Sourcebio Share Discussion Threads

[rivaldo] 09/3/2021 07:16

SBI are featured heavily in this morning's market report in the Times:



"Covid tester wins rugby trophy

A relative newbie to Aim has won the contract to test England’s rugby union players for the coronavirus.

As part of the tie-up with the Rugby Football Union, SourceBio International, which joined London’s junior market only last October, will test the England team and support staff a couple of days before big games, including this weekend’s Six Nations fixture against France. Each player will be swabbed at the team hotel or training ground and the samples will be couriered to SourceBio’s lab in Nottingham. The test results are turned around within hours.

SourceBio also will be responsible for testing all the Premiership rugby teams twice a week. The RFU’s plan is that clubs in the Championship, the second tier, will have access to SourceBio’s services, too.

Since May, the company has processed more than a million Covid tests at its labs for the NHS and private hospitals. In addition, it has been contracted by the likes of Virgin Atlantic and Bentley Motors to regularly test their staff.

The shares closed 7½p, or 3.9 per cent, higher at 197½p — about 22 per cent more than their launch price."

[pngasef] 08/3/2021 17:18

Nice!! Basically says testing will go on for 2 more years at least with only a small decline. He instills confidence that he knows what he is doing.

[pob69] 08/3/2021 16:13

Interview with CEO

[rivaldo] 08/3/2021 09:06

Today's news is material as it's a full RNS.

Which is hardly surprising since it's providing continuing COVID-19 testing services to the entire Rugby Premiership - players AND staff - plus the full England squad and staff. And likely to extend to the RFU Championship.

The market likes it too.

[go2nc] 08/3/2021 08:42

Still 8 billions worth contracts to be awarded.

[scruff1] 08/3/2021 08:36

Welcome but Im afraid Im not over impressed. I think I posted a few days ago that when a co. starts RNS ing small events it has me worried they are covering summat up. We will see how the news is received.
Agree with thamestrader. Except transpose the word Sport instead of Rugby - team or town

[thamestrader] 08/3/2021 07:57

Would be better if it was the town of Rugby, rather than the team.

[rivaldo] 08/3/2021 07:27

Excellent news - another COVID-19 testing contract:



" COVID-19 testing contract for elite rugby in England

SourceBio testing the England Rugby squad as part of the Six Nations tournament

RFU testing services to cover Gallagher Premiership Rugby and Greene King IPA Championship testing

SourceBio International plc (AIM: SBI), the international provider of integrated state-of-the-art laboratory services and products , announces that it has entered into an agreement with the Rugby Football Union ("RFU") and Premiership Rugby Limited to provide COVID-19 screening testing services for elite rugby in England.

Under the agreement SourceBio will provide COVID-19 testing services to England Rugby Senior Men's squad and support staff and to all 12 Premiership Rugby clubs players and staff. In addition, the RFU is also looking to roll-out this testing service to RFU Championship clubs who will be able to use this agreement to access the services provided by SourceBio.

SourceBio will provide COVID-19 testing to players and staff around training schedules and ahead of match days. Third party healthcare professionals sourced by SourceBio will take swabs from individuals and samples are then couriered to the Company's ISO 15189 accredited laboratory facility in Nottingham for PCR Testing. Test results are turned around in less than 24 hours.

SourceBio has processed more than 1,000,000 COVID-19 antigen RT-PCR tests for the DHSC and the NHS, Private Hospital Groups and Commercial customers since first offering its service in May 2020.

Jay LeCoque, Executive Chairman, commented: "We are very pleased to support elite rugby return to play protocols using our state-of-the-art laboratories to allow elite rugby in England to continue to safely operate within current social distancing measures. We have been at the forefront of COVID-19 testing programmes since the beginning of the pandemic, supporting the NHS and private healthcare groups, but also helping many of our commercial clients to maintain a safe working environment and helping businesses to get back on track."

[rivaldo] 03/3/2021 14:01

Liberum see scope for upgrades after today's news:



Extract:

"Analysts at Liberum said that this announcement offers scope for upgrades as we move through the year.

"The signing of a deal with a high street pharmacy chain in January and the more recent deal for Mitie’s Mobile testing units have raised our confidence in SourceBio’s ability to meet our 2021 forecasts that call for a quadrupling of underlying earnings (EBITDA)," they commented."

[luffness] 03/3/2021 08:20

Great timing....

