I'm not too worried about the share price, although I'm curious...

I'm not too worried about the share price, although I'm curious as to why the recent weakness; too many sellers, and not enough buyers would probably cover it I suppose. I'm also pretty comfortable as to the clinical results to date, and, having 'road tested' iPPS on my arthritic old dog, and seen the results that my wife got from a single course, I'm in no real doubt as to its efficacy, and I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a string of +ve announcements from PAR in the future.

However I'm not quite so comfortable and relaxed about the IP side of things, and, while it's clear that the management team have done as much as they can to protect their IP, this area does still concern me a bit, and seems to be a potential weak spot.

The United States is a very litigious place in which to do business, and Australia is becoming increasingly so, and pharma itself seems to be a particularly litigious area. Patents, or infringement notices, can be opposed or challenged, and in the US these challenges can take a long time to resolve, and cost a lot of money, as they wend their way through the various levels of the court system. My view is that, if iPPS does turn out to be a mass-market blockbuster, as we are all hoping, and is effective across a wide range of inflammatory ailments and conditions, the money at stake may make a challenge quite likely, with no guarantees of outcomes either way.

I'm also not especially impressed with assurances that Pentosan is a particularly complex drug to manufacture, with lots of 'tricks of the trade', etc., and, since it's already being produced as a generic in India, which country has a patchy record for pharma patent enforcement anyway, especially secondary patents, I don't know that the exclusive supply arrangements with Bene are going to provide a great deal of protection (although they're better than nothing certainly). For pharmaceutical companies, especially generics, reverse engineering is their bread and butter, and I imagine they're pretty good at it by now.

I think that the first mover advantage that PAR should have is certainly a significant asset, since once iPPS has been approved, and become an established first line or default treatment, it's going to take anyone else a bit of time to get their version on the market, even if the patents don't hold up, (but maybe not that long).

My other concerns are around the pricing. I'm not sure where the numbers that are being quoted ($2k per course), actually came from, or whether they're part of PAR's business plan, but I can't see any government anywhere in the world funding iPPS at that sort of price point, nor any health fund looking to pick up that sort of cost.

Aside from those concerns, I'm happy with my holding, and may look to increase if the price falls further.

All the above is obviously just my own ramblings and speculations, so please don't rely on it, and do your own research