Member Info for Wigster77

Many thanks from me too and yes, was great to catch up again.

With regards to "For some reason I had the number 90 for trial participants but couldn’t swear on it so will bow to the info you heard."

It's more likely I'd got it wrong to be honest, as it was a conversation in a noisy pub environment where I heard it!

ATB.

I felt slightly deflated and I know Doc83 said he felt more negative than when we left last year’s AGM (see more below).

We then went to the pub and it was good to catch up with a fair few other investors there to chew the fat and compare notes. We are lucky to have such knowledgeable and friendly investors.

During this chat we also found out that the P2 trials were likely to be very small (c50 patients each) and therefore should be quite quick to complete, which was good news. One investor who was in the industry said that he was confident that this was the right strategy for Synairgen and that he also had no worries with regards to cashflow or RM’s capabilities. This was heartening to hear, but I guess only time will tell…

That’s all folks!!

Doc83 – I came away from last year’s AGM feeling very positive, but I couldn’t help feel a little disappointed this time around. To me, it seems like we are starting all over again (P2 trials, more data needed, cash raise or some form of dilution/JV likely needed at some point in the future etc), albeit with some useful data from SPRINTER. So, this is now (IMO) a long term hold (2-3yrs minimum) with no quick win potential, i.e. STRIVE or JV etc. I’ll be popping my shares in that oft-mentioned bottom drawer with no further top ups planned. As one fellow investor said to me, “I believe in the product but not the team”.

Simon Shaw then brought the meeting to a close. He finished by saying that they take on board the comments around poor communication and that they will look at ways to improve this.

Following the meeting we had an informal chat with Simon Shaw. Other groups had chats with RM and others, so if anything useful was gleaned from these then please feel free to add.

The chat with Simon was quite enlightening. Some may find his personality a bit “car salesman-like”, but he clearly knows his stuff. A couple of titbits we got:

Richard Francis has apparently reduced his working days to save money. Said this was prudent as they’re clearly not doing as much “manufacturing” at the moment.

He seemed to think that the Medical Affairs Director job was a legacy advert (from before Sprinter failure) and was a mistake from Ashfield Engage (which was a slightly different answer to that which RM had given in the main meeting…)

We asked more about Polygon and gained more confidence that they’re in it for the long haul. We queried why they stopped buying at 28% and SS said he wasn’t sure, but that there was probably not much we should read into that. He also clarified that he deals with Reade Griffiths (the main man) directly rather than with some underling.

Doc83 also asked if we had any applications open or pending with platform trials. The answer was no and that the decision has been taken to go it alone and be in control of our own destiny. SS did say that clearly if they get in touch it is something that could still happen, but Synairgen would likely hand over the drug and leave the trial administration to the platform trial, as our focus is now on our own trials.

We then shook hands with various members of the team and left.

QUESTION from Doc83: Have Polygon been made insiders? Do you keep the same level of dialogue as previous?

SS: No. They are very supportive, but not decision makers at all.

Doc83: I find it strange they decided to go beyond 25% and stop at 28%...an unusual figure. Why not get to 29.99%?

SS: I don’t know but imagine they wanted a buffer, as they don’t want to be forced into making a bid for the company.

QUESTION FROM ANOTHER LTH: Are they here today?

SS: No, I don’t think so. (Reade Griffith certainly wasn’t)

QUESTION: ACTIV2 took blood samples from patients at day zero. Have you had any results data back?

PM: No, not had anything yet and to be honest we’re not expecting it to be very useful as it was only 110 patients.

QUESTION: Do you see Synairgen being a commercial entity in 12-18 months?

SS: No, insofar that we would not be selling SNG001, but possibly yes, insofar that we might have a commercially viable product that has been proven.

QUESTION: Picking up on a comment from RM a moment ago about interest from big pharma etc. You do a lot of jet-setting around the world at various conferences etc. Have you had much interest? Are these trips value for money? Has anyone put in a cheeky £2bn bid that you’ve waved away?!

