Oxford Biomedica Share Discussion Threads

[dominiccummings] 15/3/2024 13:57

Thanks Cousin. Sounds sense to me.

[cousinit] 15/3/2024 13:48

I put a lot of it down to the general malaise in the UK markets. Those needing to sell something (anything!) at lower end of the market cap spectrum see a bit of natural liquidity and use it to shift stock. Also, there's far more restraint around liquidity. Managers of open ended funds are now very conservative on the liquidity level of the holdings (eg days to sell position/portfolio at 30% of average volumes)

Clearly there's a fair dose of scepticism thrown in to boot.

I'm not saying this is the case, but at times those watching the news flow carefully can join together information in such a way that the market doesn't seem to reflect and use that as an opportunity to take a chunkier position (ie a bigger picture development playing out but delivered piecemeal)

[dominiccummings] 15/3/2024 13:33

Well. This week's price action seems to have shut us all up?

A great report from the company, good coverage from RBC, and a rise all last week. Now sentiment and interest down this week.

What is happening? Do investors not believe the story? Is something more happening that we don't know about?

[pharmaboy3] 15/3/2024 08:56

On bloomberg now! :FDA sits today to discuss car t for first line treatment .Big story

[harry s truman] 14/3/2024 21:07

tbh Phil, I listened to that same thing a couple of times myself. He was very positive and of course we are getting on for six months later with that work too. It would be very nice to have something else in commercial supply soon.

[philh75] 14/3/2024 20:20

This bit stood out for me:

with the demand coming from our clients and programs that have been successful in phase one, then phase two and now today in phase three at process characterization or process validation stage.

So we have work in phase 3, which is good confirmation.

[harry s truman] 14/3/2024 20:05

That's a great link Phil. YouTube transcript here for anyone who can't see the video:-

Good afternoon everyone thanks for the opportunity to present today. I'm going to be presenting Oxford Biomedica where I am leading the commercial efforts including the sales team marketing and and strategy as well as corporate development. We have positioned ourselves as a quality and innovation CDMO specialized in viral gene therapy and it's really part of our strategy. A number of CDMOs have decided that they wanted to work in multiple modalities. We've made the opposite decision. We want to stay focused on only one thing - what we do best - manufacturing viral vectors and I will drive you through a a number of key facts and and data about the company in the next 10ish minutes.

As we're a listed company let me start with some forward looking statements that I'm going to pass quickly and introduce the company. So we've been operating in that space for more than 25 years. The company was actually created in 1995 and we are operating from the very beginning of the value chain with the gene of interest, the design of the vector, the optimization of the vector, through process and analytical development, clinical manufacturing and finally commercial manufacturing as well.

We are today running a process for a vector that is a commercial vector and approved in more than 40 countries, last time I checked the number it was 43 countries to be extremely accurate here, and although we've been known during many years as a company was working on lentiviruses we work on multiple viral vectors we do deliver lentiviruses but also AAVs, adenoviruses but also VSV, HSV and a number of other vectors the list is quite long.

Looking at the past 10 years where the the vast majority of the activity happened we've delivered shy of 400 successful GMP batches and looking at the number of projects on which we work today we're working on more than 40 active programs in parallel at different stages. Obviously process development, clinical manufacturing or commercial manufacturing.

If we're looking at the GCT space only we have one successful BLA submission (Novartis Kymriah) if we're looking at CGT and vaccine manufacturing since we manufactured the vaccine for AstraZeneca then we have two successful BLA submission and we have more than 30 successful IND submissions, again looking at the past at the past 10 years.

We're also known as a company that is operating primarily based on its technology platform. Well it's true and it's not true. Indeed we have developed our platforms on lentiviruses and AAVs but we're also taking a number of projects where our clients are coming to us with a vector and they want either optimization or directly process development or directly manufacturing.

We have a number of sites. We usually say we have two locations, which is true but we have more sites than two. We have four sites out of Oxford UK and one site in Bedford Massachusetts USA. In Oxford you see four sites here on the slide, the first one being our development, analytical development and process development centre Windrush Court, where we really have Labs that are amazing. I remember the first time when I when I visited what struck me was the level of Automation and indeed we know that what we do is extremely labour intensive, so investing in automation has been a a key theme in the company to make sure that we were increasing the throughput and I'll come back to that in one of the next slides when we touch on innovation.

We have three bioprocessing centres. As you see here on the slide most of of them are FDA and MHRA approved and when I say MHRA I should actually say MHRA and EMA approved. The biggest one being called OxBox where we have four GMP Suites and we have a plan to expand and bring online another 2 GMP suites as we're increasing our commercial manufacturing footprint with the demand coming from our clients and programs that have been successful in phase one, then phase two and now today in phase three at process characterization or process validation stage.

The site in Bedford is a site that we acquired about 18 months ago now where the technology that had been developed there was on AAV. As of now we're tech transferring lentiviruses into US and AAV into UK so that we can deliver all platforms from all the the geographies. So more to come on that and I have a slide later to cover the future expansions.

