I agree that the acquisition of C.L. McIntosh appears to be a good strategic move...Most companies in our sector have been doing this kind of work with clinical trials and such for several years; I know we've been doing it via "professional services" since before I've been here (3 years)...Mediqual does it....and now so does Summit!
The buy out of the Duke partnership was inevitable, and probably required for the real commercialization of the stuff...Prestigous physicians don't make the best software product managers, nor are they trained in prodcut development and rollout...So while having full control of the "technology" is good for them, go back through their initial press releases and other material and your going to start seeing a VERY high acquisition cost for intellectual and exclusive data access, but minimal if any "saleable product". And the data is from only one institution (i.e., obviously biased as far as statistical risk modeling goes), but its a institution with a "reputation"....no proof of objective clinical or cost effective medicine, likely reflective of the practictioners in that area etc. Whats' the managed care penetration there, and how has practice patterns changed, or not, compared to every other region or state in the country? and how does it compare to the non-rteaching hospitals?
BTW, while I'm tossing out discussion points in regards to their database and related science, I also believe the best, most elegant, "science or technology" wins either...that market heavily favors the best product. And the jury is still out there...I also personally believe the $7 share was and still is not a bad price, but as the recent announcement concerning Duke demonstrates, there will be some expensive lessons that they will learn that will affect their costs...we'll just have to see when and if the revenues ramp up to accomodate these development costs...
Regards, Scott |