[rivaldo] 03/3/2021 07:15

This news should revive things nicely - expansion into the USA to carry out PCR testing in the next quarter in the same way as in the UK...

5,000 samples per day should bring in some very decent cash flow, especially since the facilities are already there and SBI can simply replicate what's already been achieved in the UK:

[scruff1] 02/3/2021 21:40

Glad you are Im not. Was looking for a quick buck. That aint gonna happen. Testing is definitely looking a bit like a busted flush. Glad I sold most but still holding some. Looking like a long term hold now. Have to see what they can do with the cash.

[pngasef] 02/3/2021 13:02

Again, we need news!!! We need a trading update. Happy to still hold......

[samewe] 22/2/2021 12:12

SBI will have its time in the sun when it is re-rated upwards after the release of 2020 accounts and Q1 updates in April. With small free floats available, share price will jump when the company is noticed by the fund managers.

[rivaldo] 22/2/2021 11:03

Now the new issue of Momentum Investor is out, it's hopefully OK to print the tip for SBI from the prior issue, which is a good read - and that was when the share price was 219p:

"SourceBio International - Healthcare diagnostics firm mining rich seam from covid testing

219p Epic code: SBI

(Momentum Investor)

I’ve just come off a Zoom call with Jay LeCoque, CEO of SourceBio, a provider of diagnostic testing to the NHS and private sector, whose shares, which listed on AIM last October at 162p, have made a spectacular debut.

Having enjoyed success as CEO of diagnostics firm Celsis (achieving a 7.6x cash return for shareholders ’09-‘15) and then at bio-decontamination firm Bioquell, (share price rise from 146p in ‘16 to 590p in ’19), LeCoque joined SourceBio, the former Medical Solutions, in 2016. At that time the company was struggling after failing to integrate a series of acquisitions, but LeCoque sold non-core businesses, cut costs, upgraded the sales force and raised prices for the first time in 10 years.

Of SourceBio’s three divisions, the one stoking investors’ fervour is Healthcare Diagnostics (37% of £19.8m sales in FY’19), which tests patient tissue samples, sourced either from routine screening programmes or biopsy extraction. It operates out of several licenced laboratories and has access to the largest consultant pathology network (currently 75 pathologists) in the UK. Around three quarters of sales is cellular pathology, where samples are tested for cancer or chronic disease with the balance involving molecular tests to detect cancer sub-types or mutations.
SourceBio works for the NHS and private sector and excitingly demand is growing at 15% p.a, driven by an ageing population requiring more healthcare services, a need for a faster diagnosis and ongoing capacity constraints in the NHS, where most labs are understaffed. Following the disruption from the pandemic there is an estimated 10 million backlog in NHS procedures and an estimated 1 million laboratory samples requiring analysis. To avail of the opportunity, LeCoque has invested in a new Digital Pathology system, allowing transmission of sample slides via the cloud instead of physical ones. New AI systems will weed out the obvious positives and negatives to further boost productivity.

Within its other two divisions, Stability Storage (40% sales) and Genomics, the former involves storing new drugs in controlled conditions (temperature, humidity, light) to ensure they remain stable over the long term. This is a key regulatory requirement before a new product is released into the market. It’s a great business because typical projects last for three years, leading to high recurring revenues while there’s little work required apart from monitoring, so gross margins are 80%. The market is growing 7-9% p.a. thanks to a strong late stage pipeline of complex biopharma drugs.

In Genomics (23% sales), SourceBio provides cutting edge DNA sequencing to academic groups and biotechs, with demand driven by the growth in personalised medicine, which requires greater understanding of genes and specific mutations.

What has really sent the shares into orbit has been LeCoque’s inspired move to gain regulatory accreditation for its laboratory testing business to provide Covid-19 Antigen RT-PCR tests as a hedge against the current decline in elective procedures. These are considered the Gold Standard in terms of accurate detection with a 70-99% success rate and are superior to the 15-minute lateral flow tests. It has landed some large private healthcare providers including Spire and Nuffield as well as Virgin Atlantic and a leading high street retail and pharmacy group. SourceBio has also won lucrative testing work with the NHS with a new framework agreement due to be signed in February. All told, from a standing start last May, it’s ramped up to over 10,000 tests a day.

