Silicon Investor - TECHNE (Tech): "selling picks to gold miners"

[Lance Bredvold] ScaleReady announces the inaugural G-Rex® Grant has been awarded to Stanford Med...

Lance Bredvold — 9/5/2024 3:00:31 PM

ScaleReady announces the inaugural G-Rex® Grant has been awarded to Stanford Medicine Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine

PR Newswire
Tue, Aug 27,

ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ScaleReady™, in collaboration with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) and CellReady™, today announced that Dr. Steve Feldman, Scientific Director and Site Head of Stanford Medicine's Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine (LCGM), has been awarded the inaugural G-Rex® Grant. Dr. Feldman's $300,000 G-Rex Grant will enable expeditious development of Stanford Medicine's LCGM's G-Rex platform for CAR-T cell therapy manufacturing, which will be offered to internal investigators and external developers who are seeking its development and manufacturing services.

"Stanford's LCGM anticipates a need to support a greater number of clinical trials and the G-Rex Grant will be used to help meet that need," said Dr. Feldman.

"We are honored to award the inaugural G-Rex Grant to Dr. Feldman and his team at Stanford Medicine LCGM. Stanford University is a world-class institution with faculty who have a reputation for innovative and ground-breaking achievements. Their work aligns with Wilson Wolf's mission of bringing hope to cancer patients, one G-Rex at a time" said John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Wolf and co-inventor of G-Rex.

As part of the G-Rex Grant, Stanford Medicine LCGM will deploy their G-Rex-centric manufacturing process in an upcoming Phase 1 trial for GPC2+ pediatric neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma. Previously, the FDA had recommended sponsors develop and implement potency assays earlier in the clinical trial process. With that objective, Stanford Medicine LCGM plans to implement Bio-Techne's leading automated multiplexing immunoassay platform, Ella™, as a potency assay for final drug product release.

Furthermore, Stanford Medicine LCGM will collaborate with CellReady, the world's first and only G-Rex based contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), to leverage their proven capacity to quickly create G-Rex master batch records that establish manufacturing simplicity, efficiency, and repeatability.

Additionally, Stanford Medicine LCGM plans to further develop a novel technology (developed by Wilson Wolf) that enables closed-system T cell purification to be done directly in a G-Rex device, without the need for expensive ancillary equipment.

ScaleReady's G-Rex Grant Program is a $20M initiative to advance the state of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing by awarding individual Grant Awards worth up to $300,000. G-Rex Grant Recipients also gain access to exclusive support from ScaleReady's growing consortium of G-Rex Grant Partners who bring best-in-class tools and technologies as well as unparalleled knowledge and expertise in the areas of cGMP manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs, CGT business operations, and more.

[Lance Bredvold] Earnings report today was not real thrilling to me though the stock price rose 2...

Lance Bredvold — 5/1/2024 12:02:42 PM

Earnings report today was not real thrilling to me though the stock price rose 20% this morning. So I really don't understand the potential of this company and probably should not even own it because of that. I bought because I emphasize Minnesota companies (and upper midwest) where I feel I understand the culture of people. But when the CEO/CFO come in from elsewhere, that heuristic should be irrelevant and the usual tendency I think, is for them to take advantage of the relatively laid back pronouncements by local leaders and suddenly overpromise for a sudden jump in stock price. They do have a new CEO and I'm not sure where he came from--many others seem to have come from Fisher Scientific on the east coast including the past CEO I believe.

Why the PE is over 50 today puzzles me. Past earnings growth has not been impressive--I record growth of 6% plus about 1% dividend. They acquire other small companies regularly and maybe the regular promise of improved earnings or synergy is enough to jack up the price but the results have not been impressive. Still, I sold near the high and have repurchased shares after the 4 for 1 stock split of 2023 just speculating a return to PE even higher. A little nutty I think.

[Lance Bredvold] Since I'm using this board as a place for thoughtful personal reflection, I want...

Lance Bredvold — 10/1/2023 4:50:00 AM

Since I'm using this board as a place for thoughtful personal reflection, I want to recall that I did give 100 shares of TECH to a charity for which they received $37,xxx. I did not do it as soon as I thought of it as a strategy waiting in hopes of a higher price, but at least I bit the bullet and bought back the $400 strike call I'd sold earlier at a small profit so that I was able to give away this gift.

Since then we've had a 4 for 1 stock split and the price has become more reasonable though not what I'd call reasonable. I was waiting for a price of $50 or less and finally gave up and bought a lot at $77. The price promptly went down to $65 where I did not have more funds available for a second buy in Sept. More in my budget for Oct and if the price will stay down perhaps I'll get some more.

