Interview...manufacturing perception? While I agree with CS that you don't bite the hand that feeds you, I will give Graham the benefit of doubt on this one. Nothwithstanding the fact that this interview may very well have been facilitated by proactive members of this board, those that have been around know that Graham can pump effectively and at will when he wants to.
As such, what are the motives for giving the interview the way he did?
Foremost, I don't believe that the feds want Bioniche to be seen as a premeditated grants to subsidy story, where they are seen to be paying for everything, for the questionable benefit of a public company. They are conservatives. Rather, the story is to be manufactured as: "Homegrown biotech success creates vaccine that through the strategic support of Industry Canada saves taxpayers $150 million in healthcare costs."
The important news that nobody commented on here is the revamping of Industry Canada's 3.5b R&D funding. Gone are the automatic tax credits for any outlay that the accountants can remotely call R&D. In comes strategic grants and loans to key sectors seen as benefiting Canadians, their jobs and industry. Less than a week later Graham lands himself in ROB, giving a "woe us, we are the strategic little biotech that needs money to make it big" , effectively putting his hand out first publicly in this new climate . You don't mention Urocidin, the expected revenues in 2015. Nobody wants to give money to a company which will be potentailly worth a billion. You are a little biotech that can be Canada's biotech with just a little help.Now the feds can be seen as using the new rules to give Bioniche what was always in the cards but could not be publicly spoken. They are the saviours in a full win win for everyone. Perception is everything, and Graham needed to make us sound that we need Canada to survive and be a great Canadian company and the feds needed the public to hear the same in order to justify the subsidy.
To boot they can rationalize the costs as savings. (Graham was to the point in serving up the numbers to the readers of the Globe: spend 50mill save 150) While the feds were pitched into providing loans and grants for the VMC plant, they can always claim that it serves a dual purpose as a strategic asset in case of a national emergency requiring mass manufacturing of vaccines. (For those that would argue that it is not licensed for human vaccines, that red tape would disappear faster than you could say "human acquired avian flu")
It's built, so now it needs to be filled with orders. If Graham is great, the subsidy is a done deal already and the show is all about public perception. If there's no subsidy he squandered a golden chance for promotion.