Syncona Share Discussion Threads

[tiger blue] 08/7/2019 13:59

Hi luxaeterna1, Woodford Investment Management LLP holds 12,041,419 shares, which is 26.8% of Autolus. Any lower figure you may see quoted refers to just one Woodford fund/trust, not his whole position.

I know from broker meeting that SYNC have at least made enquiries about buying stock from him. No price was mentioned, that would be commercially sensitive as well as inside information, and I suspect they were rebuffed before it got to that stage.

So why isn't Woodford selling?

1. He doesn't want to! While he is still making a profit, he last topped up in the placing at $24, why would he sell at $16? He could probably get a premium to this but not sufficient to tempt him out and clearly thinks this is one of his best stocks. While Autolus on a standalone basis remains high risk, on the basis of data generated to date it is cheap, which is why I & others on this board have bought shares.

2. He doesn't have to...at the moment. He is raising cash elsewhere and being not short on self-belief thinks he can trade his way out of this. Time will tell as redemptions and potential redemptions grow, or if his contract is terminated by the Patient Capital board, though to date they have been as effective as a chocolate fireguard.

[luxaeterna1] 08/7/2019 13:17

Am I correct that Woodford owns 5% of AUTL, so his stake is worth ~ £25m?

Can't believe that would rattle the day-to-day price too much.

[luxaeterna1] 08/7/2019 12:07

Has Woodford been offered by SYNC, or others?

AUTO has a large number of trials in the pipeline right now, they must have a serious headcount.

Very pleased to see Freeline moving forward, especially with the first patient at mid-dosing apparently reaching normal levels of blood FIX/coagulation (apparently the first company to ever achieve this!).

[ltinvestor] 08/7/2019 09:59

I believe that Woodford has been bid for his Autolus shares at market price but will not sell .One day soon he may be forced to sell...I have been accumulating Autolus around this low level $16, taking advantage of the situation.

[graygray1] 08/7/2019 09:44

Is SYNC a bargain now. Price keeps falling yet lots of fundamental good news recently. Just potential Autolus forced sale by Woodford. What do you think?

[brexitplus] 08/7/2019 07:50

Today’s RNS

“Chris Hollowood, Executive Chairman of Freeline said:

"We are pleased to report updated data on the first two patients in our Haemophilia B trial. The results provide early validation for the potential durability and stability of our therapy at the lowest dose cohort. We continue to progress dose optimisation in additional patients and look forward to providing a further update as we seek to develop a functional cure for people with Haemophilia B."

"We believe there is a significant opportunity for Freeline's highly efficient capsid and manufacturing platform to offer gene therapies that substantially improve patients' lives in a wide range of chronic systemic diseases, and we are seeking to leverage this same platform across Haemophilia A and B, Fabry and Gaucher Diseases, and ultimately into non-monogenic disorders."”

[tiger blue] 07/7/2019 18:20

BBC2 9:00pm tonight War in the Blood, a film about treating cancer patients with CAR T cell therapy.

It focuses on the work of Dr Martin Pule of the UCL Cancer Institute, who leads the UCL CAR T-cell programme.

He is also founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Autolus.

[ltinvestor] 06/7/2019 08:21

I hear that Woodford has refused to sell his stake in Autolus.I am taking advantage of the low share price and buying Autolus because one day he will have to sell and then a valuation more in keeping with the progress made will be attained.

[tiger blue] 06/7/2019 08:01

From CITYWIRE - good summary.

Syncona left with £915m cash mountain after Blue Earth sale
By Michelle McGagh / 05 Jul, 2019

Syncona left with £915m cash mountain after Blue Earth sale

Syncona (SYNC), the UK’s largest, stock market listed life sciences fund, is sitting on a cash pile of nearly £1 billion after last week’s decision to accept a bid for prostate cancer imaging business Blue Earth Diagnostics.

The FTSE 250 investment trust will receive £337 million for its 89% stake in Blue Earth, its second largest investment, from the $450 million (£354.3 million) sale of the business to Bracco Imaging of Italy, a global leader in diagnostic imaging, plus a closing adjustment payment of $25 million.

This is 10-times more than its original investment of £35.5 million when it founded the firm with academics five years ago and represents an 87% internal rate of return for Syncona.

The sale is the second big deal the £1.5 billion trust has done this year after making £254 million from the sale of eye disease specialist Nightstar Therapeutics to Swiss business Biogen.

The proceeds from both disposals more than double the £400 million capital pool Syncona had at 31 March to £915 million leaving the portfolio around 70% in cash. While this leaves the company with plenty to invest in new and existing portfolio businesses its risks cash drag depressing returns while the money waits to be redeployed.

Freeline, which focuses on gene therapy for liver diseases, retinal gene therapy business Gyroscope, and lung cancer gene therapy company Achilles, have all benefited from investment this year and the trust has said it will step up the level of investment over coming years. It has increased its guidance on how much it plans to invest each year from £75-150 million to £100-200 million.

