Wow, you really spend a lot of time trying to determine a way to value Cynata's licensing model, our IP, even asking other posters for help regarding the cash flow aspect of this.
Anyways, first of all thank you for bringing it to our thread and asking your questions here.
I'm glad you actually spend the time reading up on it, rather than repeating (without checking) the claims of others, which is what we have seen for the past 4 weeks now. I call it MSB Whispers:
You mentioned two things:
IP
Cash flow
Regarding IP, you are correct that the Cynata website states the following: “The key patent rights licensed to Cynata do not expire until between 2028 and 2034.”
Next question you should however ask, how many patents make up Cymerus? I can tell you that it's more than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... When I looked into it a while back and posted on here (https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/intellectual-property.4095934/?post_id=31968934), to tell you the truth, I was surprised how many different connected patents there are. Cymerus is not just one patent that expires in 2028, Cymerus is an evolving technology, I compared it with an investment portfolio in the above post, one that has been progressively improved and is still being improved. Take the very early IP for example, it covered OP9 mouse feeder cells/layers for the production of MCAs from PSCs/changed to MSCs, while this process has since been replaced using Tenascin-C (mouse feeder cell/serum free). Are you implying that the whole portfolio expires between 2028 and 2034? I hope that is not how you read the above statement on the Cynata website.
Coming back to our portfolio, I found a great article that is worth a read: https://www.howardlock.co.uk/happens-patent-expires/ "It is important to remember that few products and inventions remain fixed. Over time and in response to changing manufacturing techniques, consumer demands and market forces it is highly likely that even relatively simple inventions will naturally evolve. Consider, for example, mobile phones used today, compared with those in common use during the 1990s.
All patents which were granted on mobile phone technology prior to 1995 have now expired and although it would theoretically be possible to reproduce the phones in common use during the early 1990s without fear of breaching a patent, the ways in which the technology has evolved means that it is highly questionable whether a business could successfully cash in on the lapsed patents available in the public domain, compared with the latest smartphone.
The ongoing legal disputes between some of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturers in court rooms around the world, go some way towards illustrating the importance not only of securing intellectual property on a design, but also continuing to protect investments made in research and development.
This is particularly important when it comes to filing new patent applications, as each new ‘inventive step’ can be patented in its own right, allowing many different aspects of an invention to be protected. Securing multiple patents can also mean that even if an earlier patent expires, the latest developments added to the product will continue to be safeguarded from being plagiarised."
I think we are now well and truly done with it. I am anyway.
Cash flow, which is for me a main reason why I like Cynata's lean business model in the making - and I will make this short. I am happy to pay 30% to WARF of whatever money hits our bank account (instead of a smaller % but instead a hefty upfront payment, which - lets face it - would have been impossible to find willing investors for at the time, given that we still had our hands full with landfill diapers (fortunately they are biodegradable...), as opposed to paying interest on on money that we don't have. Yes, we only get a part of whatever our licencee gets (up to $60 mio upfront, double digit royalty and a fully funded development program going forward in the case of FUJIFILM and GvHD... who is about to sell 1 mio shares and decided not to take up their offer - well, lets wait and see), while MSB gets their whole share of the pie (e.g. GvHD). What you have to consider though, this potential reward came at a "premium" for long term holders (looking at the SP decline over the past few years, the CRs, loan facilities and so on). I wish all MSB long term holders that it works out, because the reward is promising to be huge. It also required huge kahunas to hold on to your ticket/s and possibly keep adding to your existing holding over the years. Cynata's big advantage is our still small market capital while only having ~100 mio shares on issue. Given the upfront $ attached to the potential targets on our to-do list, the upside is... "encouraging" lol
Opinions expressed are my own and I understand that not everyone agrees with me, especially with the last part. I agree with @Khazar10, there "is plenty of [MSC] cake to go around" and we all have our reasons why we think that our recipe is the best one. Cheers.
CYP Price at posting:
$1.36 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
) was still knee-deep in biodegradable diapers - yet I don't think anyone worries about the expiry of the IP.
(20min delay)