Ekf Diagnostics Share Discussion Threads

[wan] 21/10/2021 17:12

Edit to above post to include - Verici and Trellus Health

[wan] 21/10/2021 17:03

Demographic trends that can guide your investments
14m baby-boomers heading towards retirement is a good reason to look at healthcare

21st Oct 2021


Economic forecasting is not a reliable skill. This is a shame, because an ability to predict the ebb and flow of macroeconomic forces would be handy for most investors.

As a result, sensible investors make little attempt to time markets. They instead ensure their portfolios are well diversified. However, there is one area of data science that is worth examining if you are looking to identify long-term trends: demographics.

Birth rate data is pretty reliable, making it easy to see the size of different population cohorts and follow them through the ageing cycle. They go in waves.

In the UK there are 14m baby-boomers today (there were 15m at the turn of the century, making this the biggest cohort). They are now retired or heading that way. Their spending is likely to fall, and their healthcare needs will rise, putting a strain on the NHS as this particular bulge in the population works its way through the system.

Investors can adopt a thematic approach that aims to capture these tailwinds. One that has proven successful for our investments in recent years is “healthcare costs”. We are not investing in all healthcare businesses but trying to find those that help improve public health while keeping costs manageable. After the past couple of years, we see diagnostics companies such as Thermo Fisher and PerkinElmer as key to early diagnosis and trying to keep us all out of hospital.

Full story -

Helping to improve public health while keeping costs manageable, and/or enable savings, will be key. Watch this space (including Renalytix, Verici and Trellus Health)!

I am sure most investors will be as keen as I am to learn what will be included in EKF's expanded range of testing capabilities across a broader suite of healthcare applications. The acquisition of ADL was strategic in this regard, with further investment to support the deployment of additional equipment and personnel in order to service industry partners/customer demand.

[tongosti] 21/10/2021 10:46

5 shares traded today worth £4. In other words there is zero demand for these shares. Granted, any unexpected event could send shares violently either way. It's just that folks need to prepare for both events - this game is all about probabilities hardly "one way street / sure thing" calls

[tongosti] 21/10/2021 09:29

How about you stop promoting for another year or two pal? Maybe the stock will take off then - jinxing and all type of thing?

[wan] 21/10/2021 08:41

The large diagnostic players (Abbott and Roche) have started reporting results.

Backdrop thus far -

High ongoing demand for COVID-19 testing (but unable to predict future demand whilst realising the virus will stay with us), and importantly both reporting an ongoing strong recovery for the base diagnostic businesses, which bodes well and aligns with EKF's earlier update regarding improving trading in the core business and ongoing strong demand for EKF's contract manufacturing services for COVID-19 sample collection devices and associated kits.

[tongosti] 20/10/2021 11:25

Really? Lol

[wanttowin] 19/10/2021 15:27

Pusssssh ! need to get through this..

[tongosti] 19/10/2021 11:24

6days of radio silence. All good wan - or your conviction is wobbling recently?

[mirandaj] 16/10/2021 22:53

15th to 18th November 2021 - Medica in Düsseldorf, Germany. 

[carlosdanger] 16/10/2021 04:31

Not so. The absolute opposite in fact.

[tongosti] 15/10/2021 16:52

Enjoy your weekend wan - look forward to your motivational posts next week pal.

[tongosti] 14/10/2021 17:08

Or someone who's amused at the ego of A clueless punter like you - no matter that the market is not acting right for a year - who is convinced the world is wrong and he is right.

[mg1982] 14/10/2021 14:42

pscyhologically only someone who has lost money in a share will continue to come back to it hoping to recoup the gains.

This will be the second time you will have lost money on a trade - just from the ones you conveniently declare. First being SDI.

EKF will be higher from it's 80p, come calendar YE IMHO

[tongosti] 14/10/2021 14:21

thank you wan. PS. Any idea when the share price will finally see your insights and finally take off? Might be a bit more helpful.

[wan] 14/10/2021 11:24

Just a quick update -

At-home Testing tab now added to EKF's USA website -


ADL Health "now part of the EKF Diagnostics Group"

Very much looking forward to the expansion/increased range of tests across a broader suite of healthcare applications!

