What follows is a working draft of how we’d structure the first 90 days of work, written in the same posture as the rest of this site. It can be edited. The pricing is shown plainly. The scope reflects what we heard at Andover. We’ve tried to make it easy to react to.
Prepared for
Nick Iftimia, Julia Dupuis, Youbo Zhao
From
Eric Eskey, Daniel Behr, David Potter · Dark Horse Works
Date & version
{{ preparedDate }} · v4
02What we heard, in brief
At Andover we heard the structural case for a commercialization function PSI does not naturally produce internally: the “hundred David Weitzes” without someone pointing the arrow, the gas-leak case as the recurring shape PSI wants to repeat, the bio portfolio as the place to start. Two things in particular shape what follows. The first is PSI’s agreement to begin small, on a defined slice, with the option to expand. The second is the open question Youbo raised about the Bio Reactor: is it a new category, and where is the real market? This proposal is built against both.
03Phase 1 · what we propose to do
Two parallel work streams over 90 days.
3a · Scope
Stream one · lead-asset depth$25,000
A deep read on the Bio Reactor’s commercial chances, with a companion sizing on the Gas Leak Detector
A thorough deep dive on the Bio Reactor’s commercial chances, and how to make them actionable. We frame it around the live question Youbo raised: is this a new category, and where is the real market? The work delivers a clear-eyed read of whether the demand can be named, sized, and pursued, and, if the chances are good, a concrete path to act on them.
Carried alongside it, a tighter companion read on the Gas Leak Detector (imaging). Because this is a more established shape for PSI, the question is narrower: confirm and size the market, and name the route (license / OEM / partner). The two reads sit inside one stream at intentionally different depths, matched to how defined each asset’s market already is.
Stream two · dermatology signal, the right buyer$25,000
A clinical-signal read on the dermatology assets, aimed at the buyer and use-case that actually moves
A focused read across PSI’s dermatology assets (DermVisio, tVisio) that starts from a sharper question than market size: who is the buyer who actually adopts, and in which use-case? The earlier market read pointed at practicing dermatologists, where adoption is slow. We test the higher-signal alternatives in parallel — excised-tissue surgical margins (in evaluation at MSKCC), core-needle biopsy (in evaluation at MD Anderson), and the PE-backed groups consolidating dermatology practices, who buy on a different logic than an individual practice. Three senior clinical KOLs upgrade the read; NIH’s prior OCT feedback folds in as supporting input. The objective is external clinical signal aimed where demand is most likely to be real, not where it is merely easiest to ask.
Across both streams, the synthesis is a single portfolio view in the “where to play / how to win” shape, with an assumptions register held alongside it.
3b · Deliverables and rhythm
{{ r.when }}
{{ r.what }}
04What we are not proposing to do
Mark which you want to keep as a boundary, and which you’d rather discuss.
{{ b.text }}
05How we thought about pricing
The work below would, if PSI built it internally, sit inside a senior commercial leadership seat, the kind of role that runs $200–300K per year fully loaded, before recruiting time and before the lag inherent to bringing in someone unfamiliar with PSI’s portfolio. We’ve proposed an external arrangement that gives PSI the function, three partners, portable expertise, the working surface itself, and no internal political bandwidth burned on it, for the first 90 days. The fee for Phase 1 is shown below.
Phase 1 fee
Two streams of $25,000=$50,000
Two streams of work, $25,000 each, billed across the three-month engagement. Set against an internal senior commercial seat at $200–300K per year fully loaded, $50,000 buys ninety days of that function: three partners, the analysis, the KOL conversations, and the working surface, with no seat to recruit and no internal political bandwidth burned. The fee covers a defined body of work on a defined schedule; it is not tied to PSI’s funding events. If PSI prefers to align the start date with its NIH funding timing, that is entirely PSI’s call — the scope and the price do not change. It does not include any third-party costs (for example, honoraria for KOLs, if any are required, typically not, given DHW’s substrate).
How does this land?
06After Phase 1 · possible, not bundled
Candidate next-phase workstreams, named here so PSI can see the shape of what could follow. Each is independently decidable and independently scoped, after Phase 1 has produced its read. They are listed at parity, not ranked.
Drag to put them in the order that matters to you. We read the order as a signal.
{{ c.rank }}
drag
{{ c.title }}
{{ c.body }}
The Phase 2 conversation is its own conversation.
07Co-authoring · the next step
This page is intended to be a working draft. If anything reads wrong, or is scoped too tightly or too loosely, the right next step is a thirty-minute conversation (Eric, Daniel, or all three of us) where we adjust the document with you. The proposal is the substance, not the artifact; we’d rather get it right than send a finished thing.