Member Info for Wigster77

Maybe this is a cryptic message to shareholders that good news is around the corner :-P

DYOR, GLA!

Morning Andy, it's a shame that you and a few more of the more vociferous critics of RM and the BOD weren't able to attend the AGM to put your views and concerns to them in person. They didn't get an easy ride by any means, but it would have been interesting to see how they would have responded to your more direct lines of criticism.

Hi Tommy, to be fair to Blue he did submit a few questions and they were asked and answered in a lot more detail than we put in the summary - it's a shame because they did give some really comprehensive answers ref SPRINTER, SOC, End Points etc but as you can imagine it was very difficult to write down every point made.

I would agree with you that a nicely worded E-mail to Synairgen is likely to get a detailed response.

Very kind offer Manifesto!! Yes, would be great for a few of us to meet at Big Jonnys at some point when the SP is considerably higher and put a bit of cash into his tills :-)

Thanks Peelweight and HSD for the Casanova information - explains why the "yes we do know about this!" answer was given in a smiling and enthusiastic way by multiple members of the board.

And once again, thank you all for your appreciation. You're all very welcome and the fact the board has been buzzing with positive debate and renewed (but rightly cautious) enthusiasm makes it all worthwhile.

Yes, thanks all for your nice comments and for filling in some of the gaps :-)

Summary
Overall impression was very good.
We have to be pragmatic – the company were never going to release market sensitive data, and in any case, a lot of the future developments are reliant on others. However, we were impressed with how they conducted themselves, they answered all the questions asked of them (and there were lots! + a few we’ve not got notes for) and certainly looked genuine to us.
We have a very passionate team, who we genuinely believe are doing their best to get SNG to market and for it to realise its full potential. They were as rocked as the rest of us with the news in February.
Patience really is the name of the game. If you believe in the science, the team, and have the patience for the long game, then we believe there’s a reasonable chance that this will be rewarded in due course.
Speaking with Richard Marsden and Dr Bruce Campbell after the meeting, they are desperate to get their drug out there saving lives. However, they need to build the best, most robust case they can in order to do this…and that takes time. The plus side is that investors should be rewarded more handsomely than a half-baked, rushed attempt.
Professor Sir Stephen Holgate is clearly a master in his field. His answers were extremely detailed, passionate and he speaks with a certain eloquence and gravitas, which I’m sure is a great asset to Synairgen. The fact he took time to come and find us after the meeting to thank us for attending and wish us well, also spoke volumes.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Synairgen were wary of us passing on the notes we took, for fear of us misrepresenting what was said and the potential for inadvertent Chinese whispers to start. However, we hope they appreciate we are just trying to convey to loyal and long-term shareholders who could not attend, the broad range of topics covered, and overall the feedback is positive, so hopefully they do not mind all of this being posted.

Disclaimer: all views and opinions expressed are our own and not to be relied upon. They do not necessarily represent the views of Synairgen. None of this should be taken as investment advice. DYOR and GLALTHs!

QUESTION: You have talked about partnering to take SNG forward. With regards to negotiating with any potential partners, is our negotiation position perilously weak? Any partner could simply tell us to go it alone, knowing that we could not afford this.

ANSWER: We had misunderstood this. When Synairgen talk about partnering up, they meant with Platform Trial teams, not another pharma co. Synairgen, for now, intend to independently pursue platform trials to continue to build the case for SNG001.

QUESTION: What are the chances of us commercialising SNG001 within 12 months?
ANSWER: SS: extremely slim. Not impossible, but very unlikely. Cash position was talked about at length, perhaps other attendees can elaborate here, but they did not seem concerned.

QUESTION: What are the chances of RM having a chat with Katie (Proactive) within the next 3 months?!
ANSWER: RM: For those that don’t know what that means, it’s code for “will there be good news in 3 months’ time?!”. They obviously couldn’t answer that, but it was a good, light-hearted moment.

