Replies to post #644 on Pilot Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (PLTT)

[SSP]

There's also this write up:

http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/othercities/triad/stories/2007/10/22/story9.html?b=1193025600%5E1536635

Pilot Therapeutics, a once-bright star in the Triad's biotech industry that went out of business after moving to South Carolina in 2002, has named a new executive team.

Both Ross Consaul, Pilot's new CEO, and Keith Wakeman, now president, have extensive backgrounds in product development and research that should help Pilot turn its solid base of technology in the field of anti-inflammatory nutraceuticals and medical foods into products, according to Floyd "Ski" Chilton, a Wake Forest professor who founded the company and spun it off from the university in 1999. He is now its chief technology officer.

"Pilot has always had promising technology and patents in the food, medical food and dietary supplement areas with over 60 issued and pending patents," Chilton said.

Consaul and Wakeman "will unlock the potential to rapidly move our world class technologies and IP to the marketplace," he added.

That technology was quite alluring to South Carolina in 2002, when it offered the company $17 million in incentives to move its operations and its 14 employees there. The capital markets for biotech were still bone-dry after 9/11, though, and the company couldn't raise enough money to keep operating past the end of 2003.

The company lay dormant until earlier this year, when Chilton and Scott Derks, a former official with the South Carolina Department of Commerce, reconstituted a board of directors following the publication of two successful books by Chilton, which reinvigorated interest in Pilot's technology.

Derks served as president of the company during that effort. He will continue with the company as chief operating officer.

Wakeman said it has proven challenging to work through the legal and financial issues associated with reviving a failed company. Among the steps taken so far has been de-listing Pilot as a public company, so detailed financial data was not available.

But Wakeman said the process has been aided rather than hindered by Pilot's existing investors and creditors.

"They see what we see, and that is a technology and IP portfolio that is outstanding," Wakeman said. "A lot of stakeholders believe very much in the future of the company, and that has allowed us to get into a position where we can concentrate on moving forward."

The first step will be raising a seed round of funding to pay for the final development work and introduction of Pilot's first new products. Much of that work was completed before the company went out of business the first time, but Wakeman declined to say how much he though Pilot would need to raise to finish the job.

Pilot has opened an office on Fourth Street in Winston-Salem. Wakeman hopes to have the money raised to relaunch the company by the end of the year and to have products on the market by the end of 2008.

Pilot Therapeutics

CEO: Ross Consaul
Address: 635 W. Fourth St., Winston-Salem 27101
Phone: [phone]

Reach Matt Evans at [phone] or [e-mail]