RM: (smiling) no bids like that, no! Yes, these are very useful. It keeps our profile high and lets KOIs (key opinion influencers) know what we’re doing and the value of it. It’s good to network with colleagues in the industry as well as governments and other KOIs.

QUESTION: Have you worked on a plan to sell the company?

SS: No. People want to see the data, so that’s what our focus is on.

QUESTION: Can you clarify the timelines for UNIVERSAL getting from 350 to 1000 patients (as mentioned in the presentation)

PM: This is an ongoing thing, with more and more patients being constantly recruited. Expecting a big jump for winter.

RM: Clarified that UNIVERSAL is remaining in parallel with the studies Synairgen will be doing.

QUESTION: These interventional trials you’ll be doing this Winter, what stage will they be?

RM: These would be Phase 2 trials.

QUESTION: Will they run concurrently or consecutively?

RM: They would run concurrently or at least overlap. There may be certain synergies between each trial to speed things up/make things easier.

QUESTION from Doc83: 2-part question to you all on the board: Firstly, are you confident in the company’s prospects, both the trials/medical side and for the share price, for example, will it be more than 7p in say 3 years time?

SS: We wouldn’t be here if not!!

RESPONSE FROM QUESTIONER: Secondly, that being the case, why have not one of you bought any shares in the company with your own money since the SPRINTER trial failure?

SS: We’re all pretty loaded up already.

SHOUT FROM LTH: Yes on freebies!!

SS: They do actually cost us money and remember that the effect of SP/LTIP goes both ways for us as well.

Doc83: If there are things you indeed can’t tell us, that are apparently good for the company, this is one way for you to demonstrate all is well (SS getting quite defensive on this and saying we were getting into personal financial decisions of the BOD which wasn’t fair).

QUESTION: If / when we get to P3, would we need 2 separate trials for home and hospital settings like ACTIV and SPRINTER were.

RM: I think he said that this is possible, but the synergies between the p2 studies and the data got from these may mean that it could be just one.

There was a question about Patents. I didn’t manage to get a lot down about this so again if anyone could fill in the blanks that’d be great. A couple of points I do remember:

We’ve got 6 yrs 8 months to go on one of our patents (the main one I guess)

RM: The U.S have 12 years for drug “exclusivity agreements”

RM: We do file patents wherever we can, but don’t necessarily advertise that we’ve done so (commercial/competition reasons)

RM: We recently filed 2 patents (one was for COPD and another was for a certain signal/effect they’d seen during one of the trials, but I can’t remember the exact details)

QUESTION: Do you have any targets for timeframes of all of these P2, P3 trials you’re planning?

RM: We going to have to chase down the targeted groups for the trials we’re doing. Some of these could go very rapidly, others could take more time (so it’s difficult to say). However, bear in mind that once we start generating good data this could trigger interest from big pharma and/or partners, which would obviously change the course and timings of our plans.

Q&A RECOMMENCES:

The next few questions were around Auto Antibodies, testing methods/kit (ThermoFisher, Cassanova), different types of Interferons and how they interact, viral loads etc. Quite technical and it was a struggle to keep up with the conversation and note it all down so if people want to fill in gaps here, that’d be great.

QUESTION: If someone could take SNG001 at home, how long would the effect last?

SSH: Great question and one we are hoping to get the answer to in further trials. It would certainly be a great opportunity to be able to use SNG001 successfully in this setting, both commercially and people’s wellbeing (I’m paraphrasing, but I think the general gist was getting SNG001 in use similar to the ubiquitous Asthma inhalers)

SSH then reiterated that we’re not just looking at C19, but all viruses. He said that Professor Dame Sally Davies (ex UK Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer) was very keen on the idea of broad-spectrum drugs for viruses.

QUESTION: What went wrong with the promise of “dosing patients by winter” (made at the last AGM)?

RM: After the AGM, the available platform trials massively tailed off and those that are/were left are very slow.

