Harry....your comments on possible news flow are interesting. In a nutshell it seems to me we are being buoyed up on three fronts:-1. An improving profile as regards trading/turnaround prospects;2. Genuine takeover possibilities from pharmaceutical companies with very deep pockets;3. An share price that has dived by c.90% from its peak.As I have said before, OXB clearly has some very rich friends. Certainly enough to maintain my interest. |
supernumerary,
I appreciate that we talk about CAR-T here a lot (because it has been a great earner for OXB - and will be for a long time yet), but whilst most CAR-T use a vector (our bit) to program the patient's blood cells, CAR-T is only one example of the many uses for a vector.
A good example here would be the cystic fibrosis treatment with our LentiVector which goes into the first trial patients this summer. That isn't CAR-T but if it works will be one of those treatments which goes down in history. Fingers crossed for all concerned. |
 It's never been really clear what our BMS deal is for.
We know it was originally to support Juno in some trial drugs which BMS now own.
We also know that mid 2022 BMS (presumably happy with what they saw) expanded that deal for 2 additional programmes of their own.
If you look at the annual report for 2022 on this link
Page 12 (which is actually sheet 14) has our pipeline as of that date.
BMS are 6 lines there but it gives nothing away as to what.
It's unlikely that either of the last 2 are Breyanzi (the first 4 ex-Juno wouldn't be either). If it were then they would have to do new trials with our vector and I think it's much more likely (and significantly cheaper / simper for them) to just ask us to make their vector if they are capacity constrained.
But BMS wouldn't be a new partner for us (which is the way the OXB email is worded) which only really leaves CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel) from Janssen Biotech, Inc (or as we call it J&J).
Plutonian suggested that one ages ago and I agree with that / think it's likely that shortly we will find out that we are going to make J&J's preferred vector for them. |
Breyanzi is the only CAR T cell therapy approved by the FDA for four distinct subtypes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, bringing this personalized therapy to the broadest array of patients with B-cell malignancies |
https://www.onclive.com/view/fda-approves-liso-cel-for-r-r-mantle-cell-lymphoma-after-2-lines-of-therapy |
It seems that CAR-T therapies are finding more and more potential uses:
Cell therapy reckoning: How a 'remarkable resolution of lupus' carried CAR-T from cancer to immunology
The patient had cycled through every possible treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus, yet at just 20 years old still suffered from some of the autoimmune condition’s worst consequences—endocarditis, pleurisy, arthritis and urine protein levels 40 times higher than normal, a sign of possible kidney failure. In a last-ditch attempt to salvage her poor prognosis, her care team at University Hospital Erlangen in Germany decided to try an experimental CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy against the autoreactive B cells causing her disease.
“This decision was not an easy one—we feared that she would suffer from a severe cytokine storm [a life-threatening immune reaction],” Georg Schett, M.D., one of the doctors who treated the patient, recalled during a lecture in early April 2024 at the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, after just one treatment, “she had a remarkable resolution of lupus,” Schett said. Her protein levels normalized after 30 days. Her anti-dsDNA antibodies—a lupus biomarker—fell quickly and eventually disappeared entirely. So did the autoreactive B cells that had been attacking her own organs.
“That was the first initiation that this might really work,” Schett recalled. Three years later, the patient is still healthy, living a normal life without treatment or signs of autoimmunity. Her B cells have even returned—but this time, they aren’t autoreactive.
This patient was the first of 15 whose CAR-T treatment for lupus, systemic sclerosis and idiopathic inflammatory myositis are documented in a series of papers published by Schett and his colleagues at University Hospital Erlangen. At the time of Schett's presentation, nearly all of those subjects continued to have no signs of disease and remained treatment-free. The results have sparked a frenzy of interest in CAR-T therapy for autoimmune disease, with companies like CRISPR Tx, Kyverna, Novartis and others investing in the approach.
Even Regeneron, an immunology powerhouse as one-half of the team behind the monoclonal antibody Dupixent, took notice.
[...] |
Chart is looking quite perky now so I've just repurchased a few. I couldn't understand why the bowl didn't complete first time round since £4 seems the natural resting place, from which it could then range as before between 4/5 level. I have kept a core holding from March but in this market we are spoiled for choice. |
Well, 311p about this time yesterday and 327p today. The difference in outlook? Zero. It's a funny old world.
