Catco Reinsurance Opport... Share Discussion Threads

[crystalclear] 19/4/2005 14:38

The index of second liners?
I take it that means CAT are in the FTSE-250, ie companies 101-350 in the whole scheme of things.
Any idea why there doesn't seem to be tracker fund buying for FTSE 250 or FTSE 350 indices pushing the price up?
From what you are saying about the appeal, I assume CAT will receive the whole of a Humira payment on some accounts and the market could be pleasantly surprised by the income, even if it is subject possible later reclaim from them.
Agreed?
Maybe I should check dates to see when that sort of thing is likely to be.

[matthu] 19/4/2005 09:55

I contacted CAT about the most likely date for the Appeal hearing - they expect this to be 9-12 months after the Appeal was granted i.e. it is likely to take place sometime between November this year and March 2006.

Once a date has been fixed by the Court, they will communicate it.

[matthu] 07/4/2005 12:46

The FTSE 250 rose 54.2 to 7,217.5. Among those companies trading ex-dividend were Rank Group, RAC and National Express.

Pharmaceutical group Cambridge Antibody Technology, easing ½ to 635p, moved into the index of second-liners. It replaces Kidde, the fire protection group which has been taken over by United Technologies Corporation.

[matthu] 22/3/2005 17:37

Cambridge Antibody Technology Announces Preliminary Results of Second Pivotal Trabio(R) Clinical Trial
Tuesday March 22, 9:33 am ET

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cambridge Antibody Technology (LSE: CAT - News; Nasdaq: CATG - News) today announces that in its second pivotal ('International' Phase III) clinical trial, Trabio® failed to meet the primary endpoint of improving the outcome of surgery for glaucoma. This result is consistent with the result of the first pivotal ('European' Phase II/III) clinical trial, which was announced in November 2004.
CAT is now terminating further development of Trabio as a potential treatment for improving the outcome of glaucoma surgery, as indicated in November 2004. Also in November 2004, CAT announced that it would be minimising, from that time, all future costs in connection with Trabio development.

Peter Chambre, Chief Executive Officer of CAT, comments "Given the results announced in November from the first Trabio trial, this is an outcome for which we have planned. We took the decision at that time to minimise all costs associated with this programme. We will focus our resources on product opportunities such as the AstraZeneca alliance, GC-1008 with Genzyme, and CAT- 354, our proprietary asthma candidate."

[matthu] 22/3/2005 16:22

Does anyone know what the timeframe might be for Abbott's appeal?

[bungles] 22/3/2005 10:06

I decided to jump ship for now. May buy back at a later date if the price drops further. Good luck guys!

[matthu] 21/3/2005 22:41

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cambridge Antibody
Technology (LSE: CAT; Nasdaq: CATG) reports the decision by the Rt Hon Lord
Justice Jacob, in the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, to grant Abbott
permission to appeal Mr Justice Laddie's judgment in favour of CAT of 20
December 2004.
In the Order from the Court of Appeal, the reasons for the decision are
stated as follows: "The points raised in [Abbott's] notice of appeal (there is
no separate skeleton argument) appear, just, to raise a real prospect of
success and the commercial importance of the agreements is sufficient in the
circumstances to provide a compelling reason for an appeal."
The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) that govern court procedures, state that
"Permission to appeal will only be given where - (a) the Court considers that
the appeal would have a real prospect of success; or (b) there is some other
compelling reason why the appeal should be heard."

[matthu] 04/3/2005 09:36

Abbott appoints new general counsel
Laura Schumacher has been promoted to the post of senior vice president, secretary and general counsel at US healthcare company Abbott Laboratories, succeeding Jose de Lasa who will retire at end-March.
Schumacher will report to chairman and chief executive officer Miles White. Previously, Schumacher was vice president, secretary and deputy general counsel.

The change at the top follows Abbott's defeat to Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) in the UK High Court in December. The high-profile dispute centred on the level of royalty payments Abbott should pay to CAT on the groundbreaking rheumatoid arthritis drug humira.

[matthu] 03/3/2005 10:26

from Telegraph 1 March
... yesterday traders were speculating that oil and gas exploration group Soco International, telecoms company Kingston Communications and pharmaceutical group Cambridge Antibody Technology stand a chance of being promoted to the FTSE 250.

[matthu] 15/2/2005 18:05

Your logic is appealing (if a bit simplistic) ...

We must presume that the share price prior to the court case did not entirely discount a court victory, so some of the value of the court victory was already in the price.

Also, for most of the time prior to the court case the share price included significant value attributed to Trabio (which may yet provide some value).

On the other hand, the court victory (if upheld) will also enhance the value of (a) future drugs to be marketed by Abbott that arise from the same original contract and (b) future indications that Humira might be licensed for.

