Tiresias; Next Steps

“O, let not virtue seek remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit, high birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, love, friendship, charity,

Are subject all too envious and calumniating time.”

Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare.

My friends,

In the aftermath of Optiscan’s Mayo Clinic deal, Tiresias has been musing, thinking and dreaming of what this means and what if anything else might be in the offing. Before he addresses what Ulysses (Odysseus) is saying in the quote above, Tiresias would like to explain something about the Mayo collaboration which he hasn’t mentioned but which is important. What would have been the key to Mayo entering the collaboration with Optiscan. Well, of course there would have been many many details, but there is in Tiresias’s mind, one key factor, a “sine qua non” for the joint venture. The “without which not”, the deal breaker and the deal maker was the quality of Optiscan’s breast pathology data that The Mayo Clinic’s top, and therefore the world’s top, breast cancer pathologists, would have meticulously examined hundreds, probably thousands, of breast tissue histological, before any collaboration that would allow the “Mayo Clinic” to be joined with that of Optiscan. Apart from this enabling Optiscan’s CLE to be the eye of the Mayo Clinic Robotic surgery, something that changes everything, it confirms Tiresias’s opinion of our technology. However, perhaps as exciting as the endorsement by the Mayo Clinic, for that is what it is, it speaks volumes to Tiresias who looks forward to the publication of the breast cancer data, and especially the histological photomicrographs.

Tiresias, as a student of human nature, likes to quote The Bard, gratitude and satisfaction with yesterday’s favours and achievements, is brief and subject to envious time. Pleased as he is with the Mayo Clinic announcement, which is a major goal scored, or in The Bard’s words, “A hit, a very palpable hit”, like Oliver Twist, Tiresias wants “Please Sir, Can I have some more?”. Tiresias would presume to suggest that it is no accident that as well as a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, Optiscan have established an office in Minneapolis Minnesota, a major Medical Technology hub, and just 60 miles from Rochester and Mayo Clinic. Some have suggested that this is to do with the application for FDA approval, and the frustration of trying to achieve this from Australia. That may well be so, but Tiresias has watched the modus operandi of our CEO/MD Professor Farah. Farah likes to keep his cards close to his chest and then surprise us with an announcement. Tiresias suspects, but does not know, that the office in Minneapolis may be more than just the FDA application.

With regards to the FDA application, Tiresias understands the frustration of some of his friends on this, but he himself is completely unfazed. He would like to remind his friends of his opinion of this FDA organisation; how flawed and how actually unimportant it really is and how it is rapidly becoming irrelevant. It's an over bureaucratic, dare he say corrupted, system funded by American pharmaceuticals and medical technology, purportedly to protect the consumer but actually to extract the maximum monies from the long-suffering extorted patients in America and the world. Its jurisdiction over the world's medical innovation is rapidly declining and many of the other jurisdictions, particularly those in Asia are paying less and less attention to the FDA. These other countries are increasingly making independent decisions and not kowtowing to the FDA. There can be no problem with Optiscan, apart from FDA’s bureaucracy, for Optiscan’s CLE already has FDA approval for neurosurgery and GI. Tiresias is waiting for Optiscan to look at these other bigger regulatory jurisdictions which are also looking to assert their independence from the FDA. He even hopes that our own TGA may one day do more than kowtow to the FDA to earn their salaries. So, Tiresias will not be surprised if Professor Farah “surprises” us again. Let us see if Tiresias’s foresight, looking “through a glass darkly”, as he must. As he has said, the Mayo Clinic changes everything.

Until next week.