cost
- Malaria trials - who are you working with?
As much as we can in London, famous schools and universities here, why go abroad? Trials run in Whitechapel
- Increased capacity - what is the arrangement, do you lease the rooms?
We offer hotel amount of money for whole hotel or a floor in the hotel for 6 or 12 months, with a break clause if required
- Do ORPH own the data captured by the characterisation study?
Jointly owned in the partnership, but more important data is Flu, RSV and Asthma - Covid data is interesting
Questions
- Indication of current FY forecast? Where can we expect to finish?
FY £40m, not guiding on profitability but similar margins to H1, cash pile increasing slightly
- Dividend by Xmas?
Work in progress, more focused on dividends in specie as priority but CF would welcome a cash dividend as the largest shareholder
- Why are margins slim?
Business a year or so ago had slim margins with little room to manage currency swings; margins are now improved and EBITDA profitable so we have headroom to manage currency risk; operations are naturally hedged with sterling and euro spending - euros managed in Paris/Breda offices, London handles sterling transactions so this works well
- FY results in a more timely manner? Feb or March?
They are subject to an audit so does take time, generally three months, end of March or early April will be earliest
- Why has JS not bought any Poolbeg shares?
He came in late so didn’t have the opportunity but he will have opportunity and will buy shares
- DIM - when will this be completed?
Around turn of the year, likely after Xmas “given where the markets are”
- Are all wearables companies still interested in the data?
Absolutely, largest database in the world of its type, everyone’s interested, DIM will be “really cool”, wearables only one element of the business, clinical trials also major target market to speed up trial processes and outcomes, DIM is "super exciting"
- CEO in mind?
Work in progress, CF doesn’t like using share issues to attract talent
- Imutex update?
Work in progress, good conversations ongoing with ConserV
- Spinouts complete by Xmas previously mooted - still the case?
No, work in progress, sometimes things take a little longer, we are a small team and working hard, summer is quiet period in pharma industry
- Costs that will impact profits re: spinouts?
Absolutely none. Preparation has already been done for spinouts, malaria challenge study required some cash, this is now all complete
- New malaria CHIM accessible soon, any more to come?
TB challenge study model incoming (rife in prisons apparently)
- Major contract with China?
China has become a little bit more difficult but they want challenge studies more than anyone, taking a little longer but they have big problem with flu/pneumococcus, “politics has got in the way” but still work in progress
- Any conversations with pharmas on Covid studies?
Studies can now be run in sites other than the Royal Free, “more enquiries than ever” for testing Covid products, however Covid studies are still taking time because it is still “scary” for regulators, but a lot of Covid work incoming next year
- When is the characterisation study complete?
It is already complete, more interest now than there was 6 or 12 months ago - 2k+ Covid products in clinic, many are interested in using CHIM
Made some notes in the presentation just now. I missed a couple of questions so please feel free to add them if you caught them.
- World leader in testing vaccines and antivirals using HCS, addressing the growing infectious/respiratory disease market
- By 2025, market will be worth around $250bn - a fivefold increase
- 242% revenue growth H1 2021 vs 2020; 75% non-Covid and 28% gross margin
- Great customer base, plenty of repeat business from world’s biggest pharmas
- 4 other hotels in Whitechapel that could be used for additional quarantine space, “we will extend our quarantine space on the back of demand, expansion is no longer our problem, we won’t be paying for fitouts”
- “Restocking and replenishing 30 years of underinvestment in infectious disease products will be one of the biggest gold rushes in the history of the pharmaceutical industry” - big pharma and governments will be spending big
- H1 - £5.4m Covid revenue, £16.5m non-Covid, significant pipeline for remainder of the year
- Characterisation study in RF is complete, we can now potentially look at signing large contracts
- Covid studies likely to be pushed back to next year, permissions need to be sought
- This morning’s RNS contract was asthma with GSK
- Only company in the world with a working Covid challenge study model
- Lab services continue progress towards CAP and UKAS accreditation
- Revenue per employee has more than doubled
- “Cash and cash equivalent” balance currently at £14.9m
- H1 gross margin 22% up year on year
- “No concerns that we are bleeding cash”
- New challenge study models incoming, aiming to broaden offering (linked to lab services accreditation)
- “Continue to be very disciplined with our overheads to improve margins”
- Full year 2021 revenue guidance is £40m; full year will be EBITDA profitable
- Targeting c.£50m non-Covid revenue in 2022, Covid revenue will be in addition to this
- “We are not relying on Covid to be our engine of growth”
- Hesitant to forecast a Covid revenue figure as uncertainty remains over start dates for Covid challenge study contracts
- Poolbeg “has clear trajectory to get onto Nasdaq very soon”
- DIM - 100% control of this non-core asset, “it is ready, no more cash required to be spent, probably won’t be done this side of Xmas but likely early next year, this company could grow very fast”
- Imutex - CF remains frustrated but dialogue underway with SEEK, who are now more attuned to plans for Imutex (no more specific details given)
- PrepBio - similar status to Imutex currently
- Ambition for each non-core company plus core ORPH business to each reach $1bn market cap (did I catch this correctly? CF has previously said mooted $1bn valuation was core and non-cores combined)
Great notes, thanks extrader, much appreciated.
