Oxford Nanopore Technolo... Share Discussion Threads

[bamboo2] 23/11/2022 20:22

Long term tp is min 985

Clive has sold less than 1% of the amount that Acacia have over the past 6 months.

Maybe he wanted to pay off his mortgage, or pay his utility bill!

[p1nkfish] 23/11/2022 17:38

Do you have a price target bb2?

[p1nkfish] 23/11/2022 13:31

Just don't like the look of the CTO sale.

[p1nkfish] 23/11/2022 13:24

Looking at the weeklys it has been consolidating since about 15th May approx.
Under what we believe to be selling pressure.
End of US tax year shortly.

[p1nkfish] 23/11/2022 13:15

It has been in a lengthy consolidation phase, even allowing for the selling, and volatility has been reducing slowly.

If it breaks out on volume, will it be up or down?
What will cause a break-out?
End of concerted selling will help but it needs some other catalyst too.
What might that be to help the upside?

To me the downside looks reasonably well defined (50p approx) so long as no bombshell hits, the upside is 2x the share price so about 5:1 up:down.

[p1nkfish] 23/11/2022 13:04

Any idea when the ONT Diagnostics unit will be launched?
They have an NHS event on 29th Nov discussing Genomics.

[p1nkfish] 22/11/2022 22:56

It stands out though bb2, when the share price is supposedly on its knees.

[bamboo2] 22/11/2022 22:31

p1nk, if you look at the program of events and company calendar, there are only few times insiders can actually trade their shares. Clive Brown still has a considerable holding.

[p1nkfish] 22/11/2022 21:23

The CTO share sales are off-putting.

Surely he's in the know and what could encourage such sales if he expected the share price to rise within 6-12 months?

[bamboo2] 22/11/2022 20:17

p1nk, Amazing to think Acacia have sold over 27m ONT shares since flotation.

And after all that bunkum about being long term investors!

[p1nkfish] 22/11/2022 20:03

Thanks bb2.
Mu h appreciated.
Was referring to Acacia.

[bamboo2] 22/11/2022 19:58

Hi p1nk, Do you mean US seller Acacia who reported holding 7.9m shares 30/9/2022?

This is separate to the short held by Millennium International.
The short dropped below .5% yesterday.

The short could covered by the time of the next update, which is in New York, in a few weeks time.

There could be some interesting announcements from ONT, particularly on the clinical side.

[p1nkfish] 22/11/2022 18:36

Any catalysts due?

Is it lkely the US seller will be out of the way by end of US tax year or still unloading given they hade 7M+ left to clear a short while back?

[74tom] 16/11/2022 18:28

Nice tweet from the CEO of Genomics England this afternoon;



1/2 Real pleasure to be in #Singapore today supporting Oxford @nanopore's population #genomics summit in Asia. Amazing stories of 🧬 research and patient impact across the region, enabled by a 🇬🇧 success story...


2/2 ...and seeing as I'm standing in front of the screen: for the record, our vision at @GenomicsEngland is a world where EVERYONE benefits from genomic medicine 🧬🚀

[74tom] 16/11/2022 10:23

Yep, non disclosure for sub 5% for international holdings is one of many outdated LSE rules that needs to change but for now it continues to provide anonymity for foreign funds...

Ok, so onto PACB. Here is the mammoth investor presentation from yesterday afternoons 4 hour event;

Watching it was useful for me as I'm still very much in learning mode here, and there is a lot to try and learn! It also helped to put into context what ONT are doing vs a competitor.

- Their big news was they've just released a new 'main frame' sequencer called Revio which has higher throughput than their existing model as well as improved accuracy. Slide 44 has a comparison to 'high throughput nanopore' which appears to be the PromethION based on the footnotes. Regardless of the accuracy of the comparison, they unsurprisingly omit the most important point; their new system costs $779k vs £202k for ONT's top model. Read length also remains well below ONT at 15-18kb as well as 50% lower throughput.

- In the mid way Q&A session an analyst asked what they thought of competitors with 'CAPEX light / free' models, the CEO's response was that they have hidden costs & customers apparently save money with their model... 'you get what you pay for' was his cynical response...

- Slide 60 has their product roadmap, the main news is that they intend to launch benchtop long read in mid 2023, which would presumably target the same customer base as GridION. No mention of cost or specifications, but based on the Revio price I'd be surprised if it was competitive with ONT.

They also mentioned 'democratising' sequencing access at this point which I thought was pretty laughable and went against the 'you get what you pay for' mantra.

- Slide 64 has a helpful overview of how they see the sequencing market growing from now to 2026 (they expect it to double from $7b to $14m with fastest growth in Oncology).

- Slide 99 has their medium term financial targets...they're aiming for 55-60% CAGR to 2026 (from a base of $133m) or > $500m revenue, with gross margins of 55-60% by then (they were 41% in their last set of results), and cash flow positive by 2026.

ONT's 3-5 year goals are >30% CAGR growth from a FY23 base of £190-220m (£500m by FY26 would be a 31% CAGR from £220m), gross margins >65% and adjusted EBITDA breakeven by 2026.

Overall I left confused with PACB's strategy. Their new product seems to be going head to head with a pending Q123 released from Illumina (NovaSeq X, another main frame that will cost ~$1m). They clearly don't want to compete with ONT on price, yet apparently have the goal of democratising access to sequencing... They risk ending up in no man's land IMO. Unsurprisingly, no mention was made of the pending new ILMN release!

I think ONT have a significantly clearer strategy and much better product positioning. Their mission statement 'to enable the sequencing of anything, by anyone, anywhere' aligns with their product offering and this will be further enhanced with SmidgION.