Currently the market has been weak and we may finally be entering the bear market I've been predicting and planning for over 5 years. We've been hanging around 90% of the S&P high point for a year now after early decline to nearly 80%. But this last few weeks have brought us down under 90% or so with FED interest rate raises to curb inflation and also the threat of government shutdown. And a decline to 80% would make my budget for buying stock 3 times the base amount.

TECH PE is still up near 40 even though we are finally beginning to see growing earnings again. Sales have grown much faster via acquisitions which clearly are warranted with such a high PE to utilize for purchases. A sudden surprise; I notice TECH is incorporated in Minnesota, not Delaware. Generally MN has been pretty progressive on medical tech companies so maybe that's a good choice. I think I've mentioned before that I've chosen to emphasize upper midwest companies over Texas based ones due to higher faith in management's honest evaluation of prospects. Somehow Texas CEO/CFO's seem to be mostly hat and few cattle.

[Lance Bredvold] And then too, I was surprised to see the price of CCXI showing up in GAAP, but a...

Lance Bredvold — 8/4/2022 11:39:31 AM

And then too, I was surprised to see the price of CCXI showing up in GAAP, but apparently the losses which were incurred as the price declined (due to some sort of FDA balk as I recall) were forced into GAAP so clearly a similar gain would be legitimately there also.

To me, that gain is really a one time event and should be non-GAAP. In fact the current practice of every company publishing GAAP and non GAAP figures is despicable but is the type of thing which happens whenever the market becomes frothy. I can't remember the tricks played back with the nifty fifty in 1969, but people were evaluating prices based on earnings way out in the future as I recall. The important thing to remember is that when the crash comes, suddenly those rosy numbers don't apply anymore.

So the price of TECH is top heavy. And I'm betting it will attain a much more realistic PE ratio (like 25 or so of JNJ) as they stop growing quite so quickly. PE 40 right now might tempt me with EPS rising 20% a year or so based on good management. Plus acquisitions utilize a high PE to help growth along, so while in acquisition mode, a high PE is of great value and will be maintained as long as possible. Thus the enthusiastic presentations from Kummeth et al are to be expected from a talented CEO.

I like TECH a lot, really wish I owned a lot more of it at this point, but will have to wait for a more realistic price which before this CCXI news I thought might get as low as $120 or so. Doubt it will get there now even in a recession.

[Lance Bredvold] Good results today showing $6.63 EPS GAAP for the year and $7.89 adjusted. I no...

Lance Bredvold — 8/4/2022 10:10:22 AM

Good results today showing $6.63 EPS GAAP for the year and $7.89 adjusted. I note that their investment in CCXI added $.16 to GAAP results and subtracted $68mm in 2021. That means that CCXI accounted for about $2 worth of the increase in GAAP from last year to this year.

But then also announced today is that Amgen will buy CCXI for $3.7 B and the stock price there doubled from $25 to $50 in the first minutes of trading. Since the price was somewhere around $25 at 6/30/22 TECH should see a one time gain of about $5 next quarter and next year.

I bought back my written TECH call at strike of $420 for a nice profit and then gave the shares to my favorite charity at $370 or so. I still have calls sold at $400 strike but can't afford for the shares to be sold taxwise. And even with a probable $13 EPS next year, at today's price of $390 or so, they sport a PE of 30. Much more realistic I think but not ready to buy more yet.

[mopgcw] the whole space is getting hammered. not sure they are cheap yet, but keeping an...

mopgcw — 6/23/2022 12:37:52 PM

the whole space is getting hammered. not sure they are cheap yet, but keeping an eye on TMO & TECH personally.

[Lance Bredvold] I'd been wondering about that investment in CCXI by TECH and am interested to se...

Lance Bredvold — 6/13/2022 11:44:24 AM

I'd been wondering about that investment in CCXI by TECH and am interested to see this earnings report which includes mention of additional funds going to them in the form of PFD stock and a total holding of just under 20% in late 2006. I have been under the impression of late that part of that investment has been sold and may be as low as 10%. Meanwhile CCXI now has a product approved in Japan and the US of which sales are ramping up. Thus the exposure of TECH ought to be safer now and perhaps no more mark to market reductions in EPS.

As I've been expecting the price of TECH reached a new annual low of $321 this morning. Sweet pain!

It's also interesting to see several posters who show up and apparently have an interest for a short time and then let this company slip off their SI interest list. I now wonder if anybody even looks at this board any more--but as I've spoken, there is no reason to be buying at this point as far as I can see.

