@Warnie,
Sorry it took me such a long to respond but been busy and I had to find my notes I took around
six months ago.
Going directly to the main topic, my view is that the license provided by Rice Uni is mainly linked to manufacture rather than commercial milestones with the exception of the first one which refers to a "sale" before June 2017 although there is no reference to volume nor revenue. The milestones linked to the performance shares are focused on revenue. In my opinion, the milestones associated to the license are relatively easy to meet, the company is already processing 2kg/month so moving to 5kg/month doesn't represent a major challenging, and the next milestone of 1,000 kg/year is due by 2020 with a raw material cost of USD100 for the entire 1,000 kg although needs to be made in a proper factory which can be rented or subcontracted.
The amounts payable to Rice Uni are reasonable compared with what I have seen from other universities in the Pharma sector, the issue for Dotz starts from year 2020 but not before.
In summary Warnie, the challenge here isn't the license nor the production side, the real challenge is whether Dotz can develop a market within the next 6 to 8 months and that is the reason why the performance shares are associated to commercial milestones in limited period of time. Interestingly the market didn't react with the Ann about yield increment and quality as it seems like investors are waiting for contracts which is in line with what I have exposed.
The question is what are the chances that Dotz team will perform and bring those contracts within the deadlines? If you are very confident then you would invest today, if you are 50/50 then it is probably better to wait although the entry will be at higher price but less risk... just my opinion. After having few rounds of conversation with some of the directors I felt confident that the chances are high of meeting those commercial milestones, but that's me.
Regards
Rod
(20min delay)