Ann: Metabolic Commences Seeking Partners for Bon, page-21

re: Ann: Metabolic Commences Seeking Partners... The first results will come from the VAC trials.

Although dressings seem a pretty mundane application for something as exciting as Novosorb, the size of the VAC dressing market is large and growing, $400 million per annum as reported by the company.

At the same time, the concerned regulatory authorities are looking at the entire vacuum assisted/negative pressure wound treatment area due to the high rate of secondary infections that result from the constant and prolonged opening of the wound for dressing changes due to the need to manually remove with tweezers any dressing material remaining in the wound (dressing material in contact with the open wound surface is often torn loose during removal). Manufacturers are looking for an answer to these concerns.

PolyNovo's biodegradable dressing can simply be removed and replaced quickly, and any bits and pieces torn loose from the dressing can be left in place to naturally degrade away. Dressing changes can be done quickly, with minimal exposure of the wound to the air.

It's just a dressing, true. But this dressing represents a transformative change for VAC/negative pressure therapy. And the barrier to entry here is very low. Again, this is just a dressing. It isn't an implanted heart pump. Regulatory hurdles are not as rigorous. Approval ought to be expeditious.

It isn't difficult to imagine that one or another of the major players in the VAC/negative pressure wound therapy field would want to get exclusivity for this dressing material. It would give them the opportunity to dominate the market for a period of years.

Preliminary information from the trials might even be released prior to the start of the BTM trials. The company has said that final trial results will be available third quarter. I think that will be early in the third quarter, but that's just my opinion. In the meantime, a deal could be struck without final trial results, based on what the industry already knows. Personally, I think that's relatively unlikely, but only because the company won't do a deal until the terms are right, and I don't think that will come until the trial results have de-risked the application.

Thus, I'm expecting very good news in the June through September time frame.

This is just my two cents, I'm not a stock advisor, and don't hold myself out as one. As always every investor should do his or her own research and act based only on his or her own conclusions and investment criteria.