Bernard: Keep up the good work
I learn something new everytime you post. I really appreciate your very thoughtful posts. I agree with you that the sales for the first full year of sales after mass production starts should easily reach 7 figures maybe even $4-5MM. HotShot1 you are new to the thread and I suggest you find Dr.Johnson's last post click on his name and it will take you to his profile with a list of his posts.
I suggest you read them as I have tonight. The first thing you will notice is that Dr. Johnson in post 3951 basically says that Pyng has all the field data it requires which is the reason pilot production was halted. The FAST 1 devices that were produced for the field tests were basically "hand jobbed" so they were expensive to produce and may have cost them as much as US$50 to produce. Here is the PR statement that leads me to this conclusion:
Jun 10,1998
"Pyng Medical Corp. has agreed to sell Rural/Metro Corporation the F.A.S.T.TM product at a reduced rate, for the initial study phase only, at $50.00 U.S"
Taking a longterm view it seems that Pyng decided why continue to provide sites with product if we do not need the data for design changes since it is so costly. Their thrust now is moving to mass production. In theory I agree with this decision. Though I would have preferred that Pyng produce enough product to keep the current test sites supplied until mass production was instituted this must have not been practical. I think the prototype production only produced 10-15 a day (this could be way off) because it was such a manual process. My only problem with this decision is that Pyng has not updated its investors on the progress made toward mass production/selection of outside vendors. I just can not understand why it would take until Dec 99 to implement mass production if the "design concept" was complete before the end of June.
Pyng's earlier PR statements certainly did not lead me to expect a five month lead time to ramp up production. I wish Pyng would step up and explain why this length of time will be necessary.
In 1997 Pyng thought every thing from field trials to commercialization could be accomplished in 6 months. Here the excerpt from a Pyng PR that I draw this statement from:
May 7, 1997
PYNG DELIVERS F.A.S.T.1T TO MILITARY AND INTERNATIONAL LEADERS IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE
"In anticipation of commercial sales beginning in the last quarter of 1997 Pyng Medical Corp. will now start booking firm pre-market orders for the F.A.S.T. 1TM System. "
Obviously things have changed and I think an explanation is in order. I know at this time Pyng could not have known how long protocol approvals would take and there may have been other factor that Pyng did not consider in making this statement. All I want is an explanation.
HotShot you are wrong on your military useage projection also. There are approximately 82K medics in the military (42k regular army and 40k special operations-Navy, Air Force, Marines, Seal, Rangers, etc.) Your estimate of a maximum of 9k units is ridiculous. If the regular army decides to standardize on the FAST 1 as the IO device of choice i.e. put one in every medic kit then the "fill the pipe" orders could be more than 9k.
Also you seem to think that the only use of the FAST 1 will be during times of war. The military is a dangerous profession and people get hurt in all kinds of training accidents each year. So I would expect the military use of the FAST 1 in peace time to far exceed the actual battlefield use in any ten year period. This statement is based on my conversation with Maj. Mark Calkins who was incharge of the Walter Reed IO study.
This Dr Johnson post (SI 3961)I think Bernie answers some of our protocol approval questions. Dr Johson states:
"At Pyng Medical we have a two-part policy on dealing with this.
1). It is up to the customer to obtain the necessary approvals for using a new technology or a new procedure. All EMS wherever they are accustomed to taking on new products and procedures and are well aware of the process in their jurisdiction. The more aggressive of them will do it first, others will follow. This passive approach is common in the industry.
2). In addition, Pyng has chosen an active, or proactive, approach by including in its discussion with potential distributors, the requirement that they identify the approvals processes in each jurisdiction, locate the key contact people, and initiate the processes." And he also states "The longest we were aware of took 6-8 months."
I vaguely remember this post but had forgotten the content. All thread members should reread it as it contains alot of good information. It jibes with what I am hearing from field sites. It seems reasonable that the sales to sites that require state approval may be delayed by up to 8 months but that there may be a significant number of interested EMS sites that will only require county or even hospital medical board approval which should be significantly faster.
The up to 8 month state approval timeframe also was based on no field use data so future state approval should be accelerated by the existence of this data.
The only problem I see in Dr. Johnson's statements is that the direct approach is dependent on distributor selection. According to this statement:
April 9,1999
"In parallel with this mass production goal Pyng Medical Corp. will be negotiating with and establishing regional distributors for the System. Meetings have already been held with several distributors who meet our requirements and who have expressed a strong desire to have semi-exclusive distribution agreements, and who will place stocking orders on the F.A.S.T.1 TM System. "
This is in progress but again there has been no update in almost 60 days.
In summary, I would just like for Pyng to give us an update on what I think are legitimate questions regarding what factors have changed their original timeframe and what factors as they now exist pushs mass production out to Decemeber 99. |
