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No Longer Just A Technology Licensing Company - Competitive Technologies’ FDA Approved Pain Management Medical Device Is The First Product To Be Introduced In Their New Strategy Of Developing And Bringing Products To The Market |
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Competitive Technologies, Inc., based in Fairfield, CT, is a global leader in identifying, developing, and commercializing innovative products and technologies in life and physical sciences, electronics, and nanotechnologies developed by individuals, corporations and universities. CTT provides distribution, patent and technology transfer, selling and licensing services throughout the world. It focuses on customer needs and matching those needs with commercially viable technology or product solutions provided by its clients.
Mr. Nano is a graduate of MIT’s Sloan School
Executive Program, holds an MBA in Finance from Northeastern University, and
a BS in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Interview conducted by: Walter Banks, Publisher, CEOCFOinterviews.com, Published – March 16, 2009
Mr. Nano: “During the past 40 years, we’ve specialized in commercializing technologies, primarily in licensing. We’ve licensed over 500 technologies in life sciences, electronics, and nanotechnologies to more than 400 companies including some technologies from Nobel Prize winners. What we are doing now is we are working with technologies to get a larger payout for the shareholders with each successful technology we select. In the past, we’ve taken technologies from universities like Columbia, Cornell, Lehigh University, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania and licensed them to companies like IBM, JDSU, Merck, Bayer, TDK, Pfizer, SONY, and Abbott Labs. Now, what we are doing is taking the technology and developing it to a higher profit level. A perfect example is our pain management medical device for which we have just received FDA approval.”
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about your pain device like and if it will be your flagship product as you go forward? Mr. Nano: “Our pain management medical device will be our flagship product in terms of demonstrating our new business model, moving away from just straight licensing of technologies. It is a breakthrough device for the treatment of high intensity, oncologic and neuropathic pain, including pain that is resistant to morphine and other drugs. The device is non-invasive, painless, fully automated and we have a high degree of repeatability with results. We have both FDA authorization for sales in the US and CE Mark approval for sales in Europe. We’ve treated over 3,000 patients in more than 11 hospitals with this device, and in a high percentage of the cases, we’ve been able to have the pain completely disappear. Even pain resistant to drugs such as morphine. Our pain management medical device is certainly a breakthrough in the treatment of pain.”
CEOCFO: This could have a great affect on people’s dependency on drugs for pain relief? Mr. Nano: “Yes, in many cases, they can avoid drugs, and in other cases they can take a reduced level. Drugs like morphine have a number of adverse side effects that generally are addiction, depression, drowsiness, and also they often cause collateral damage to the other organs. Worst of all, the body usually builds up a resistance to these drugs, including morphine. The patient is required to take more and more morphine to reduce the pain. With our device, they can go to either no drugs or a lower dosage of drugs to reduce the pain. The whole approach to our device is very revolutionary.”
CEOCFO: Can you explain your device to us; how is works, and what the patient needs to do to use it? Mr. Nano: “Our device is non-invasive. The device uses surface mounted electrodes that are placed on the skin. These electrodes receive the pain signal coming from the area of the pain, whether it be the pain from a false-limb syndrome, a failed back surgery, or oncologic pain from even pancreatic cancer. For any type of oncologic or neuropathic pain, the device receives the signal through your nerve fiber, intercepts the pain signal in your nerve fiber, reads the pain signal and sends a no pain signal through your own nerve fiber to your brain. Therefore, it is done painlessly in your nerve fiber, with a surface mounted electrode that is allowed to send a signal through your own nerves. The device is something that we’ve used on over 3,000 people, with no side affects and a high degree of success.”
CEOCFO: Do you have everything in place to bring your pain management product to market and what is the strategy? Mr. Nano: “Our strategy for bringing this particular product to market is to work with distributors. We’ve currently signed distribution agreements that at this point cover over 45% of the world’s population, over 3 billion people. We have distribution agreements in Europe, India, the Middle East, and some of the Asian countries, as well as South American countries. However, the major distribution will be in the United States and we’re working on a distribution agreement for the U.S. market.”
CEOCFO: Who will your clients be? Mr. Nano: “The product is designed for use in a hospital or clinic. Our prospective distributors are those who normally sell medical devices and equipment to hospitals and clinics. This is because the device is to be used by a trained professional on a patient. The device is such that the training of the clinician who uses the device is important in the ultimate success of the treatments. The more training of the clinician, the better are the results in treating the patients. It’s not that there is any risk with it; it is that the efficacy and success, and the treatments improve with the quality of training. We look for trained professionals to use our device the same as you would to have a trained professional to do X-rays in a hospital.”
