Bocxman. Further back in time I think you would have been right in asking for further data from credible sources baking up the fantastic data from BOCX.
But I believe that the company’s limited resources at the time (pre Abbott and of course post Abbott) were used to do large amounts of double blind testing with pharmaceuticals in the hope of striking license deals.
I understand as well from the company that the fact that their test is radio-isotope based test (RIA) give them additional problems in terms of transport and cost in doing external reviews. The other party for example needs to have a testing room cleared for use of radioactive material.
In this perspective you also have to realize that pharma’s in spite of independent testing would opt to check the technology themselves before making deals. IOW BOCX would probably have had to go through fairly large double blind testing procedures anyhow
Presently, I however think that it does not make sense to go out and spend around 100.000$ (according to your cost estimates to do a 500 patient study) to make an independent study as we are probably only a few months (or less) away from having Abbott completing its feasibility review.( Especially, if you only have a couple of hundred thousands in the bank (as per their latest 10Q).) And Abbott would engage in large studies immediately after successful integration of RECAF into their Architect system.
Furthermore, I reckon that Abbott in the integration phase would have to consistently measure their data against the data of Biocurex’es to make sure they get the same or better results using their screening platform, and what is really important at this point in time, as Kag has mentioned, is that they have not decided to pull out.
You wrote that “did Abbott license RECAF because it holds promise as some niche marker which will never be a blockbuster”
I have to say here that that I refuse to believe a company the size of Abbott would engage with BOCX and RECAF because they think it could “hold some promise as a niche marker.” A smaller niche player perhaps but not Abbott, who would only engage in something that could add in a decent way to their bottom-line.
You also mentioned: “It begs the question of whether there is some skeleton in the closet regarding the effectiveness of RECAF”.
If I was Dr. Moro and knew of “skeletons in the closet” regarding the tech, but nevertheless had managed to fool Abbott in the double blind testing procedure I would not have opted for a semi-exclusive back-end loaded license agreement (small up-front payment with higher royalty payments later). (we only received about 200.000 $ upfront)
I would instead have gone for exclusivity with as high as possible up front payment. (like Diagnocure in the deal with Geneprobe who I believe received about 8 million $ up front for their prostate test.)
All that being said I think it is good with critical comments and I think that management could have and perhaps should have done many things different in the last 5 public years. However as long as the technology holds I don’t care too much because the tech. in that case would be worth billions.
AI
