another article in the usa about prr, page-41

I think takeovers in Biotech are counter productive - you are dealing with companies whose value is almost 100% in the knowledge of the people who work in them. Sure, the company ends up with the rights to the product itself and the technology behind it, but a lot of the worth is in the built up knowledge of the guys who have been in the company for years, doing the research, learning everything inside out - that knowledge is irreplaceable.

Sure you can write conditions in the terms that prevent key staff from leaving for certain length of time, but if these guys feel like they are being hard done by, they only co-operate as little as possible, and as soon as the "handcuffs" come off (golden or otherwise) they resign and take their considerable expertise with them.

I don't work in Biotech but I have seen it happen time and time again in the engineering consultancy sector (another knowledge based sector), bigger companies buying out smaller companies to increase their market share only to have the peed off staff leave after 2 years and leave the parent company with an empty husk. It's not like BHP/Rio going in and buying up smaller miners - the staff may leave but the mines/resources remain.

So, if DNDN did decide to wade in, I'm sure it would be in a more collabarative spirit. 20% equity stake in return for access to DNDN's infrastucture and advice makes sense to me.