Bioventix Share Discussion Threads

[montyhedge] 06/1/2023 12:50

Have they any link with Biogen ?

[strollingmolby] 03/1/2023 22:46

Not sure I saw this posted from early-December - Keith Ashworth-Lord in the IC:



"Keith Ashworth-Lord, chief investment officer of Sanford DeLand Asset Management and manager of CFP SDL UK Buffettology Fund (GB00BF0LDZ31), explains why he invests in antibody producer Bioventix (BVXP).

"Bioventix is one of the most attractive businesses in the Buffettology portfolio. It occupies a genuine niche where the economic moat [competitive advantages] is protected by regulatory affairs, in particular the need for product approval from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, which can take several years to obtain.

"The product concerned is high affinity, monoclonal antibodies harvested from sheep. When you go to a GP for a blood test, your sample containing antigens gets mixed with a reagent containing antibodies. This is then read by a machine to determine if you have any conditions, such as vitamin D deficiency. Bioventix sells its product to the big five machine manufacturers and in return gets a royalty – typically 2 per cent – every time a test is done on its machine. For the manufacturer, the royalty is a relatively small proportion of cost and as long as the antibody is working, why take the risk of moving to an unproven rival product?

Growth has been consistent over the past 12 years with a compound annual growth rate in revenue of 10.1 per cent over the past five years and 17.3 per cent over the past 10 years. The slowdown is because its revenues from a major antibody terminated after 10 years, as planned, in August 2021 with the loss of £1.2mn in sales. In its last financial year, gross margin was 93.9 per cent and operating margin was 79.1 per cent – this is a product with very little cost of sales attached.

"The wealth of the business rests with its employees' expertise, of which there are just 17 in total. Per capita sales and profit are an astonishing £690,000 and £545,000, respectively. Being an asset-light business, the return on average equity is 63.8 per cent and the conversion of profit after tax to free cash flow has averaged at 101 per cent over the past five years. With its major costs being research and development, and staff, Bioventix is able to pay generous dividends. Including supplementary dividends, all and more of earnings per share (EPS) have been returned to shareholders for five years without fail."

[suetballs] 03/1/2023 15:44

Long term chart looking good. £45 looks on the cards.
Suet

[maddox] 29/12/2022 12:15

Excellent to see this paper published - and remarkably promising results. The prospects for a BVXP developed blood test for Alzheimer’s disease thus look optimistic. It works, I think it's just a question of how well and how well in clinical application? A test for Alzheimer's also needs an effective treatment otherwise not going to much used outside of the research field.

This looks like a highly significant step-forward in addressing this awful disease. if any of you like myself have had relatives suffer from Alzheimer's will know just how miserable it is.

Congratulations to the research team!

[doctor888] 29/12/2022 07:17

Boom! Peter Harrison is an author in this article in Brain, one of the highest impact factor journals.

[alter ego] 07/12/2022 10:28

Last week the BBC reported on the potential of Lecanemab



This quote stood out for me:

"The immune system and inflammation are heavily involved in the disease and another toxic protein called tau is the one that's found where brain cells are actually dying.
"That's where I would put my money," said Prof Spires-Jones."

[apad] 07/12/2022 10:20

Lecanemab (anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody) postulated as potential disease modifying treatment for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

This is the first trial using antiamyloid antibodies that shows some slowing down of the cognitive decline (27%) which in real life terms has been referred to “moderately less decline” of cognition/function in the Lecanemab group vs placebo.

It is not known if the slowdown in decline is maintained or even improved with longer treatment. There were two deaths during the 18 months study, in both cases the participants developed intracranial bleeding. So, 50% of Alzheimers patients are unlikely to be suitable.

The cost of the drug (several tens of thousands of £) would be prohibited for most Health Care systems around the world. The drug is delivered via infusion every two weeks and an amyloid PET scan will be required prior to the study to confirm the presence of amyloid plaques and repeat MRI scans to detect the development of small cerebral bleeding.

Drug development and use is glacially slow. Ibrutinib, a powerfull life saving drug for some common blood cancers (e.g. CLL) was approved in the US 10 years before the UK and in Europe 5 years before the UK.

So, whilst there may well be a future relationship between a blood test predictor and a treatment. It'll be a long road.

Diagnosing dementia in early stages can be a subtle business and in lay terms it is usually thought of as some scan results and/or chemical tests. The reality is that cognitive and behavioural tests are the main tool with the physical tests as a follow up.
A powerfull blood test could/might be a significant addition to the armoury and usefull at a much earlier stage than the scans.

apad

[qvg] 07/12/2022 09:54

Maddox, thanks, I defer to your greater expertise!

[maddox] 06/12/2022 21:26

Hi qvg,

The paper casts doubt over the efficacy of reducing Tau as a means of preventing degenerative decline. Whereas Gothenburg Uni/BVXP are focussing on using Tau as a marker predicting dementia at an early stage rather than as a target for treatment.