Back to the news from OXB 6 weeks ago:- "Recently, the Company signed a contract with a new undisclosed US-based biotechnology company for the manufacture of lentiviral vectors as the client prepares for the commercial launch of its CAR-T programme targeting multiple myeloma. Manufacturing will take place in Oxbox, the Company's Oxford-based manufacturing facility.".
This link is everything approved by the FDA as of that date:-
For it to be a new company to us and CAR-T in MM, then there is only one.
A supply contract announced for a new mega pharma right now would be very nice. Yes, we will miss the chance of the FTSE review on close tomorrow, but providing a similar service for Novartis has been a very good "banker" income for OXB for a long time now. |
I like the glass half full outlook boadicea, but sometimes you just have to accept that life is very random and there is a lot of luck involved.
Back when we had RetinoStat in trials, so we are talking a rough decade here, that was another first for OXB and fixed the anti-VEGF eye disease market with one injection. Sanofi (partner, who paid for the trials) thought it worked well, but also thought that by the end of the trial process there wouldn't be a market size with enough share left for it to make business sense to continue and so dropped it.
Today, as I say a rough decade later, Merck is taking out Dame Kate Bingham's anti-VEGF start-up for $3bn with half up front. That company isn't even at the stage yet (re trial results) that RetinoStat was when Sanofi let it go all those years ago. If someone had offered us $3bn at that point then they could have had the Parkinson's drug and everything else for free. |
Meanwhile, believers are being given a generous amount of time to get their beans in the right pot. |
I'd be the first to admit that it's something I have no experience of - it's just my hope that what we see daily on the London main market is much more market forces than any kind of attempt at manipulation.
I accept what humans are, for example the recent story in the WSJ about the US banks currently negotiating their fine - because their employees who weren't supposed to be talking to certain other parties directly via memo / phone call / whatever, were texting because it wasn't specifically mentioned in the rules. People eh?
Unfortunately with OXB (and this is nothing new, as I'm sure lots of us recall JD raising this point in various interviews / presentations long ago), whilst they are in the happy position of being a service provider of a service that is very much in demand, the timing of any deal is in the hands of our customers - and with big customers it can take a long time.
Seb has also made a very similar point recently, that with the small biotech companies (57% of our work last year), things can happen very quickly because the founders often wear multiple hats, and so him or her saying yes is deal done (with a contract and start within weeks) - as opposed to the committees of mega pharma people with business degrees needed to meet before their giant corporation takes a step.
I'm pretty (very) confident that we win those small biotech contracts all the time (by that I mean something like a couple of new ones each month - which that KPI table should confirm, whenever and wherever they publish it), but I have this feeling in my OXB weather pinecones (much mentioned here) that something a lot more significant is about to drop.
Unfortunately it seems it will be after the quarterly review now, but this is just life. |
It would be comforting to think that every move of a SETs stock was in response to order flow but it isn’t.SETs aims to match order input but the system will require the marketmakers to get involved where bargains can’t be matched because they are larger than Normal Market Size ie NMS.The MMs can move their quotes up and down like a yoyo for no particular rhyme or reason,as much to stimulate business as anything else.
As far as the 3% + fall in the price of OXB yesterday is concerned that was probably due to the fact that US healthcare stocks came in weaker.Semiconductors were up,healthcares were down and leading the way was our old friend Moderna which fell 9 percent after recent gains..The market is a very simple soul and sentiment,sector rotation etc (whether here or the US) will exert a powerful influence on stock pricing,it isn’t all down to company specifics as we all know.The fact that the likes of Moderna is charting a very different course to OXB doesn’t preclude the market from throwing them all in the same healthcare pot and treating them rather similarly,short term at least.
Reassuringly,OXB appears to be developing soild technical support around 315p,a good base for the next leg up come further news flow. |
Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, have used CAR T technology to successfully treat not cancer, but chronic asthma using a mouse model. They present their findings in an article published in Nature Immunology, “A single infusion of engineered long-lived and multifunctional T cells confers durable remission of asthma in mice.” |
If OXB was an AIM share then I think I'd be more of the same mind, but I always thought that main market SETS was supposed to be much more transparent and less shenanigan riddled. If it is being sold down then I think it's much more likely that one of our past regular sellers just needs the money.
