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I think from a PPS perspective, production would be super, but an official agreement/JVA from the VN government could be enough to move the needle.
If the previous VN releases are any indication, while we could move into a pre-existing silk farm to start, it looks like they're ready to commit to building some state-of-the-art facilities as well. An official announcement of a real JVA with the VN government (which would constitute an investment in the millions) could be just as fruitful as having a facility up and running. Definitely JMO.
I suppose it's important to keep in mind that the personnel decisions could be happening behind the scenes now as the other factors are being taken care of. There are plenty of silkworm facilities that already exist there that could take our worms and just run with them (with the proper people and gadgets in place).
If Kim needs the top people to ensure consistency there are probably ways to know where those people are and the VN government could be picking the best and brightest as part of the planning. If that's being done and things get approved, it's just a matter of shipping the cold-storage eggs there and at that point it's just like any other silk facility. We're not reinventing the wheel when it comes to that part.
I don't think we see full-scale production in VN in Q2 or even Q3, but I do think it's feasible to have some production happening in that time frame.
WITH the support of the VN government, people can be made available quickly I bet.
Just a WAG but it's all anyone here has, and some are just to cocky to admit it.
Well someone has $12K on the bid, so there's interest out there!
It is our goal to have at least one or two major sales and distribution agreements signed in the second half of the year.
Those damn lower-case Js always hold me up, too.
I didn't even know one could pre-market trade on the OTC...but they're listed already and it's not 9:30 ET...
Leave it to to the Navy to use fish
CNN: Hagfish
Then I suppose you have to adjust your first quarter estimate, no?
Spinning yarn is basic stuff right,
big red died of old age while sitting on the shelf
Spidersilk is a variety of proteins assembled in a specific order.
We can produce a string of any of them or even all of them but I don't think our worms can produce it quite like a spider can.
It absolutely is what it is, and what it's meant to be. A fine summary.
It wouldn't be so contentious if people just accepted that's all it's meant to be.
Things are moving, and hopefully soon we'll get more material updates!
Newsletter out
http://www.icontact-archive.com/wk-fhLpOLhnO9pqlnYdPgQRwcYUbjAS2?w=2
Message From The CEO & COO
We just wrapped up a breakout year for Kraig Labs, which remains the leading Spider Silk technology company. 2016 brought us many firsts including; our first US Department of Defense contract, our first domestic silk production facility, and the first commercial production of Dragon SilkTM. We also experienced an explosion of interest and coverage from major media outlets, both domestically and abroad. These included CNN, Fox News, Popular Mechanics, The Washington Times, The Daily Mail, Ruptly TV, Gizmodo, Defense One, and Xploration Station.
Entering 2017, Kraig Labs continues to take great strides forward. We anticipate these steps will lead us into a prosperous 2017. Our domestic silk production operations, which began with a small facility in Indiana to support our US Army contract, are now set to expand significantly in 2017. The first quarter of 2017 will kick off the planting of 2,000 mulberry trees at our new Texas location. As these trees and this facility grows, so too will our capacity to produce the world’s best silk right here in the US.
Our meetings with Vietnamese officials, just after the New Year, have greatly encouraged our plans to revitalize the silk industry with an infusion of technology. We are now actively working with a committed team in Vietnam to lay the ground work for a significant expansion of our production capacity beyond Indiana and Texas.
2017 will see us deliver the first ballistic test samples to the US Army. The careful and detailed planning that began over a year ago to ramp our new Dragon Silk material from the lab and into a production environment is now only a matter of months away from delivering its first finished product. This year will bring with it new opportunities for partnership and materials development for Dragon Silk.
Domestic Production and Expansion
Our Indiana factory, which opened in the third quarter and hit peak capacity in the fourth quarter, validated our belief that we can easily scale up our technology. Starting from an empty building and completely untrained workforce, within 3 months we had a fully operational factory.
We completed our first batch of production cocoons which are now being refined into finished spider silk yarn. Once finished, these materials will make their way to Warwick Mills, with whom we have contracted to produce the final ballistic shoot packs for delivery to the US Army.
The Indiana facility continues to operate, refining our processes, establishing new techniques, sustaining our proprietary technology, and producing record setting silk. We will make these advanced materials available for sale to collaboration partners, while the gained knowledge will be applied to rolling our future production facilities.
We are building on our initial success in Indiana, by securing land in Texas, and taking the next US production expansion steps, by a factor of ten or more. This new property and the planting of our own mulberry trees will eliminate our reliance on expensive imported food, decreasing our costs, and providing capacity for increased production. The first 2,000 trees will be planted in late February.
