Yes, I did attend. Nine or ten companies were scheduled to brief during the course of the day, so the briefings themselves necessarily covered only the barest of details -- considerably less than one might get by reading a complete SI thread, for instance.
Dr. Black (Pres) gave the presentation, focusing more on the business plan than on the science. (This was, after all, a group of investors.)
I asked the question about examining the used columns to see what else might be mixed up in the goop. She replied that all the columns were frozen and that <garbled) samples were taken from them and analyzed. She said they were "keeping pretty mum" about it because they thought there might be some additional patent material there.
I don't know how to interpret her response ... beyond pleasure that they confirmed that they are testing the used columns. But whether this is a potentially large opportunity or not, I couldn't divine. And I would add that by "new patents" she probably means applications against other immune-related diseases, in which case presumably they might eventually produce profits but, as we all know, it takes a long time to get from here to there.
Their company nickname for the inactive columns used in the double-blind studies is "sand".
She described the need for the trials to be "bullet-proof" ... especially as they still need to convince the rheumatologists to invest in the procedure once it is improved.
(In my discussions with other bio-tech companies yesterday, I came away with the impression that it sometimes is challenging to set up precisely what criteria will be used to measure "success" or "failure", and that this is an area in which politics often plays a role.)
So I was pleased to hear her note that the criteria CYPB used in evaluating patients was a set of criteria established by the rheumatologists themselves. And that these criteria measure actual relief from the disease itself; it doesn't measure markers or other proxies for the actual disease.
She mentioned that during the trials they experienced no side effects other than those normally associated, in some patients, with the plasmaphoresis procedure itself. In contrast, she said, drugs for rheumatology are very toxic and more than 50% of the patients cannot tolerate them.
I had not picked up earlier that all the patients enrolled in the test were put through a cleansing period of up to three months before they were allowed to begin the test. This cleansing period was to make sure that the effects of any drugs had worn off. This must have made the recruitment very challenging ... to find people willing to go off their drugs for up to 3 months before trying something new when they have no way of knowing whether they will be getting the real, new stuff or a placebo. (Placebo is probably the wrong word, let's try "inactive column".
They are in the midst of recruiting a 25 person sales team.
And are in the final throes of discussions with two possible marketing partners or collaborators. She mentioned a bunch of names of companies which are already involved in the plasmaphoresis market and presumably the two preferred finalists are among that group.
The intent is that the marketing partner will build and sell the service (machines) into which the columns fit. The marketing group calls on rheumatologists, hospitals, and blood cents and makes all the profit on the machines. CYPB gets the profit on the columns which are used in those machines -- sort of a "razor blade strategy".
She repeated their strategy was to get the machines into the doctors offices noting that the doctors would be more likely to use the machine because they had invested in it.
Milestones: 3Q98 decide on a marketing partner; 4Q98 ACR meeting in San Diego, which she described as CYPB's "coming out party"; 99 approval.
The reason they are focusing so carefully on the most-seriously-affected RA patients is because there are two new medicines (Avakine and Enbrel) which are expected to provide some chemical relief and they did not want to risk in any way that decision-makers might hold off approval on the column in view of those medications. They don't want to be perceived as competing with the medications.
She said that she and Dr Jay Kranzler, the CEO, had done a consulting project regarding CYPB when it was still called IMRE and that that led to their becoming involved in the company on a turnaround basis. Yesterday, she said that they are on the verge, within 6-10 months, of a complete turnaround of what was "a rather mediocre company".
Their burn rate is now about $700,000 per month and they have enough cash to last until March, 1999. They anticipate receiving some cash from their marketing partner but still will need to raise about another $20 million total (including whatever they receive from the marketing partner). That will be enough to cover their needs until they become profitable.
Everybody in the room paid very close attention.
JSb. |