With the sequencing industry alone forecast to double in 5 years there is plenty of growth for ONT, PACB, ILMN and other entrants, however I think the ONT community will grow into a formidable beast with word of mouth driving worldwide growth. Searching 'nanopore' on twitter already shows the level of engagement out there. PACB's 'HiFi' technology isn't particularly suited to brand marketing or any type of social media search...

And yes I've registered for the NY event in a few weeks time, looking forward to it!

[bamboo2] 15/11/2022 22:58

Tom, thanks for the 5% info, I thought that was the case, but wasn't certain.
I'd be interested in what you have to say about PACB.

Have you registered for the next online community meeting?

Hybrid – New York City

5th – 7th December 2022

This is the link,


Due to the time zones most live meetings are in the evening UK time.

There is normally a detailed tech presentation from Clive Brown and other members of the tech team. This will contain details of planned new hardware and chemistry updates.

There are other contributors that are well worth watching. Some of these are early adopters who will be able to give 'hands on' info on newly released kit.

[74tom] 15/11/2022 22:44

Good to see the short being reduced further, I’d noticed it waxing and waning but hopefully they’ll exit in full now.

Re. Acacia and missing TR1’s, as they held less than 5% of shares at IPO they won’t need to notify again because they are domiciled abroad. That’s my understanding at least.

Watched the PACB investor day presentations this afternoon, will post my thoughts tomorrow…

[bamboo2] 15/11/2022 22:35

FWIW the short held by Millennium International Management LP has been gradually covered in recent weeks, and is now .57%



This is around 4m shares that need to be bought back.

[bamboo2] 15/11/2022 12:39

74tom, if the 5m from 18/10/22 was Acacia, then there's less than 3m to go.

Since the flotation, Acacia trading activity has dominated the price action. They somehow got permission to dispose of a large quantity during the lock up period, while the price was very high. This all but gave the co a free ride, which means all subsequent sales were profitable irrespective of the price obtained.

I have been in contact with the co. about Acacia, and also about what I consider to be missing TR-1 notifications, but ONT have been unable or unwilling to discuss.

[74tom] 15/11/2022 12:29

Definitely helps explain the weakness vs XBI which has bounced strongly since the bottom in late May, if they continue selling at that rate they’ll be done by the end of January, sooner if the 5m block was them.

They held 35.1m shares at admission so have been a constant headwind, I’ve just checked and total volume traded since the IPO is ~497m shares, Acacia selling represents just under 5.5% of this.

[bamboo2] 14/11/2022 23:36

Acacia Research Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results were reported on Thursday, November 10, 2022 for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022.

They reported a holding of 7.9m ONT shares valued at $22.5m

As at 30/6/2022 they had reported 13.8m held, worth $46.2m

This means 5.9m shares sold into the open market and helps explain the price weakness over the three month period.

As mentioned previously, I believe they plan a full liquidation of this former Woodford holding.

Substantial transactions since 30/9/2022

18/10/22 5m shares [buyer/seller unknown]

[ayl30] 14/11/2022 10:19

Sold mine last week

[74tom] 14/11/2022 09:28

I was disappointed to see the £1m share sale by the CTO reported after close on Friday. Clive Brown bought 63985 shares at £2.33 on 29/09, so to then sell ~350000 at £2.85 just over a month later is a bit unexpected. Reading between the lines, can we assume that Brown may have been planning to sell at the start of October (presumably on the expiry of any 12 month post IPO lockup) but had to postpone due to the share price being under the gun? He then went a step further by buying to presumably try to provide support and has now sold this chunk + his originally intended amount now that conditions have normalised?

I've got no issue with long serving directors taking some of their holdings off the table (Brown still has ~1.6m shares), however I don't think buying and then selling within 6 weeks sends a great signal.

It also helps to explain the weakness at the end of last week vs Pacbio (+25% over 5 days) & Illumina (+8% over 5 days) vs a 1% decrease in share price here...

[74tom] 11/11/2022 09:08

Having followed ONT technicals fairly closely over the last 6 months or so, it appears to me that they are on the verge of a breakout... the share price is currently just above the 100 DMA at 285p, a close above this level would be very significant as it would be the first time it has happened since the 2022 plunge began at the start of January (when shares here were sitting at £7.20!)

The next resistance levels are an 8 month downtrend that currently sits at £3 and then the 200 DMA at 340p, then I would have thought it would be a re-rate back to March levels at 450p.

Of course for technicals to be of any real relevance, fundamentals also need to be strong. As per the excellent posting from Bamboo this certainly looks to be the case. The final piece you usually need for a re-rate is improving economic sentiment, and post yesterday that box can finally be ticked...

Off the back of these factors I've added significantly this morning, this is simply too cheap.

[bamboo2] 07/11/2022 08:01

Advances in Genomic Medicine continue.
This involves neurological and neuromuscular diseases.
Using Adaptive sampling, the software connected to the GridIon chooses focus areas to allow faster diagnosis. This is 100% accurate. The testing went further, correcting two inaccurate diagnosis produced by conventional methods.

==============================================================================

We developed a diagnostic method for repeat expansion diseases using a long-read sequencer to improve currently available, low throughput diagnostic methods. We employed the real-time target enrichment system of the nanopore GridION sequencer using the adaptive sampling option, in which software-based target assignment is available without prior sample enrichment, and built an analysis pipeline that prioritized the disease-causing loci. Twenty-two patients with various neurological and neuromuscular diseases, including 12 with genetically diagnosed repeat expansion diseases and 10 manifesting cerebellar ataxia, but without genetic diagnosis, were analyzed. We first sequenced the 12 molecularly diagnosed patients and accurately confirmed expanded repeats in all with uniform depth of coverage across the loci. Next, we applied our method and a conventional method to 10 molecularly undiagnosed patients. Our method corrected inaccurate diagnoses of two patients by the conventional method. Our method is superior to conventional diagnostic methods in terms of speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.