Our market have been very pre-mature in writing off OBJ and many are quick to forget they have never been shy in announcing "bad" news... From my experience they have only ever hidden the good stuff.
In this September 2008 shareholder update OBJ announced the outcome of in vitro skin diffusion studies to validate previous in vitro human epidermal studies that had been conducted at Curtin University.
The news which was provided at the beginning of the update stated, "The initial replication studies undertaken at UQ were focused on small molecules and found initial evidence supporting enhanced transdermal delivery of Naltrexone by the Dermaportation platform. However, the improvement was less than the results previously achieved at Curtin.
They subsequently then embarked on a program at Curtin to investigate factors that may have contributed to these variable results, and then again reported in December 2008, "Follow-up studies conducted by OBJ to review the effect of technology and equipment factors continued to show variable results.
The GFC wasn't helping the markets perception of OBJ but the board always remained very confident and decided to engage three of the world's top independent transdermal experts to review the Company’s technology, which included Australia's top expert, Prof Michael Roberts from UQ, Prof Brian Barry, an international authority on drug delivery systems and adviser to both EMA in the UK and FDA in the US, and also Dr Keith Brain from Cardiff University and director of one of the UK’s leading transdermal contract research and development laboratories.
Dr Brain is also a very familiar name to the regulatory decision makers within the EMA, MHRA and FDA as he is also the long time Chairman of the International PPP Conference - "Perspectives in Percutaneous Penetration" - currently in its 13th year, and home to the representatives of the who's who in all aspects of percutaneous penetration from the academic, industrial and regulatory sectors.
To cut the long story short, OBJ might have struggled to survive 2008 if it wasn't for the positive recommendations provided by those International experts, which brings me to one of the things I appreciate most about OBJ Limited... Quick to provide the bad news whilst always remaining under the radar with hiding the good stuff...
Perspectives in Percutaneous Penetration - Thirteenth International Conference to be held at La Grande Motte, France on 11-14 April, 2012
TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE
14:15 Enhanced microneedle delivery by magnetic microarrays - Christopher Quirk, Perth, Australia
For any new holders not familiar with Dr Quirk, he is an Australian dermatologist who has been a teaching hospital consultant for 27 years and has conducted numerous trials for international pharmaceutical companies such as Roche, Novartis, 3M and Matrix and has served on advisory boards for Merck, Allergan and Roche. He has published 22 papers in international journals and has presented at the World Congress of Dermatology in Paris and the World Congress on Cancers of the Skin in Seville.
Oh, and of course he is also a Director of OBJ Limited ;)
OBJ Price at posting:
2.1¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)