Tl;Dr -- honestly, it's a long post...I suggest not reading it unless you're super interested in Pac Bio or you're just bored. Or just click here and listen for 30 seconds starting from about 25:20 http://seekingalpha.com/article/3593...s-call-webcast
I read about the Sequel when almost everyone else found out about it. September 28th. I have been waiting for this announcement for almost a year now. I did my homework as quickly as possible to determine the cost of the machine. An hour after the market opened we bought 60,000 shares of PACB. We bought this amount because we understand what this machine is going to mean. And we have nearly every confidence that PacBio's stock price will double from our purchase price of $5.85
Also, when Pac Bio hits $11.70 per share we would have made enough profit to purchase a Sequel strictly off the profits of our stock trade.
Back to why I don't know if I can trust this company. Investors who follow the stock will discount the stock price still because Pac Bio had a past history of lying about their specs. That CEO is gone. But the history remains. My company tried to place an order for 3 Sequels. It took several days to get the sales department to even try to actually take our order. I kept pushing and trying to see why they were not really accepting our order. I finally was able, after a week of trying, to get them to confirm that orders are guaranteed to be shipped based on the order they were received.
Because they are a publicly traded company they must adhere to business rules a little bit more formally than private companies. They didn't want us ordering 3 machines right away because they would have to actually ship them to us in the order they were manufactured. So they kept trying to cancel our order. Then they tried to say there were errors in our order. When I told them they cannot do this they stopped calling us back. I called the CEO. He never responded. I didn't expect him to. But our order was over $1 million and since we guaranteed them we would run all 3 machines full time, we would be the largest user (per machine) of consumables. They cancelled our order.
Here is their CEO, from the quarterly conference call yesterday, answering the biggest question everyone has:
Just go to 25:20 and listen to the question and answer. Listen to the CEO. It will only take 30 or seconds to get it. My favorite part is when the CEO just laughs as he explains it.
Is anyone in this forum gonna read this post? Maybe....maybe 2 people. Will anyone care? Doubtful. Maybe someone here will think I am an idiot. Either way, I felt compelled to share this with this community because I often feel compelled to share things with scientists who rely on companies to be honest with them when it comes to devices and protocols for their research. This company has a history of being dishonest. So much so that they got rid of the last CEO because of that stuff. This new group seems just like the old. Except this CEO seems SUPER out of his league. I have listened to SO many CEO's in the bio space. This guy is weak and above his pay-grade. For sure. I am not trying to be mean or rude. I am just telling this community the truth as I see it. I am still gonna spend a bunch of money on using their tech. I just wish they were more honest. And I wish they had a better management team. But....that is who they decided to hire so we are all kinda stuck with it. I mean....Pac Bio is a tiny company. They have only sold 125 or so of their most current machines. They rely on money from Roche for the development of the Sequel to be "profitable." Their new technology is basically just cramming more dots onto their consumables. Don't get me wrong...we are still gonna use the Sequel. We're just gonna use it from a service provider. Assuming they are not exaggerating the specs. Which they could be. But we won't have to take that financial risk now because they won't sell to us. So the service provider will take the financial risk. They will charge 15%-20% extra to do a run. And we will save over $1 million upfront by not purchasing the machine.
For those who actually read this (you probably just wasted a bunch of time if you are here by now) my message/question is the same as the post title. Can you trust them? Also, someone might think this is funny...but it's a forum so I am gonna try: can someone contact me if you are really on the list to receive this machine and you are a service provider? I wanna negotiate a rate to use your machine 24/7 for the next 12 months. Let's negotiate a long term rate and then when you receive it and get up and running, let's start. I need 3 machines running at this rate. If anyone is actually interested and not too offended then you really should contact me.
-Dan (I put my name so that if someone from Pac Bio feels compelled to contact me then they will know who I am...but no one is even gonna read this...)
**Also, just in case someone actually read this whole post (unlikely), the purpose of the post was not to insult Pac Bio. Even though I did cuz I felt it was warranted by how they lied to us (which they did...for sure). The purpose was to inform based on what I experienced (and complain a little). Also the secondary purpose was to try to find service providers who are on the list of the first ten to receive a Sequel (yes...I know...you probably think it was a bad way to find a service provider).
