I was shown this stock in excited exuberance by my father...

I was shown this stock in excited exuberance by my father yesterday. As a Doctor I’d like to share some insights. Please feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt and obviously DYOR.

1) Industry Resistance

Medicine is a stoic industry/ profession. There are many instances where truly revolutionary ideas in medicine are ignored and even suppressed for extremely long periods. Doctors are not immune to the shortcomings of ego and dogma, and the career research folk so often confound things out of self interest for accolades such that tangible progress becomes difficult. For example one of the pioneers of modern chemotherapy (multiple drugs being used together to treat cancer) was Dr Jay Freireich who took radical action using a repeated toxic tri-drug cocktail in a desperate attempt to save children who had leukaemia. Before he did this they all died. Now childhood leukaemia is one of the most treatable cancers. But the path was treacherous. He was threatened, demonised and risked everything to only be vindicated years later after his hard fought success was proven!

So history has shown - that even new paradigms in medicine which save millions of lives (like curing cancer) all go through a difficult and lengthy process.

I think this is a great tech with some promise but I wouldn’t call it a paradigm in medicine. And based on the current progress and hospital on boarding I think the burn rate and runway of this company mean they should immediately and repeatedly cap raise in order to secure funding for at least 5-7 years. This would devastate the SP short term, but the truth is the SP is only going lower for the foreseeable future as it’s such a LONG road ahead of them.

2) Technology and benefit
Doctors and specialist are only interested in new tech when it provides significant improvements (I would estimate 50% plus) to their current approaches. Unfortunately the radiation savings are not as important to doctors as they should be. Issues like how accurate something is, how easy it is to use and administer and to a lesser extent the cost to provide services all play a role. Although the colour and functional diagnostic are great features of this technology; MRI and CT which are readily available in the western markets chosen to kick off this tech can already provide excellent resolution and diagnostic results.

3. Cost

Cost doesn’t matter largely in the west. The capital cost of a CT is high but it already exists in all hospitals so there is NO cost barrier. Also CT machines are paid for by imaging many different regions of the body and so they will always be bough by new hospitals. The west will not have any response to the cost saving argument unless there is a focus on primary prevention centres which often do not own a CT yet could justify the capital cost of this new tech (Xray and SW) due to the benefits to patients, in particular in screening and diagnosing post covid morbidity. I haven’t heard about this direction being explored though unfortunately.

The cost issue IS however much more important for the third world and developing nations. If you have a hospital and honestly can’t afford a CT then this technology is way more useful. So naturally their motivation to consider this tech is much higher. So I would recommend if the company is insistent on targeting hospitals, approaching global communities with less developed health systems will certainly lead to faster adoption. Also the qualified individuals in such regions will often be so grateful for such technology that they will gladly help with research to prove efficacy. Think about how Medicine SF or doctors without borders could use this tech and spur adoption if they had a mobile Xray machine.....

In summary

Without a dynamic strategic shift I think this company is in for a long battle in the west to try and get adoption. There is certainly some benefit in the tech, but that alone even with great research and the other current pro’s will not be sufficient to incentivise rapid adoption. I would watch closely, but not at all buy at this stage.