Speaking of Pierre... Pierre Laurin, who founded Prometic in 1994, is sad to see the fate of his “baby”.
“It’s quite painful to see that”, he confides to the Newspaper speaking of the strong dilution that Prometic shareholders suffered following the takeover of the company by Thomvest in the spring of 2019.
A few months earlier, in December 2018, Prometic’s board of directors thanked him as CEO, a position he had held since 1994. He received nearly $ 2.4 million upon his departure.
“The end was not bitter when I was asked to leave,” says Laurin. I was mature enough to understand. The end became bitter when I saw the people who have supported Prometic all these years watered down to this point. There, it became very bitter, that’s for sure. “
Hard situation
Pierre Laurin acknowledges that Prometic’s financial situation was not easy and that one of the company’s products, a plasma derivative, required a very expensive production infrastructure.
“We were working very hard at the time,” explains Mr. Laurin. […] I haven’t had the chance to prove that we can do it. Then it’s hard to say, as a platform manager [ l’gard de Thomvest] : “Ah, they could have, they could have …” There were certainly other ways of doing things than the one they chose. The one they chose suited them greatly. “
For the money and for the cause
The entrepreneur points out that investors have staked more than $ 1 billion on Prometic over the years. In 2016, Prometic’s market value approached two billion.
“There were so many shareholders who were there for the money, but also for the cause,” he says.
“People calling me, I would tell them good things about what I thought was going to happen, so people would stay. They said to me: “We continue, Pierre”. […] This is where the problem lies “.
Aged 61, Pierre Laurin is now focusing his energies on Ingenew, a pharma specializing in oncology.
“We’re continuing the dream that we couldn’t finish at Prometic,” he says. You have to look forward, there is no point in exorcising the past. You can’t forget what you learned at Prometic.