Martin Murphy, chief executive of Syncona Investment Management, said the sale of Blue Earth ‘demonstrates the success of Syncona’s strategy to found, build, and fund innovative companies’.

He said in five years the company had completed clinical development, secured its first product approval, delivered a successful commercial treatment used on 50,000 prostate cancer patients and achieved profitability.

Murphy told analysts the decision to sell Blue Earth was a difficult one but that the prospect of growing competition for its main product Axumin tilted the balance towards an exit and recycling its capital.

The transaction provides a ‘significant’ boost adding 10.4p to net asset value (NAV) per share of around 201p, said Syncona broker Numis Securities. The uplift would have been higher but was offset by the poor performance from its quoted holdings, notably Autolus, whose shares have halved since March after their flotation on Nasdaq, the US technology exchange, last year.

Autolus is the one investment Syncona shares with Neil Woodford and its declining share price adds to the pressure on his Patient Capital (WPCT) investment trust as it struggles in the aftermath of the suspension of his main Equity Income fund.

Syncona shares, which are key holdings of Witan (WTAN) and BMO Managed Portfolio Growth (BMPG), have been flat since the announcement of the Blue Earth sale on 27 June. At 220p today they stand at around 10% above NAV a much reduced premium from the 51% they traded at in March before Wellcome Trust reduced its stake and Autolus shares started to slide.

Jefferies analysts Ken Rumph and Lyra Li commented: ‘The transaction is another validation to SYNC's strong investment capability and business model after Nightstar's disposal and Autolus' listing, and will bring its capital pool to £963 million (146p/share), c.72% of current NAV: cash drag a problem of success?’

Ewan Lovett-Turner of Numis said the disposal showed Syncona’s portfolio is ‘likely to be highly attractive to the major biotechnology companies, and highlights the conservative nature of its valuations’.

‘We believe that Syncona is a unique vehicle with outstanding management. Syncona’s share price has been relatively weak recently, down 11.2% since 31 March, which we believe largely reflects the weakness in Autolus,’ he said.

[tiger blue] 05/7/2019 09:00

Freeline presents preclinical liver-directed AAV gene therapy data at the European Working Group on Gaucher Disease.





Freeline, a biotechnology company focused on developing curative gene therapies for chronic systemic diseases, will present preclinical data on its gene therapy development candidate for Gaucher Disease at the European Working group on Gaucher Disease (EWGGD) in Auvergne, France, July 4-6 2019. The Freeline program FLT200 is a liver-directed Adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy for the treatment of type 1 Gaucher Disease and is designed to increase levels of beta-glucocerebrosidase (GCase) in macrophages of Gaucher’s Disease patients.

Gaucher Disease is a genetic disorder in which a fatty substance called glucosylceramide accumulates in macrophages present in certain organs due to the lack of functional GCase. The disorder is hereditary and presents in various subtypes. Freeline is focused on Type 1 Gaucher Disease, which impacts the health of the spleen, liver, lungs and bones. The current standard of care is intravenous infusion of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) every two weeks, which is a significant treatment burden on the patient. The aim of Freeline’s investigational gene therapy programme is to deliver a one-time treatment of a long lasting gene therapy for Type 1 Gaucher Disease patients that will provide a consistent and therapeutically relevant level of endogenous GCase, thus eliminating the need for ERT.

Freeline’s preclinical data to be presented at EWGGD shows that a single infusion of FLT200 results in sustained GCase expression in the liver and greater bioavailability in the bloodstream as compared to ERT. Data collected from a combination of in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrates that liver expression of GCase results in sustained blood levels of GCase and that the enzyme is taken up by the macrophages in target organs affected by Type 1 Gaucher Disease. FLT200 showed superior levels of GCase uptake in the target organs including spleen, liver, lungs and bone marrow compared to the leading ERT, velaglucerase alfa (VPRIV®).

Professor Amit Nathwani, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Freeline and Professor at UCL Cancer Institute said: “Freeline̵7;s proprietary gene therapy platform has been used to generate these promising preclinical results for Gaucher Disease. We look forward to progressing the program into the clinic and hope to give patients whose lives are severely disrupted by Gaucher Disease the potential to live free of the effects of this disease.”

Chris Hollowood, Executive Chairman of Freeline said: “We believe there is a significant opportunity for gene therapy to offer functional cures for a wide range of chronic diseases. Freeline’s technology has already shown clinical benefit to Haemophilia B patients and we look to leverage this same platform, for not just haemophilia, but also for lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs). Gaucher Disease is our second LSD program after Fabry and these preclinical Gaucher Disease data are very encouraging showing that we may be able to demonstrate a clear clinical benefit for these patients.”

