Medical Mktg Share Discussion Threads

[bennytheball] 27/7/2009 14:27

Life Sciences cluster takes further blow as York Pharma enters administration
Written by Ben Fountain
Monday, 27 July 2009

York Pharma has become the second publicly-quoted East of England Life Sciences firm in just four days to call in administrators.

Milton Keynes-based York Pharma, which specialised in dermatology drugs, has joined Cambridge-based Alizyme in succumbing to a funding crisis.

York Pharma had suffered a catalogue of setbacks in 2009, starting in January with the collapse of its acquisition of two dermatology products after a term loan facility was withdrawn. Its shares were suspended from trading on the AIM market at the end of March, which led it to seek a sale of the business.

Having secured a non-binding agreement for the sale of the business to Texas headquartered Uluru in April, York also had made available to it a $1m short-term line of credit to keep it afloat until the deal went through.

When that deal went sour last month, Uluru demanded repayment of the line of credit plus interest within 30 days. And while York's funding problems ran deeper than its inability to repay the full amount of this loan - it could only muster $250k within the timescales prescribed by Uluru - the episode called time on efforts to save the company.

Leonard Curtis in Bury, Lancashire will handle the administration and "will take such measures as they believe appropriate relating to the Company and its assets," according to a statement.

The statement continued: "As previously announced, York has been actively pursuing alternative funding facilities in order to repay the loan and to enable it to meet its ongoing working capital requirements.

"Unfortunately these efforts have not been successful and the board has concluded that any potential transactions which might have provided additional facilities could not be completed within the time available before exhaustion of the company's cash resources."

York Pharma was founded in 2003 by entrepreneur Terry Sadler after his previous venture, Bioglan went bust in 2002.

Following Asterand's fall into administration, the East of England can now only boast two London-listed biotechs engaged in drug discovery or development: Phytopharm recently instituted a major cost-cutting exercise and has a market cap of 4.76m, while Medical Marketing International, currently valued at 2.25m is also fighting for its survival.

MMI has spent over a year and a half trying to rebuild its business and reputation following the ousting of former executive chairman and company founder, David Best, accused, amongst other things, of over-stating the progress MMI had made with its drug development pipeline.

[bennytheball] 23/7/2009 20:32

yes, that seems about the size of it to me too.

[optimist at large] 22/7/2009 20:16

I seem to recall that the last placing, at the end of July 2008, was at 19p when the share price was 15p.

[tenapen] 22/7/2009 18:43

They are going to run out of money 2-3 months. Why would anyone save the company when they will be able to pick any meat from the bones once / if they go into administration. If they could raise new money what would the price ? 2.5p if their lucky.
If you have bought more Benny i admire your bravery but that action is too dangerous for me.

regards.

[banjomick] 22/7/2009 08:36

Is it all over then or are you just scaremongering?


"BennytheBall - 22 Jul'09 - 08:24 - 9990 of 9990


So how do you see things unfolding, now the game is over?"

[bennytheball] 22/7/2009 08:24

So how do you see things unfolding, now the game is over?

[tenapen] 21/7/2009 16:33

Benny,
IMO the game is over for MMG.
The A1 Gasbag exaggerated all aspects of developement and as such drained investor confidence. The many 'babybio's' have all failed to deliver and that is just from the test tube they have never even got close to clinical trails. The 'credit crunch' will not have helped but IMO a further fund raising would have been out of the question. I made some money and lost some money on MMG as i hope other investors have.

regards.

[bennytheball] 21/7/2009 08:36

On the face of it, the idea MMG have nothing fundable is nonsense - they've two significant bits of protected IP that could either or both, if trials prove successful, become platform technologies for a new range of cancer drugs.

The wisdom on this thread is that our main problem is with the development timetable, and particularly the proximity to a deal with a big pharma, which have both been exaggerated. I've not read anyone suggesting that the IP itself has been oversold. It's early days, it might never come off, anything could go wrong as clinical trials progress, only one in a hundred make it to phase 4 etc... But that's not happened yet - any bad news in terms of clinical testing would be reported and, as none has been, we've still got the same story of two potential platform technologies.

But is this true?

Why are the ruthenium compounds being tested as a complement to existing platinum-based treatments, rather than a treatment in their own right? I had an idea this was to enhance their value in the context of a deal - if a combination of ruthenium + exiting platinum-based treatments can be shown to improve on existing treatments, then platinum-based drugs have a new lease of life rather than being suddenly obsolete. Or is it that Ruthenium's efficacy is actually less than had once been hoped and, while that's not been hidden, while the data has been reported, it's not been shouted about.

Similarly, with the cancer vaccines. I imagined that dropping the lymphoma treatment was because it was too small a market and with early clinical trial successes it made sense to move straight onto a market worth a hundred times more - prostate cancer.

But again, is that true? Is it that clinically the results of trials so far are far less exciting than we want to believe so that, as Filbert3 suggests, the technology is effectively worthless and there's nothing to fund?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Ben

[bennytheball] 17/7/2009 19:18

Filbert3, you may be right.
Are you putting your money where your mouth is?
B

[bioinvest] 10/7/2009 23:03

anybody have any news on the shareholder presentation?

[banjomick] 10/7/2009 14:41

mitzis,bit of a daft statement if I may be so bold.....I agree though that this stock is very risky especially at this stage in it's history.Time will tell ect ect ect

[bioinvest] 10/7/2009 12:04

I agree with mitzis

[bennytheball] 10/7/2009 11:27

mitzis, that's not like you. Don't think I've heard you so negative in six years. Now I'm worried.

[mitzis] 10/7/2009 10:23

I reckon MMG are already failed.

[bennytheball] 10/7/2009 09:58

If we get finance sorted out then I think the run will go far further. Funding I would assume would be at a substantially higher level, which the share price will then catch up with.
The problem is that, on the other hand, funding might not be sorted in time and the company might fail, so the run would be down to 0.

[hena79] 09/7/2009 15:29

Some good buying here today. Picked up a few at 4p and looks for a run back to 6p imo on the chart.

[banjomick] 09/7/2009 11:49

lol and yes,just a punt for old time sake.

[bennytheball] 09/7/2009 07:45

banjomick, you didn't by any chance buy at 6p did you?

[banjomick] 08/7/2009 23:52

A bit like the fall from 6p

[bennytheball] 08/7/2009 23:37

Interesting price movement - semms like we're back at that point where minor trades have disproportionately large impact.

[banjomick] 08/7/2009 20:48

Can we get back up to 6p please and then carry on speculating on what will happen next...... :-)

[jamie62] 08/7/2009 10:03

thanks - for some reason I have not received an invite, so any updates posted here would be fully appreciated.