[Lance Bredvold] There is another option which I wish I'd thought of earlier. I had been plannin...

Lance Bredvold — 6/12/2022 10:01:41 PM

There is another option which I wish I'd thought of earlier. I had been planning to give away more appreciated shares of QCOM but the price had declined more than I think is reasonable. Given my belief that QCOM will be relatively stable and might even rise in price, and at the same time that TECH is unrealistically overpriced, I probably should have sent shares of TECH to my donees. But that plan is complicated also by the need to buy back some calls before I can transfer any shares out. I also have placed an order to buy even more QCOM at $130, but with futures down for Monday morning, I'm thinking I'll cancel or move that order down a few bucks until I see what happens to the price leading into the open.

The preference of offering TECH rather than QCOM is still valid even with prices in decline the last two days and futures down again for Monday. Also even though my cost basis is a smaller proportion of the QCOM than the TECH. Unfortunately, I must still mail directions to my TDAmeritrade accounts to have them send shares and that takes 4 or 5 days during which I simply cannot predict prices. Guess I should set up a fax account which would speed that up to a day or two. I did donate a few shares from an E*Trade account and that was done over the internet and only took a day or even less. I don't know why TDA is so cautious, but perhaps I should be glad they are.

[Lance Bredvold] Today the market is down nicely but well above the 80% of the S&P500 high (4819)...

Lance Bredvold — 6/9/2022 10:30:09 PM

Today the market is down nicely but well above the 80% of the S&P500 high (4819) at 4019 it reached a few weeks ago. I have many calls sold plus a few puts, but no TECH other than the 400's and 420's I described in an earlier post. The price today is around $360. The question now becomes: Where do I wish to buy more shares? And preferably in a tax free account since my current holdings are all in taxable accounts (I sold my tax free shares on exercised calls). I sold 1/3 of my holdings at $120 with a $10.15 call premium back in 2018. Then those at $260 plus $22 premium in 10/2020.

Mr Kummeth has been so very upbeat and I guess his enthusiasm is responsible for the price so far exceeding anything I would call reasonable. He continues to speak enthusiastically despite earnings which have been barely above the average of the previous 12 years. EPS did double the 5 years before that (2004 - 2009). As I recall Kummeth arrived from Fisher in 2012 and all this time EPS has varied around $3 per share annually. Yes, we had 3 great looking quarters reported this year and little likelihood CCXI will reduce the final quarter's results, so we may well see $6+ for 2022. Very nice, but $500 stock price? $400? I can see $140 or so if all continues to be so positive in a bearish market. And 2021 could have been over $4 if a CCXI writedown had not been required which actually resulted in a 11% decline from 2020 (which was closer to $4 at $3.86. A PE of $25 and optimistic EPS in 2023 of $8?

A problem with short calls is that they preclude me from selling the shares which I really think would be prudent except for a huge capital gain (I still have some shares which I bought in 2009 for $52.10. I don't need or want another $40-$50,000 income this year. As old as I am, I'd rather leave the shares for my legatees, but expect them to be worth far less by the day I die. It's a conundrum.

I think I'd dare to buy again at $190. Maybe sell some $210 puts.

PS. The put I sold in the last post was repurchased for just a few dollars gain.

[Lance Bredvold] After 12 years with no posts, one might think TECH was defunct. Actually it has...

Lance Bredvold — 1/13/2022 11:34:00 AM

After 12 years with no posts, one might think TECH was defunct. Actually it has been on a tear for the last year and over $500. No, actually the tear has been closer to 9 years long. Earnings, circa $7, while promising, don't seem to justify such a high price. Yet I just sold a $400 put for $37 and am thinking I might be crazy. The sale was in conformance with a personal heuristic which maybe should not apply to a case such as TECH.

The price today is down over 5% to $405 following over $100 decline in the last month, but I did notice that CCXI, of which I think they still own 10%, was up 6%. In two of the past 4 years they've had to reduce earnings to reflect large declines in the value of their ownership there, and now that a drug, Tavneos (avacopan) has been approved in Japan and the US as of Oct. 21, we are hopefully awaiting their first sales figures. Meanwhile, Techne should not have to report large reductions in book value due to CCXI's price drops for a while.

Of course the reason I may be crazy is that $400/$7.00 makes a PE of over 50. And if the market tanks as I think possible, $140 seems well within reason and I'll have shares for which I paid nearly 3 times as much as that. I had repurchased a lot at $260 last year due to the sale of another lot at $260 on a sold call. So far that purchase looks OK, but it too could wind up far underwater. Oh, and I had a Jan. 22 call sold on TECH $510's so that makes another nice bonus of $22.