QUESTION: Is an EUA a pathway the company would consider or not?
ANSWER: SS said this is extremely unlikely, with the focus on building as robust a case as possible for SNG001. It was, however, stated that if there was another variant which caused huge numbers of deaths then yes, an EUA could theoretically become more likely. But he reiterated an EUA was unlikely.
QUESTION: Are you continuing with the Managed Access Program?
ANSWER: RM/PM: Less focused on this at the moment as we have lots of other things to focus on. We also found that, sadly, people were coming to this program too late. Noted that on these programs, companies are not allowed to advertise or promote their drugs in any way.

QUESTION: Do you have a date for when the Peer Review of SPRINTER data will be available?
ANSWER: PM: No, it has been submitted but is still being reviewed.
QUESTION: Will it include Long Covid information?
ANSWER: PM: Not initially, but it will at a later date.

QUESTION: Why were resolutions 12 and 13 withdrawn?
ANSWER: SS: After discussions with various shareholders, it was felt that this would be a positive sign. We don’t need to raise money, so wouldn’t need these resolutions, but removing them we felt would be a good thing to do.

QUESTION: Being positive, let’s say we get on a platform trial, pass it and get SNG commercialised, where do you see its potential? How ambitious are the company?
ANSWER: The general gist was we want it to save lives and want it to be used wherever possible.
QUESTION: Do you ever see it becoming the new Standard of Care? How would the price of SNG001 compare to current SOC?
ANSWER: No reason why not. RM commented that it would represent very good value for money.

QUESTION: What has happened to the commercial hires you took on prior to P3 results?
ANSWER: They are still employed. We need them for when we do get to commercialisation. They are all very experienced, versatile and well connected so are currently helping out with activities to get on a Platform Trial – i.e. their wages are not being wasted.

QUESTION: Why are your RNS’s so restrained when you have good news? (The actual question was much longer, examples given to them etc).
ANSWER: The people we are dealing with (fellow scientists, other pharma cos, regulatory bodies etc) just want the facts presented to them, without frivolous hyperbole. It would likely damage credibility to do it differently.

QUESTION: What about COPD/Asthma?
ANSWER: RM used the phrase “we’re firing a lot of arrows and hopefully at least one will hit the target”. In other words, yes, these are still big potential markets for Synairgen, and they are pursuing every angle and leaving no stone unturned. It was re-iterated that the broad-spectrum and variant agnostic nature of SNG001 makes it an extremely powerful potential product.

QUESTION: Why didn’t you ensure that the SPRINTER trial had more chance of success by picking better/more suitable endpoints etc?
ANSWER: When talking about trial design RM, SSH and PM all chipped in with various points. It was said that when Covid first appeared and the world was in turmoil, no one really knew what the specific endpoints should be. Someone in the audience said that surely it should have been “death prevention”, to which the response was that the governments direction at the time was “get people out of hospital” as the NHS was under huge strain, so this had a bearing on the endpoints. Also, it was stated that endpoints such as mortality (would have) need(ed) a lot more people on the trials – into the thousands. The improvement in SOC was also mentioned as per the February RNS.

QUESTION: How many doses of SNG001 does the company currently have?
ANSWER: “10’s of thousands” of active treatment and placebo.

QUESTION: What are the chances of getting onto a large Platform Trial and what are the timescales?
ANSWER: The chances are very high. Pursuing this as fast as possible and engaging with numerous teams around the world. Pretty much the whole Synairgen team is engaged in this activity as a matter of urgency. Can’t really give timescales at this point.

QUESTION: Moving away from the science, Polygon own a significant amount of the company and are now potentially very powerful and influential. They may be here today? (some deliberately funny faces pulled from some of the BOD, we took that as saying “yes, they are here!”). Do you have a dialogue with them, are you in contact? If so, what do you talk about? If not, why not, given they are such a large shareholder? And expanding on all of that, are you happy there is such a large external shareholder (i.e. no seat on the board) who could influence the future direction of the company?
ANSWER: They behave like “normal” institutional investors. Synairgen are happy to have them, they were very supportive pre-February and have continued to be supportive since. They have not sought a seat on the board, and they meet them half yearly as they do with other II’s.