We're plainly going to miss the end of May quarterly review now (barring some miracle which I don't really expect), but that does then give them 3 months to get out more of the story (with any supporting news) that OXB no longer burns cash on operations and that the future is very bright.
Meanwhile any next trading day is another possible news day. |
If they keep the share price static and dull we all switch off I think and most stay in hold mode - so no one gets any shares into play.
So now they operate the perpertual shake - every few days a shake down to 3.10 on very low volume and it seems this also is not freeing up much stock into the market.
They either give up trying, try a super human push below 3.15 (a lot of support to battle with) or push higher and hope some have sells booked in just above the top of the current range...
I'm more than happy to wait here as long as it takes :)
nai etc |
Anytime soon.... |
Well it looks to me as if we've had our first uplift in the share price and a clear step is plainly visible on the chart. Absent a big general market movement, sustainability from here will probably be dependent on a favourable news flow. What do you think is in the cupboard Harry........and when is the cupboard door like to be opened? |
Nothing particularly new here in the story about the first approved R21 vaccines arriving in the field
but at the end "The Serum Institute of India, who will be manufacturing the new vaccine, says a hundred million doses will likely be available to countries by the middle of next year.".
That quote says to me that "likely" becomes "will" just as soon as Serum receive that order and sub some of it out. Remember the WHO paper about security of supply and not manufacturing it all in the same territory?
We know it's roughly $4 per shot, so Serum must be expecting an approximate $400m order any time.
Quite a lot of work (and time) to make 100m doses of anything (as we know from covid) and a lump of that order coming our way would certainly explain the sum of money in the purchasing director job spec. |
takeiteasy,
OXB doesn't have typical reporting, other than the results every 6 months. As I mentioned much earlier in the year, that little run we had with what amounted to a business update every month for 3 months was extremely unusual for OXB and brought hope that Frank was much more investor focussed than some CEOs.
They have promised this KPI table, mentioned last by Roch, without actually saying in what way and how often they intend to update us with that. If it's quarterly then the end of July I would imagine, but who knows.
As I mentioned the other day after posting a few things including that link for the purchasing director with the budget which seems to be for a much bigger company than OXB currently is, then all the clues are that OXB is on with something pretty big which they are also sure enough of happening for that circumstantial evidence to be public.
The trickier part is trying to guess what that might be (to stop the insider buying and such) without looking too daft with the benefit of hindsight when it actually drops.
I would expect that quite soon (relative term) and when that happens there will likely be an update of the KPIs and such attached. |
I don't think the world can afford another pandemic Dom. I suppose it's possible but surely they aren't going to repeat the same mistake twice and destroy economies on the back of some really dodgy models produced by serial doomsters, where the end game "victory" after spending world war sums of money we didn't have is a very shaky theory on how many lives it all saved?
I hope very much never to see anything like that again. It may have brought out the best in some people but it brought out the worst in an awful lot too. |
The only comment I have is that H5N1 has been the 'candidate pandemic virus' for decades. Will it? Won't it? Who knows. Previously it was supposed to be spreading in the Far East, so unusual to find it in USA cattle, but it hasn't accellerated previously, so the odds are probably in our favour. |
If we do not get a specific news release in the interim, when does OXB typically report progress throughout the year so say for the half year 2024 - is there some form of trading update in June/July to plan for? |
£100M spend...
Your responsibilities in this role would be:
Implement purchasing policies across all areas of the business.
Ownership of a direct and indirect spend circa £100 Million.
Develop and maintain stakeholder and key supplier relationships, both internally and externally, at all levels.
Delivering innovation in procurement, streamlining the strategies, and adding value on major projects
Managing long term pipelines for procurement, developing plans in line with the future goals of the organisation.
Work cross functionally across OXB to ensure that the procurement process is maximizing value to the organisation.
Work in collaboration with cross-functional stakeholder groups to develop & deliver sourcing best practices.
Deliver end to end sourcing strategies helping transition the procurement team from transactional to a more a strategic function focusing on category management & SRM development.
Build strong relationships across the business and with the supplier base, ensuring that business strategies are integrated into the procurement planning process |
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