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Biotech / Medical : GUMM - Eliminate the Common Cold -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mad2 who wrote (811)	8/28/1999 5:10:00 PM
From: out_of_the_loop	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5582

<<Howard 18 months ago PIB (polyisobutylene) was on allocation. It comes from Exxon and and (I believe Bayer) in Germany.....stated reason from suppliers was demand in chewing gum. No new customers and supply allocated based on past years demand.>> First, prove this is a problem to GUMM. They are not entering the gum market. They are entering the nicotine gum market. They have a lot of raw materials and contacts. They are not a startup. Gary Kehoe has a lot of contacts in the industry. <<While that's not a issue today, just the basics of packaging (printed) and material control when one is producing product with unknown demand creates problems of predicting demand.>> Unknown demand is not a problem with a new product because the distributor will take on the risk, not the supplier. << Long lead times hamper marketing efforts as product moves from production to warehouse distribution and finally to the store.>> Lead time is three days to three weeks max, as I stated. Not an issue. Warehouse space has been doubled - not an issue. Marketing is not GUMM's problem: they get an order, they fill it. That is why they doubled storage capacity and production capacity to the point where they now are only at 10% <<Enough said...damage generally comes not during ramp up but once the supply chain is filled and demand slacks off. >> Gee, why start a business at all? In the case of nic gum, the demand is growing and the possibility of a generic cheaper product will be good for GumTech, especially with distribution and sales of the product by an already-established big pharmaceutical company that recognizes the demand and the potential. Another thing regarding packaging. Look at some GumTech products and notice how the packages are similar to one another. What does that mean? It means the only packaging issue is the printing of the boxes and the printing of the foil rolls. This has not been a problem for any of the GumTech products I have seen (and there were at least 25 different ones on display at the shareholder meeting). The designs and label claims will be the responsibility of the pharmaceutical company - GumTech will merely have to print a new label, something they seem to have done, to my recollection, at least 25 times without difficulty. Regards, Howard