NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[biosectinvestor]

Sawston is a facility and building. You appear not to understand how businesses work at a very basic level. The company has contracts and has described the relationship in the financials. Advent is a contractual party, they are a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO). They are under contract to develop and run NWBO’s factory, Sawston. They have also leased a small section to fulfill NWBO’s obligation under the regional development authority’s financing agreement for Sawston, to provide access also to some of the high tech facilities they are developing. Advent will provide those services on behalf of the company but the company is not a CDMO, so selling those services to other companies would be a distraction as it would divert personnel and capital to supporting other companies. That is for Advent.

Project finance structures often break up responsibilities and risks to ensure a product has modular functions and the project can continue when risks become challenges. Modularity also provides business flexibility. But the rights including the right to terminate such contracts, rests with NWBO, because they own these various rights and contracts and Advent owns a contract that is terminable at will by NWBO.

The relationships and nature of complex businesses like this takes a little basic business sophistication, but not a huge amount. NWBO doesn’t make widgets. It makes a highly complex, personalized vaccine for cancer patients. Advent had the personnel and expertise to facilitate that work and it was able to do so at NWBO’s own facility, which is not typical of such entities. Obviously this is due to LP getting their previous CDMO to spin off their London entity to maintain that expertise and keep it inexpensively available. But NWBO doesn’t need to enter the CDMO business. That would defeat the purpose of modular development, which helps to restrict costs and risks to separate entities that can also potentially create cross subsidization as well. We see some of the benefit there from the beneficial financing arrangement with the UK regional development authority. Effectively they required there be a community development angle to financing the facility. Advent has been engaged by NWBO to fulfill that role.