With respect , calling OXB just a manufacturer is akin to calling Nvidia just a chip maker . They are the best cell and gene therapy manufacturer in the world in one of the most complex areas of pioneering medicine .
Tuco. |
Even a double would be nice, but on what sort of logic do you suppose "why would a major pharma risk a big project on a few modified industrial units on the outskirts of Oxford"? Is not their track record of manufacture, their fast growing client list, their early and leading edge development of the delivery technology significant reason for major pharma to use them? |
I still have a modest holding here. But we (oxb) are just a manufacturer (all be it sophisticated one ) therefore, why would a major pharma risk a big project on a few modified industrial units on the outskirts of Oxford. Good luck to everyone but this is will double at best. |
Personally,i think the idea that there's something in the wings that has inhibited director dealing is very feasible but clearly the idea loses credibility as time goes by.The optimism displayed by the board is clearly consistent with director purchases.The negotiation of the deal with Institut M. Involving an issue of shares at over £4 might similarly encourage the idea that directors would be keen to make PA share purchases if they were free to do so.Its all speculative of course but given what we do know,a fair supposition i reckon. |
I as the original poster mentioned, I would like to apologise to HST and others who take time to do analysis and inform this board if my text was taken as a slight. Please continue with your time and efforts. I personally see no signs of the next significant (big or bigger was a poor choice of words on my behalf) but am front of the queue wanting the share price to tick higher in the near term for reasons previously stated. Best wishes HST. |
No, wrong again. I recognised it was speculation but thought the conclusion unjustified.
And remember, I was not the original poster, and did not tick it up. |
Aye. It is speculation, and everyone (except you presumably) recognised that. |
No, I'm not. I just can't see why directors not buying means there must be giant news in the offing. It could also mean there's bad news coming. Or as I said, any number of other reasons. We just don't know. |
super. But you are missing out the 'truth' that something big is likely vewry shortly because of the growing numbers of clients, the likelyhood of a giant 10 year vaccine contract, et al.
Of course it is speculation, but speculation that fits known facts. |
And it wasn't me although I can see his concern. You're saying if I understand it correctly that directors aren't buying shares because something big is in the works about which they have inside information. But I don't see how you can know that - there are lots of reasons why directors might not be buying - enough already, no money, wish to avoid sending wrong signal etc etc, so I fear you're reading too much into it. |
Well Harry......it WASNT me! |
Just a quick one for the morning:- To the two of you who voted up Gareth's little jape of attributing something to me in reply which I didn't type - thanks very much. It's the little things like that which make this all worthwhile. OK, I can likely guess who you are without too much trouble, but it's a bit poor isn't it? |
Next leg up starting? |
BTW (just for the record) re "because something didn't happen it means something bigger is about to happen". I didn't actually type that. My assumption is simply it's the same thing of the same size taking the usual amount of time. |
It's not just me Gareth, there has been a sea change recently - but the mortals are always the last to know.
Look at the FT forecast page
The colour bars tell the story best, but as of this month 3x buys. I do like the green and dark green there. |
Thank you HST. I admire your conviction, I just hope your belief because something didn't happen it means something bigger is about to happen is correct. As Hughie Green said "I mean that most sincerely folks". |
 Part habit, part long interest in OXB and part having the time to do it Gareth. In a way it's only like making running notes on any shareholding - it just happens to be on here. As mentioned previously though, I don't do this with my other shares and intend to break the spell when I'm eventually bought out of my little piece of OXB.
To my mind the fact that no insider bought any shares in the little open period which follows the results told me that they know of something which is price / market sensitive.
That wouldn't be "just" another AAV or LV contract which could be expected as part of our ordinary business. What it is I don't know, but it would have been big enough to change guidance, which is why they couldn't buy if it's common knowledge at a senior level within OXB.
I'm assuming it's still on the go, but have no way to say. I appreciate it seems ages (when watching a pot) but the results were end of April and so it's been 2 months - which is nothing really on pharma timescales.
As for the senior staff not buying since, I suspect they probably can't whether "something big" is still hovering or not - and that they will have to wait until after the interims for their next chance.
One of these mornings we will have the RNS we are waiting for (maybe even a little run of them).
I like the car manufacturing analogy for any business, that if the breakeven costs are hit selling 300k cars per year then 301k sold means you can sleep at night whilst 350k sold is happy days. 299k sold isn't a good place and 250k sold is a disaster.
