Holycow, I’ve always indicated I’m in this for the science and I think the science team deserves great credit. The criticism is with management’s inability to complete the tasks that they have laid out for themselves in order to bring the science to market. It won’t happen on it’s own, it won’t happen by constantly shifting gears, it won’t happen without contingency planning to deal with any problems that may have arise, it won’t happen by waiting for customers to knock on their door, it won’t happen by wishful thinking, and it isn’t helped by rewarding a behavior of never meeting deadlines. Success rarely happens by accident. It is more likely to occur by careful planning and execution. As much as I would like to believe great things are happening behind closed doors, there is no evidence or history to support that view.
It would also be nice to think that all the issues have been external - not under management’s control - but there is no evidence of that either. On the business side, the only obstacle that has been publicly acknowledged is the price of the fermented DNA but that should have been known – oh let’s say – from the moment the company decided to pursue commercialization of these products. The argument that these products would not have been viable without synDNA only diminishes Malcolm’s business credibility since he presented net present value (NPV) slides for Simplivar before synDNA was available. On what basis could the NPV be determined if the price of the raw material would not have supported a viable product? Let’s see if the expected sales equals zero the NPV would be? – anyone? $500M – excellent Malcolm - would you care to explain how you arrived at that figure to the rest of the class?
Could some of the past delays have been a result of unknown problems – possibly – but who’is responsible for anticipating and resolving those problems – including the one that might be outside of their expertise – that’s what consultants are for. I’m also not trying to be contentious but can you show me one article that suggests there have been scientific obstacles to overcome? Every scientific PR has been “look at the wonderful things we can do.” No mention of “look at what we can do once we resolve A, B, and C”. There are tests that need to be run and procedures to be followed for the IND submissions but these should be well understood by now – in fact they should have been well understood before the first target date was ever announced but I think it’s clear now that wasn’t the case. Who is responsible for knowing what to do and getting it done?
IMO for cygx to be successful, they need to get serious about the INDs and to start collecting numerous small orders of synDNA. It’s possible that they are courting a big synDNA order from China, or elsewhere, but this is still a numbers game and they need to attract interest from a variety of sources to better increase the chance for a product using synDNA to get commercial approval – that’s where the money is. Since this company is not typically shy about releasing info on progress, the unfortunate logical conclusion is that there hasn’t been much (or maybe they have put all their eggs in a Chinese basket – again). Is it more likely no news is coming out because they are working on something spectacular (while the science team is writing a chapter for a text book) or that there is no news because nothing newsworthy has happened? I personally believe the company does not have a sense of urgency and accountability necessary to make sure things get done on-time – why should they when they are rewarded regardless of the results - the point of my last post.
There are some who believe the end will justify the means but if that end could have come years sooner through better execution – wouldn’t that have been better for all of us?
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