Talking about innovation many people look at innovation like breakthrough innovation. That's not the way we look at innovation. We're looking at innovation as any kind of activity that helps moving the needle. So it can be maximizing data integration and analyses, working with artificial intelligence, working with algorithm to make faster decisions, to improve the sequence of our vectors. It can be automation that I mentioned before it can be the vector themselves to target these vectors or optimize the level of expression minimize the RNA transcript that you don't want and maximize the RNA transcript that you do want.

It can be about improving the existing generation of AAV or Lentivectors that we have in house to make sure that we increase the productivity but not only that we increase the quality level of the products coming out of a of a standard GMP batch. We're working on optimizing the productivity not only through the
design of the vector but through the design of the process so we have a standard process that that we're using - suspension. We've optimized that process to run it in suspension and perfusion so that we can push up the productivity and the average increase in productivity when we move to perfusion is about four times more than the suspension non-perfusion process.

Last but not least where working on producer cell lines or packaging cell lines. Not all the clients have the same need, so we're trying to innovate through the entire portfolio of tools that we're proposing as part of our toolbox that we usually call the platform. The recent Innovation that we have delivered, I just mentioned, the suspension process, suspension perfusion, so I'm not going to come back on that. Just one point - increasing productivity, but I also mentioned it, increasing the quality as well - by increasing the purity of the vector that is produced.

We've launched our fourth generation of lentiviral vector that has an improved quality but also an increased potency and a higher capacity. We can increase the size of a gene of Interest by 1 KB in TetraVecta, that is the brand name we're using for that platform, versus the third generation.

We've very recently (installed?) high-titre packaging cell lines as well. We've scaled up AAV from 500 litre to 2,000 litre and we've also automated. I mention automation as part of the innovation, we've automated the RCL assay which we know is part of the bottle necks that the industry is facing right now.

I said it before we're delivering end to end. That's true for any platform that we manipulate. That's true for lenti for AAV but also for adenoviruses and when we say we deliver end to end Services we don't forget that there are key aspects of the project that we run. It's not only about technology it's also about making sure that the QA release can be done on time and quickly because we know that we need that material for patients. It's also about being supportive at every step of a project whether it's on the strategy very early or at the very end on the CMC support so that's what we mean by end to end services.

We do have plans to expand our capacity. It's been made public in the news about two weeks ago, we're currently buying two sites in France because we needed additional footprint in the process and analytical development space, but we also wanted to be closer from our clients in continental Europe. So we're adding two sites who have experience and expertise in vaccine manufacturing in the cell engine therapy space. Like Oxford Biomedica they've been operating since 1995, so quite a significant experience here.

They're bringing to our larger organization multiple platform experience including measles, MVA, vaccinia, I mean you name it the list is long here, suspension and adherent platforms here and they've been operating as a CDMO, so for us it was a natural where to expand our our footprint and bring more capabilities and capacity to our clients who actively demand for more.

So the new Oxford Biomedica network will have expanded capacity and capabilities and we want to make sure that we continue the investment especially at process characterization stage where we see a lot of demand these days. Especially to have access to slots quickly. Time is of the essence as we know in our in our industry, but it's also bringing to us complementary capabilities with, I believe, one of the most compelling offerings in the vector space and we're eager to welcome new colleagues and see how much we can cross fertilize between the existing sites.

I wanted to make sure I was saving time for questions and I think we have about four minutes if there are any questions in the audience thank you
no? if no question you can meet us during the rest of the event anywhere so
wish you a good week thank you.

[philh75] 14/3/2024 16:00

Seb in a talk back in October, good to hear his take on the Oxb story:

[harry s truman] 14/3/2024 00:09

I would guess that Mustang won't be one of our confidential clients FH.

My logic is that they had their own facility to make their vector (before selling that plant to someone else) so I would say their own lentivector but now made by someone else (Minaris or maybe Ubrigene).

[fhasson] 13/3/2024 22:25

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/mustang-bio-and-city-hope-car-t-therapy-glioblastoma-extends-survival-phase-1-trial

[jasierock] 13/3/2024 18:16

Well I've not even looked here since January and the first day I do I see we have been up near 220 but have dropped off again to less than 2 quid - see you again in 3 months. GLA

[dominiccummings] 13/3/2024 17:06

Wrong 'Oxford' - you are looking at Oxford Biodynamics, not OXB

[inaminute] 13/3/2024 17:01

Apologies, wrong Oxb!!

[inaminute] 13/3/2024 16:57

Primary Bid offer

[brucie5] 13/3/2024 16:42

Chartwise, nothing of great significance, though it has closed under £2.00. I see the share price still holding over both the 50 and 100 sma. No doubt these will be tested in the absence of any greater enthusiasm for the shares, in which case a fall to previous support of 1.70 is on the cards.
I think Harry said we can look forward to some further update in April?

