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| Share Name | Share Symbol | Market | Stock Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ekf Diagnostics Holdings Plc | EKF | London | Ordinary Share |
| Price Change | Price Change % | Share Price | Last Trade
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.10 | 0.34% | 29.90 | 16:35:26 |
| Open Price | Low Price | High Price | Close Price | Previous Close |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29.90 | 29.80 |
| Industry Sector |
|---|
| HEALTH CARE EQUIPMENT & SERVICES |
| Top Posts |
|---|
Posted at 29/3/2024 11:38 by wan During EKF's recent presentation, some will have picked up on the fact that EKF has a lactate product in development(for a long time). Importantly, this is a platform technology i.e. multi-test/multi-anaFurther capex is aligned to the development of this product in 2024 and is discussed at 48m 20sec into the presentation - In my view, the new product is probably connected to the following, which has clearly taken longer (as mentioned in the presentation) - 4. Investment into Point of Care business to maximise distribution network and diversify existing product portfolio 4a. Brand extensions and new product development Launch EKF Response aimed at sepsis testing in critical care settings Multi-parameter device based on next generation Lactate Scout sensor Target US market. Parallel launch in US and Europe. Limited competition and high demand for fast, accurate testing Point-of-Care platform technology for use in critical care settings with additional development plans into obstetrics and primary care Lactate for use in patient pathway determination in suspected sepsis cases Addresses unmet need in a $620m sepsis diagnostics market space that is expected to grow 10% YoY. US market for sepsis in critical care is $49m Delivery late 2022 2021 – 2024 Growth Strategy Investor Presentation w/c 7 June 2021 Page 10 - Obviously there is further to go in terms of development and authorisation etc, but a multi-test platform technology, if successfully delivered, would be a potential game changer. The development appears relatively advanced, and understandably it's not currently reflected in EKF's share price. To demonstrate the level of interest and value that a platform technology can create, the following deal which closes later this year, provides much food for thought - Roche to pick up LumiraDx’s point-of-care tests through $350M deal By Conor Hale Jan 2, 2024 Roche has a plan to build out its point-of-care diagnostic catalog, with the goal of delivering more tests to homes, pharmacies, doctor’s offices and elsewhere. The company aims to acquire a selection of products from the flagging LumiraDx, including its shoebox-sized analysis instrument and a menu of specialized testing strips. The deal, expected to take effect by the middle of this year, includes a payment of $295 million upfront. Another cache of up to $55 million has been set aside to reimburse LumiraDx and its backer BioPharma Credit for keeping its point-of-care business afloat until the handover is complete. The company’s second-quarter 2023 financial results posted $21 million in revenue, down from $44 million during the same period the year before, including $9.2 million in non-COVID sales Full story - |
Posted at 31/1/2024 13:04 by wan I note the reported good progress in Life Sciences fermentation expansion, purchase orders received, and the onboarding of a number of customers etc. But I get the impression that the recent Trading Update was a bit short on the detail that most were hoping for (Rome wasn't built is a day), but I note that further insight on 2024 will be provided at the time of the FY Results in late March (not that long to wait!).It might therefore be useful to read the recent Trading Update (TU) in the context of the following announcement back in October 2023 regarding the opening of EKF's new US Life Sciences Manufacturing Facility: EKF Life Sciences is a specialist global manufacturer of high-quality enzymes and custom products for use in diagnostic, pharmaceutical and industrial applications. The Company is at the forefront of supporting life sciences global demand in precision fermentation, enzyme applications and research, providing innovative biotechnology solutions to deliver breakthrough discoveries and advancements in healthcare and medicine. The Company's state-of-the-art facilities and leading technical expertise in specialist enzyme production uses precision microbial fermentation and cutting-edge downstream processes, to isolate and deliver the highest quality enzymes and biomolecules that have been specially engineered to customer specifications. The new 24,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility addresses a significant gap in the US market for mid-volume manufacturing and will enable EKF to meet the increasing demands of its growing customer base. As part of its investment programme, EKF has installed 10L, 65L, 300L, 1,500L, 3,000L and 14,500L units as well as key upstream and downstream process capabilities at its South Bend plant. The cutting-edge, intelligent design of the Group's modular platform includes bioreactors ranging from 5L to 14,500L to enable it to deliver an end-to-end service from bench/proof-of-conce The South Bend site is currently operating with full fermentation capabilities and is also expected to have all downstream processing capabilities fully operational by December 2023. As previously announced, the Company has already received the first purchase order for precision fermentation services for the new facility and has a strong contract pipeline, with onboarding underway for a number of existing OEM customers and the potential to develop into long-term strategic partnerships. During 2024, the Company expects to see a steady build-up of revenues generated from this new capacity and, as contracts scale-up, EKF Life Sciences is expected to deliver substantial, long-term sustainable growth. The South Bend site is located in close proximity to the Company's