Oral presentation details are as follows:

Presentation title: Liver-directed AAV gene therapy for Gaucher Disease results in sustained Gcase expression and greater bioavailability for macrophage uptake than velaglucerase alfa (n°3)
Presenter: Carlos Miranda
Date: Friday, 5 July, 2019 from 4:00 - 4:15 pm
Location: University Clermont Auvergne: The Faculty of Dentistry of Clermont - Ferrand: 2, rue de Braga - 63100 Clermont-Ferrand, France


- Ends -

[luxaeterna1] 01/7/2019 16:10

BED strategy? "Sell co, spend money" ?

[tiger blue] 28/6/2019 08:51

brexitplus Thank you for that.
2019 has been painful but fundamentals remain solid. Autolus has been hit by no fault of their own due to Woodford and I bought some yesterday. Syncona mgmt have stated that new funding rounds will be due within their portfolio. As any failures will be dropped, new funding will be based on successful milestones and progress, so will take place at higher valuations. that will mean good newsflow and uplifts to the Syncona nav.

[ltinvestor] 28/6/2019 08:49

The strategy for selling Bed will become much clearer in a couple of months ....

[brexitplus] 28/6/2019 08:15

Tiger

Thank you. Syncona is a long term hold for me.

[1seanshare] 27/6/2019 23:04

All very helpful. Thanks. Still frustrated, but I'm a little clearer!

[luxaeterna1] 27/6/2019 21:27

Also, ffs a scrip dividend is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. May as well not bother. A very select group may find tax benefits and to everyone else its a dividend-that's-not-a-dividend.

[luxaeterna1] 27/6/2019 21:25

I don't think the Woodford connection to Autl has done much good this week, you'd assume he might be trying to offload his Autolus shares and sync are perhaps obvious buyers, it may even have driven 1 of the disposals IMO, he has been hounded like a dog at times (rightly or wrongly).

You cannot argue with SYNCs record so far, another few months and Freeline will also be in the clinic with multiple programmes. Slightly sad to see BED go today, another two years and could have been double the price. Plenty to invest in though and great outlook (clearly some failures along the line should be factored in).

[tiger blue] 27/6/2019 19:03

Thanks mad foetus. SYNC is fairly unique in having the capital pool available and the investor access. The problem with private equity approach is that their time horizon is generally too short, which is why Syncona/Wellcome chose to partner with BACIT in the first place to access the deep pool of capital. It all started with a conversation with Tom Henderson of BACIT and the scientists complaining that private equity was not 'patient capital' (unfortunate name these days!). The UK is just as good as the US for scientific innovation (DNA etc) but historically because PE was so short term we have ended selling early to the Americans who make the real profits. The merger of SYNC & BACIT was meant to address that.

[mad foetus] 27/6/2019 18:49

Good post Tiger, but also shows why the sort of investments SYNC makes are really better suited to a private equity limited partnership fund where investors can be tapped for commitments when needed. But in that event normal investors would be excluded.

[tiger blue] 27/6/2019 18:41

1seanshare,

my 10p's worth (I was 35 years in the market so know a bit about how things operate) there are 2 main factors at work here:

1 Sync was founded on the basis of long term holds - start with the science, prove it, take it to market and hold for the profits. They have now sold two positions perhaps earlier than people expected, so some have questioned if they are sticking to their stated modus operandi.

2 Cash drag - probably the main factor here. Brokers don't like to sit on cash and they don't like their companies to sit on cash. Analysts are saying that SYNC has too much cash sitting there doing nothing, ie acting as a 'drag' on the share price and they now have c £1 billion, but only projecting investing at the rate of £100-200 million per annum.

Some are also worried that the Wellcome Trust holding is an overhang on the share price - because they reduced the position they must want to sell the rest. I'm not so concerned now they have got their original investment back.

I am more relaxed than the market as I would rather they sat on the cash until they have a decent reason to invest it, and so far they have proved very savvy at generating a very high IRR on their investments. Gene therapy market potential is vast, and they are founding new companies more quickly now, which will need proper investment when the time is right, for which they have the war chest. They can also easily afford to increase the Autolus holding if Mr Woodford can be persuaded to sell.

[1seanshare] 27/6/2019 17:12

Can the more share savvy of us help explain why SYNC seems to be on a long continuous downward trend but all the news (and actions) seems to be positive? I really don't understand it! Cashed out successfully with two companies now, good news coming from other holdings, etc. Am I alone on being perplexed?

[davemac3] 27/6/2019 16:26

good news on several fronts recently yet the share price is down

[luxaeterna1] 27/6/2019 15:45

Why no RNS for BED sale?

[kohsamui] 27/6/2019 11:00

All the unquoted companies are value at cost - except Blue Earth- I believe.

[tiger blue] 27/6/2019 10:35

Shuffleman,

re official nav, probably not as last reported nav did not reflect recent fall in Autolus (24p per share) but as previous post all other companies still in the books at cost, so you can factor in something extra for those.