I have discussed this before and while it is possible, I just don't buy Dr Duffy being seconded to NWBO as an employee by Merck to validate their platform.
Usually, someone leaves a large and comfortable company, as I did, and joins a small start-up because it is exciting, great product(s) and for the chance to become very wealthy if it all pans out. Especially the latter. I have no idea if Duffy had golden handcuffs. If he did not, he was crazy to accept a position with NWBO and leave Merck. I had a start-up opportunity and got beaucoup stock options. Did a lot of DD and things worked out as expected. Duffy had to have done the same. To go to NWBO, trust me, he had to have golden handcuff incentives to leave Merck. By going back to Merck, he left a lot of potential money on the table if NWBO is as potentially successful as we longs think. Certainly, Dr. Duffy thought the same when he joined NWBO.
Something changed during the 6 months he was employed by NWBO. This was his chance to hit the big time. What happened? What did he find that caused him to return to Merck? Was there something wrong with the trial that he discovered? Were there indications that the TLD results would likely be just mediocre?
I have heard indirect references that LP is tough to deal with and things are pretty much her way or the highway. Maybe that was not a good fit for Duffy. But if the results were likely stellar and represented a new and exciting paradigm, management fit or lack thereof could be tolerated and compromises made, if the goods could be delivered certainly within a year or two. If Duffy made valuable contributions to the SAP, he had to have come across inside company informational/his own further due diligence and analysis of data he surely was exposed to in order to make valuable contributions in writing the SAP. Maybe in the course of developing this SAP, he became disappointed and concluded that this was not quite the opportunity he had originally thought. Thus, the "golden" handcuffs, at least to him, became "aluminum" and the deal to return back to Merck therefore more enticing.
Dr. Duffy was no longer drinking the cool aid and decided that it was better for his career and pocket-book to accept an offer from Merck that he could not refuse in light of what he had found unsettling at NWBO.
LG has said that nothing has changed and that they are going forward. Dr. Duffy is a good guy but he got an offer from Merck that he could not refuse. " We did not stand in his way because we do not believe employees should be enslaved" to quote LG. Simple as that. Do you believe it? Do you believe that Dr. Duffy and Merck with perhaps NWBO' s assent and participation engaged in an elaborate "employee" ruse to validate a platform so that Merck could go on with a partnership or even buyout and Dr. Duffy returned to Merck with mission accomplished? Possible but I find it hard to believe. It is easier to believe that Dr. Duffy became disillusioned, enough so, to return to Merck. If he did have golden handcuffs to start with, after 6 months he may have seen them becoming green but not as in money.
Some have said that if DI/Duffy were to leave, there would be great concern. Well, the much more important of the two has left under mysterious circumstances. Concerned? You bet I am and I, for one, do not believe the company line on this. JMHO
A concerned investor
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