existing 20,000 square foot facility in Elkhart. Both sites operate to the highest regulatory standards under cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Principles), ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 Quality Program. Full RNS - The fact that EKF's global websites only show the contract fermentation capacity offered by the existing Elkhart facility(maximum capacity 1600 litre vessel), one assumes that that could imply that the "increasing demands of its growing customer base" and "strong contract pipeline"(both referred to above) will be utilising the new increased capacity to such an extent that highlighting the new capacity on their websites is currently not a priority. Conversely, it could mean that the new capacity is not fully operational, but that's not what the TU or opening announcement stated, and the use of plurals with regard to both purchase orders and onboarding of customers in the TU, with the broker (Singer Capital Markets) stating that "new customers onboarding into the Life Sciences fermentation plant, after the site opened in Q4." implying that good progress is indeed continuing to be made. I therefore remain more than hopeful that further investor patience will be duly rewarded. |
Posted at 11/1/2024 09:45 by wan The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference closes today -The 42nd Annual Healthcare Conference will take place on January 8-11, 2024 in San Francisco, CA. This premier conference is the largest and most informative health care investment symposium in the industry which connects global industry leaders, emerging fast-growth companies, innovative technology creators and members of the investment community. Thus far, and from what I am reading, there is a strong belief and anticipation of an improvement in the market for many diagnostics and life sciences companies in 2024, with a good number forecasting a combination of organic expansion, collaborations, plus M & A opportunities. Overall, there appears to be a lot of confidence that the market is going to turn around and get back to what is a more normal phase of growth. JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Day 1: Exact Sciences, Veracyte, NeoGenomics, Guardant Health, Qiagen Jan 09, 2024 SAN FRANCISCO – The 42nd annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference kicked off on Monday with a bolus of companies in the diagnostics and genomics tools market updating their businesses and previewing what may be coming down the pike. Below are brief reports on individual presentations from the conference. JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Day 2: Danaher, Abbott, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Revvity, More Jan 10, 2024 SAN FRANCISCO – It was another busy day at the 42nd annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference as diagnostics and genomics tools firms updated investors about their operations. Below are brief reports on individual presentations from the conference. |
Posted at 30/12/2023 09:21 by wan I would welcome an update too, but I patiently await the time when EKF can update us on the new fermentation facility and any new contracts. In the interim of that, it's not hard to find very strong evidence about the high level of demand for specialised precision fermentation products.With the shares trading at around 2.6 x 2023 forecast revenues, and strictly in my view, there is nothing factored in the share price for revenue growth and margin improvements from the core business in 2024, which is expected to benefit from a number of initiatives concluding by the end of year (2023) and will improve productivity, margins and EKF's competitive advantage. In my opinion, likewise there is nothing factored into the share price for any revenue growth from the new fermentation facility. So, there could be a lot of upside yet to be realised from here, but given what's happened, I respect the fact some investors may be content with sitting on the side lines for now. |
Posted at 29/12/2023 14:58 by james188 I hope that the investment in the fermenters pays off (it needs to do so after the other heavy losses). However, with no contract details or figures, how are investors supposed to form any sensible judgement? The company needs to address this as a matter of urgency. |
Posted at 23/12/2023 10:34 by wan Staying with what's relevant....EKF's core established business, with leading products and services, and good rates of organic growth, is clearly valuable (which some might value greater than others). But with the capacity expansion, and I would add: innovative biotechnology solutions, at the new South Bend facility nearing completion, there is very good reason to be optimistic about future rates of growth beyond the organic growth being delivered from the core business. There will no doubt be those that are in no rush to invest ("wade in"), and I respect the reasons for that (plus it's part and parcel of the market). But clearly some investors, myself included, have chosen to take advantage of EKF's overly depressed share price(I get why this has happened btw, and it's a personal matter of judgement as to whether that has gone too far, or otherwise etc). In terms of fermentation, one area that has been catching my attention over the last few months, is how much more critical the downstream processing is becoming and indeed has become, and as we know, the increase in customer needs for downstream processing was a significant factor that pushed scale-up revenues from the new facility into 2024. From various validated sources: most of the biggest and most successful improvements in productivity to date have been delivered in the upstream processes (like fermentation), and it is now the downstream process that is receiving more attention and becoming even more critical with new technology and methods being deployed, and in many cases it is apparently where the differentiation and real value is created (for the manufacturer and the customer). And although it has taken longer than originally