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[paulisi] 29/12/2020 17:51

Disappointing drop, when the markets are rallying.

[fse] 28/12/2020 19:57

NIPT screening is actually a really large business. For those of you who remember Vialogy/Premaitha/YourGene companies rose and fell if they were able/unable to come up with a test.
Several countries will pay for NIPT testing and I believe it costs in the $550 per test range.
The NIPT tests largely replaced amniosynthesis and the risks entailed albeit I am not sure what the diagnostic status is now.....

[paulisi] 28/12/2020 10:02

The Twitter account is showcasing Zer Laboratories today, a subsidiary that never gets mentioned. Lots of testing, genetics, DNA stuff in there.

[paulisi] 28/12/2020 09:55

Israel's rapid vaccine process is helped by a small population. They are expecting the over 60's to be done by end Jan and the majority of the population by end March.

[paulisi] 28/12/2020 09:12

Israel I believe is back in lockdown

[fse] 27/12/2020 17:31

Pretty flat on TASE today ... Israel has rolled out a rapid vaccination process so we should see what the results of that are sooner than anywhere else.
Too bad the government still has not understood that achieving herd immunity is boosted by exposure to the virus with the healthier sector of the population ( ie younger) coupled with a vaccine will get them the numbers they need.

Ironically the need, or the desire I should say, for testing to carry on is carrying on unabated.
I would expect testing to be a mainstay of infectious disease management in the future.BATM rapid, accurate, constantly updated testing and "in situ" is a game changer for the future. The handling from food plants to airport testing is a comprehensive sensible set of tools available to Governments, should they choose to listen to the experts. I constantly hear politicians saying they are guided by science yet they censored any experts whose views contradicted their own agenda.

Also infuriating are predictions of incredibly high numbers required to achieve full herd immunity. Its the same dodgy mathematical calculations done with no peer reviews that have already done so much damage.
No one seems to want to comment on the seriousness (life threatening) nature of the the new strain which itself is only an "expected" mutation from the original variant which itself was only a variant of Coronavirus which has mutated since before the dawn of man. OMG.

[paulisi] 24/12/2020 16:38

However, the current UK tests are detecting the variant otherwise the numbers would be significantly higher.Clever PR stunt.

[fse] 24/12/2020 15:41

Nice Christmas present from BATM, best wishes to all for the holidays and hopes for a better connected/informed world.

[doccash] 24/12/2020 09:11

This is good PR from the company given the wall to wall news on covid variants

[paulisi] 24/12/2020 08:03

Markets like the news and we thought Covid was being taken out of the valuation....

[wizzkid211] 24/12/2020 07:02

BATM confirms effectiveness of its COVID-19 test in diagnosing new strain of virus

The Group is now offering its 4+1 kit as its standard COVID-19 antigen test, which is being delivered to several private and government customers in Europe and other geographies.

[emeraldzebra] 23/12/2020 16:24

Not sure the tests have been worth anything like the money expended. They just tell us what we already know: that the virus is all over the effing place. And for the most part unavoidable.

[gclark] 23/12/2020 11:23

Paulisi - thanks for the discussion

Yes, if you are just going out in the street and testing people, and you find people who would not be found otherwise, that would be a useful thing to do. They can self-isolate and you have a good chance of breaking a chain of spreading.

But if you are basing decisions on it, such as whether a person can go into a care home, then it is dangerous and I would compare it to Russian roulette. You may be saving half of care homes that would be infected if you just let everybody in, but other care homes run the risk of being infected. You are letting some people in who will be infected if you rely solely on this test and what will be the consequence of that? I think a future public enquiry may well find that care homes were infected in the first wave from returning, untested hospital patients and people died as a consequence. The evidence suggest we are heading towards another disaster with visitors bringing in SARS-Cov2.

Tests are horses for courses. Used in the right way, they can be useful. Used in the wrong way, they can be dangerous. I really don't think Boris understands much of this, it is all about being 'the best in the world', spending more money on test and trace than anybody else (was it £100bn), and there is little intellectual input from him and his mates, is my opinion.

I also see this new variant as a game changer, I'm afraid, for the worse for all of us. It means there is always likely to be changes to this thing, and tests need to be used for several years.

[paulisi] 23/12/2020 10:59

The lateral tests are only designed for people with no symptoms who can spread the virus.If you can break the chains all the better.50% is better than non detection.If we can find a rapid non PCR test that is more accurate even better, but I doubt companies are going to put R&D into this with vaccines approved.

[gclark] 23/12/2020 09:25

So they are tying UK taxpayer money to the lateral flow test, and the French government appear to have accepted it. And again it is being used in schools and universities.