CEOCFO: Will distributors be doing all of the selling or will you have a sales staff that will do the legwork, the phoning, and selling as well? Mr. Nano: “The distributors are going to do the legwork in the clinics. We’ve done the work in terms of gaining the FDA and the CE approvals. We have also done a great deal of work in clinical trials. We have validated the success of the device on thousands of patients with clinical trials that are accepted by the FDA and the European Union. With those clinical trials comes what I call treatment protocols that the trained clinicians would use in the hospitals or clinics. It is just a matter of having the clinicians themselves learn how to properly and efficiently use our device. The device is mainly replacing the use of drugs and other treatments that try to block the pain from getting to the brain. For 3,000 years, what man has done is try to block the pain signal from going to the brain with either drugs or acupuncture. For example, the ancient Chinese and Greeks tried different methods from stopping the pain from going to the brain. We have the first device that actually takes and changes the signal from a pain signal to a no pain signal. The brain receives the no-pain signal and does not try to block the signal.”
CEOCFO: Can this be used on Migraines? Mr. Nano: “We aren’t using it yet on migraines, but it will help migraines and any type of pain signal that is a chronic pain signal that is going to your brain. As long as it is neuropathic or oncologic pain, it will treat that pain.”
CEOCFO: Will the use of your device be covered by insurance companies? Mr. Nano: “It will be covered on insurance. We are working on what is called reimbursement rates for the insurance companies for the device. As you may know, we just received the FDA approval last week. We are going to price the device so that it will be a low enough cost for a medical device that will be readily available to a large portion of the patient population.”
CEOCFO: What is the name of your product, where did you get it and will there still be R&D spending on it? Mr. Nano: “The device was invented at a University in Rome, Italy, and I acquired the worldwide rights to the device for our company. We’ve gone ahead with the patenting, manufacturing and the FDA and CE approval of the device. We have also done the clinical trials for the device. There will be continued R&D to develop follow along products to this and the original device in the United States. We are calling the device and therapy the Calmare Therapy Treatment, which means soothing in Italian. The reason we selected that name is because we acquired the technology from a University in Rome.”
CEOCFO: What is your revenue model? Mr. Nano: “We sell it to the distributor and the distributor will either lease, rent or sell it to the hospital and clinic. In many cases in the US, the hospitals and clinics pay for medical devices out of operating cost, so it would be on a lease or rental basis. There is a "razor blade component" to the device. The device has five cables, and at the end of each cable are two surface mounted electrodes that are placed on the skin and the electrodes are similar to the surface electrodes that you would have on an EKG machine. They are adhesive electrodes that the wires snap into. With the five cables, and two on each end of the cable, there are ten surface mounted single use electrodes. Therefore, each time a patient is treated, the electrodes would need to be replaced, and that is the "razor blade" analogy in terms of a disposable piece of the equipment; the surface mounted electrodes that would be purchased with each treatment. Ten of these pads would be purchased with every treatment. You treat one patient about every 30 minutes, and the device treatment time last about 30 minutes.”
CEOCFO: Do you have the finances at this point to continue to build out the business and take it to market, or will you need to borrow or go to the street to raise funds? Mr. Nano: “We have the finances that we’ve lined up to be able to carry forth the strategic plan as I described to you. The company has zero debt and we have a $5 million equity line of credit with Fusion Capital that we have secured this past summer. Also, there are revenues from the agreements for the device that we have already signed, with minimum contractual requirements that the distributors need to sell just to maintain their distribution rights. These will generate about $25 million in sales in 2009 and about $50 million in sales in 2010 at the retail sales level. Therefore, this is an extremely large impact on our company that has just eight million shares outstanding, which is a fairly small float. When the company had strong revenues a few years ago, our share value went up to over $15.00 a share and our market cap went over $100 million. Our current market cap is about $12 million, so with some revenues and profits from this device, the market cap on our small float of a little over 8 million shares could go up by a factor of 10 times.”
CEOCFO: In closing, why should potential investors consider Competitive Technologies? Mr. Nano: “The most compelling reason for someone to invest in the company is primarily that we have a medical technology that works and has been proven in clinical trials on thousands of patients. The expected results from the device are very attractive to the company financially, in terms of the amount of profits and revenues it is expected to generate for the company. With a small float of only eight million shares, someone has the chance to invest in a medical device technology that helps bring clinical science to the patient. Therefore, you are doing human good at the same time that you have a chance to make a significant return on your investment.”
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“We have the first device that actually takes and changes the signal from a pain signal to a no pain signal. The brain receives the no-pain signal and does not try to block the signal.” - John B. Nano |
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