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QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
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This lasted well over an hour and a half. No questions were ducked and from what we could see all were answered as fully and frankly as regulations would allow. We have largely paraphrased as we’re not a computer or memory-men, so take the overall interpretation, rather than holding us to every word. If you want something clarifying, we’ll do our best (hopefully some of the other attendees can help, too).

In no particular order:

QUESTION: Why is ACTIV-2 data taking so long? Are you chasing them up sufficiently? You should be badgering them literally daily for this data.
ANSWER: RM/PM answered this – RM said that they don’t badger daily but they were certainly in regular contact. “I spoke to them yesterday as it happens”. PM said that it was out of Synairgen’s control, there was a lot of data to crunch, and they must complete the full analysis before releasing it. It can’t be done piecemeal.

QUESTION: During the “at haste” discussions with various platform trial providers, regulatory bodies and governments all around the world, does the appetite for therapeutic development still appear to remain or are you noticing it tailing off due to the Covid “fire” regressing and governments being busy with Ukraine etc?
ANSWER: RM: No, not at all. Hospital numbers are still rising – look at the current new variants. No one in the scientific/regulatory/government communities is relaxed about Covid. Bear in mind that other drugs are very “selective” in how well they treat different variants.
SSH: This winter the world’s overall immunity will be low due to vaccines etc, so even things like flu, RSV, common cold will be more severe. Future variants of Covid could also be more severe than those we’ve yet seen.

QUESTION: Are we going to get Long Covid data?
ANSWER: RM/PM: This is still being analysed. This led into the next question…

QUESTION: Can SNG001 help with Long Covid
ANSWER: Sir Stephen Holgate nearly jumped out of his chair to answer this one and was EXTREMELY excited about Synairgen’s potential in this “market”. Apparently, what we refer to as “Long Covid” is actually a wider phenomenon of many different viruses, not just Covid. The foggy head, continual tiredness etc. The government have just started up a forum to study the progression of viruses from their initial state to the “long” state, so this is something Synairgen are watching very closely…

QUESTION TO SIMON SHAW: How long have you been Chairman? A: Since 2003
Response from questioner: Should you not therefore step down as per the UK Corporate Governance Code (which advises organisations to change their Chairmen after 9 years)?

What a question to start with!!!!

SS responded by essentially saying no. He mentioned about directors having 3 years between re-election usually, but that Synairgen have chosen to do this annually.

QUESTION: Somebody asked about Auto Antibody Markers (AAMs). In all honesty a lot of this went over our heads, but Sir Stephen Holgate answered this robustly, with lots of scientific facts and data. Question was asked whether serum samples had been collected for AAMs and the answer was no. ***really need the person who asked the question or people on here more knowledgeable about AAMs to help us out with this one***

QUESTION: Somebody asked if Synairgen had been in contact with the Casanova(?) team and the answer was YES. (Sorry, we don’t know who this team is, or what they do).

Bearing in mind we were still in the resolution voting stage, Simon Shaw proposed to move things on and commence the votes for re-election of the directors, unless there were some other questions directly related to this matter.

And there was!

QUESTIONS: Why should we re-elect you all?
The person asking the question also suggested that the directors do presentations to investors to say why they think they should be re-elected, particularly in view of the SP drop since Sprinter.
This was met with a few concerned looking faces, but Simon Shaw suggested that this information (the credentials of the BOD) was already in the Annual Report which we had been given.

Resolution 10 – Reappoint BDO LLP as Company Auditor Voted On.

Resolution 11 – To approve the Directors’ Remuneration Report for y.e.2021.

QUESTION: Why should we vote to approve this, given the SP? Salaries have gone up by a huge amount from Jan 2021 to August 2021 (RM £217k to £310k) and this doesn’t seem right with the extremely poor performance of the SP. Also, the salary ranges are a lot higher than comparable AIM companies.