There is a lot of hype, which obviously Boris and his mates are good at, and it is partly not to lose face that they have gone ahead with these tests after their highly-proclaimed 'successful' pilot in Liverpool. The numbers that they give are the classic half-full/half-empty scenario, but this time they are playing with people's actual lives and rather than their livelihoods as it is with Brexit.

If you google lateral flow test you find the top result is a company making claims similar to the GDR when the leader won 99.99% of the vote. Maybe that is true, you think, why be skeptical, I don't want to turn into a conspiracy believer.
You then look down to the article underneath from the BMJ, open the article and the story is very different, it has data and facts, it is peer reviewed and presumably the only agenda they have is to save lives.

There is 99.9% specificity, which would imply there is a very low likelihood of a false positive - being told you have SARS-Cov2 when you don't have it. That is good.

However, what hasn't been promoted by the Government and some of the departments of government, for whatever reasons, is that when compared to PCR tests which are regarded as more towards the gold standard of tests, lateral flow missed 23 of the 45 PCR positive results in the Liverpool study, in other words missed almost half of the cases. If people are given such tests by people believing government ministers, and go into care homes, it is very dangerous for all care home residents. Similarly in schools.

So the government says this should be part of the safety protocol but how is it useful if you have to do a PCR test in the end anyway and how do you make sure people don't actually 'believe' their lateral flow test? If I got a negative test, I would tend to, and want to, believe it.

This is why I have invested again in BATM. The only benefit of lateral flow over PCR has to be speed, but having a quick incorrect result with a lateral flow test is dangerous, and a quick, highly specific and sensitive PCR test plugs the gap. For me, the order from the airports supplier suggest that BATM's product is top of class. I would have thought it was a far better solution for opening the border at Dover than lateral flow tests.

[redbraces] 23/12/2020 08:51

wizzkid211

Interesting article. Well spotted.

[wizzkid211] 22/12/2020 19:09

"We won’t be done with the coronavirus when the vaccines arrive. There will be a vaccine, but the coronavirus will remain. We need to organize economic activity for this thing. There’s flu vaccines and then there’s the flu, only the coronavirus is more contagious.

hxxps://en.globes.co.il/en/article-its-not-right-that-israeli-high-tech-is-foreign-owned-1001353787

[paulisi] 22/12/2020 10:00

A bit of volume this morning and mainly buys.

[paulisi] 21/12/2020 18:07

Not sure of the relevance to BATM though.

[wizzkid211] 21/12/2020 15:30

FTSE DOWN...!

[car1pet] 21/12/2020 15:28

Not good news for my vodafone shares down 3.9% today

[wizzkid211] 21/12/2020 15:14

I THINK THIS COULD BE GOOD NEWS FOR GROWTH IN AFRICA.

Vodafone terminates talks to sell 55% stake in Egypt business
The Saudi Telecom Company and Vodafone had been in discussions about the 2.4bn US dollar (£1.81bn) deal since January.
Vodafone has ended talks over the sale of its 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Vodafone has ended talks over the sale of its 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
By Simon Neville, PA City Editor

December 21 2020 09:11 AM

Vodafone has ended negotiations with the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) over plans to sell a 55% stake in its Vodafone Egypt business for around 2.4 billion US dollars (£1.81 billion).

The London-based telecoms giant first announced it had entered into detailed negotiations with the Saudi business at the end of January this year.

But in a short statement to the stock market on Monday, the company said talks “have been terminated”.

No reason was given.

Chief executive Nick Read said: “We believe that the Egyptian government is committed to an optimal framework for the telecoms sector, which will enable Vodafone Egypt to deliver on the country’s vision of digitisation and financial inclusion, and create a technology hub to support our growth in the African region.”

The Memorandum of Understanding between STC, the kingdom’s biggest telecom operator, and Vodafone, which was signed in January, expired in April but was subsequently extended to July and then September.

Despite finally expiring in September, both sides said talks were continuing over Vodafone Egypt, which has a 40% market share with 44 million customers.

Vodafone has been looking at slimming down its operations since 2019, with plans to sell businesses in New Zealand and Malta, alongside Egypt, aimed at raising 4.4 billion euros (£4.05 billion).

State-run Telecom Egypt owns the remaining 45% of Vodafone Egypt and, under the country’s market regulations, STC would need to make a bid for the entire company – including the government’s stake.

The move comes less than a month after STC, the biggest mobile operator in the Middle East, announced that its chief executive is resigning after just two years in the role.

Nasser Al Nasser said he is leaving due to personal circumstances and will remain in his role until March 28, the company said.

[picsous] 21/12/2020 11:58

Israel does not trade Friday so yesterday they were playing catch-up is another way to look at it.
This steady rise could be with us for a while.