Summit Therapeutics Share Discussion Threads

[football] 27/7/2016 11:02

Solomon You can watch "The Fundamentals Of Caring" here now just make sure you have a add blocker installed

[solomon] 27/7/2016 10:56

I posted this a few days ago (the day that ADVFN lost its server and the day's history):
If anyone has Netflix, I recommend watching "The Fundamentals Of Caring". The main character is caring for a boy with DMD. It may not be very accurate but there is some insight.
Wiki says:
"Ben (Paul Rudd) is a retired writer, who lost his son three years ago when Ben left his car in neutral on a climb, and whose wife is trying to divorce him. Needing a new job, he takes a six week course to become a caregiver. He gets a job from an English woman named Elsa (Jennifer Ehle), a former caregiver and now bank manager, whose 18 year old son Trevor (Craig Roberts) has Duchenne muscular dystrophy."

[chrisatrdg] 27/7/2016 10:47

Agree waterloo01.

[patviera] 27/7/2016 10:43

Wow all the usual suspects spouting their usual rubbish hereNo one will buy this Cr pUntil1/ balance sheet is stronger..no doubt another heavily discounted placing will come with all Glynns mates getting special treatment like last timeOr 2: Glyn resigns after his treatment of shareholders..did placing much lower than he should've done cos he wanted his mates in lowJust ask hybridan about the fiasco over the last placing I don't trust mgmnt here as will not buy a single share more

[waterloo01] 27/7/2016 10:36

Indeed and what shape that deal will take. I'm not sure they can wait beyond September either way, just too fine a timeline.

[football] 27/7/2016 10:31

but NOT box 22 always bad news in that box

[luminoso] 27/7/2016 10:30

There's only one piece of news that interests me at the moment. Deal or no deal !?

[chrisatrdg] 27/7/2016 10:10

News could be any day any month but one way or the other not any year it has to be this quarter or early next quarter.

Last years half year results were issued on the 27th August this year it equates to Friday 26th August or Monday 29th August.

In addition there is the -

36TH ANNUAL CANACCORD GENUITY GROWTH CONFERENCE 10-11 August 2016, Boston, US

also see link below there is a conference update now posted see below for link:



In short August could be a busy month and a good time for an announcement on a number of issues.

[football] 27/7/2016 09:32

Hyper Al I've been on holiday come back had a short break and going away again and still waiting for some summer news

[hugus maximus] 25/7/2016 19:01

Yet sadly Translarna is being made available in the Uk at a huge cost? The poor DMD families have lobbied MPs and even Cameron and succeeded in making it available. I guess that's been the problem with Sarepta ... whilst there is no known fix, folk cling to small chances of positive change until such time that a treatment becomes available that has the potential to allow some sort of promise of normal life.

Glyn suggested last week at the AGM that the first Summit DMD drug to come through may well be the one that garners publicity and produces an apparent sea change in approach, but it will be the follow up that starts to see the possibility of a decent quality of life for the boys.

Drugs like Translarna sadly don't present a way forwards with a pipeline of further development possibilities - just false hope.

[waterloo01] 25/7/2016 18:03

That's because it isn't that effective! IMO

[hugus maximus] 23/7/2016 13:58

Has anyone else seen Merck as a potential partner for Summit's C Diff? I met a shareholder at the AGM last week (A.R.) who also saw their C Diff interest might see Ridz as an amazing ace in their card hand.

[chrisatrdg] 22/7/2016 17:05

Merck faces FDA delay for C. diff antibody amid trial data concerns

[football] 21/7/2016 16:39

from link above


Drug prices pose an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, treatments should be affordable to those who need them, but on the other, companies will have to finance many failed drug development attempts in order to uncover the successful few, so each life-saver may carry a hefty price tag.
While pharmaceutical companies tend to deal with well-known generic drugs, biotech companies focus on developing new drugs made from living organisms, aimed at treating conditions and diseases that have no cure as yet.

US innovation

For a drug to be approved on the US market - the largest in the world - it has to go through three phases of clinical trials, as set out by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

Phase one tests a drug's safety on healthy volunteers, looking at dosage and side effects. Phase two assesses effectiveness, and phase three involves large-scale trials.

Biotech firms burn through cash on research and development (R&D), but only around 8% of drugs make it through the clinical trials to achieve FDA approval. Accordingly, biotech has never been an investment for the faint-hearted.

The majority of healthcare innovation still comes from the US, where most biotech firms are based.

