something is afoot, page-17

I think talk of a dividend is extremely wide of the mark (and why I didn't include it on the list). What purpose would it serve? If the business is going to become significantly profitable it will need to land one of the big fish it is courting - the gain in M.Cap that this would trigger would surely dwarf the size of any dividend that might be possible from sign on fees, and would be a poor use of the money when so many opportunities and avenues need capital to explore.

Further, just how big could any special dividend be? A few million at the absolute maximum, spread that between >800 million shares, is a one-off dividend of 1 cent per share really why you'd invest in the company when the daily volatility is several times that figure!

Just to turn the bull-fart dial down a bit from my previous post - If these scientists are leased out for $250k per annum, they'll earn a lot loss than that themselves, perhaps they've just seen the SP go through the roof and want to pay down their mortgages a bit? If I was on $80,000/year and held 500,000 options worth $50,000 after conversion and sale, I might be tempted (although you'd hope in a company of less than 30 employees that Geoff or some other board member would take them aside and tell them to cool their jets a little and be patient).

Maybe they just want to sell into the enormous spike in SP that will occur when BBI/Alere announce...