Hope all is going well. I want to first start by welcoming Jacob Le Do to the BioSurfaces team. It is always an overwhelming task to learn all that we do, but Jacob is completely up to the task ahead of him. I hope you were able to check out our new segment two weeks ago called the “The Monthly Spin Off.” Here is the link in case you didn’t get a chance to check it out. Thanks to Pat for writing the debut article for this new segment and for Cameron coming up with the idea. The goal of the “Monthly Spin Off” is to provide you with a quick read of areas we are working on or topics we are interested in. Pat has put together an article related to this topic that provides more in-depth detail that will soon be available on our website. We are undergoing a few changes to the website so please bear with us as we look to continually improve the site. In addition to this, we will be adding more information related to purchasing our in vitro research tool (IVRT) products for our customers.
I also want to take time to acknowledge a good friend of ours Ed O’Brien (he would have jokingly said “acquaintance”), who recently passed away at way too early of an age. I always enjoyed talking with Ed about the business. He seemed to be one of the few that would ask about it, listen to all of the craziness going on and actually care. Ed’s business knowledge, even though he wasn’t in our space, was second to none. He would always give some great advice with the humor that only those who knew Ed would really appreciate. Starting this blog was one of Ed’s suggestions and it will be carried on in his honor. You don’t get to be around too many people like Ed in your life. I will miss our discussions (both personal and business), his thoughtful advice and his love of silly humor. Ed’s spirit will be kept alive by his wife Trisha, his four kids and two grandchildren, friends (acquaintances) and all of us who really loved him for who he was. He will be truly missed.
As I’ve been telling our team as of late, I feel like we are in a period of what I consider the calm before the storm. I think of it like a tsunami, where the water is pulled outwards and there appears to be a sense of calm before the water comes roaring back in. We have been so on the go since the start of the year. Even through the summer, we just never seemed to stop in spite of vacations by our team as well as by our collaborators. We continued to develop our technology while producing devices or products like the cell chamber and IVRT for our partners and customers to evaluate. We are at a point where we are awaiting data from several collaborators we are working with, which likely will all come in within the next week or so. It’s always torture waiting to hear how things are going. After all, this is science and while we have extensive data on our technology, our collaborators are applying it to areas that we have not assessed. We are so appreciative of our collaborator’s willingness to share their data. It is exciting watching all of the hard work being put into what we are making for them. There is no better validation of what your technology can do than when someone else is evaluating it. We always have a slight bias to what we’ve developed over all of these years so that is why it is great to have an outside perspective. It is a vulnerable feeling, but it is also rewarding when things go well.
In addition to waiting for results to come in (I equate this to waiting for results from the current election), we are also in process of trying to expand on our current business relationships. These relationships are focusing on us conducting the manufacturing for these groups. As I’ve relayed to you in previous blogs, we have a strong interest in expanding our capabilities into manufacturing. We have been planning for this for the past several years and feel like the time is coming. Unfortunately, everything is starting to hit at once. We did not plan it that way and in some ways, I wish it was a little more spread out, but it’s not something I can control. The other problem is the natural slowdown that is going to happen due to the holiday seasons coming. It does feel like the tsunami is lining up to hit soon but it likely is not going to hit in the way I think it will. It seems like it could line up, hit, retreat, hit, retreat and then fully flood us. There are worse things in the world, but it does make me nervous since we want to be able to handle all of these opportunities. We have been faced with challenges before and have overcome them. This would be no exception.
Our next #FactualFriday will return on December 2nd and our “Monthly Spin Off” segment will be on December 9th. The last blog of the year will be on December 16th.
Hope all of our US readers have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Matt
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