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TWST: Can we start out with a history and overview of the company?
Mr. Freiman: Neurobiological Technologies (NTI) was founded in 1987 by
some research scientists in San Francisco who focused on the area of
brain neurobiology. They had seen so much good work going on in academia
amongst their colleagues around the world, and many were frustrated by a
lack of funding from various governments at that particular point in
time. They said if they could raise enough money to start a company,
they would try to license products into the company, develop them, and
then license them out to large pharmaceutical companies, as a template.
The company succeeded in-licensing four products, of which two still
exist. There were a lot of machinations that went on because of
inexperience in the history of the company that eventually caused the
company to go public, probably prematurely, in 1994 at about 8 a share.
In 1995 NTI went out for a second round of financing at about 3 a
share. The stock kept going down during that period of time, much of it
due to a lack of experience in drug development. If you're going to
develop medicines, you have to dance the ballet that the FDA sets out
for you. TWST: I gather the ballet has gotten more difficult recently.
Mr. Freiman: You know the rules; you follow the steps, and if you want
to be innovative, you are probably going to get killed. So at any rate,
we wasted a lot of time. In 1997, the company changed when I arrived. I
had a lot of experience running a very large pharmaceutical company
called Syntex. I had retired and then unretired to become an interim
president of NTI. What we have done since that period of time is develop
our lead compound to the point of approaching a new drug application
(NDA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within three or four
months. We husbanded money. The company's burn rate has gone from 9
million to 3 million annually. We have eight employees in the company
now. I work with a group of consultants and contractors who I have
worked with throughout my years in the industry. We pay them by the
hour, or by the day, or by the week instead of having a lot of people
sitting around. The employees whom we have now are really excellent,
hardworking and faithful.
Tickers included in this excerpt: NTII
For more information call (212) 952 7400. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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