QUESTION: (Can’t remember the exact question, but have just got “Cashflow” written in my notes)

RM: We will only announce trial details (and I assume any costings) when we’re ready and when we’re sure that things are definitely happening and about to commence.

QUESTION: With reference to use of SNG001 for Pandemic Preparedness, the UK Health Security Agency have given out funding for this (Moderna was mentioned). Is there anything for Synairgen? You’ve been silent on this?

RM: We wouldn’t put out an RNS for this. (Can’t remember if he said why not, possibly commercial sensitivity?). There’s less focus on therapeutics from governments.

QUESTION: With regards to Cash Burn, how confident are you that we won’t get to Zero. Accounts showed a £17M drop during 2022 which was arguably a quiet year (no trials etc). So with only £19M in the bank and multiple further trials being planned, you can see why this would be a worry to shareholders.

JW: Lots of that £17M was due to SPRINTER costs.

RESPONSE Doc83: How much of it? SPRINTER was nearly at an end in 2021.

JW: I don’t know the figure off hand.

RESPONSE FROM A FURTHER LTH: I’m an ex-Finance Director and I find it astonishing that you don’t know the figures.

JW: Well, I do know, I just can’t say. (We found this conversation incredible and it did not reflect on JW well).

QUESTION: How confident are you that you would be able to conduct a successful fundraise?

SS: I don’t think this will be an issue if we generate lots of good data from the P2 trials we’re self-funding.

QUESTION TO RM from Doc83: Why are you so elusive? You’ve only done 3 Proactive interviews since SPRINTER, each lasting just 5 minutes, and were nowhere to be seen in the months straight after the failure. Quoted TT Electronics CEO (Geraint Anderson):

“You must have regular dialogue with investors and analysts to build trust and credibility. You need, first of all, for the investors to understand your strategy and then you need to build their confidence as you execute that strategy. You need also to be very clear in setting the expectations as you will always be judged on what you said you will do.”

RM: Usual stuff about we only communicate if there’s news. Can’t give you details of every little thing we do as it’d be of no use. Regulatory restraints, commercial sensitivities etc etc.

QUESTION from Doc83: Where’s Brooke? There is a rumour she is no longer a Synairgen Employee?

RM: She’s “stepped back”

Doc83: What does that mean exactly?

RM: She’s no longer an employee, but she’s consulting to us as and when.

Doc83: Do you see the irony of our Head of Communications leaving/changing role, and that not being communicated to us?

SS: We’re not obliged to inform investors of that.

Investor: It’s not always just about being obliged to do something.

The Marketing professional lady who’d asked a previous question then stood up and said “I’d love to be consulted!!”, to which someone shouted “get her on your team”, which some found quite amusing.

RM: We’ve had to ensure that we’ve retained appropriate resource. The Medical Affairs Director position has been put on hold for now, for example (more on that later).

QUESTION: This AGM isn’t being live-streamed. Who made this decision? Are the presentations you’re going to do being recorded?

SS: No. It was a board decision not to stream it.

RESPONSE FROM QUESTIONER: Were there any votes against this decision?

SS: No, it wasn’t put to a vote. It was a board agreement. You very rarely have to formally vote on things.

QUESTION: Can you just confirm that you said the Medical Affairs Director job has been canned.

RM: Yes

RESPONSE FROM QUESTIONER: Was this because we’re not on STRIVE?

RM: No, it’s just that we need to focus on generating more data at this point.

It was about 10:50 at this point and SS insisted that we really should get onto the presentations now (he’d tried suggesting this numerous times prior, but the questions just kept coming...)

Presentation from SSH first, followed by PM. Won’t go into much detail as you’ve all probably seen it by now, but about 5 mins in me and Doc whispered to each other “what’s this got to do with Synairgen” as it just seemed quite historical and general, but it did eventually become apparent how it was relevant. The other thing we immediately spotted was the phrase “Preparing to commence trials of SNG001 this Winter” – very late

QUESTION: WHY ARE YOU STILL CHAIRMAN? SHOULDN’T YOU HAVE STEPPED DOWN BY NOW?