[steeplejack] 13/3/2024 14:37

One’s going to have to be patient here.We balked at going through the year high at 220p.Harry’s summation is fair,the market is adopting a fairly simplistic attitude towards OXB,a post covid company with changed management and changed corporate orientation.The Times article was pretty insipid.I’m not quite sure why they wrote it.

I suspect there’s a proprietary book nicking a few pennies out of this on a daily basis….which is irritating!

[dominiccummings] 13/3/2024 13:52

Is there any logic at all in the buying/selling of this share? 3% up, then turnaround nearly 10% to 5% down, yesterday down, most of last week up. Odd sort of market.

[harry s truman] 13/3/2024 13:31

Easy for me to say, but you just need to wait.

OXB have never updated at this frequency and the news has been good every time.

The "company" problem is simply that most of the market had never heard of OXB pre-covid and now see them as a struggling covid stock. If you just looked at the last 2 years in isolation then there is something to that view.

The "economy" problem is something different.

OXB will resolve this in time. Might be big news which changes the game, but it might also need audited figures at the interims before some are convinced.

Short term it's going to be up and down and there's not a lot you can do other than remind yourself that they are winning work and have cash in the bank.

[takeiteasy] 13/3/2024 12:58

it would be nice if we could hold £2 as support - this may take more reassurance from the firm - all talk of targets at £3 and more sheer fantasy imvho at the moment it seems...but this will be a volatile stock and hopefully ok on a long term perspective..

[harry s truman] 13/3/2024 11:32

From this link



"The United Nations estimate a total population of U5 in SSA in 2023–2025 at 184–189 million, respectively [19]. Thus, based on currently available supplies, doses to vaccinate against malaria a total of 4.5 million children, that is, approximately 2.4% of the total population of U5 at-risk of malaria on the continent, without accounting for VW".

So numbers there for under 5 years old in Sub Saharan Africa and that article seems to be current. VW is vaccine wastage.

As I say, big numbers. If only we knew somebody with three spare 1,000 litre bioreactors who had an agreement to let the approved official supplier of R21 use one of them for 10 years.

Professor Plum, with a syringe, in the laboratory.

[harry s truman] 13/3/2024 11:16

France24 today saying that half the world's Malaria infection occurs in 5 African countries and that 3 of those have now said they will begin their roll-out programmes of mass injecting kids with R21 in May. The other 2 countries (Nigeria was one) are slightly behind and it will be later in the year.

We know that RTS can't be made in the quantity required though will be used as part of the programme. The rest has to be made up for by R21.

Lots of different numbers quoted but first phase the most at risk / first priority is kids under 5. The regime is 4 doses (1 + 3 boosters) which eventually means 180m doses per year (when the infrastructure is there to both manufacture, distribute and treat). After that it will be offered to the wider (older) population requiring even more.

Difficult to say anything with confidence because big numbers mean big errors, but if a third of the world's most at risk kids begin inoculation in May, growing to half a little later, then that's going to start whizzing through the stock which Serum have already made.

Takes quite a long time to make this quantity of something, pass all the QA/QC, get it packed in to the sterile end user form for distribution to the medics...

[ken chung] 13/3/2024 11:08

Stay short.

[ygor705] 12/3/2024 19:05

Bought a few of these yesterday - my interest (from a zero base) being driven by the comments of the CEO of the Serum Institute in the Sunday Times, the Novo Nordisk interface plus comment on here.OXB clearly has some very powerful friends and not everybody has the blinkered outlook of our current crop of third rate politicians. Given its pedigree, if the political class lets OXB go down it will make a mockery of the so called attractions of UK technology. This outfit is not a third rate challenger bank.Stock specifically, problems look as if they are being addressed and the balance sheet looks ok to me. My view is the share price will either double or halve in the next 12 months but I don't see it hanging around for very long at these levels.Good luck to fellow investors.

[takeiteasy] 12/3/2024 18:38

A bit like the ref at Anfield this week with the kick on the chest incident - but so true Harry.

If everyone plays safe you get the most bland possible reporting and analysis - but I do respect the logic of our house broker and have aligned the portfolio appropriately based on this revised assessment :)

There seem so few genuine small cap recovery plays the news will get out there shortly I suspect...dyor etc

[harry s truman] 12/3/2024 18:28

I'm sure I remember someone here in the distant past (maybe Dom) lamenting that when we all bought yesterday's news each morning then the quality British newspapers were the best in the world. Conversely, in our world of instant news 24/7, then those same names are just websites where an ad revenue against clicks on a page demands a constant stream of quickly prepared stories. Maybe there are still old hacks somewhere and an editor who will give them a few days on a story, but I suspect not many.

OXB told us a week ago today that they were revising their annual growth forecast up from more than 30% to more than 35%.

They also told us that this year revenue will be £126 million to £134 million.

So it takes a minute to work out that 2025 will be £170 million to £181 million.

Why not do that and type OXB on track for record sales next year, smashing the exceptional covid years? And the answer is of course because they don't want to stick their head over the parapet.