Yeah, I get that zincy and it seems I've heard most of it before.
My main point is that what the company needs now is FOCUS. IMO they should shelve the Shire work for now (since they are essentially done for their part), at least until Shire starts screaming, and make some hard choices about what to push through FIRST. They have commitments to BIIB and also to the HIV research community and they have their own account to coordinate (LSDs). Thats a lot to do and also keep the thing they love the most, pure research, moving along. I'm just saying that they risk falling into their comfort zone of focusing purely on R&D (which seems to pay just fine in options and stock after all!) at the expense of business development.
As Andy pointed out, it was heartening to hear EL stand up and get a little blunt about where the delays are with the Shire collaboration. He can avoid answering their calls for a while and focus on the BIIB colab and getting the HIV stuff on autopilot from a management standpoint so he can advance something that he DOES have control of. Yes, I do realize that I'm making it sound simple, and I understand that it is anything but simple, but the point is, MORE FOCUS.