The paper cites Ossenkoppele et al., 2021, 'Tau accumulation is a terminal event in neurodegenerative disorders, and because the increase of CSF tau in patients with AD occurs closer to the onset of neurodegeneration than does the decrease of Aβ42, tau has been shown to correlate to a greater extent with dementia than Aβ42, with tau aggregates predicting dementia better than Aβ deposits'

The paper is thus supportive of Tau as a predictor of dementia, and hopefully its use in a simple blood test for wide spread screening.

[qvg] 06/12/2022 15:08

This article suggests some pessimism about the potential of Tau?

[whilstev] 01/12/2022 10:23

Possibly explains the late trade yesterday which ignited the share price. Someone taking a stake.

[maddox] 30/11/2022 17:21

Great news today on the potential treatment of Alzheimers with drug lecanemab from manufacturers Eisai and Biogen.

One of the problems with a new drug such as this is how do you identify potential patients at an early stage of dementia that will benefit from treatment. A lumber puncture or a PET scan are the current means of diagnosis - which are impractical.

This is where BVXP has a promising alternative diagnostic. As stated in the recent results:

'a biomarker that has shown potential in Alzheimer’s diagnostics is the Tau protein in the form of total Tau and phosphorylated Tau. During the year we created more anti-Tau antibodies and this work will continue into 2023. Our academic collaborators at the University of Gothenburg have used our antibodies to create prototype assays and have generated encouraging data from patient blood samples. The levels of Tau detected using our antibodies are approximately 2 times higher in Alzheimer’s samples compared to controls, a ratio of 2 times being similar to other research groups. Our scientific target ratio is slightly higher at 4-5 times. We are encouraged by this progress and plan to create more antibodies to support further work with our collaborators in Gothenburg during 2023. The recent success of the Eisai/Biogen lecanemab clinical trial is likely to increase the need for early diagnostics and we are very fortunate to be working with one of the world’s leading labs focussed on Alzheimer’s biomarkers and tests.'

[robow] 23/11/2022 09:18

from Citywire


Ashworth-Lord: Bioventix offers ‘astonishing’ equity return

Bioventix (BVXP), a specialist developer of sheep antibodies, has delivered an ‘astonishing’ return on equity over five years, according to Sanford DeLand fund manager Keith Ashworth-Lord.

Ashworth-Lord, who holds Farnham-based Bioventix in his £855m CFP SDL UK Buffettology fund, said in his latest commentary that the stock remained unchanged ‘despite an outstanding set of results for the financial year ending June 2022’.

Sales were up 7% as its vitamin D antibody returned to ‘double-digit growth’, leading to a 15% increase in operating profit and the operating margin expanding 79%.

‘That is not a typo,’ said Ashworth-Lord. ‘After-tax earnings increased by 15% and 98% of those earnings were converted into free cashflow, which helped to fund a 20% increase in the ordinary dividend and another special dividend.’

He said capital requirements were ‘very limited’ and over the past five years ‘Bioventix has managed to increase after-tax earnings by £2.8m, while the amount of equity capital employed in the business has increased by just £1.7m’.

‘The incremental return on equity over the past five years is an astonishing 164%,’ he said.

Bioventix fell 1.4% yesterday to close 50p lower at £36.50. They have risen 7.4% this year and are up 38% over five years, valuing the company at £190m.

[doctor888] 25/10/2022 11:23

@stepone68: regarding 'significantly' ahead:

forecast was revenue 10.4m, actual was 11.72m, so 13% ahead
forecast was PBT 8.0m, actual was 9.28m, so 16% ahead

[piedro] 24/10/2022 23:32

FWIW ...



... moving up again.

[podgyted] 24/10/2022 18:01

Obviously didn't need luck.

H2 was exremely good. If they at least replicate in both halves in the current year - revenue £14m, and profit after tax of £9.4m - now that would be good!

[stepone68] 24/10/2022 12:44

Margins remain high. Cost of sales for some reason dropped over 100k compared to the previous 3 years.

EPS and divi both around 150p, which was what I was hoping for, leaving P/E ratio around 23 and yield 4.4%. Doesn't look too expensive for a growing company.

Troponin almost doubled (again!). Hope that trajectory continues - they seem to think it might.

They also seem confident on their pipeline of research projects which will delivery revenue 2026-36. Sounds good to me.

[robinnicolson] 24/10/2022 11:50

finnCap have reiterated their 4,300p price target.

Yes...a superb business.

[igbertsponk] 24/10/2022 10:41

Superbly run company. Well done all.

[trident5] 24/10/2022 08:17

2H Revenue was £7m. Looking back there doesn't seem to be much seasonal weighting here. Excellent results.

[suetballs] 23/10/2022 11:02

Yep - I'm optimistic.
Suet

[podgyted] 23/10/2022 10:42

"As announced in our interim results to 31 December 2021, we had a slow start
to the financial year. However, in the second half, we have seen an
improvement in performance and our trading result for FY2022 as a whole is
likely to be significantly ahead of market expectations."

Well, we'll see what significantly meant on Monday.

Being old fashioned - GLAH