@davidlaz Your column (and your source, Professor Robert Frank) are dead wrong on why Kodak is a seemingly logical move.

Your column:

"Harvard’s Frank said that while increased domestic drug production may be prudent from a national security perspective, tapping a company with little pharmaceutical experience as your backstop doesn’t make a lot of sense."

“There’s a lot more to it than just knowing chemical engineering,” he said. “You need to know the suppliers. You need to know the regulatory structure. You need to know the distribution network.”

Professor Frank is wrong. This is the field I work in, and Kodak is a competitor of mine. They are a very logical move, and a brief Googling would indicate as to why.

The molecules that go into dye and film chemicals are very similar to those that go into the drug industry.

Kodak has been shopping out its services as a custom manufacturer for pharma using its legacy plant since 2013! https://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i22/Kodak-Pictures-Bright-Future.html

Professor Frank is wrong: the suppliers that supply raw materials for pharmaceutical intermediate manufacturing ARE THE SAME SUPPLIERS that supply Kodak. This business is smaller than you think!

The regulatory structure IS a challenge IF Kodak intends on manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients in its Rochester and St. Paul facilities, but that's not what I suspect is original intended.

I also believe Professor Frank is wrong in terms of the distribution network - your customer (the pharma company) tells you where to send your product next.

Your column focuses a lot on cost, but it does not focus on scale. The Rochester plant is very large (I have been there!), and with federal subsidies, may be able to be cost-competitive with China and India. We shall see.

Let's be honest - it's the Trump Administration - they're bound to screw this up somehow. But in terms of "why Kodak?", it's only a surprise to those people who don't know the field. Sorry.