SS: We are working towards full compliance. We’ve added more members to the board like Amanda Radford and Flic Gabbay to strengthen the team.

RM: Simon Shaw is very experienced and an invaluable resource for me and the Synairgen team. We’ve managed to add a few more NEDs with a lot of experience and contacts in the sector.

BC: You wouldn’t be asking these questions if SPRINTER was successful. To change anything now would be counterproductive.

RESPONSE FROM ANOTHER LTH: You’re being disingenuous.

QUESTION (Lady): Why don’t you communicate? You desperately need a marketing person. I’m a marketing professional and this is the worst communicating company I’ve ever seen.

SS: We do have a lot of resource (in marketing/comms). We operate under regulatory guidelines and also sometimes need to remain silent and private due to commercial/competition sensitivities.

RESPONSE FROM ANOTHER LTH: Prior to the SPRINTER failure, there was a lot of recruitment, talk of lots going on in the U.S, partnering with a top marketing guru (Ray Jordan). This created a buzz that led shareholders to believe that the trial was going to be a success. There should have been more comms to clear up any speculation.

SS: We shouldn’t need to clear up people’s misconceptions.

QUESTION: There’s a complete lack of strategy. Complete lack. SPRINTER showed a complete lack of experience.

SS: You need to bear in mind the situation of Covid19 and the way the world was. This gave us an opportunity to accelerate our work, which is what we did.

RESPONSE FROM ANOTHER LTH: Your big mistake was not completing the p2 trial. (Puzzled looks from some at the table). You were supposed to dose 400 patients but didn’t. You therefore missed the second wave of Covid. When you eventually started the P3 trial this was too late in the C19 cycle.

SS: Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

RESPONSE FROM A FURTHER LTH: You also didn’t take into account Dexamethasone and other SOC.

SS: We had an opportunity and the C19 situation meant it was the right thing to do (p3).

QUESTION: You’re a small company. It was very brave to do SPRINTER anyway and yet you picked risky end points. Furthermore, you didn’t take into account SOC and ended up with an underpowered trial. Why were there only 600 patients?

RM: The endpoints were the same as P2.

PM: These were set by the regulators due to the World’s situation with C19.

**** There was quite a debate on all of this, which I didn’t manage to note down. If anyone could fill in the gaps, that’d be welcomed.

Synairgen AGM – London 30th June 2023

By Wigster77 and Doc83

Sorry it’s more abridged this year. I found there was a lot more “technical” stuff this year, as well as what felt like more questions overall, so if our more technical and learned members could fill in any gaps/make corrections that’d be great.

We arrived, got booked in and received our voting cards. A few of the Synairgen team were milling about and partaking in the usual small talk and drinks etc. We overheard the phrase “presentation” and “RNS” mentioned, so wondered if this was going to be anything significant…

Into the main room. It was a posher room for us this year. More of a cinema style auditorium with tables for the Synairgen board at the front and seating for around 200 people at a guess. I think this must have been because we had Royalty with us this year (Professional, who graces us with his posts on here occasionally). We counted around 20 investors.

ATTENDEES FROM SYNAIRGEN: On the tables, from left to right as we looked at them were: John Ward, Dr Bruce Campbell, Richard Marsden, Simon Shaw (Chairman), Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, Amanda Radford and Dr. Phillip Monk. Apologies from Flic Gabbay.

Simon Holden and a few other members of the Synairgen team were sat alongside the investors.

Last year we received hard copies of the Annual Report and Accounts and the AGM Agenda (with Resolutions), but we didn’t get them this year. Not sure if other attendees received them.

Meeting Starts 10:00 prompt.

=================

RESOLUTION VOTING

=================

Simon Shaw welcomed us to the meeting and we were told that we must turn our phones off, that any recording of the meeting was not allowed and that anyone suspected of doing so may be thrown out of the meeting.

