The leadership at e-clinical solutions provider BioClinica has a "flawed" acquisition strategy and is "destroying shareholder value," complains investor Nicusa Capital. In addition, "management has failed to demonstrate that there are any synergies between the two businesses" of the company.
BioClinica management disagrees. "The Board of Directors of BioClinica supports management and its strategic plan to enhance shareholder value."
In true he-said/she-said fashion, Nicusa expressed its disappointment in a release last Tuesday. The company responded with its announcement on Friday. Neither daily nor trade press appeared to notice.
Nicusa, as a 5.6 percent shareholder, is calling for the resignations of board chairman David Nowicki, CEO Mark Weinstein and CFO Ted Kaminer. The investor says that BioClinica's core imaging business "is worth substantially more than the current stock price, but management's corporate strategy is flawed." Nicusa speculates on the cause of the company's "trend of deteriorating financial performance" profitability reduction for the imaging business, less-than-expected profitability for the e-clinical business or a less synergistic integration of the businesses than management expected.
The e-clinical solutions provider acquired the CardioNow business of Agfa HealthCare in August 2009. Last April, it launched WebSend, a system for clinical trial image collection based on CardioNow technology. WebSend transfers and tracks medical images in real-time, and it's a companion to the WebView solution for managing the electronic sharing, blinding, tracking, archiving and analysis of medical images.
This might just be a case of an impatient investor jumping the gun: BioClinica announced last month the hiring of Garry Johnson as senior VP and CTO, a newly created position "with emphasis on current and future technologies across the organization." Johnson will lead technology strategy and oversee technology investments, the announcement says.
- read the Nicusa release
- see the BioClinica response
- and here's the Johnson announcement