Syncona Share Discussion Threads

[tiger blue] 06/8/2020 13:43

Listened in to the conference call for AUTL. It is a competitive landscape but they clearly feel they have good potential for differentiated products, and compared to the competition the AUTL programs are demonstrating much lower toxicity so are better tolerated by patients with compromised immune systems.

[luxaeterna1] 06/8/2020 12:42

Nice financial and operational progress today from AUTO. Sounding more and more positive. 1st CAR-T trial allowing the patient to go home?!

[acuere] 05/8/2020 09:28

For those who subscribe to such theories, there was the classic 1 share trade yesterday pm. The UT trade of 50k plus at highest price of the day at close would suggest supply not meeting demand atm.

[brexitplus] 04/8/2020 12:47

Autolus announces changes to its Board and Management Team
Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announced the appointment of Dr. Jay T Backstrom to its Board of Directors, effective August 1, 2020.Dr. Backstrom currently serves as EVP, Head of Research & Development at Acceleron Pharma Inc (Acceleron) and prior to that served as Chief Medical Officer and Head of Regulatory Affairs at Celgene Corporation. Additionally, the Company announced that Dr. Nushmia Khokhar has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Clinical Development, and will take over the medical leadership role at Autolus. Dr. Khokhar is a board-certified oncologist with extensive early and late stage clinical development experience, having led several successful registration trials within the industry including the global daratumumab program at Janssen Oncology. Dr. Vijay Peddareddigari, Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, is leaving the Company to return to the US.

[brexitplus] 04/8/2020 09:58

Gyroscope Announces Appointment of Leaders in Retinal Disease, Gene Therapy and the Complement System to its Clinical and Scientific Advisory Boards
Gyroscope Therapeutics Limited, a clinical-stage retinal gene therapy company, today announced the appointment of leading experts in retinal disease, gene therapy and the complement system to its Clinical and Scientific Advisory Boards. The newly appointed boards will help guide the development of the company's lead investigational gene therapy, GT005, a one-time therapy being developed to potentially slow the progression of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), as well as novel gene therapy delivery systems and additional pipeline candidates.

[luxaeterna1] 04/8/2020 09:29

Clearly the Adult ALL AUTO1 trial is key for the future. So far, the data seems promising and would suggest an early win, that should provide strong de-risking and tempt the risk-adverse side of the market into investment. With a functioning product, the basic concepts of the company will be validated, and while I am sure there will be a few disappointments along the way (there are 10-20 trials planned as far as I can tell), I suspect there will be 5+ successful trials.

What is really interesting though, is whether AUTO is one of those shares that just keeps growing? Imagine the potential size in 2026..?

[chessman2] 04/8/2020 08:35

The Syncona holdings all show good steady growth and pharmaceuticals are a key place to be not just for the present but the future as well.

More investors both private and institutional are becoming interested in the portfolio.

[acuere] 03/8/2020 17:56

Mizuho have $24 target and JPMorgan have $25 target for Autolus. All far north of current share price
Hopefully demand for Freeline will also boost the value of Syncona holding.

Frontier IP also rising today, so hopefully investors realising the value of these pharma portfolio companies.

[luxaeterna1] 23/7/2020 12:07

Should we interpret Suntrust broker target as a casual genuine signal, or simply an implication that suntrust are about to issue equity for Autolus?

[ltinvestor] 23/7/2020 08:20

SunTrust initiated coverage of Autolus with a $38 PT..

[greygrey] 21/7/2020 21:36

Thanks, yes that may be true. Autolus dropped 8% today which is also a worry so hard to know what really caused this volatility today.

[tiger blue] 21/7/2020 20:35

I'm not concerned long term given the quality of the data from Freeline to date, though given the IPO registration the brokers will be taking soundings from institutions ahead of the float and possibly the price people are prepared to pay in the issue is lower than hoped for. Tech seems to be all people are interested in at present, perhaps they should remember that 'tech' also appears in biotech!

[greygrey] 21/7/2020 16:43

Yes very strange. Surely the Freeline IPO is good news so what on Earth happened today?

[chc15] 21/7/2020 12:35

Big drop today, can't see reason why..

[luxaeterna1] 21/7/2020 12:35

Markets loved the IPO news??

[brexitplus] 20/7/2020 06:14

Freeline IPO - that was quick!!!

[chessman2] 13/7/2020 16:10

The price action here seems to support good news which I guess is on its way.

SYNC is a marvellous investment trust holding and should prove very helpful to holders.

[chessman2] 01/7/2020 16:30

How interesting to read such confirmation of a good future from The Times.

I am confident of a great future here.

[brexitplus] 01/7/2020 06:03

From The Times - mention of IPO

Syncona

The second wave of biotech businesses being developed by Syncona, the closed-ended investment healthcare company, continues to develop nicely (Alex Ralph writes).

Freeline, which is developing gene therapies for chronic diseases, raised $80 million from institutional investors yesterday, expanding an earlier series C financing, and is considering an initial public offering in the US this year.

Syncona invested $40 million in December and remains the largest shareholder, with a 60 per cent stake.