This was mainly answered by Iain Buchanan. There was a bit of debate about the salaries of other AIM companies (his assertion was that Synairgen’s were similar to most), but the main point was that to attract/retain the calibre of people that Synairgen need to push forward and commercialise SNG001, they need salaries to be commensurate with industry standards/levels.

Synairgen AGM – London 30th June 2022
By Wigster77 and Doc83

CAVEATS: Excuse the detailed “Jackanory” style. The intention is to set the scene of the overall event, rather than give you just the Q&A parts. We’ve put things into sections as best as we can, to allow you to jump to the bits most important to you. All of this is our take on the meeting. During the Q&A particularly, it is exceedingly difficult to ask questions, listen to the answer attentively and politely whilst also getting detailed notes written down, so we’ve paraphrased and there will undoubtedly be some details missing (which hopefully other attendees can help with). Nothing in here is to be taken as “advice” or anything like that – it is simply our opinions as we saw it.

ARRIVAL: Very nice, large building in the heart of the City. Lots of “Synairgen AGM” signs and the guys on reception were well prepared for our arrival, with the nominee invites and ID’s checked, and other formalities being dealt with swiftly. Up to the 9th floor where we had to sign in again and receive our voting cards. Typical medium-sized conference room with tables for the Synairgen board at the front and seating for around 100 people at a guess.

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

Brooke Clarke and a few other members of the Synairgen team were sat alongside investors, of which there were approximately 16. We assumed it would be busier.

Well done to John Ward, who was the only one we saw who took the trouble to walk around the room and introduce himself to investors and thank us for coming.

We were also given hard copies of the Annual Report and Accounts for 2021 and the AGM Agenda (with Resolutions).

Meeting Starts 9:00 prompt.
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RESOLUTION VOTING
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Simon Shaw welcomed us to the meeting, where we were told that we must turn our phones to silent and that any recording of the meeting was not allowed. It was also mentioned that no market sensitive information could or would be divulged.
He proposed to whip through the resolutions as quickly as possible one-by-one so we could get to any questions. We were told that resolutions 12 and 13 were removed after conversations with some investors (more on this later).
Resolution 1 – adopt the audited accounts was voted on.
Resolutions 2 to 9 – re-election of directors.
Simon Shaw proposed to deal with these as one group to speed things up. Asked if everyone was OK with this and we had the first couple of questions:

Bear with us team. I've typed up the bit before the Q&A and even that runs to 80 lines in word...Doc83 will be checking this over later this evening
I'm just typing up the Q&A part now. It's been a long day and this is taking ages as I'm trying to be as comprehensive as possible - hopefully you'll find it of use and worth the wait.

I think you're possibly reading a bit too much into the removal of resolutions 12 & 13, but will put a bit more into our summary of the day (which I'm doing now) and we can maybe further the debate then.

Sit tight folks...not long come out.
A good hour and a half of frank questions, all answered by various members of the Syn board.
Chairman was very good. RM was RM. SSH added some gravitas and answered scientific qs very well
Full report to follow, but came out more positive than I went in...

Yes, the whole crew are here.

I think you're right Doc. I'm going tomorrow; more out of interest than anything - certainly my expectation bar is set very low...if I get a nice cup of Maud's tea I'll be happy.
Cmww2014 - will take some notes if I can (and if I remember my pen).

Fair point Mr Costs :-)

You're welcome all.

Another question from me:

Prior to P3 results, brokers like Finncap and Numis were talking wildly high bull-figures of £75, £85 per share due to the expected desire of governments to stockpile drugs ready for future waves/viruses. During Synairgen's discussions with various trial organisers, regulatory bodies etc does this desire still appear to be there or has the fact that Covid has regressed (certainly for the minute) and other priorities like Russia/Ukraine etc mean that governments are now focussed elsewhere? (i.e. have we missed the boat on potential huge orders).