- Further example given was Inflazone which raised 55m in 2016 and exited in 2020 in a 380m euro buyout by Roche, plus "significant" downstream milestones
- Influenza resurgence is a concern following Covid - could be a 'twindemic' if flu and Covid surge this winter or later on
- POLB-001 is a potential blockbuster - 500k flu deaths per year, Tamiflu has addressable market of over $1bn but only effective early on - no benefit to hospitalised patients whereas POLB-001 tackles this problem
- in addition to flu, potential for other diseases that result in cytokine storm
- POLB not efficacious enough for arthritis but safe in humans, has potential for other diseases, POLB has worldwide rights for use in humans, already shown ex vivo (in lab) efficacy against influenza, plan is to replicate success in vivo (in humans)
- Company is using AI to mine dataset from Hvivo - mass of data from healthy volunteers who are given virus and their progress is then tracked - data ready to analyse and identify new targets, drugs, pathways - 300k indiviudal samples stored, currently flu, RSV and HRV, Covid and malaria data are pending
- "Exciting future ahead for POLB"
Questions
- Does POLB get charged for accessing ORPH's data and if so how much?
POLB is not a subsidiary, we are an independent company, as company was demerged ORPH shareholders have a stake in ORPH but there is a commercial agreement in place to accessing existing and upcoming data. Good for ORPH shareholders to realise additional value from this as well as their shares in POLB. Excited about direction we are taking with this data.
- Company is fully funded now, when will see progress on bringing vaccine IP to market?
Key thing is getting healthy volunteers and analysing immune response. new IP can be generated all the time. Talking to many groups to develop this but hard to put a timeline on it
- CF has "got into trouble" in the past for overenthusiasm and optimistic timescales - NASDAQ 'soon', 'Biden interested' etc. - do you have to be NASDAQ listed before dealing with US gov?
No, US agencies fund interesting projects globally, "we have talked to them" to explain what we are doing and they are very interested. We are not US specific, "science is global"
- Lack of diversity on the board, no women - will this change?
Good observation, one of our cofounders is Carol Dalton, head of IR, also Elaine Sullivan is scientific advisor for ORPH and POLB
Made some notes as Cathal and Jeremy were presenting just now - good to get an overview of their plans. Shame the questions were cut short by technical issues, hopefully we can get a few more answers in the remaining upcoming events.
Main presentation
- CF very excited about POLB - Woodford put £120m into Hvivo and by extension POLB, mostly on products
- The company currently has one product but there are more to come; any one of them could be worth hundreds of millions
- Comparable company is Evotec in Germany - share price went from 4 euros to 46 euros, now has £6bn market cap (7.4bn euros)
- No more fundraises, company will be self funding within a couple of years
- Company has big ambitions, wants to get on Nasdaq ASAP
- CF put in £500k of personal cash, Jeremy didn't get the opportunity to invest but he will do in coming months
- CF "going nowhere for next couple of years"
- Plan to build leading infectious disease company, timing could not be better given recent/current pandemic - "one stop shop for pharma" when they want to fill their pipeline - POLB will operate as a 'conveyor belt'
- POLB was spun out of Hvivo / ORPH so has access to lots of data from human challenge studies
- POLB is fully independent, not a subsidiary of ORPH
- POLB 001 is the main asset, an immune modulator for severe influenza which is being "pushed forward"
- Additional assets include infectious disease progression data and biobanks, PredictViral Biomarker Platform, and Vaccine Discover Platform
- No time tonight to focus too much on additional assets but PredictViral predicts early who will develop a disease and who won't
- Vaccine Discovery Platform determines which parts of a virus are susceptible to immune system
- "No better time to be starting infectious disease company, market is set to explode"
- Oct 2020 estimate of global cost of Covid is $16 trillion; pharma will invest heavily in preventative measures for hypothetical future pandemics
- POLB provides assets which big pharmas will put through trials and ultimately commercialise
- Market set to exceed $250bn by 2025
- Approx 50% 'or so' of big pharma's products are licenced from other players
- Conventional biotech approach has a three year time frame, costs of £20m+ for P2 trial - in contrast, POLB is capital light, POLB-001 already been used in humans and is safe. POLB anticipates 12 to 18 months for results and much cheaper trial costs with less uncertainty in the resulting data - attractive monetisation proposition for big pharma when trials complete, with lower risk and costs
- "Multiple shots on goal so greater chances of success"
- Aiming to monetise 5 or 6 assets, any one of which could generate several hundred million - some examples given of recent big pharma infectious disease purchases that were over $100m included LianBio licencing from Reviral, Merck buying Oncoimmune, and the Pfizer/Valneva collaboration
Got the cancellation email six minutes later too, very odd!
