Short Term Trading Week Starting: 17 Aug, page-68

STTCOMP BIT FA LONG

MC approx $70m

Biotech which is focussing on HIV, Covid & Hep C treatments. I missed out on tipping this a couple of weeks ago but now it has dropped under 10c again, which puts it back into my buying range. Two things have caught my attention recently.

Firstly, they announced in Feb that they were testing some compounds on covid-19. It's been a long while with no updates. However I thought they were quite positive in their recent quarterly when they stated:

"Biotron has a number of compounds in its library that have shown very good activity against a range of coronaviruses, dating back to studies undertaken at the time of outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-1), a coronavirus, back in 2002–2004 when several of Biotron’s compounds showed antiviral activity against SARS-1.

Screening for activity against SARS-CoV-2 is progressing well in a series of different assays to assess the impact of the compounds on markers of virus replication as well as immune markers. These assays will provide the best overall understanding of the potential of Biotron’s compounds to treat COVID-19."

Secondly, they recently appointed a Chief Medical Officer with an impressive resume including being deputy director for 6 years at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It's a punt, but it seems that they are well set up to release some positive news on either (or both) of those fronts in the near future.