"US consumers pay more for drugs than the rest of the world, and that subsidises the R&D to develop these drugs. The rest of the world benefits from that, without having to pay those high prices for the exact same drugs," says Geoff Hsu, manager of Biotech Growth Trust (BIOG).

In his book Bad Pharma, the academic Ben Goldacre criticises pharmaceutical companies for spending a large proportion of their budget on marketing rather than on R&D. Does the same apply to biotech?

Hsu says that in contrast to pharma, biotech companies deal with more niche drugs, such as those to treat "orphan diseases" (conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 people). As a consequence, they focus their resources on R&D rather than marketing and sales.

Biotech companies tend to have one lead drug that drives the bulk of their value, so pharmaceutical companies are keen to incorporate innovative biotech start-ups in their business. Mergers and acquisitions are a regular feature in the sector, pushing up prices during the sector's growth periods.

From 2010 to July 2015, the biotechnology sector had a remarkable bull run. The NASDAQ Biotech index surged by 350% during that time.

Drug pricing scandals

It was drug pricing that precipitated the trouble that began in September 2015, when hedge fund manager and pharmaceuticals executive Martin Shkreli acquired HIV drug Daraprim.

He raised the price of a tablet from $13.50 to $750 (£10 to £564), increasing the cost of treatment for patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gilead (GILD), which produces hepatitis C drugs, was also taken to task for its high drug prices. In response to the scandal around Daraprim, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted in September: "Price gouging like this in the speciality drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I'll lay out a plan to take it on."

Clinton's tweet was seen by many analysts as a turning point for biotech fortunes.

Sentiment was further dampened by the share price collapse at Valeant (VRX), a highly acquisitive drug firm laid low by its debts and (as yet unproven) allegations of accounting irregularities. As a result, investors lost confidence and the NASDAQ Biotech index crashed by 35%.

It could also be argued that the sector was ripe for a reversal because valuations had run so far ahead of reality, and Clinton's comments merely provided investors with an excuse for the pullback. In addition to outflows in 2015, biotech saw another large drawdown in 2016.

This was due to general market weakness, China's slowdown and the falling price of oil, says Hsu, "even though, when you think about it, biotech has nothing to do with growth in China or the price of oil". Managers pulled out of biotech to reduce risk.

M&A optimism

Now, investors need to make a call on whether to return to a sector that is so intricately related to US policy.

Despite the very public discussion around drug pricing in the run-up to the US presidential election on 8 November, Hsu does not expect any major legislative changes to happen given Republican control in the US Congress is likely to continue.

However, he expects M&A activity in the second half of 2016 to help turn the sector around. "We've already seen some hints of that: Pfizer (PFZ) just acquired Anacor at a 55% premium; Sanofi (SAN) is in the midst of making a hostile bid for prostate cancer drug company Medivation (MDVN)."

His optimism may not come as a surprise - after all it is counter-intuitive for fund managers to talk down the prospects of the assets they manage.

To what extent do other fund managers echo his optimism for the sector? David Coombs, head of multi-asset investments at Rathbones, holds biotech giant Amgen (AMGN) in his medium-risk fund and the Biotech Growth Trust in his higher-risk fund.

Coombs likes biotech because it is not cyclical, which means the sector can perform well in a low-growth environment. In the run-up to the US presidential elections biotech stocks might continue to fall, but Coombs sees that as a buying opportunity.

Jake Robbins, manager of Premier Global Alpha Growth fund, points out that the more mature businesses in the sector such as Gilead, Amgen and Celgene (CELG), which already generate huge profits from successfully developed drugs, "now all look extremely attractively valued".

"Strong cash flow generation enables these companies to invest in many potential new drugs, whilst also offering the investor reasonable dividend yields in the meantime as their pipelines mature."

Up-and-coming stocks

The well-established biotech firms, including the 10 largest constituents of the NASDAQ Biotech index, trade at a discount to the broader US market, at around 13.4 times earnings for this year and 12 times for next. "Up-and-coming" biotech stocks with drug development still at early stages, however, are a different matter.

And, given the ageing populations of the West and developments such as antibiotic resistance, biotech is likely to remain a productive area of healthcare for many years to come.

Stock and fund picks for exposure to biotech

Daniel Greenhough, investment manager at Lumin Wealth Management, likes the Polar Capital Biotechnology fund: "The lead fund manager is a specialist in this area and supported by a particularly strong team.

"We currently hold the less speculative Polar Capital Healthcare Opportunities fund, run by the same team, in our model portfolios."