OPEN ORPHAN PLC will be holding a Half Year Results meeting on 13th Sep 2021 at 6:00pm BST.
Register to attend at Investor Meet Company.
Also made it into the latest edition of The Week (which I think is from the same publisher?):
https://imgur.com/a/BE8rJN1
Apologies for the image quality, doesn't look great on my phone, I think Imgur must downgrade it when uploading.
Nice bit of extra exposure from both magazines anyway, hopefully we'll see some decent buys on Tuesday.
Very interesting (and at times quite sobering) interview, well worth a watch. I think Alastair and Neil have a nice way of explaining things that are easy to understand for non-scientists to understand.
Made a few notes as I was watching, definitely worth watching the whole thing though.
- Why was Dox selected as the drug for testing?
Drug group is 'backbone of chemo', been around for years, generic drug that is widely used with many side effects including heart damage which limits the possible dosage currently. Safer form would allow longer treatment cycles, increased age of eligible patients, and have a huge addressable market
- How effective is the drug? Is safety rather than efficacy the issue?
Tolerability for patients is the issue but drug itself is effective. Off-target toxicity is the problem. Aim is to limit damage
- How did pro-dox perform in preclinical studies?
Cell permeability, DNA binding, associated toxicity reduced compared to conventional dox. Expecting pro-dox to have improved therapeutic index compared to conventional, hope that patients will tolerate either higher doses or more cycles
- What types of cancer are most suited to pro-dox treatment?
Solid tumours (as opposed to blood cancers)
- How is trial being structured?
Phase 1a and Phase 1b - dose escalation phase, dose steadily increased to identify maximum dose. Dose expansion phase narrows down types of cancer to 1 - 3 types. Study designed with experts and passed regulatory steps.
- How are patients selected?
Patients generally have already been through normal treatments and are 'at the end of the road'. Patients are being altruistic in helping us understand how pro-dox works
- End point goals of study?
Dose escalation phase - confirm that AVA6000 is safe to give to patients and has reasonable tolerability profile, and establish pharmacokinetic profiles
- What is comparison - standard dox or placebo?
Open label study rather than double blind, also allowed to do AVA6000 alone. Phase II and Phase III will need comparisons built into the study
- If Phase I is successful, what are next steps?
Mid 2023 for completion of Phase I - AVCT is committed to taking products as far as they can through development process, realising as much value as possible for shareholders through a licence deal
- Have big pharma ever tried a 'pro-drug' approach for Dox? Any success?
Other biotechs have tried using FAP Alpha enzyme to release chemo drug. Main issue with other attempts is the specificity of FAP Alpha, i.e. only getting pro-drug to release within the tumour rather than elsewhere in the body. Precision tech has achieved very high level of specificity - "exquisite targeting" in preclinical stage, hoping to replicate this in humans
- Interims in September - update for shareholders?
Back end of September, "full update" across the business
This share has definitely tested my patience at times Earache but I keep reminding myself that CF is the biggest shareholder, he's just put in another £300k and has moved himself and his family to London to go after the opportunities he sees in the business.
The share price has been horrendous to watch recently, no doubt, but in my opinion Vascular's theory makes a lot of sense - personally I can't see how ORPH won't be bought out at a premium by a bigger CRO once the non-core assets are done.
Definitely makes sense as a theory Vascular, and ties in nicely with some of the comments from CF last week:
- "a lot of expansion plans in place"
- "we can roll out additional bed capacity as required"
- "something positive coming soon in Antwerp and Benelux"
- "SGS are a friendly party who could be useful"
As ever with ORPH at the moment, just a waiting game!
Not wanting to take the spotlight off AVA6000 on its long-awaited RNS day, but the Telegraph have just published an interesting article about 'learning to live with' Covid and how vaccines aren't necessarily the silver bullet they were made out to be, regarding herd immunity.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/picture-shifting-vaccines-transmission-re-shaping-learn-live/
In particular:
"For mass events and travel, the impact could also be profound. Already UK festivals and other mass events are switching their entry requirements to require a negative test of everyone – even where visitors have been double vaccinated.
International travel schemes such as the EU Covid certificate, which allows anyone who is fully vaccinated to move freely across borders, could also be tightened, with testing once again becoming a requirement for everyone. Expect, too, most airlines and train operators to continue to require their passengers to wear masks for some time to come."
Still plenty to play for testing-wise, with an accurate and easy to use product!
Thanks all, glad the notes are useful.
Hard to judge the time scales for the remaining spinouts, CF has said many times that they are "work in progress" and "well underway", and in the last presentation he was adamant that they'd all be done by the autumn - he said this more than once.
That's why I was surprised to see quite vague wording for the remaining spinouts this time around, Imutex and Prep both "could" be put into separate businesses and they're "hoping" to emulate the POLB spinout process for DIM. I might be reading too much into it but I'd have expected a bit more certainty about the route they're taking with each of these non-core assets if the processes are all already well underway.