As a practitioner in intellectual property and technology transfer, I agree with many of Patrick's points. A GP I know well is fond of recounting the shenanigans - dinners, cruises, trips to the Casino etc. etc. - that drug companies and medical devices firms get up to, in order to just penetrate the market and hold market share. Read that as: ONE NEEDS DEEP POCKETS. The challenge for Dr. Jacobs is one of getting a larger company interested in backing his product, to do the necessary trials and implement usually expensive market penetration strategies, YET, he does not want to give away the store. I have gone fishing for technologies on behalf of big medical firms, and they are simply aggressive and overbearing. What's yours is theirs - that's it.
More problematic for Dr. Jacobs is to not be seen as a single product firm. Unless there are other products in his Pyng's own R&D pipeline, or products that are at the research stage in some universities that Dr.Jacobs has his eye on, Pyng's life cycle will be limited. Yes, it may sound as if I am suggesting that he should be planting next year's tulip bulbs before he has seen this year's crop. But, that's what one faces in the business of commercializing medical technology.
Pyng appears to have few alternatives other than to get a big brother with deeper pockets, if this product is going to become commercially available before the end of 1999. It's a stock that has, in Archie Bunker's lingo, "DONE ME GOOD". Let's hope we can all be supportive of Dr. Jacobs without pushing him to try and prop up the stock price with an endless stream of newsreleases. Good luck y'all. |
