Syncona remains at high premium and highly geared to Autolus
Syncona (SYNC)‘s shares have been the second best performer this year among the 14 biotech investment trusts monitored by Marten & Co, rising by 24.5% in the first seven months to end July. However, the trust’s NAV has only gained 8.7% in the period and thus its premium to NAV has grown to ~33%. Furthermore, the company’s 33% stake in Autolus Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AUTL), the recently floated second-generation CAR-T company, represents a relatively large – 35% – share of its portfolio value, as well as 21.5% of NAV and more than 16% of its market capitalisation, according to calculations by Marten & Co.
Among developments in the second quarter, Syncona made a £9.8m commitment to a new (as yet undisclosed) portfolio company that uses a novel technology platform to enable the discovery of therapeutics acting at targets in the cell membrane. the company has also reported that in July, it sold its entire holding in Endocyte, realising a gain of £10.2m on an original investment of £4.0m.
Syncona’s investments, as of 30 June, are shown in the table below:
| Investment | % Ownership | Value 30/3 (£m) | Value 30/6 (£m) | % NAV |
| Autolus | 33% | 85.1 | 275.8 | 21.5% |
| Blue Earth Diagnostics | 89% | 186.8 | 213.2 | 16.6% |
| Nightstar Therapeutics | 42% | 124.5 | 147.9 | 11.5% |
| Freeline Therapeutics | 80% | 36 | 63.5 | 4.9% |
| CRT Pioneer Fund | n/a | 24.1 | 31.8 | 2.5% |
| Gyroscope Therapeutics | 78% | 11 | 11 | 0.9% |
| Orbit Biomedical | 80% | 8.6 | 9.1 | 0.7% |
| Achilles Therapeutics | 69% | 6.6 | 6.6 | 0.5% |
| SwanBio | 72% | 4.9 | 5.2 | 0.4% |
| “New portfolio company” | 46% | 0 | 3.5 | 0.3% |
| CEGX | 9% | 9.8 | 10.4 | 0.8% |
| Subtotal portfolio | 514.5 | 789.4 | 61.5% | |
| Total NAV (inc fund holdings) | 1,055.8 | 1,283.2 | 100.0% | |
SYNC : Syncona remains at high premium and highly geared to Autolus