guided (recall that customer needs for downstream processing became apparent, and no doubt played its part in the delay), it may be underappreciated that EKF will have installed 'cutting-edge downstream processes' to address the increasingly critical processing needs. Current guidance: The South Bend site is currently operating with full fermentation capabilities and is also expected to have all downstream processing capabilities fully operational by December 2023. And as I stated in post 3196, "Time, and obviously updates from EKF, will tell" Suffice to recap the following though: EKF Life Sciences is a specialist global manufacturer of high-quality enzymes and custom products for use in diagnostic, pharmaceutical and industrial applications. The Company is at the forefront of supporting life sciences global demand in precision fermentation, enzyme applications and research, providing innovative biotechnology solutions to deliver breakthrough discoveries and advancements in healthcare and medicine. The Company's state-of-the-art facilities and leading technical expertise in specialist enzyme production uses precision microbial fermentation and cutting-edge downstream processes, to isolate and deliver the highest quality enzymes and biomolecules that have been specially engineered to customer specifications. The new 24,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility addresses a significant gap in the US market for mid-volume manufacturing and will enable EKF to meet the increasing demands of its growing customer base. As part of its investment programme, EKF has installed 10L, 65L, 300L, 1,500L, 3,000L and 14,500L units as well as key upstream and downstream process capabilities at its South Bend plant. The cutting-edge, intelligent design of the Group's modular platform includes bioreactors ranging from 5L to 14,500L to enable it to deliver an end-to-end service from bench/proof-of-conce (END) Please conduct your own research when making investment decisions etc, as the originator, or the threads contributors, could be either wrong or inaccurate. |
Posted at 21/12/2023 17:24 by redwing1 Surely it proves nothing more than Mr Mills is a good salesman when making these podcasts for private investors. He may well be right about EKF but we won't know that until we start to see some numbers next year. |
Posted at 27/9/2023 16:15 by james188 The company has undertaken two new projects requiring material investment amounts post COVID.The first was ADL Health, which was an unmitigated disaster for which heads had to roll. Just what the board was doing in approving this deal is completely beyond me. The end result was that empty assurances soon evaporated and the deal had to be unwound resulting in a huge loss. The second project (or series of projects) is the investment in new enzymes fermentation capacity at South Bend.To paraphrase the line in Field of Dreams, the company seems to have decided that "if we build it, they will come". I spent pretty much my entire career sorting out the financial arrangements for for projects were lenders and investors were heavily reliant upon the revenues from projects once built, commissioned and operational. South Bend appears to be a classic textbook example as to what not to do. Why more time was not spent in understanding the requirements of customers - and signing up at meaningful deals in advance is another question that I meant to ask yesterday, but I had already asked a considerable number of questions. What we learnt on the IMC call yesterday is that the process has been completely shambolic. Costs are out of control (expected capex of $16m against the budget (which I assume would have included a contingency) of $9.75m. On top of that, the project is running very late because the commissioning process and the needs of end customers were not understood. That is very basic mismanagement. Add to that the fact that we were told that the team at South Bend did not tell senior management the truth as to what was going on. Why management did not get a grip much earlier on is also beyond me. I would complete the clear out by firing the non-execs, who have been completely ineffectual, at best. I did ask what steps were being taken to strengthen/replace the on the ground team and to ensure much better communication about the project. Julian Baines cannot run the whole show and I very much doubt that he is going to relocate to South Bend. I did not get an answer to that question, presumably because the company is still trying to work out the best way out of this mess. I could go on, but I will leave it at that for now. I am a shareholder and so I want the company to succeed. To have any chance of success (or even survival), there needs to be a root and branch review and much better ongoing management, which has to involve new experienced people coming in, notwithstanding the necessary cost saving measures that were outlined yesterday. The second project 9or series of related projects) |
Posted at 07/4/2023 10:10 by wan Some reading for Easter that provides an overview and perhaps a 'flavour' of things to come from EKF's Life Sciences via their increased capacity for 'precision' fermentation.A number of the essential and important boxes, from an investment and validation perspective, are already and imminently to be ticked (perhaps unnoticed by some) - Overlooked and Underfunded: Are Climate Tech Investors Missing Out On Precision Fermentation? ALT PROTEINALT DAIRYCELL-BASED NEWS By Green Queen Team Last updated Apr 7, 2023 The investors’ journey: important aspects to unpack during diligence So what should an investor look for during diligence? While there are many angles to be evaluated such as market opportunity, team, competitive landscape, IP, and moat, among others, commercial traction is most likely not going to be available at this stage. In order to address the intricacies of this nascent industry and its specific requirements, we unpack the key points that investors should take into consideration when performing diligence on a precision