An ounce of cold sore prevention

Michael Jenkins has kept the faith and this week it's paid off: his Burlington company, Jenex, has launched Intercept CS, a cold sore prevention device.

Trucks have rolled up to Shopper's Drug Mart stores across Canada in the past few days holding the first shipments of the product Jenkins first dreamed about more than a decade ago.

Intercept is the only product approved by Health Canada, which can claim to prevent cold sores, caused by herpes simplex virus. Cold sore sufferers go through a stage in which they feel a tingling, itchy sensation a day or so before an outbreak.

Intercept applies bursts of heat to the area without causing burns and prevents an outbreak.

Jenex is a small fish in a big ocean. It is one of the smallest pharmaceutical companies in Canada, with only Therapik (a bee, sea creature bite treatment) and Intercept on its product roster so far.

Going public in 2002 was a critical decision in the company's development. Jenkins said at the time. Company shareholders felt it would be worth more public than private, when Intercept hit the market. Jenkins has mixed feelings about it.

"Being public today is not an easy thing, with all the Enrons and world.coms. It affects big companies and little companies alike," he said.

"It costs us a lot more money than in '02 to be public, whether it's auditing fees, fees with the exchange, or legal fees or just the fees associated with being a public company and being under more scrutiny."

Jenex's stock price has hit a high of $2.32 and yesterday climbed from 20 cents to close at 35 cents.

"We've been very focused on executing our plan and not on promoting our stock," he said. "That's important to all of us. I haven't done any roadshows with the brokers. We think the stock price will get to a level once we execute our business plan. Now I'm ready to do those roadshows."

Jenex said limited financial and human resources are common obstacles for small businesses in a "big pharmaceutical industry."

"There are lots of times when it would have been easy to give up."

Jenkins and Dan Felice, Jenex's vice-president, put their own money into the company and for many years didn't draw a salary.

Jenkins credits Jenex's survival on a stable, consistent group of "go-to" people to help guide them through the process, to researching and developing the product.

Many of them sit today on Jenex's advisory committee.

The shipments are satisfying to Jenkins, who says there were many "naysayers" early on.

"This is very non-traditional. You're dealing with a natural application. There are no drugs. In the traditional medical world, there were a lot of people who said 'I don't believe this stuff.'"

According to the company, 80 per cent of North Americans will suffer from cold sores at some point in their lives.

Jenkins, who doesn't ever get cold sores, said he was surprised by people who tested it.

"If you ask people about their cold sores, it's an emotional, psychological issue," he said.

He said the next big challenge for Jenex is to convince consumers that this product really works.

"There have been a lot of promises in the category by a lot of different products over the years," he said. "How does this little company out of Burlington, not Johnson & Johnson or some big name pharma ... (make) this incredible claim? We need to prove to consumers that this product is credible because the claim is incredible."

Sherry Torkos, a Fort Erie pharmacist and author on Jenex's advisory committee, said aside from the embarrassment of having a cold sore, they are also quite painful and can take a long time to heal.

"For people who have them, it can be a good week or even longer for them to go away.

"I'm really excited because there's nothing else out there to prevent them," she said.

Jenkins said the trick, once consumers start buying, is to manage growth and develop a plan to move forward, possibly treat other viruses with the technology, such as genital herpes or acne.

He expects that at some point, somebody will want to buy Jenex. And that's OK. By then, it will be time to move on.

"It's exciting, to take something like this concept through all the processes is very satisfying," he said.

"(But) our business plan was always to build to sell."

This is cache, read story here