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Biotech / Medical : CMTR-CHEMTRAK FDA OK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John T. Hardee who wrote (1036)	5/1/1998 2:09:00 AM
From: Brian H.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1172

I have to agree with Mr E. It is important to know just who put up the cash. Is it poker players or is it some intelligent investor who knows this boat is going to come in. Also, I've asked this before a couple of times but have gotten no answer,... Has anybody heard the commercials yet and how did they sound? Brian

To: John T. Hardee who wrote (1036)	5/1/1998 1:13:00 PM
From: Mr. E	Respond to of 1172

You will note in the quarterly report just issued, that the reduction in funding for R & D almost matches the increase in the cost of product revenues. Perhaps these funds weren't necessary for the amount of R & D going on or considering the losses CMTR has been reporting. Also, much of the revenue involved in the diagnostics market are generated by laboratory, clinic and physician's office instruments and even more so by reagents and other disposables and consumables (needles, collection tubes, etc.). The trend is to consolidate clinical lab services and use mobile screening clinics (have you had a health fair at work or in you community, lately?). High through-put analyzers and lab automation are areas of intense competition. CMTR really doesn't have any competition because the product margins just aren't there. With packaging and marketing and lack of demand, I doubt CMTR's margin is more than 30%. Cholestrak was introduces at approx. $15 per test, retail. They sell now 2 for $18. It's a psych thing too. If your copayment is $10 for the service and the test is done on a "real" instrument and the report is, for a lipid panel anyway, more extensive, why pay the same amt for a home test that only give total cholesterol... except for the convenience factor. Also, even though the Cholestrak is precise and accurate, I don't think it is perceived as being as good as an instrumented test. And who really wants to explicitly follow the instruction for a test for blood in the stool! The drug test? How many families have kids at risk? Of these, how many believe things are so out of control that they would consider using this? Of these, how many actually would? I think the market for the tests is in the thousands, maybe the tens of thousands, not the X00,000 or X00,000,000. Hope I'm wrong. CMTR needs to find something that everybody needs to use and a large % would use.