MSK, Weill Cornell, and every other top-tier research hospital in the United States, tend to have limited lab space because they're located in urban areas. It makes sense to scale out production at these sites, since they are the only places with staff to both treat GBM patients as well as make DCVax, but that cannot be done without Flaskworks being colocated in their facilities. They do not have the real estate to build GMP clean rooms.
Illumina sequencers and other expensive lab equipment exist in these facilities yet are not subject to corporate espionage. The durable competitive advantage we have comes from our process. We would be trusting others to follow the steps in our process but that doesn't mean they have the capacity to engage in reverse engineering.
In reality once we reach the point of diminishing utility at our existing facilities like Sawston and Charles River Labs Memphis, which will be using Flaskworks, it will make sense to scale out to these research hospitals. That's probably at least a decade away, though, considering Charles River Labs already has GMP certifications. They can scale out faster by building new facilities since those can be located in exurban or rural areas outside major cities, where real estate costs are low, or along major shipping hubs like in Memphis!
I can see Charles River Labs adding a facility over the border in Mississippi which has serious economic issues. They will get large tax breaks and probably federal assistance for building a facility in that very poor state. It's not too far though from Memphis so there's still the advantage of accessing the global FedEx hub! Maybe Ole Miss could provide interns?
Bullish
Do your own research. I am not providing legal or investment advice. This is an anonymous forum for entertainment purposes only. Don't trust anything you read.
