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‘Right, over to me,’ said Nick, ‘I’ll just connect up my laptop as I’ve a few slides to help me.’ Nick pressed one of the keys repeatedly, ‘Ah, that should be it now,’ he said. He quickly rubbed his hand over his close cropped hair which was an involuntary sign of slight nervousness.
‘What did I tell you? Erin would have had that connected up in no time. She could always get things up!’
‘You are beginning to sound like a Carry on Film,’ said Matt.
‘I just mean that Erin was good with her hands and I’m sure a lot of men in the area could testify to that.’ Brett got up to swivel around the whiteboard so that the projection screen was facing the room and Nick’s first slide appeared.
‘Excellent. Firstly, the patent write-up is going well. The experimental details are almost completed. As you know, we did the initial filing a couple of months ago, we have another ten months to add any further examples to strengthen our claims. ’
‘Wow, that looks really encouraging,’ said Brett.
‘How many examples have we included so far?’
‘About a hundred and twenty, give or take.’
‘That’s brilliant. Of course we are making compounds all the time so it’s an ongoing job to add the write-ups for each one,’ commented Brett.
‘Yes but it much easier adding them as they are made rather than doing a whole load in one go.’
Matt and Brett made some notes as Nick was speaking.
‘I’ve quite enjoyed it really. It’s been satisfying.’
‘Project manning?’ asked Matt.
‘Yes, we’ve now got five full-time chemists and our new recruit Adam Newman started last week, making six. It will take him a little while to get up to speed of course and the rest of the laboratory effort will be a bit diluted as they help him settle in.’
‘What about additional manning? asked Matt.
‘I think we should be able to finance two more positions at post-doctoral level. I really need to thrash all this out with Hilary though.’
‘Don’t try to compete for Hilary’s attentions,’ joked Brett. ‘She’s spoken for.’
Nick smiled. He enjoyed Brett’s banter.
‘Well, that all looks great. Email me a copy of the costings. We need to be sure about our total financing before we commit to two further scientists.’
‘OK, no problem. So, this slide shows the biology manning costs. There aren’t any changes on that front. We plan to maintain our current contract for off-site testing, supported by further testing here,’ he paused before bringing up the next slide. ‘Finally some on-going costing and statistics from our outsourcing work with IndSyn.’
There was silence in the meeting room whilst the other two men absorbed all Nick’s information.
‘As you can see the productivity is a little disappointing from IndSyn.’
‘How closely are you monitoring them and helping the contractors?’ asked Matt.
‘Much more closely than we had hoped. Pat and I have to keep offering lots of suggestions but the time difference between the UK and India doesn’t help. Also, it’s really hard to speak to the person doing the work as we always deal with the supervisors.’
‘I see,’ said Matt, rubbing his forehead.
‘We’ve told them that they can contact us at any time but they seem reluctant to ask for help. It’s as if they are embarrassed about any problems.’
‘Well, we can’t let it go on forever. We might need to look for another contractor. How long are we committed to IndSyn?’
‘We have another four months under the current contract.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Matt. ‘How are the quotes for scale-up going?’
‘Again, it’s a bit painful. I can’t get an idea of how professional some of these outfits are over the phone or from their websites. India would be the cheapest place to contract out and they are a lot more experienced in this sort of thing than China. But, well, without a recommendation from another company it’s a bit of a leap into the unknown.’
The three partners sat in silence for a few moments thinking through the information.
‘What about going out there? Seeing for yourself which look the best companies. Trying to get a feel for their expertise?’ asked Brett.
‘Seriously?’ said Nick, looking rather surprised.
‘It could be money well spent, Brett’s right,’ added Matt.
‘Well, I don’t know. I could look into it. Plan an itinerary, cost it.’
‘Yes, do that and we’ll discuss again. Check what immunisation you would need. That might delay things.’
‘Well, Polly and I went to Thailand a few years ago so I might be protected against some things.’
‘OK, anything else?’
‘No, that’s me done for today.’
‘Right, over to me then,’ said Matt. ‘Well, I’m not sure how much you’ve heard through the grapevine about the state of play over at ClinTry?’ He raised his eyebrows but the other two shook their heads. ‘We had hoped to use ClinTry on the Science Park here for the bulk of the early stage trials, although admittedly they might not be able to do them all.’
‘So, what’s the problem?’ asked Brett.
‘Well, we thought that ClinTry was turning the corner, so to speak as they had the new director and the staff turnover seemed to have settled. But their finance sheet isn’t looking too healthy and really they need an injection of cash to keep them going otherwise they might have to close before we can start the next clinical trials of 627 with them.’
‘I didn’t know it was so bad,’ said Brett, frowning.
‘Nor did anyone. This is all very hush hush, so don’t tell anybody at the moment. But as you know they are part of a group and they might be offloaded soon if the head office doesn’t think they are viable. I think the bad publicity with the botched trial at BioQex when Bob screwed up has rubbed off on them and mud sticks. It seems other clinical units tried to capitalise on it to steal business from them, and well...’ Matt shrugged.
‘I don’t suppose we could finance them and bring them under the PersCure brand?’ said Brett.
‘I suggested this to Hilary but it’s too risky. Also, it doesn’t fit with the fledgling status of the company and the University doesn’t want to touch it,’ he shrugged. ‘So, watch this space. It’s possible there will be an announcement in the next few weeks. It’s a shame though. I was hoping this new manager whose name escapes me at the moment would be able to turn the company around.’
‘Well, we can’t worry about too many things out of our control,’ said Brett.
‘Exactly. The main thing is that PerzSolve is doing well and we launch PersCure. Onward and upward!’
The three partners in PerzSolve gathered up their things and left the room to carry on their separate tasks. On the whole, it had been an upbeat meeting but there were still some knotty issues to iron out. Nick couldn’t wait to tell Polly about his potential trip to India. He thought back to his career at BioQex and before and could hardly believe how his career had taken off and had become so varied and interesting. Should he ever need to look for another job he would have an impressive CV.