Liberum estimates it will generate £67m free cash flow by the end of 2022 (against a current market cap of £164m). The broker says it assumes testing demand will fall away rapidly from July 2021 as the vaccines are rolled out but LeCoque expects healthy testing revenues to be sustained at least to the end of 2022. He points out that 1.) the Liberum note was published before the South African mutation, which triggered the third UK lockdown and could cause vaccine resistance; 2.) vaccine uptake may not initially be high enough to achieve herd immunity; 3.) testing may still be required in the medium-term for “fit to fly” and participation in mass sporting / concert events; 4) the virus could become endemic and return annually.

The sixty four thousand dollar question is how LeCoque plans to plug the eventual gap when Covid subsides. He says he’s already running the rule over several eps enhancing acquisitions both within Healthcare diagnostics such as testing labs in London for better access to the Capital’s large private healthcare market, US expansion and other oncology specialties such as lung, brain and bowel.

Liberum forecasts pretax profit of £12.4m and eps of 13.5p in FY’20, followed by lift-off to £56m and 61.2p this year, before subsiding to £14m and 15.5p in ’22. By then cash should be £73m or 44% of the market cap. Speculative, but it could have its time in the sun."

[james188] 19/2/2021 17:10

With so much going on, we could really do with another trading update from the company well before the preliminary results come out in April.
The RNS today is, I think, the first time we have heard that SBI has won a contract for the rapid (Oxford Nanopore) LamPORE test, as distinct from the COVID-19 PCR tests that it is carrying out for various public and private sector parties. It is good news and the potential is obvious, but we do not have any information as to pricing/margin etc and it is early days. It was only last month that we were told that the company was looking at mobile testing with DHSC, so things are moving very quickly.
I hope that the company will give us a clearer idea as to how many PCR tests per day it is now carrying out and what the split is between public and private sector deals. An update as to what is happening with the other business divisions would also be welcome.

[samewe] 19/2/2021 16:11

SBI over-rated? Prior to Oct IPO cash receipts of £35M, SBI had a debts of £100M. 2020 year end SBI had positive cash of £8M. From £100M debt to +£8M cash position means on Q4 SBI generated nearly £80M cash from Covid testing contracts.
With more local surge testing and contract with Mitie announced today, SBI should be doing at least 15,000 a day. SBI is a magic money tree as far as I am concerned

[abbynat] 19/2/2021 15:37

at this price? surely, its massively overated!

[scruff1] 19/2/2021 14:51

9 degrees
Yep. I knew that Tanfield existed in some form but not what it was/should have been.
I bought my first at 20p ish and all the way up I think to £4 )or was at £2.
It became clear from their ever more desperate and frequent news releases especially the never ending NDA's that they were telling porkies. It was that that allowed me to get out with at least some hard earned but I lost quite a bit. Thats why I mention it here.
I dont hold many here - sold quite a lot this week and would have sold them all but broker wasnt playing. Happy to hold though I dont really know that much about the co.
Will learn and some good posters like rivaldo and I like it when posters like dudie question whats put before em. It looks as though it could be a bit pricy at mo but I guess its how this testing malarky goes and what they do with their cash. Maybe even regret selling some - hopefully.

[energeticbacker] 19/2/2021 14:23

Featured in Investor's Champion's daily update:

It was interesting to note that the shares didn’t move on the contract news, with Covid-19 testing stocks very much ‘yesterdayR17;s trade’!

[9degrees] 19/2/2021 14:00

Scruffi sorry to disappoint but Tanfield still exist but only as a shell holding company with a shareholding in Snorkel and a board of directors who take fees to "manage" legal cases to "protect" this shareholding .
The idea was sound the product was in front of the curve and the management completely failed . I still have my holding but dont want to waste £15 by selling it.
It was such a pity

[scruff1] 19/2/2021 11:24

Another point (no Im not a de ramper or shorter just after over 30yrs in this malarky Ive learnt that wariness to the point of cynicism is no bad thing) is that if a co. is trying to mislead or stretch the truth in its news offerings then in the words of a barrister friend of mine ' when I discover one lie there are usually others lurking'.
Worst culprit in my involvements was a co. called TANFIELD. Shocker. Pleased to say it went bust - not so pleased that some of its debts was my money :-)

[scruff1] 19/2/2021 11:14

In fact just reminded me many years ago I got a phone call after an enquiry from the CEO of RIFT which I thought was an amazing thing to do and was a fantastic opportunity to ask a few questions.

[scruff1] 19/2/2021 11:09

Easy to email co' if you are so inclined. I always find decent co's are quick to respond so could be a bit of a litmus test too. I had a response from CEO of CNC within the hour the other day. Very polite it was too