Evil Knievil: A new Angle
I show below a YouTube link to Andrew Newland, the CEO of Angle (LON:AGL), who here considers last Friday’s announcement of Angle’s success in developing Parsortix, a liquid biopsy system which detects cancer. As most of you know, it is customary to cut the patient open, which is relatively an extremely expensive operation. Parsortix just takes blood and pronounces – although it must be stressed that this approach has yet to be approved by regulatory authorities.
However, last Friday’s contract announcement means that AGL has been accepted by a pharma major. This could not have occurred in the absence of the pharma major being reasonably confident that all this would work.
AGL is capitalised at 98p at £210m. This is a trifling figure should all go as planned. It is no exaggeration to expect AGL, if successful, to be worth billions of pounds.
(Biographical note: Andrew’s brother, Dr Richard Newland, a former GP, trained a winner of the Grand National – Pineau de Re – in 2014. Andrew is a chartered accountant by upbringing. I met him perhaps five years ago at a presentation arranged by Jeremy Lyon and the late Bob Catto. I liked the cut of his jib. Family Cawkwell own c. 500,000 AGL.)
Here is the link:
Technically, AGL moved into new high ground on Friday. I think it most unlikely that it stops here. You can typically buy 25,000 shares at the touch – although things may prove different on the day.
I am very unimpressed by Andrew’s talk. You say he is a chartered accountant by training, and I seriously wonder whether he really understands as much biology as he claims to. He just doesn’t craft his answers in any sort of fashion that would make them intelligible to his listener.
I tutor A level science, and the first principle of any lesson that I give is to start where the audience is. I assume that Andrew is intending to reach a wider audience than the few specialists who already know about the specifics of the subject that he is talking about (or claims he is talking about)?
Really top scientists are always able to communicate clearly. This talk does Angle a big disservice in my book.
Just for an alternative view to Bob’s, I thought Andrew’s update was fantastic – full of optimism about the Parsortix technology. I don’t think this short clip is supposed to get a complete beginner up to speed on the tech but it’s a good starting point to find out more.
It might help that I’m already familiar with Angle PLC having read a few RNS’s and seen some presentations on their liquid biopsy system.
In short, we are looking at a revolutionary technology for cancer patients. Instead of having to take expensive, painful, invasive, complex biopsies from patients we may instead be able to take simple blood tests, using the Parsortix cartridge. It has shown it can filter out circulating tumour cells (CTC’s) including clusters of live cells and from those we can get valuable information to help a patient’s treatment and eventual recovery.
2/3 of people die from secondary cancers (metastasis). Those metastasised cancers spread via the bloodstream. Soon there could be a way to pick up on those CTC’s.
Millions of biopsies take place each year at huge expense and inefficiency. Millions haven’t taken place due to COVID. Here is a simple, low cost, repeatable solution.
If this system gets approved by the FDA later this year, Angle PLC should be worth billions. If it was US listed it would likely be valued at that already.
As a racing fan, and a holder of AGL I often wondered if there was a connection. Thanks for the confirmation.
Having Prostate Cancer under surveillance,latest PSA 23,at least I have a vested interest.As an investment,it is a different matter….but got a few anyway.