gbis projected sales, page-12

Liqcrisis and Redfaces both raise very interesting and well informed points.

In asking myself if GBI is a 'good buy' I decided to get back to basics: supply and demand. Thank you to Liqcrisis for posting a list of current HPV test available, this certainly shows that there is a more than an adequate supply of HPV detection AND gentoyping kits on the market.

Redfaces summary of the Australian HPV DNA testing space seemed to indicate that the total demand was currently estimated at about 400 tests a month. While demand will obviously differ in other countries is there a sufficient lack in HPV testing product supply to drive the growth in HPV testing (and sales of PapType) forecast by DECAN?

I agree with Redfaces' sentiment that a key advantage of PapType that it is compatible with a standard flow cytometer. These instruments can indeed be found in almost all major diagnostic labs for performing immunologic testing. Flow cytometry is a mature analytical platform and has been widely implemented for many bead-based assays by a number of companies worldwide.

Further from Redfaces' post it also seems that he believes GBI will be targeting the smaller pathology labs "b) does PapType (or the next generation PapType Rapid) have genuine ease of use benefits for a Path lab (particularly a smaller lab that is not in a position to run the automated HC2 test) that are sufficiently material to get the customer base excited?". This sentiment implies that GBI will not be pursuing the screening segment of the market which would most likely use the fully automated HC2 test and be able to offset the initial capital outlay over time through the economies of scale gained by performing a greater number of tests.

In sum PapType seems to me to be "just another HPV test". It's nice that it simultaneously detects and genotypes high risk HPV strains, but that clinical utility of that is still debatable. It's also nice that it is compatible with a flow cytometer, however many of the other HPV tests listed by Liqcrisis do not require the purchase of additional (e.g.Linear Array by Roche, or the Real-time PCR tests by GenoID and Abbot) so it is not without peer in that regard either.

In sum GBI and Redfaces are spot-on when they say that GBI must 'partner up' in order succeed. Their success in negotiating a strong partnership or licensing deal must be underpinned by a very strong intellectual property position in relation to the underlying technology used in the manufacture of PapType as their 'product' as is would not appear sufficiently competitive to assume a strong market position in the HPV DNA testing space.