fermentation company. Customer Validation While it’s true that early-stage companies will have little to show in terms of revenues and customer traction, the next best thing to review is customer validation. Investors can and should talk to potential customers and validate that the product is actually solving a real need. Some companies will have LOIs, initial partnerships and customer trials; they may even have surveys that can provide an indication of what a potential customer is thinking. That being said, a phone call with a potential customer in your network is still advisable, not only to understand how important that solution really is but also to evaluate their willingness to pay for such a solution. Proof of Concept and Scalability Mindset As mentioned, many companies in the precision fermentation space are currently at lab-scale/ R&D phase. In the very earliest stages (lab-scale, where most companies are), they will be creating prototypes and proofs-of-concept and producing a few grams to a few kilograms per batch and using fermenters under 20L and likely between 1L and 5L. As they progress and move to pilot, demo, and commercial scale, quantities produced, and size of fermenters increase accordingly but one important thing that some investors forget, is that not all products are created equal. If a precision fermentation company is targeting products that represent a small percentage of the final food formulation, such a company will be able to go to market with a higher price point than one whose product makes up the bulk of the final food formulation, and therefore their path to a viable commercial scale is shorter. Investors should be aware that a viable commercial scale can vary in size significantly depending on the target product. In all cases, investors should always look for founders with a “scalability mindset”. In other words, no matter how early a company is in its journey, founders should be thinking about scalability from the start. This is shown through each of their decisions during technology & process development. For example: Are they frontloading their cost analysis while building their process? Did decisions around inputs take into consideration availability and supply chain resiliency? Are they already planning for their equipment needs and establishing partnerships? Scaling is one of the trickiest parts of the success of this industry. In addition to scaling up the technology itself and accurately forecasting budgeting needs, companies face an additional challenge: the bottleneck of little-to-no-ferment However, we expect and hope to see a positive change in this space in the near future given not only the surge of new companies tackling this problem but also the increasing interest shown by governments around the world through regulation and potential investments targeting the development of the industry. Process Feasibility, Efficiency & Optimization This is an important part of diligence: investors need to dig in and understand where the company’s process is at and how efficient both the upstream and downstream processes are. A critical aspect here is to ascertain how much final product you get at the end of the process and how long that takes from start to finish. This involves getting at how much product the microorganism secretes, how fast, and how much product is recovered after purification. Investors should not only be clear about where a company is today, but also where it’s going tomorrow and when it will be profitable, which is why reviewing its optimization plans and efficiency targets is vital, much like they would financial projections. All assumptions embedded in these plans should be checked to ensure they are realistic and reasonable. Full story - |
Posted at 24/1/2022 08:38 by wan Tongosti...I know why I invested in EKF, I know why I remain invested in EKF. Clearly others have perhaps different understanding or views etc, hence we have a market and sometimes the dichotomy (as you put it) between the share price and company prospects etc.Suffice to say, that the following article sums my investment strategy up, and also explains the 'dichotomy' between the likes of you and the likes of me! - Why do so many investors sell out too early? Simply being invested to benefit from miracle of long-term compounding of returns is the most important thing Howard Marks JANUARY 19 2022 The writer is co-founder and co-chair of Oaktree Capital Management In 33 years of writing memos to investors, I’ve never dedicated one to the matter of selling. But I’m doing so now because it’s essential that we understand why many investors fail to focus on the long term and instead sell out. As I wrote in a memo in 2015, I believe most investors trade too much and to their own detriment and that the best solution for illiquidity in markets is to build portfolios for the long term that don’t rely on liquidity and trading for their success. Further, investors often engage in selling because they believe a decline is imminent and they have the ability to avoid it. However, there are very few people who possess the skill needed to profit from market timing. Additionally, buying or holding — even at elevated prices — and experiencing a decline is in itself far from fatal. Usually, every market high is followed by a higher one and, after all, only the long-term return matters. Most economies, companies and markets benefit from positive underlying trends. If investors use poor judgment and reduce market exposure through ill-conceived selling, they will fail to participate fully in those trends. That’s a cardinal sin in investing. It’s even more true of selling things in desperation after their prices have fallen, turning negative fluctuations into permanent losses and dismounting from the miracle of the long-term compounding of returns. What’s clear to me is that as opposed to selling for reasons of psyche, simply being invested is by far “the most important thing”. The full story, worthy on investors time, FT.COM - |
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