[tongosti] 12/10/2021 09:16

Phew- morning wan.

[wan] 12/10/2021 08:25

Most readers already know, and indeed 'appreciate', that EKF has a Preferred Partnership Agreement (PPA) with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP) that provides EKF and ultimately its shareholders with advanced access to innovative commercial opportunities arising from Mount Sinai Health System owned technologies, managed by MSIP, in the field of healthcare technologies. So, it's is encouraging that Mount Sinai are still aiming high with transformative actions and investment at scale, to include novel diagnostics with the overarching goal of positively impacting patients’ health -

Press Release
Mount Sinai Launches Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health
New department is the first of its kind at a U.S. medical school

New York, NY (October 11, 2021)

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has launched a new department dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence (AI) to transform health care, further positioning the Mount Sinai Health System as a leader in providing patient care through pioneering innovations and technologies. The Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health is the first department of its kind within a medical school in the United States.

The department’s mission is to lead the artificial intelligence-driven transformation of health care through innovative research, apply that knowledge to treatment in hospital and clinical settings, and provide personalized care for each patient, which will expand Mount Sinai’s impact on human health across the Health System and around the world.

“Mount Sinai’s AI enterprise and its collective entities will be the connective fabric linking and integrating our work throughout the entire Health System, as we robustly collaborate with all our institutes, departments, and centers to provide phenomenal patient care,” said Thomas J. Fuchs, Dr.sc, Dean for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science in the Department of Pathology at Icahn Mount Sinai. “The overarching goal of the Department for AI and Human Health is to impact patients’ health with AI. We will accomplish this by building AI systems at scale from data representing Mount Sinai’s diverse patient population. These systems will work seamlessly across all hospitals and care units to support physicians, foster research, and most importantly help patients' care and well-being.”

Dr. Fuchs, who will lead the Department, is a prominent scientist in the groundbreaking field of computational pathology, with decades of experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence in health care. Together with his team, he will guide the department in creating an “AI Fabric” that will integrate machine learning and AI-driven decision-making throughout the Health System’s eight hospitals. This effort will include creating a hub-and-satellite model to make new tools and techniques available to all Mount Sinai physicians, and building an infrastructure for high-performance computing and data access to improve Mount Sinai's diagnostic and treatment capabilities.

The new department continues to build on Mount Sinai’s expertise and early adaptation of various forms of artificial intelligence, including machine learning to develop novel diagnostics and treatments for diseases. Earlier this year, Icahn Mount Sinai announced it will offer a new PhD concentration in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies in Medicine as part of its PhD in Biomedical Sciences program starting in the fall of 2022. The concentration will train future scientists in cutting-edge technologies, including AI, medical devices, robotic machines, and sensors. The Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai—a collaboration between the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering in Potsdam, Germany, and the Mount Sinai Health System—formed in 2019 to expand capabilities and create new tools of data science, biomedical and digital engineering, machine learning, and AI, including wearable technology.

Full release -

[tongosti] 11/10/2021 08:33

Do we think wan's previous daily enthusiasm is running on fumes now?

[tongosti] 08/10/2021 16:10

In light of such excellent results can anyone explain why the market is not giving a you know what about it all? Answer: markets are a forward looking mechanism and they continuously anticipate the future. In other words fellas - what some consider good news it has been priced in long ago.

[rivaldo] 07/10/2021 14:32

The CFP SDL Free Spirit Fund run by Keith Ashworth-Lord has just sent out its October factsheet. EKF are the fourth largest holding at 3.91% of the portfolio, and they have this to say:

"EKF Diagnostics reported an excellent set of interim results which saw sales increase by 47% and operating profit by 72%. The core point-of-care diagnostics business is returning to pre-pandemic levels while Covid-19 testing demand remains strong.

Encouragingly, these windfall profits are being reinvested into building a much broader contract manufacturing and molecular diagnostics business to serve non-Covid related demand. Crucially, this expansion is customer-led as EKF’s large private sector partner increasingly moves into healthcare. The acquisition of ADL Health, a US testing laboratory, is strategically important as it positions EKF as a single provider able to encompass all products and services from ‘sample-to-result’."

