I’m a long-term long and I’ve never bashed management, but I can’t let this praise of Leo go without responding. IMHO, this is the worst managed company I’ve seen in my almost 40 years in business.
I have lost a lot of money here, because, in the void of information, I made the mistake of attributing to management the common business sense I would use myself, and expect of any competent business person.
I won’t Monday morning quarterback their decision to pursue P, but their management of the P2 warrants criticism. I asked Leo at the shareholder meeting, why they didn’t take the “planned” interim look at P. He said, “The results came in too slowly, so they just had to plow forward to get the results.” There so much wrong with that statement.
First, you negotiate into your agreement with the CRO, timelines, deliverables, communication expectations and accountabilities.
Second, you stay on top of the project. Why was the enrollment slow? Why select testing sites that don’t give your trial the agreed upon priority of patients? WTH was Jane Harnes doing?! And why is she still here?! Why were there significant cost over runs, and why weren’t they contractually limited? And most unbelievable of all…how could a CPA not have properly planned for the trial expenses? They just surprise you with a $2M cost overrun? Come on!
Thirdly, after foregoing the interim look, they plowed through for 7 more months and millions of dollars. Find a way to look at some data or Case Report Forms.
Leo is praised for being frugal. Going into the Prurisol P2, the sp was $1.50+. Why didn’t he raise cash then, GOING INTO A P2?! Frugal? or just stupid. I don’t know if the failure to up list was truly due to not meeting the requirements or he decided not to do it.
Then there is the office lease. He entered a 5 year, $20k a month lease without a confirmed need. At the sh meeting, he said, doing trial tasks themselves saved money, and “we also needed a place to store our records.” Huh? What trial? And move your records to a storage locker!
The Aruda patent infringement. Oh, Menon paid for that mistake. But wouldn’t you think you would have your legal IP t’s crossed on your company’s core asset?
Then there’s the Carnival Barker Leo. It cannot be denied! Just look at the summer of 2018. How do you set 3 milestones, have your financier make a public statement of them being likely achievable, and then not achieve a single one of them?! This is just the cap stone. How many times over the years did the words, “in the coming weeks” appear in PR’s? Eight months ago, he told me he would soon reveal his plans to “grow the company”. Did I miss something, or was that the “planned” UC P2 trial with no announced funding?
At the sh meeting, I asked what happened to all the high hopes for B Absssi? He said, it didn’t make economic sense. Huh? I invested because I bought into the looming global antibiotic resistance crisis. Then there was the Merck acquisition of Cubist for $9.5B. Only to be told now, that the economics weren’t there. Why did they do the P2? Did they not understand the economics? The crisis has only gotten worse. Leo and Menon have long said the anti-inflammatory properties of B were of more valuable than the antibiotic properties. Then why did they focus on an economically unviable indication?
