Szabo: 1/23/2004 Email to shareholder re sales, PR's
By: likescolorca (Raging Bull, 23 Jan 2004, 02:04 PM EST, Msg. 21555 I sent some questions to EXTEN a couple of days ago (before exticat's question taking)and Greg Szabo replied today. Here is his responce:
Greg Szabo [President, Exten] I will attempt to answer your questions. First and foremost, our cells are for sale. The sales delays through XenoTech are primarily for two reasons. First we had to transfer cell lines to their production facility so they could expand the cell lines in order to have sufficient quantities cryopreserved to begin sales. The greatest delay however is due to our insistence that the pharmaceutical companies sign our user agreements. These agreements are for the protection of our intellectual property. TAs for XenoTech doing testing, yes they are. We are very interested in expanding the uses of our cells quickly. XenoTech is developing additional data. By taking this data to the companies during sales or conference presentations, we may be able to move the process of expanded use of our cells along faster. On the subject of PR, we publish press releases when there are newsworthy events. We have never and never will try to pump the stock with questionable releases. This has been the position of the company ever since Jerry Newmin took over as Chairman of the company. We also can’t put out press releases naming other companies without their permission. For example, a major pharmaceutical company was doing a paper presentation on an assay that included our cells. We would need to get their permission to name them in our press release and they very seldom give that permission except for “material” events. As you know, we have been forced to put out releases in the past and talked about “major pharmaceutical companies” and these have not been well received. We then get questions about why we didn’t mention the company.
. . . we appreciate your support for the company. Being a shareholder for as long as you have, you certainly appreciate the struggles that we have gone through over the last few years. I feel we have made significant progress but realize we have to continue our efforts to move the company forward. We believe we are taking the right steps to accomplish our goal of increasing shareholder value. We will do our best to keep all of you informed of our progress in the future. --------------------------------------------------------- source: exti.info