Flo,
Nice pair of posts. As far as the termination of the contract, getting a cash settlement from LEO for breach of contract would be nice, but becoming free so that GTCB can sign another partner to sell rATIII in Europe and fund the DIC trial is more imperative. The new partner should generate at least a few million in up front fees since rATIII is approved in Europe and the data exists to submit for expansion into pregant HD patients.
As you know, Dew has repeatedly posted that both LEO and GTCB keep lying when they say there were no issues of efficacy and safety. Dew also stated more than once that LEO knows rATIII doesn't work in DIC and that is why they sued to drop GTCB, despite the fact that trial recruiting was very slow and almost certainly didn't come close to achieving numbers that one would need to make any reaosonable extrapolation. Therefore, I will give my view based on what likely happened even though I don't have any real knowledge on the topic, ala Dew. Because the DIC trial recruiting went slower than expected, and LEO had to try and expand the number of centers, perhaps by GTCB's insistence. The costs associated with the phase II trial were far higher than LEO anticipated or budgeted. If the phase II trials was successful, LEO would have to pay milestones and pony up significantly more money for the phase III trial(s). They decided not to take the risk so tried to get out of the deal by saying they were re-prioritizing their operations. They added the alleged cause to try and get some negotiating leverage with GTCB to minimize or avoid paying a penalty for breach of contract. The haggling over payments kept the rATIII transfer of rights in limbo. As usual, GTCB management was incompetent and the process dragged on. GTCB should have immediately sued to expedite the rights transfer as well as counter suing LEO. They finally did this a few days ago.
