Hi Biotechasx
I think the other factor which prompted the Board to ask John Martin to assume the CEO role some years ago was a recognition that Ben Herbert was a less than ideal talking head for the company - something that was reinforced by Ben's awkward performance during Louise Milligan's rather shabby hatchet job on Regeneus on the ABC several years back, when the company was tarred with the same brush as competitors with far less commitment to scientific justification for the efficacy of adipose stem cell therapies.
Since then, John Martin has been a fairly effective talking head for the company and from all reports did a commendable job in negotiating the AGC arrangements. His achilles heel was to put a timetable (not once, but twice) on the completion of a Japanese clinical licensing deal for Progenza and then fail to meet the milestones.
So, with John having returned to the less stressful role of Non-Executive Director, the question remains whether Leo Lee has the requisite skills, finesse, understanding and connections to quickly seal the Japanese clinical licensing deal for Progenza. On paper, you would have to say yes quite emphatically, and while it may be a bit unwieldy to have a CEO based in Japan while the rest of the company operates out of Sydney, at the present time, when Japan is the name of the game, it seems to make good sense.
My single misgiving is that Leo Lee has been a Tokyo based Non Executive Director of Regeneus since 2017 - pretty much for the entire period the company has been working towards a clinical licensing deal in Japan for Progenza. This begs the question as to what Leo may be able to achieve in Japan as the CEO, in respect to a clinical licensing deal, that he was unable to achieve as a Japan based Non-Executive Director, working in conjunction with John Martin. Perhaps he had been constrained in his preferred approach to negotiating the Japanese deal, by not being the "top dog".
Anyway, he is now the "top dog" and his ability to quickly close the Japanese deal will be his acid test.
zeno9
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