OXB had their disaster post covid and it's just a case of timescales now on the way to happy days (presently our 2026 FY forecast as £218m sales and better than 20% EBITDA). What if the hovering news brings that forwards? |
HST, thank you for your continued updates and reminders of things in the pipeline, things stated previously and possible scenarios. Unfortunately there have been no signals or signs of "something substantial" imminently, no director buys, no broker updates, low volumes, no institutional buying. I'm looking for the green shoots but still can't see them. Come on OXB you know the futures bright! |
We are definitely overdue news. Totally agree with that one and they have hinted in the past about a number of things (see below for an example) - then of course we have none of the insiders buying after the results.
The problem, and this isn't new - it's been the same issue over multiple CEOs, is that our customers control both the timing of the news and what we can release. We also know that whilst the small partners can be very quick (because often the founders share many company roles between a few people), the big partners can take an awful long time - but when they do eventually sign then it's worth it. I'm sure I remember JD giving the example that one of the Novartis contracts took 14 months to get signed.
I've mentioned many times that I think OXB is in the frame as a manufacturing territory to meet Serum's malaria vaccine requirements - but there are so many big organisations involved in that, the potential for delay is large.
Anyway, the example of OXB hinting but not telling - if you look at the 2022 annual report
Go to the portfolio / pipeline on page 14.
Scroll down to the Cell therapy / Undisclosed client / Rare indication (undisclosed) Phase III trial.
They don't say CAR-T or TCR-T, just cell therapy. Rare diseases are usually not big trials as you can't recruit the patients for a big trial and they also tend to have a lower bar if it is unmet need, but if it was at PIII in 2022 then we are 2 years further down the road and maybe even up for review now / soon.
So there could be a very nice surprise there (or nothing if the trial doesn't produce good data), which might be tomorrow or next year or never - unfortunately we just don't know.
Look at page 13 of this (our latest news) and it does still seem to be there. Should it be granted a licence after review then commercial manufacture will follow and that's a big thing for us - a rolling ball of growing commercial work. |
I would be very surprised if we didn't get an update from the company in the next 2-3 weeks as this was clearly flagged in the financial KPIs for this year and needs to happen before the August holidays. And I would be equally surprised if that update didn't affirm that everything was on track as per guidance and maybe put a little flesh on the bone of the multiple myeloma deal. Given OXB's history I am not surprised to see this drift lower in the share price over the past 4 weeks as in the absence of news its only natural given the share price track record for people to get nervous and sell down at least a bit - although we have been in very thin volumes traded of about 125,000 a day on average for the past four weeks. With a positive/confirmatory July trading update and good interims in September we should see 400p by Q4. |
It does on a once popular share that has now been shunned by those that previously supported it, PI's. |
£2.96 .......... What don't we know? |
My honest opinion here as an openly "non-city type", is that if OXB had been vulnerable to being bought on the cheap then the PE boys would have done it by now.
I'm sure some of that argument (recently) is backed up by the cost of cheap money, but I'm equally sure that when OXB sold their buildings and ended the in-house drug development programme which hadn't made money for years, it was with an eye to the point that if they didn't do it then it would be very tempting for someone else to do it for them. But it never happened and I see that PE risk now as gone.
There's also the argument that what happened wasn't to cut off a possible PE attack, more simply that Frank, Mark, Seb, Thierry and such are all proven CDMO pros and that Frank wants to repeat what he knows (and is good at) which is CDMO not Biotech drug discovery. We might never know which was the deciding factor and it might have been a bit of both.
We all should know that CDMO sector average market cap is about 5.5x sales and for specialists in our niche it can be much more. OXB is currently on 2.4x sales and this year moves out of its phase where we had a little run of everything going wrong (Sio/Axovant going bust / the AZ contract ending a year earlier than thought / Homology exiting the CGT business / post covid biotech winter).
This year is looking pretty good (I appreciate you could be forgiven for not guessing). Next year when Boston is in full swing as a LV hub and France both LV and AAV is looking very good.
I still expect something to happen shortly (hopefully before the next quarterly review) which sees us back into the FTSE250 and then we are absolved of the last few exceptional years and can look to the future.
Longer term, I expect Novo to buy us, but they have enough money to wait until OXB has returned to being a profitable business and then offer a sum which would be agreeable to everybody (i.e. the opposite of PE where they look to buy cheap, slash and burn, then quickly sell it again).
House broker's revenue estimate for OXB next year is £171m.
A Lonza multiple of 7.6x revenue on that? |
Blackrock can be scamps.They build a reasonably sized interest in a stock but invariably trade in and out of a few as if to keep occupied.Yet,as Harry mentions,its unusual for Blackrock to take an interest in a small,relatively illiquid stock like OXB.Que sera,sera but it all suggests you don't want to be out of OXB as the pieces fall into shape. |
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