Steve,
On Lilly: Anita said the same thing when the Eli Lilly story first broke. They were dragging their feet on pushing the research along, which only makes sense. Eli Lilly is a big company with a lot of things going on. Naturally, the folks in there are going to have much more conservative outlook. No one in a big company is going to put their retirement benefits on the line since the rewards for taking risks simply do not exist in a big company. SMTG has just the opposite outlook. They've already come to terms with the risks or they wouldn't be working there in the first place. Also, people in small innovative companies have an entirely different agenda when going to work. Being on a team that aims for something of a breakthrough in any field of endeavor is spellbinding for certain types of people. Those types of people are repelled by big organizations and big organizations find such individuals disruptive.
Did you catch the expressions on the faces of those young people who were part of the Mars probe landing? Can you imagine that on the faces of the middle aged managers of the old NASA? The latter are much more concerned about spin, how this will fly with congress, how many more days until my retirement and what are those Russians up to anyway, etc.?
There's something special about people who want to do something really different and risky and intellectually challenging with zillions of nay sayers standing on the sidelines whining at every step. I greatly admire those kinds of people. An endeavor like SMTG attracts these types from all over.
Even if SMTG ends up not selling one drop of Optro, it is still a brillant and courageous assault on a real problem.
Let's just say there was a huge culture clash between SMTG and Lilly.
I don't know the whole story but I'm willing to guess long committee meetings with nervous old guys sitting around the table, munching jelly donuts, figured in the story somewhere.
On others getting there first: So what. They have an inferior product.
You're a hospital patient ready to go into surgery. Your surgeon comes up to you and offers two blood substitutes. One is derived from old human blood. The other is the result of a carefully monitored drug production process, where the manufacturer can account for the source of every ingredient.
Which will you choose?
The next few months are going to be very interesting for all shareholders of SMTG. When this company starts talking, it will be a company that has always spoken softly. The management has never misled anyone and has never been guilty of promising anything they couldn't deliver on. There has been no hyping from this bunch. The momentum players, day traders, and rumor mongers hate this type of company. But real investors should appreciate the management of this company with its long term perspective. SMTG has been looking out for that type of shareholder.
We still have risks to be dealt with in the future. It may not be possible to produce this product in commercially viable volumes. There may still be some, as yet unidentified, side effect stopping the whole show. So we may still end up with a loser here, but you can't complain about being misled by the managers. If you invested in SMTG, you did so with as many of the facts as the company could deliver. If you don't know why you're here, then what are you doing here?
I think we have a real winner here. It's simply a call I've made after sifting through all the evidence.
Do your own research. Do your own thinking. Make your own decision. This is truly a thinking person's company.
Best wishes to all.
Jack Simmons |