[tongosti] 06/10/2021 13:12

Only thing you need it to dovetail well with is the share price old chap. Not being funny just amazed folks can be stuck for years in their own thesis and fail to answer the question: why is the market not validating my thesis? Is there anything I am missing (Charlie Munger's favourite question, if you like)?

[wan] 06/10/2021 11:52

Edit to the above post - And in turn dovetails rather well with the new laboratory testing capability and capacity.

[wan] 06/10/2021 11:49

Recall that EKF is already manufacturing enzyme products (including at least one in the article below, salicylate hydroxylase) and they are investing to increase fermentation capacity to drive aggressive organic growth, plus they are collaborating on a new molecular enzyme product for their private sector partner to be made in Elkhart.

I was thus keen to understand and gain at least some elementary background information on enzyme use and future prospects etc. So, I thought the following article, which is not too demanding, might of interest to others too.

Readers will also note that sample collection is paramount in terms of contamination and storage/transport etc, which could dovetail rather nicely with other EKF products and indicates they have potential utility 'beyond' that for Covid-19 testing (which EKF have been saying for some time). And in turn dovetails rather well with the new laboratory testing capability and capacity.

Excepts follow if you don't want to read the whole article -

An overview of three biocatalysts of pharmaceutical importance synthesized by microbial cultures
Divakar Dahiya , Poonam Singh Nigam ,
Biomedical Sciences Research Institute, Ulster University, Coleraine Northern Ireland, UK
Received: 08 March 2021 Accepted: 24 April 2021 Published: 27 April 2021

The main disadvantages in the use of conventional analytical diagnosis methods are: first of all the precautions should be taken during the collection of samples by patients at home or by staff at care centers to maintain the sterility and avoid any contamination; secondly, sending required quantity of samples under proper storage conditions to pathology labs, without any spillage during transportation; thirdly the analytical methods of testing must be performed in a properly equipped laboratory setting. That requires the availability of qualified skilled biomedical scientists and pathologists to perform these lab-based analytical testing using conventional methods. There are several important enzymes, which could be used for different assays, have been studied for their biosynthesis employing selective microorganisms

In this article, we have included the published information on enzymes used in diagnostic assays and in biotransformation of drugs, which are of pharmaceutical importance, and those have been studied for their biosynthesis using specific microbial strains. These enzymes have their application as an effective and prudent tool in biomedical and pharmaceutical sector, as discussed in following sections.

3. Conclusion and future perspectives
With a change in lifestyle and an increasing ageing population in many countries, diseases and health-disorders are also increasing. Therefore, accurate test methods results are needed to deal with the increasing number of health issues, and for the timely treatment of a particular diagnosed condition. Different enzymes, diagnostic kits and biosensors are being evaluated for monitoring and diagnosis of the types of suspected ailments. Diagnostic tests have been widely used to detect and quantify different biomarkers to attain the critical information about health care, which is an important step in making accurate medical decisions. The major challenges with use of enzymes for diagnostic purposes are their yield, shelf life and the stability, if these enzymes were extracted from non-microbiological sources, such as animal tissues.

Several diagnostic methods used in pathology labs require costly reagents, equipment, and time for analysis of samples, as well as the availability of trained pathologists and technical staff to operate the process. Hence, there is a focus on research and development of tools that are cost-effective, stable and simple-to-operate. The enzyme-based detection of various health disorders have been investigated and in some cases it is fully established; but high costs are involved in enzyme production, purification, their shelf life and storage conditions. For an economical production of enzymes by a humane technique (avoiding their extraction from animal tissues), the use of microbial fermentation technology is a preferred option. Enzymes synthesized by selected microbial strains can be purified for high specific activities and characterized for their stability. Such bioactive enzyme preparations, either in a free-state or in an immobilized-state, can be utilised for diagnostic purposes with specificity and accuracy.




One would imagine that certain investors (ESG?), and indeed companies, would like the fact that EKF are using humane techniques (avoiding their extraction from animal tissues), with the use of microbial fermentation technology being the preferred option.

Food (or next generation natural ingredients) for thought at least!

[tongosti] 06/10/2021 08:55

Mg - can you remind us what's your 12 month paper return as of today?