An interesting announcement this morning was the news that founder Richard Parris is losing his role as Executive Chairman at Intercede Group (IGP). He is stepping down to the role of Non-Executive Director and they are looking for a new CEO.
The company operates in the digital identity area. I once held quite a few shares in it but became disillusioned with the leadership some years ago and the company’s remuneration arrangements, so I now only have a nominal holding. For a company with interesting technology in a hot sector, it has a disappointing financial track record. Slow growth and lumpy sales, and consistent losses in recent years.
It is surely good news that Mr Parris is stepping down, although the share price has fallen today at the time of writing. He and his wife do hold quite a significant proportion of the shares. Let us hope the new management is able to make this company a world beater after all – it seems to have suffered the problem of many UK technology companies in failing to develop a sales and marketing strategy to turn good technology into market leadership.
I spent an interesting day on Wednesday meeting with Professor Jonathan Barratt at Leicester University. He is researching IgA Nephropathy, a disease that can lead to kidney damage and ultimately the need for a kidney transplant (as in my case). It included a tour of the labs and attending a lecture he gave on the subject which was most interesting. It’s a worthy cause if any investors have surplus cash after the recent stock market rout as Prof. Barratt and his team are making significant progress. Remember there are tax benefits from charitable donations.
One of the things Prof. Barratt mentioned was the enormous cost of drug development. According to the Tufts Centre, they suggested the cost was $2.6 billion in 2016 to get a drug to the FDA approved stage. One can see why relatively rare diseases do not get a lot of interest from drug companies, particularly those like IgA Nephropathy where the progression of the disease can be so slow that clinical trials take years to complete. I also now know exactly why I don’t invest in drug development companies, where the chance of success and obtaining a good financial return is so low.
But one aspect that Prof Barratt is working on is the possibility of improved diagnosis by using blood tests based on antibodies to identify the disease at an early stage which might assist with prevention. This is an area where I am invested though with holdings in Abcam (ABC) and Bioventix (BVCP). The latter produced some unexpectedly good interim results due to one of their customers identifying some royalties due that had not previously been reported. But even without that the figures were good.
One important future revenue stream for Bioventix is a troponin test which is a marker for heart attacks. This might speed up the diagnosis of chest pain. That is important if you arrive in A&E with severe chest pain as there can be many other causes although doctors often focus on that to the exclusion of problems such as gall stones or gall bladder infections which I was once told were more common. Delayed or misdiagnosis is obviously a major issue here that the new test might prevent.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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