I took a trek to the meeting with Winter Storm Jonas on my heels. You’re welcome. Loanranger's post regarding the meeting was quite accurate; bloomvest, not so much. Here is my report:
The day prior to the meeting I was able to meet and spend some time with Dr. Milton Boniuk and his sister, Dr. Vivien Boniuk. As you know, Dr. Milton Boniuk is an independent member of the BOD with a sizeable investment in NNVC. Dr. Vivien Boniuk accomplished previous animal experiments for NNVC regarding the nanoviricide drug candidates against Epidemic Kerato-Conjunctivitis (EKC) of the eye in 2009. I also met Dr. (Ph.D.) Samuel Brauer from Nanotech Plus, LLC, a commercialization and business-consulting firm that has done work for NNVC. I also briefly met with Dr. Mukund S. Kulkarni, another one of the independent members of the BOD. I was impressed with everyone I spoke with, especially Dr. Vivien Boniuk.
The next day when the meeting began, I counted 17 people in the audience chairs. Most of them were employees and contractors. As far as I know, I was one of two people who were there as investors not employed by NNVC in any capacity. Even though Stamford was north of the mayhem caused by the winter storm, the snow there was 4 – 6 inches with howling winds, and it wasn’t letting up. Knowing this, an attempt was made to get this meeting and the BOD meeting accomplished as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to allow people to leave before conditions got much worse.
The business portion of the meeting was accomplished quickly and efficiently. Afterward, Dr. Seymour gave his presentation (the same one given at the Biotech Showcase) followed by Dr. Diwan.
I got two highlights from Dr. Seymour’s presentation: 1. HerpeCide human trials are scheduled for 2016 with the caveat that it would be the end of 2016 or early 2017. The contingency will be the speed at which the universities doing the pre-clinical studies get their work done. 2. Dr. Vivien Boniuk will be involved in new animal testing on HerpeCide in the near future. This highlight gives me a good feeling since Dr. Vivien Boniuk is extremely intelligent and a sharp individual (my astute impression).
Dr. Seymour also mentioned that human trials would be accomplished in Australia because there is a percentage reimbursement for expenses and the Company will deal directly with the hospital involved and not with the government.
Dr. Diwan’s presentation began with the statement that NNVC is a different company than it was a year ago due to the completion, staffing, and functioning of the Shelton facility. NNVC is one of the very few bio-pharma companies with their own manufacturing capabilities. The advantages here are; it is a quick jump from the lab to clinical scale production, and it protects intellectual properties since nothing goes off property.
Their focus on HerpeCide will result in a “Herpes Virus Therapeutics Franchise” for the treatment of oral and genital herpes, herpes keratitis, and shingles. Note: I like the sound of this.
Future R&D for herpes therapeutics will be to eliminating low viral production and removing latent viral DNA from cells. This would mean a true cure for herpes and HIV. Again, that is in the future (on the drawing board), but right now they are focused on getting a product (HerpeCide) through human trials.
Dr. Diwan discussed the difficulty of having the scientific community to accept the nanoviricide concept. He said that as far as they are concerned it is science fiction. However, he did mention that a Yale professor agreed to test a nanoviricide for himself. I did not get the specifics of who that was, and when that might be done; I am curious though.
Those were the highlights of the presentations for me; however, both presentation slide decks should be on the website soon. When they are, I encourage you to read them for yourselves.
Dr. Milton Boniuk spoke up and made a case for obtaining government money to help facilitate production and work on many candidates all at once, especially during lag times waiting for outsourced independent results. You may remember last year when he wanted to buy commercial real estate in Texas to build additional facilities. There is no doubt that he is in a hurry to get products out to the market as fast as possible.
Questions:
Me for Dr. Seymour: You mentioned that Dr. Vivien Boniuk would be testing animals for the herpes candidate; can you elaborate?
Answer: She won’t be doing the actual testing; she will be supervising the testing at various contracted locations.
Another investor (the only other one that I know of) had a question for the whole BOD: Do you have a business plan where-by you have a CEO of a division that is solely responsible for getting a commercial operation up and running? He stated that no investment firm would dump large sums of money into a business until they know there is a proven product. (I cut his question down from about two pages; he had a lot to say).
Answer from Dr. Seymour: They will look for someone to eventually replace him (Dr. Seymour) when the time is appropriate for a commercial operation, and Dr. Kulkarni is helping build the business plan as the company evolves.
Answer from Dr. Diwan: The Company knows that a commercialization plan is important, but it is premature at this stage. The priority is getting HerpeCide into clinical trials. We have a strong advantage in marketing the ocular herpes candidate since Dr. Milton and Dr. Vivien Boniuk knows everyone in that specialty.
Answer from Meeta Vyas, Interim CFO: NNVC is not the type of business for the classic business model. Once there is a product ready to go to market, that business plan will be in place.
Answer from Dr. Milton Boniuk: Government money will get us to the point where we will need that business plan. “Give me the authorization, and I will do it.”
After the meeting was adjourned, Ms. Vyas came up to me and wanted to make sure I was satisfied with the answers and if I had anymore questions. I told her that I am the type to rely on experts in each field, and especially the experts doing the work, to have the right plan for the right time. I did mention that I know timelines are difficult, as we have experienced in the past, but a timeline is important to investors.
Our timeline goal right now is HerpeCide human clinical trials in late 2016 or early 2017.
Following the meeting I took the train to Boston (about 4 hours). I had to stand up the whole way since they were letting people on from delayed trains out of New York. At least I was standing by the bathroom and waste bin--lots of human interaction.
AI
