That is one way to look at it. I personally think it's unlikely. Would Eisai - big pharma with a multi-billion dollar market cap - try and pressure a microcap vendor by threatening to withhold work over $15m over 7 years? Why would they give back anything to Cogstate if this was the case?
This amendment is likely to have been initiated by Cogstate because they think more than $15m can be extracted from the IP by moving Eisai to a non-exclusive agreement.
Eisai always wanted Cognigram as a lead-gen tool for their own approved AZ drugs. Looking at this from afar when a number of AZ treatments are made available, it's much better not to have a digital assessment tied to specific drug company or a specific treatment. There will be less room for conflict of interest and less motivation for big pharma companies to introduce their own individual exclusive digital assessments.
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