While we anticipate that the bulk of our materials will be produced internationally, our US operations offer us greater access and oversight, as we bring new transgenics and new technologies to market. These domestic facilities also provide the ability to secure and maintain each of our unique and valuable commercial silk lines.
Contract Deliverables
As first reported in July, we are now under contract with the US Army to deliver sample ballistic shoot pack using our proprietary Dragon Silk material. This effort started with the successful establishment of a production facility located near our research team, at Notre Dame, and has now formed itself into a fully operational silk factory. The first batch of finished dried cocoons, from this factory, shipped to a facility overseas for refining into finished thread. We expect to have this finished material back before the end of the first quarter and out to Warwick Mills for weaving and knitting into the final test samples. While Warwick Mills, and others, have worked with our Monster Silk materials, this project represents the first time Dragon Silk will be delivered to any of our collaborative partners. Due to Dragon Silk’s superior properties, compared to Monster Silk, we anticipate a seamless transition to these new tougher materials.
Final delivery to the US Army is scheduled for the second quarter of 2017 and we are currently estimating an on-time and on budget delivery.
Collaboration and end markets
While much of our reporting lately has been centered on building out our capacity to produce, we are still spending a considerable amount of time establishing collaborative agreements. In the fourth quarter we continue productive discussion several companies we are collaborating with to bring our technology to the consumer markets. Warwick Mills, which began working with our Monster SilkTM material in 2014, is set to craft the first fabrics from Dragon Silk over the next several months for the US Army and the protective textile market. Additional Dragon Silk production from our US factory in 2017 is slated for sale to companies in the performance textiles, athletic wear, and luxury apparel markets. These first commercial deliveries are intended to form the basis for long term partnership and joint venture agreements.
International Expansion
Vietnam has long been a country of interest for our expansion, due to their strong existing silk infrastructure. This year brought us much closer to realizing that vision.
As we closed 2016, Kraig Labs senior management prepared for a key meeting in early January with several high ranking officials in Vietnam. As we write this recap of the fourth quarter, we are already seeing the positive results from that meeting starting to take shape. Our proposal is the subject of active negotiations and discussions. We are now working in collaboration with senior officials to develop a detailed plan of investment. We expect this plan could ultimately revolutionize the silk industry and open up numerous markets for our advanced materials.
Several shareholders asked if our meetings in Quang Nam are a restart of our Vietnam production timeline. Our recent meetings have actually accelerated our efforts. As independently reported by officials in Vietnam, they have committed to forming a task force to assistant with us on the implementation of our expansion. We are currently working with key parties to assemble requirements for facilities, land, materials, and labor. Over the coming months we will be able to share additional details on the progress of this collaborative effort.
As reported in last quarter’s newsletter, Vietnam is not our only country of interest in our growth model.
During the fourth quarter we sent our overseas consultant to investigate the business climate, facilities, and opportunity of opening an additional silk factory in a key region of interest. In parallel with our efforts in Asia, we are actively working to secure business operations and approval to import our technology in another location. Based on this country’s business climate, combined with its strong history of work in and acceptance of genetically engineered technologies, we remain optimistic that we will be bring you additional news on these efforts this year.
Several of you asked about our earlier efforts in scaling production internationally and how that effort has better positioned us for success today. There are two major takeaways from our earlier pilot project which have shaped our strategy going forward. First, we found that the quality of the local supporting infrastructure is critical. Our previous efforts demonstrated that while we had no problem scaling the production of material, the lack of quality supporting services, such as silk reeling and refining, resulted in a finished material that didn’t meet our expectations for quality. The quality of supporting infrastructure is critical to our expansion. Second, we must maintain tight control of the production operations itself. Our reputation going forward must be built on the quality of our product. These key lessons have been major drivers in our plan to expand production and our selection of countries of interest.
From the Laboratory
Much of the focus of 2016 was on expanding our capacity for production domestically and abroad, as well as fulfilling our first order from the US Army. However, this does not mean that activity in the lab has been diminished. Last quarter, we reported the creation of a new transgenic that, in initial testing, has the potential to unseat Dragon Silk as the toughest silk on earth. The team continues to work with this new line and we hope to transition it from the laboratory into the factory in 2017. Other efforts in the lab continue to push the limits of genetic development. These efforts include the use of new gene editing techniques to achieve a line of pure spider silk, which will be under the SpiderpillarTM trade name. While this work is an important part of creating the next generation technologies, it is not a limiting factor for commercialization. Our current generation of material, Dragon Silk, is showing excellent performance characteristics.
