I am usually content to read BobF's comments. Being a holder, I...

I am usually content to read BobF's comments. Being a holder, I welcome opinions about the stock that I may not have considered.
I don't agree with his view that more testing is essential. Like the EU (and UK) regulators I feel enough has been done to get over the counter sales approved in any country.

I do feel however that without human efficacy trials the product is lacking something.

My 2 cents on further testing:
1. The claims they can make about the product will most likely be limited by the trials they do. Better product claims = bigger market.
2. If you want a politician to spend taxpayer's(voter's) dollars on Viraleze then you want to minimise the political risk they take. Without the backing of a large groundswell of voter's support, or a reputable body back it (e.g. WHO), then further proof of efficacy = less political risk = more likely to buy in.
3. I think it is quite likely Human efficacy trials have been considered and rejected by Starpharma. It's been mentioned here a few times on the forum: What would a human trial look like? It might be just too hard/too expensive: Let's assume they aren't allowed to expose people deliberately to Covid. Human trials usually involve a screening process, and lets assume that process would be difficult to carry out while an area is heavily contagious and under lockdown. Let's also assume that a human trial is not something that you can just do without running your plan by the regulators (so will need a certain time to set up and can't just be thrown at the latest breakout area). Lets also assume that you need the trial to actually get a lot of the participants getting Covid (hopefully in the control group). This might mean that Starpharma would have to find a healthy population, that is not currently in a covid lockdown/hotspot that is quite likely to contract covid in a few months time if Viraleze is not supplied. What if the regulators make some recommendations about vaccines? e.g. participants must not at any time during the trial get a vaccination.

Consider this:
Despite how terrible Covid has been, in the last 20 or so months since it hit, less than 3% of the world's population has actually reported as testing positive. That means that if you just chose 1000 random people for the control and ran the trial for 6 months, you might get about 10 testing positive. Unless the population is incredibly well chosen you are going to need a massive trial. Also, a poorly run trial that doesn't tick all of the regulators boxes or fails to get a significant result (e.g. participants not vigilant enough. e.g. runs for 6 months and hardly anyone from either control or Viraleze group gets covid) will be a costly disaster.

My guess is:
- Starpharma is going to accept getting into as many markets as possible, without further human efficacy trials and they will take a hit on the claims they can make on the box, and a hit on how well sales will take off.
- Governments will be slow to come on board due to lack of human efficacy trials. In time, if more people (e.g. voters, organisations) get behind it, then politicians will consider following.
- We shareholders may just need to live with a slow trickle of sales in the meantime.