The series C was backed by investors including Novo Holding, the Danish life sciences investors, and Wellington, the US investor, and increases the value of Syncona’s holding to £181.5 million.

Syncona is a FTSE 250 company created in 2012 through £100 million of seed funding from the Wellcome Trust, one of the biggest charitable foundations. Its aim is to generate long-term patient capital to turn the UK’s life science research base into promising healthcare companies.

It has nine companies. Last year it sold Blue Earth Diagnostics, which uses molecular imaging to pinpoint prostate cancer, to Bracco Imaging for £390.2 million and Nightstar Therapeutics, a gene therapy company, to Biogen for £663 million.

This helped increase Syncona’s capital pool to £767 million at the end of its full-year in March, from £399.7 million a year earlier, to reinvest in its next wave.

Analysts at Numis said this month that Freeline and Achilles Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing personalised cancer immunotherapies which raised $100 million in a series B financing last year, were “shaping up to be two of the most exciting private life science companies in the UK”.

Syncona’s other listed company is Autolus, which harnesses a patient’s immune system to fight cancer and is listed on the Nasdaq index. The decline in Autolus’s share price dragged down Syncona’s net asset value to £1.25 billion at the end of March, or 185½p per share, down 13.3 per cent from £1.46 billion a year earlier. However, shares in Autolus have rebounded, as has Syncona, which is up 12.5 per cent this year.

Advice Buy

[chessman2] 30/6/2020 10:56

I'm very confident here especially as the net asset value is increasing steadily and the portfolio is performing well.

Wish I had bought more at the low levels in April. Hindsight is good, however I believe within a year investors will be wishing they had invested at the current price.

[brexitplus] 30/6/2020 08:16

IPO possible in the future but fund raising puts that into next year probably. More likely bought out. Lots of good news coming out of Syncona though.

[luxaeterna1] 30/6/2020 08:12

Interesting Freeline announcements today.

Syncona NAV updated to reflect. Possible Freeline IPO on Nasdaq?

[tiger blue] 12/6/2020 12:28

Solid results with some very decent businesses building within the portfolio. Current nav is c 200p, with the rise in Autolus since the year end, and the rest in at 1.0x invested capital, so plenty of unrealised value. Only negative is some Covid-related delays mainly in non-oncology trials, though this had already been warned on.

What impresses me most is the calibre of people they are attracting, including Danny Bar-Zohar from Novartis. Good detail in the earnings transcript (link below), where Danny also discusses what attracted him to SYNC and how he sees the evolution of the 'third wave'.

[sev22] 11/6/2020 09:55

(Alliance News) - Syncona Ltd on Thursday reported a drop in net assets over financial 2020, blaming the performance of investee Autolus, but believes it is well situated going forward.

At March 31, the life sciences investor's NAV per share stood at 185.6 pence, down 14% from 216.8p at the same point a year before.

Net assets ended the period at GBP1.25 billionn compared to GBP1.46 billion a year before, a 14% drop.

The investment firm said it has no intention of declaring a dividend for financial 2020. In November, Syncona said "it is no longer appropriate" for it to pay a dividend, without elaborating.

The NAV total return for financial 2020 was negative 13.3%.

"This was driven predominantly by a decline in Autolus' share price which outweighed the write-up of Achilles and the uplift to the value of Blue Earth on sale. We believe Autolus remains well positioned to deliver for patients and continues to have good longer-term potential," Syncona said.

London-based Autolus Therapeutics PLC develops T cell therapies for cancer patients.

Syncona's life science portfolio stood at GBP479.5 million at March 31, down 25% over the period.

Chief Executive Martin Murphy said: "2020 was a year of good strategic progress for Syncona. We expanded the expertise in our team and added a new company to our portfolio, whilst the sales of Blue Earth and Nightstar, two companies we founded, delivered very attractive cash returns. The proceeds from these sales significantly strengthened our capital pool enabling us to make long-term funding commitments, deploying GBP206.4 million into our portfolio as our next generation of companies' scale."

He continued: "Our portfolio made good progress over the year including the generation of positive clinical data. The decline in Autolus' share price has clearly impacted our financial performance in the year and whilst this is disappointing, Autolus has advanced its AUTO1 programme to a pivotal study and post period end released good data from its AUTO3 DLBCL programme. We believe Autolus has the potential to deliver next generation CAR-T therapies to patients over the long-term."

Looking ahead, Murphy said the need for medicines "remains undiminished".

"Our strong capital pool and the deep expertise within the team means we are well positioned to support our companies in navigating continued disruption and ensure they able to progress their business plans. Whilst life science product development is never without risk, we believe our nine companies are strongly positioned to deliver value over the long-term," he added.

Shares in Syncona were down 1.5% in London on Thursday morning at 219.77 pence each.

Peel Hunt re-iterated its 'Add' recommendation with a target price of 286.00.

[ltinvestor] 30/5/2020 08:47

Excellent Autolus results totally overlooked by UK investors .Expecting much more US interest in Autolus as trials proceed.Surely this is going to be taken out by a major Pharma for multiples of its present price..