He proposed to start with the resolutions and asked if we could limit any questions purely to them to save time.

QUESTION: WHY SHOULD WE RE-ELECT YOU ALL

SS – We have a broad skill set. And we know what we’re doing.

RESPONSE FROM QUESTIONER: You’re just on the gravy train, aren’t you? There’s no overall strategy.

SS: No. We have a presentation to show you later which will explain more.

RESPONSE FROM ANOTHER LTH: I think we need to defer the vote until after these presentations and Q&A session.

SS: (Looking slightly rattled). Yes, we can do that if the majority agree. A show of hands was requested and from what we could see everyone agreed we should defer the vote!!

I've just finished typing them up and have sent them to Doc for review and then will post them up here hopefully late afternoon. Thanks again to those who have already put lots of useful info on here from the meeting.

Many thanks also to all for your kind words ref my partner yesterday, she is now back home from hospital, safe and (almost) well.

ATB & GLA.

Header say all: WOS = Waste of Space.

Be happy.

No, they weren't there

I've come out of the meeting not quite sure how I feel about it. Possibly slightly more negative than last year.

One thing is for certain, we are in for a long long ride. P2 (the " investigative" i think they were refered to in the result RNS) studies were slated to start in winter in the presentation they gave, so forget early H2 this year...

Data data data was the theme. We need to collect all of our data (certainly the p2 studies) before any BP or partners would be interested in a JV/TO.

That's it for now. An apology in advance that I'm going to struggle with a huge write up this year as my partner got rushed into hospital last night, which wasnt in the script, but I do have various notes and will try and put something together in due course.

ATB

Was it just RMs autograph you wanted, Tatty. I can try and get SSHs for you if he turns up. Let me know.

Thanks Tommy, that's a fair assessment I think.

ATB

Tommy: "At pace may now be the pre-pandemic trial pace and we may all have to learn to reset our expectations"

Do you think the expectations I set are about right or overly optimistic/pessimistic? Reminder if you missed my comment:

I have set my personal expectations of "no conclusion to this drama until mid 2026". This is based on the 3 investigative studies taking until the end of 2024, then a p3 trial taking 18 months or so (providing we have the funding to do it of course).

Thanks & ATB.

A few phrases from the recent Results RNS:

"we have established a number of ways forward for the SNG001 development programme. We are embarking on these WITH RENEWED VIGOR in 2023."

"....wanting to move forward AT PACE"

"...implementing our clinical development plan AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE"

I will be seeking timelines to assess whether the perceived urgency and alacrity matches the expectations of us shareholders.

ATB & GLA

Sparky, I'm sure the subject of timings will be one brought up at the AGM.

I have set my personal expectations of "no conclusion to this drama until mid 2026". This is based on the 3 investigative studies taking until the end of 2024, then a p3 trial taking 18 months or so (providing we have the funding to do it of course).

You never know, we may be lucky and get an £8bn takeover offer before then or even inclusion onto a 3rd party platform trial like STRIVE for example which may change everything. It's amazing what can happen if you smoke the correct drugs.

DYOR, ATB & GLA

Aether & all - yes, absolutely no problem relaying people's questions but as Doc says, there would appear to be a lot more people going this year, so we may struggle to get through them all (I have 22 main questions already, with a few of those having "sub questions" as well). However, I suspect that most people will want to know similar things - mainly a lot more "meat on the bone" of the company's future so it might not be too bad.

So, fire away!!

ATB.

A few valid points there WOS.

FWIW, my guess would be that, depending on the exact circumstances and wording of the RNS, the SP could drop back to 3p, maybe even high 2s. I think it would start to return back fairly swiftly though once the "bedwetters" have gone and more knowledgeable LTHs are left.

Personally I think we'd be very lucky to see the LP before Velociraptor news, but we're about due some good luck aren't we?

Interesting times ahead, that is for sure.

GLA