I read about the Sequel when almost everyone else found out about it. September 28th. I have been waiting for this announcement for almost a year now. I did my homework as quickly as possible to determine the cost of the machine. An hour after the market opened we bought 60,000 shares of PACB. We bought this amount because we understand what this machine is going to mean. And we have nearly every confidence that PacBio's stock price will double from our purchase price of $5.85
Also, when Pac Bio hits $11.70 per share we would have made enough profit to purchase a Sequel strictly off the profits of our stock trade.
Back to why I don't know if I can trust this company. Investors who follow the stock will discount the stock price still because Pac Bio had a past history of lying about their specs. That CEO is gone. But the history remains. My company tried to place an order for 3 Sequels. It took several days to get the sales department to even try to actually take our order. I kept pushing and trying to see why they were not really accepting our order. I finally was able, after a week of trying, to get them to confirm that orders are guaranteed to be shipped based on the order they were received.
Because they are a publicly traded company they must adhere to business rules a little bit more formally than private companies. They didn't want us ordering 3 machines right away because they would have to actually ship them to us in the order they were manufactured. So they kept trying to cancel our order. Then they tried to say there were errors in our order. When I told them they cannot do this they stopped calling us back. I called the CEO. He never responded. I didn't expect him to. But our order was over $1 million and since we guaranteed them we would run all 3 machines full time, we would be the largest user (per machine) of consumables. They cancelled our order.
Here is their CEO, from the quarterly conference call yesterday, answering the biggest question everyone has:
Just go to 25:20 and listen to the question and answer. Listen to the CEO. It will only take 30 or seconds to get it. My favorite part is when the CEO just laughs as he explains it.
Is anyone in this forum gonna read this post? Maybe....maybe 2 people. Will anyone care? Doubtful. Maybe someone here will think I am an idiot. Either way, I felt compelled to share this with this community because I often feel compelled to share things with scientists who rely on companies to be honest with them when it comes to devices and protocols for their research. This company has a history of being dishonest. So much so that they got rid of the last CEO because of that stuff. This new group seems just like the old. Except this CEO seems SUPER out of his league. I have listened to SO many CEO's in the bio space. This guy is weak and above his pay-grade. For sure. I am not trying to be mean or rude. I am just telling this community the truth as I see it. I am still gonna spend a bunch of money on using their tech. I just wish they were more honest. And I wish they had a better management team. But....that is who they decided to hire so we are all kinda stuck with it. I mean....Pac Bio is a tiny company. They have only sold 125 or so of their most current machines. They rely on money from Roche for the development of the Sequel to be "profitable." Their new technology is basically just cramming more dots onto their consumables. Don't get me wrong...we are still gonna use the Sequel. We're just gonna use it from a service provider. Assuming they are not exaggerating the specs. Which they could be. But we won't have to take that financial risk now because they won't sell to us. So the service provider will take the financial risk. They will charge 15%-20% extra to do a run. And we will save over $1 million upfront by not purchasing the machine.
For those who actually read this (you probably just wasted a bunch of time if you are here by now) my message/question is the same as the post title. Can you trust them? Also, someone might think this is funny...but it's a forum so I am gonna try: can someone contact me if you are really on the list to receive this machine and you are a service provider? I wanna negotiate a rate to use your machine 24/7 for the next 12 months. Let's negotiate a long term rate and then when you receive it and get up and running, let's start. I need 3 machines running at this rate. If anyone is actually interested and not too offended then you really should contact me.
-Dan (I put my name so that if someone from Pac Bio feels compelled to contact me then they will know who I am...but no one is even gonna read this...)
**Also, just in case someone actually read this whole post (unlikely), the purpose of the post was not to insult Pac Bio. Even though I did cuz I felt it was warranted by how they lied to us (which they did...for sure). The purpose was to inform based on what I experienced (and complain a little). Also the secondary purpose was to try to find service providers who are on the list of the first ten to receive a Sequel (yes...I know...you probably think it was a bad way to find a service provider).
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