Syncona Share Discussion Threads

[chc15] 21/7/2020 13:35

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

[luxaeterna1] 21/7/2020 13:35

Markets loved the IPO news??

[brexitplus] 20/7/2020 07:14

Freeline IPO - that was quick!!!

[chessman2] 13/7/2020 17:10

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 17:30

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 07:03

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 11:56

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 09:16

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 09:12

Interesting Freeline announcements today.

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

[tiger blue] 12/6/2020 13:28

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 10:55

(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 09:47

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..

[luxaeterna1] 29/5/2020 13:08

Autolus update today

DLBCL trial going well by the sounds of it. 50-70% complete response, ongoing durable responses.

If I read this correctly, the safety results have been good enough that they are moving to an outpatient model (i.e. not keeping the patient in the hospital during their treatment), which really underpins their potential.

I am not sure if anyone has had a safe CAR-T suitable for outpatient use trialled yet?

Good impetus. Best of luck to the team.

[sev22] 29/5/2020 11:06

(Alliance News) - Syncona Ltd on Friday said portfolio company Achilles Therapeutics Ltd has dosed the first patient in its Phase I/II study of its treatment for patients with recurrent or metastatic malignant melanoma.

The healthcare-focused investment firm explained that Achilles's tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy has been designed to target clonal neoantigens, which are the protein markers on the surface of all cancer cells that are unique from patient to patient.

Achilles will use its bioinformatics platform PELEUS as well as its TRACERx data set derived from cancer patients over many years, to identify a patient's unique tumour profile and manufacture bespoke T-cells, called cNeTs, aimed at targeting and destroying tumours without harming healthy tissue.

Syncona said the study is a single-dose Phase I/II trial designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and clinical efficacy of cNeT therapy in 20 patients with recurrent or metastatic malignant melanoma. Test results are expected to be published in the first half of 2021.

"We are delighted that Achilles has dosed its first patient with its proprietary cNeT cell therapy. This is the first TIL therapy to enter clinical trials that is specifically designed to target all cancer cells, and that represents an exciting prospect for science and for patients. Importantly, today's news demonstrates Achilles' capability to manufacture an entirely personalised T-cell therapy, and therefore its potential to deliver a commercially viable therapy that could dramatically improve patient outcomes," said Martin Murphy, chief executive of Syncona Investment Management Ltd & non-executive director of Achilles Therapeutics.

Shares in FTSE 250-listed Syncona were trading flat at 204.60 pence each on Friday morning in London.

[sphere25] 26/5/2020 13:27

Watching for a breakout here. Threatening one with the stock currently up 5% at 210p.

[luxaeterna1] 07/5/2020 16:26

There is a new corp presenation on the Syncona website. Some nice information on it.

Not sure if this had been published before re Freeline:

"Dose optimisation continuing in Haemophilia B; six patients have completed follow-up for six months, and amongst those, three have FIX activity levels over 50%."

50% was basically within "normal" healthy patient parameters. So encouraging data on that front.

[brexitplus] 10/3/2020 10:01

Freeline, a biotechnology company focused on developing curative gene therapies for chronic systemic diseases, today announces that the European Commission (EC) has granted orphan drug designation for FLT190 for the treatment of Fabry Disease, based on a positive opinion from the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

[luxaeterna1] 04/3/2020 10:03

Bloody virus temporarily interrupting our uptrend.

I recommend AUTO12NG takes on a new viral target !

[acuere] 23/2/2020 13:21

Mentioned in the Mail today.

[milehouse] 20/2/2020 15:23

Back to £2.50 and back to green. I expect this will steady at £2.55/£2.60 until we have some news from Freeline/Gyroscope. 30% premium to NAV has been normal for this stock in the past, hopefully we have now blown the Woodford cobwebs away and this can resume.

[sev22] 18/2/2020 13:55

On a technical basis and analysing Syncona's latest chart it looks like a break out is about to occur.

[sev22] 17/2/2020 08:08

SYNCONA INVESTOR RELATIONS JUST RELEASED THIS UPDATE - Developing a pipeline of small molecule therapeutics for patients with immunological and genetic disorders - Oxford, 17 February 2020 – OMass Therapeutics (“OMass”), a biotechnology company harnessing native mass spectrometry to drive drug discovery in high definition, today announced completion of an extended Series A financing of £27.5 million from existing investors Syncona Ltd (“Syncona̶1;) and Oxford Sciences Innovation (“OSI”) who contributed £16.6 million and £10.4 million respectively. They were joined in the round with £0.5 million from the University of Oxford.

This comes after an initial Series A investment of £14 million in 2018 bringing the total series A to £41.5 million.OMass is leveraging its world-class biophysical discovery platform to deliver high-resolution data on how a putative ligand engages with a membrane protein target, focusing on GPCRs and solute carriers. Proceeds from this financing will allow the Company to progress a pipeline of small molecule therapeutics for patients suffering from immunological and genetic disorders providing funding for two years and enabling OMass to progress its lead program into preclinical development.

“It is an exciting time in our progression as we discover, develop and ultimately commercialize novel medicines to bring life-changing benefits to patients with immunological and genetic diseases”, said Ros Deegan, Chief Executive Officer, OMass Therapeutics. “I would like to thank our investors, Syncona, OSI and the University of Oxford for their belief in the technology’s ability to deliver new biological insights and new chemical starting points for membrane targets.”

“We are pleased to continue to support OMass, a world-leader in native mass spectrometry that allows non-covalent interactions with membrane protein targets to be studied in high-definition,R21; said Dr Edward Hodgkin, Chairman, OMass Therapeutics and Partner at Syncona. “The Company has now initiated programs against three high impact GPCR targets with a focus on genetically defined patient populations as well as immunological dysfunction, and we look forward to OMass progressing its products towards clinical development.”

“Emerging biophysical technologies like native mass spectrometry can meaningfully improve drug discovery and impact global health outcomes,” said Lachlan Mackinnon, Principal, Oxford Sciences Innovation. “We formed OSI to turn Oxford’s world beating science into world changing companies and believe that this funding puts us in a position to take full advantage of OMass Therapeutics’ capability to identify novel drugs against membrane proteins.”

[sev22] 15/2/2020 11:13

The Autolus share price was up 6.6% in the US last night.