Currently 29% of Woodford Equity Income fund, 26% of Jupiter European and 23% of Threadneedle European Select are invested in this area.

Carl Harald Janson, lead investment manager at International Biotechnology Trust (IBT), has some tips for those looking for direct equity exposure.

He says good areas to invest in are businesses that "are exposed to strong top-line growth such as Genmab (GE9) (which recently co-launched a new drug, Darzalex, for the treatment of cancer of the bone marrow), and companies that could be taken over such as Medivation, which is in the middle of such a process".

[chrisatrdg] 21/7/2016 16:29

Time to invest in Biotech?



XX =iii

Edit: It may create some interest in Summit

[patviera] 20/7/2016 11:23

Glyn remuneration is greedy and utterly madIt's gigantic and all he has done is gifted his mates placing shares at ridiculous discounts which they have then sold on at huge premiumsWouldn't surprise me to see another placing at a huge discount to all his mob which will then create another huge overhangThis went pear shaped as soon as the old broker resigned over the placing fiasco

[chrisatrdg] 19/7/2016 11:30

Hi All,

As mentioned by HM the phrase 'Some additional data about new formulation due this quarter' was a 'morsel' given by Glyn that will be of interest and was to excite us.

I interpret what Glyn was saying will be of interest to us as it will demonstrate that the new formulation will be far more powerful than the current one which will be significant.

I think the above in Qtr 3 may move the share price a fraction but as for the C-Diff deal does not seem close at worse early Qtr 4 but all guess work.

In addition the CFO said that a recent valuation (last week) shows Summit valuation is following the Bio NASDAQ trend so current share price not much out of kilter with the current Bio market.

Edit: The board did not rush off after the meeting closed and we all had opportunities to talk to the board again on one to one basis - all very relaxed.

[waterloo01] 19/7/2016 09:50

Solomon, you could have turned up regardless as they would have let you in, even if you couldn't vote.

I've had a quick at the remuneration report. I'm not surprised it was voted against. I like Glyn but £500,000 plus all those options is really not on given the performance to date, both in terms of the share price and in meeting trial deadlines. Time will tell, but any Rid'nazole deal will need be stellar to justify it.

Edit: Cheers Hugus for the response. I'm fairly confident in Rid'nazole, hopefully as 1st and 2nd line treatment. The test of Glyn is the deal he does. Good to hear the US trial will start this Q.

[hugus maximus] 19/7/2016 09:40

Morning Waterloo. There was no inference that the current Ridz trial against Fidx was a deal breaker. However an example was mentioned that in recent healthcare decisions made about choice between Fidx verses Vanc (I think in a hospital in Tooting, London?), even though the initial price difference is really vast, the professionals worked out there was a huge saving in the long run if choosing Fidx. Fix is currently seeing a large surge in sales. Glen placed Fidx somewhere around half way between Vanc and Ridz in overall actual savings value ... therefore my conclusion is that Summit's drug will be worth at least the same price as Fidx. Given the above sums, Ridz could be priced well above Fidx and still save a body like the NHS money. Also on this subject, healthcare professionals are being seriously discouraged now from blanket bombing antibiotics and specific hitters like Ridz are seen as win win drugs right now. However i didn't hear any mention of the current Ridz trail against Fidx as being in anyway critical to current deal negotiations.

In addition to my previous note some small specifics:

DMD boys in the USA will start trials this quarter.


MRI results will also be available early 2017.

Some additional data about new formulation due this quarter.

[solomon] 19/7/2016 09:04

I would perhaps have attended the AGM, but despite asking TD Waterhouse twice for a letter of representation I never got one. C'est la vie.
I am, like others, very grateful for the reports from those who did attend.

[luminoso] 19/7/2016 08:32

Thanks for feedback, hugus and chris.

[patviera] 18/7/2016 21:41

Bore off freedoshU were buying millions here at 4 pounds Saying we are worth 40 poundsListen to yourselfUtter nonsense

[chrisatrdg] 18/7/2016 20:02

Hi freedosh - with regards funding posted earlier by you I think that can be the only conclusion.

[waterloo01] 18/7/2016 18:48

Cheers all. Anything further on where they are with the ongoing Rid'nazole trial? Are they still saying a deal isn't dependant on it? and on recruitment into the DMD phase 2. How many have been given 1st treatment?

Good to see the major shareholders take a stand on pay. Keeps them on their toes when they know we care about it!