Replies to post #569115 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[HappyLibrarian]

In other words the Flaskworks deal was too good to be true.

[Doc logic]

Poor Man -,

Edens is being built specifically around the needs for L, Direct and beyond and not for generic DC or other cell manufacture with digital oversight. That creates some very specific parameters. There have been modifications made evidently due to supply chain issues and those needed to be worked out. Ask those with manufacturing experience what happens when you make changes. Corning will likely get a call again when all is ready as the timing was just off for them. NWBO and Dr. Shashi Murthy found a way to make lemonade in the mean time.
The goal is to apply to multiple jurisdictions this year. Ramp up obviously depends on ability to have qualified personnel and that is a limiting factor which is mediated by Edens so there is an obvious need to have this ready especially when being considered for SOC. Then consider the impact it will have on demand when tissue agnostic designation allows it’s use in all solid tumor cancers in trials and outside of trials. The mantra was “Go big” not “think little”; ). Best wishes.

[biosectinvestor]

It was perfect for NWBO to own, but there are not a huge number of dendritic cell companies out there. They thought there would be, so Flaskworks, by itself, was apparently not a standalone business. That does not mean that the technology was not worth a huge amount to NWBO, which has the specific technology Flaskworks was built to automate, but Corning had no one else to sell to who would pay what NWBO would likely pay. Other possible buyers might wait for bankruptcy and pick it up speculatively. Even NWBO might have waited to put out an offer until they got that bargain of a deal. They were in no rush most likely. And Corning looked like they were pulling out. Right time, right place, right technology and being the only ones out there so far along… all came together.

That doesn’t make it a lemon at all. It just means Corning and Flaskworks were probably a decade too early. They had a very limited market to sell their machines or services to, and NWBO was in the right place at the right time. Happens all the time.

I had an acquaintance who had a huge exclusive franchise on Wind Surfers when they first came out in a huge potential market. It was a losing business. Big Hawaiian style surf boards, no one was doing it and the acquaintance had no idea how to promote it. The huge boards were not ideal for his location. It was decades before social media or the internet. Just did not fly.

Eventually it was a successful business but he no longer owned it. Boards got lighter, smaller, the whole thing got more practical and the times were right for this new sport.

For the right buyer, Flaskworks is a huge technological leap. For the general marketplace not so much. The only other buyer might have been Cognate but they were busy making their own acquisition succeed as they were too early as well and NWBO was not going to commercialize for a few years. They needed to survive. But NWBO saw Flaskworks and is in the process of validating that technology. In the long run Cognate’s business will need to succeed serving start-up dendritic cell companies not necessarily NWBO. In the short-run, they will try to be a partner to NWBO and see if that can lead to more. But NWBO has potential to not need Cognate after an initial scale-up of manual production before they ultimately automate.

[skitahoe]

PM,

If there were another device that could do what FlaskWorks does don't you think someone here would know about it and tell us to also look at the competition. Is there anyone else making a personalized product that has an automated way of doing so? I'm no expert, I don't know of any, but perhaps someone here does, we have experts here in many related fields.

By the way, I'll agree with you in part that LP has very possibly spoken with companies interested in partnering, or buying out NWBO. I don't believe, as you do, that terms have been finalized. I believe that they've said something like, after you've gotten approval from one or more of the regulators, let's get together again and talk it over. I'm not saying it must be one or more approvals, it could be something more, or less, and it might be based more on stock price or market cap than a specific event. I believe that LP may have put an approximate price out there and gotten a response that essentially said let's talk seriously when your market cap is a reasonable fraction of that price.

When it comes to achieving a specific stock price I don't believe you can ever rule out a major surprise. Major media coverage of an otherwise unknown company or drug has on numerous occasions sent a stock through the roof. We may know a great deal about NWBO, but 99%+ of the investing public has never heard of it. I don't believe that our Phase 3 Trial results in such a story, but I believe that when you combine it with the work being done at UCLA that take 5 year survival to 50% or more you have the makings of such a story. The story won't be told by Dr. Liau, or the other scientists at UCLA, they've already put it out their in scientific presentations, it needs to be picked up by the right person in the media, then you could have a story that's seen all over the world.

Gary

[biosectinvestor]

There is no market for them, and not for autologous dendritic cells. Flaskworks was going out of business for a reason and Cognate sold itself to CRL for a reason. They were both too early.