Greg Szabo answers shareholders questions
By: alandail
20 Nov 2003, 01:29 PM EST
Msg. 16151 of 16171
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from a poster on the yahoo board:
Hi,
I very infrequently bother the folks at Exten with email inquiries,
but I felt I needed some answers to the following questions and here
is his response.
My Letter:
Hello,
I have been an Exten shareholder for at least 5 years now. I'm
guessing more. I would have to check my records. I have been waiting
patiently for quite some time for this type of movement and news. I
would like to ask a few questions from you with respect to some of
the PR you have released in the past month or so...perhaps even year
or so... to hopefully put some clarity as to your current and future
situation.
1.) With respect to the Pfizer deal. It's my understanding that under
the research agreement you had with them, they paid MultiCell
approximately $750,000. That agreement ended about this time last
year in which Pfizer subsequentially signed a 15 year deal. Up to
this point no details have been provided on this deal. Now I
understand that certain contract details, at the request of either
party, are not to be revealed, but could you let me know when
additional revenues from that deal are expected? If any?
2.) With respect to the XenoTech deal. Can you tell me what Exten's
commission percentage is? There has been speculation the split to be
any where from 50/50 to 25/75 (Exten/XenoTech). Also have you/they
finalized pricing? This type of information can help determine future
growth potential.
3.) What appears to be the sales cycle length on the liver cells. I
assume most pharma's would want to test it for 3-4 months before
purchasing? What appears to be the barriers to sales at this juncture?
4.) And finally, may I post your response to a couple of EXTI bulletin
boards? If not, rest assured your response to me will remain
confidential.
Regards and keep up the good work,
XXXXXXXX
Mr Szabo's response:
Mr. XXXXXXX, Thanks for your support.
1. As part of the Pfizer agreement, they, in return for the money they
paid to test and validate our cells, had the right to license the
cells for a nominal amount. This was a good deal for both companies
but especially for us since it allowed us to get the deal with
XenoTech. Additional revenues will come from Pfizer as we release and
they begin to use new products.
2. More details on the XenoTech deal will be released soon. Please
remember, XenoTech is culturing the cells, packaging and shipping, and
performing all of the sales and marketing.
3. It varies but 4 months is not a bad estimate. This is a major
change for a company and they are going to be absolutely sure before
they make any change and when they do it will be gradual.
4. yes
Greg Szabo
my comments to add to this:
The one thing to add to all of this is that at least some companies were evaluating several months before XenoTech got involved. I think the May 10-Q said 3 major pharmaceuticals were evaluating. So they're further along than companies who only began evaluating at the conference. Also, to evaluate, you have to buy some to do testing with. So an evaluation process would generate some sales, while a successful evaluation would generate more substantial sales. And we already know Roche had successful evaluation. What's unknown is if they are already adopting the cell lines or if they are doing additional evaluations.
In any case, 12 to 24 months from now, there should be widespread adoption of the cell lines. I see no reason to expect that other pharmaceuticals would find anything different than the results Pfizer, Roche and XenoTech already found. If it's worht $750k to Pfizer just to verify the cell lines, how much is it worth to have Roche start using them?
Alan