Older technologies, such as Big Red, which many of you have asked about, played an important role in our growth and we continue to sustain them in the lab. However, with the introduction of newer genetic engineering techniques, and more complex protein designs, we have surpassed the performance of those earlier breakthroughs. Big Red has played a crucial role in our success story, but, with the incredible performance we’ve seen from Dragon Silk and other newer transgenics, we do not have any near term plans to expand production of Big Red.
We continue to support the Notre Dame patent team on a variety of intellectual property-related matters. Responses to two of three pending US applications were filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office in December, 2016. We elected earlier to fast-track two divisional US applications, to better align them with prosecution activities that are ongoing for a variety of international applications. While we are no longer pursuing fast-track, this effort has succeeded in aligning the US applications with numerous international applications. This effort has also succeeded in identifying allowable claims in all three pending US applications. Strategies to amend and add new claims directed to commercially-relevant subject matter, supported by appropriate supplemental remarks, will be carried over to all of our other pending applications, including those filed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, and Viet Nam. New applications may be filed that have claims directed to nucleotide sequences, vectors, polypeptides, fibers, and transgenic silkworms, that have improved properties compared to those disclosed and claimed in the pending applications.
Summary
We at Kraig Labs hope that you enjoyed reading this edition of Spider Sense. We believe that these recently cleared benchmarks will make a great impact on Kraig Labs' near term future and we look forward to continuing this momentum through 2017.
The army already has its shoot-packs
Just FYI:
CBS News just had a story about how Under Armor is trying to shift large batches of their clothesmaking to the USA (currently Baltimore)
I think the sentiment that es1 and I shared was that we expected a bigger dip between the last PR and the newsletter. Like, now.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be where we are, I just figured it would dip deeper and longer into the 6s.
I'll give you odd, for sure. I expected a more substantial dip too.
Think most are waiting to see what the news letter holds
The newsletter is nothing but a recap, with very minor clarifying statements, and historically does not drive buying. This board probably represents 95% of the readership.
Don't expect it to affect the PPS. Only PRs do that.
"Vest = carrier + insert."
Doesn't make sense with the numbers. They'd have sold last week when there was healthy volume at 8.5c.
This is almost certainly people setting up reload buys because stock fundamentals say to do so, as they also anticipate company silence for a while. This was a time-buying PR, and based on Kim's history, we're in for a quiet few weeks.
I DO NOT count the joke of a newsletter, which should be out 'soon' but is a rehash.
If I remember right they have to be boiled for 30 seconds then frozen. Not something you want to do with tons of leaves.
That has been debunked on this board. Leaves can be prepped for storage and shipping while maintaining potency.
My immediate question is why texas?
The 2000 trees that we purchased are planted there
Some were quite sure Mexico was a potential site for the second international production site, so Texas would be strategic in that case also...
Side Note: Why those dolts would intentionally send people to the newsletter site when it hasn't been updated is beyond my comprehension. I think SS is just something that Jon got high and thought of, a long running joke he could get lots of mileage out of.
Truer words, sir. Truer words.
foresee trump killing the tpp?..you mean since trump was elected a month ago?..i guess..because before that, very very few foresaw trump getting elected at all..
Early signs suggest that 2017 may be a new year for the VN-Kraig connection. I hope the foot stays on the pedal and that there's more happening behind the scenes than, in retrospect, there was in the past.
That's exactly what I remember in terms of wording. As for intent, as always, we're left to guess.
Thanks!
Could be apocryphal for sure, but I wasn't thinking that orientation. I thought it was a plan to strengthen the VN strains with Kraig DNA, not to dilute the Kraig strains with VN DNA...
Again, also not sure where this came from but it stemmed from the use of the word 'hybrid', which has come up in multiple company communications.
What about VN/Kraig hybrid worms? I remember that topic from a whIle back...
You're just so ill-equipped to speak about this intelligently, and it comes off as both pompous and conspiratorial. If you're interested, I'd be happy to have a private conversation with you on some other network to explain the differences and why they're critically important to understanding the processes underlying them, but save for that, you're just causing unnecessary confusion.
This is akin to the "OMG there's DNA in my food??!!?!" argument. When you're partially informed, things seem quite different than when you have the full picture, which your comments assure me that you don't. Why do you feel the need to comment on topics on which you're knowingly lacking in the background knowledge? This is the same reason that you don't want politicians without scientific training legislating science funding. They're in the most dangerous position where they think they understand based on cursory research (or someone else's biased report) and feel that it gives them the right to an equal opinion as someone that has dedicated their life to knowledge of that topic.
You might understand the pieces, but you've clunked them together to form a mosaic picture, rather than understanding how they fit together to create a contiguous portrait.
That's why you should always be kind
You never know when the shoe may be on the other foot, or when your actions may be put under a microscope.