So there is considerable upside once the case is finally settled.

I think the price fall is associated with short term traders who see an opportunity to invest elsewhere in the short term, knowing how long these legal matters drag on.

[crystalclear] 15/2/2005 17:56

Nevertheless, it will be on the balance sheet (I assume).
Basically it is now CAT's money, but they might lose it if they are very unlucky.
"Possession is nine tenths of the law" my dad used to say.

CAT haven't been much below £4.50 for a while. If this settles in CAT's favour eventually, then the increased royalties should mean more than double the income. Maybe its not fair to say double the share price, because CAT have other things in the pipeline, but I think that given initial income goes towards runing costs and further income becomes profit, maybe that sort of maths isn't too far out.

If its more like 2½ than double, then I can imagine these testing the £10 mark when the dust settles. That's a big psychological barrier so I wouldn't like to make guesses beyond that.

[matthu] 15/2/2005 17:35

I agree Abbott are muddying the water - CAT won't be able to book the additional revenue and reduced legal costs until all avenues of appeal have been exhausted. So the funds received will be held on the balance sheet until then.

Patient investors will hold.

[crystalclear] 15/2/2005 17:13

1 day for the Court of Appeal judge maybe.

But then how long for either the hearing (if judge rules they cannot appeal) or the appeal, if the judge rules they can?

I can see this going on for some time. But the money is with CAT at the moment, and I think that means they'll have to show it somewhere on the next accounts. To me that means the share price will be higher in 6 months time unless Abbott's legal department can buy a few decisive heads.

[matthu] 15/2/2005 09:27

"Abbotts application will be considered by one Court of Appeal judge. If the
application is successful, Abbott will be allowed to proceed with the appeal. If
unsuccessful, Abbott will be entitled to request a hearing."

I cannot imagine this taking longer than a day? But then lawyers do have an incentive to string things out ... ;-)

[graemereid] 15/2/2005 08:13

Does anyone know how long the appeal might take?

[matthu] 15/2/2005 05:34

I can only hope that Abbott shareholders ask a few embarrassing questions in due course.

[crystalclear] 15/2/2005 00:24

I see. All very clear!

They have a court case (Court of appeal judge) to decide whether they have
1) a court case, called an appeal: Abbot appeal against CAT
or
2) a court case, called a hearing: to decide whether Abbot can have yet another court case.

So we could end up with the case CAT won, the appeal judges consideration, an Abbott requested hearing, and then Abbott's appeal.

I read once this isn't even about Humira; that this is about what royalties Abbott will have to pay on other drugs that come out of the CAT Abbott pipeline and have similar clauses written into them. I wonder if that's true?

[graemereid] 14/2/2005 14:38

and so the saga goes on


RNS Number:5777I
Cambridge Antibody Tech Group PLC
14 February 2005







05/CAT/07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

14.15 GMT, 9.15 EST Monday 14 February 2005
For further information contact:



Cambridge Antibody Technology Weber Shandwick Square Mile (Europe)

Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone]

Peter Chambre, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith

John Aston, Chief Financial Officer Yvonne Alexander

Rowena Gardner, Director of Corporate
Communications


BMC Communications/The Trout Group (USA)

Tel: [phone]

Brad Miles, ext 17 (media)

Brandon Lewis, ext 15 (investors)





CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGY LEGAL ACTION WITH ABBOTT: ABBOTT APPLICATION FOR
PERMISSION TO APPEAL





Cambridge, UK Cambridge Antibody Technology (LSE: CAT; NASDAQ: CATG) reports
that on Friday 11 February 2005, Abbott made a written application to the Court
of Appeal for permission to appeal Mr Justice Laddies judgment of 20 December
2004. Abbotts application follows Mr Justice Laddies refusal on 28 January to
give permission to appeal.



Abbotts application will be considered by one Court of Appeal judge. If the
application is successful, Abbott will be allowed to proceed with the appeal. If
unsuccessful, Abbott will be entitled to request a hearing.



-ENDS-

[qazwsx123] 10/2/2005 11:40

How much cash does CAT have?

[rayrac] 10/2/2005 11:35

Well, expanding on that. Protherics (PTI) may fit the bill. But there are dozens of smaller bio's that could be considered 'in the frame'.

[qazwsx123] 10/2/2005 11:25

Guardian
8th February 2005

Independent British biotech firm Cambridge Antibody Technology is seeking to buy products or companies to bolster its pipeline of potential drugs, the Chief Executive Peter Chambré said yesterday...

...Now the firm's only drug being developed in-house is an asthma treatment in early stage clinical trials. City analysts are keen to see the pipeline strengthened.

"We would like to add to our pipeline and one way is by bringing products in from outside; a merger and acquisition opportunity is one strand of that" said Mr Chambré...

............................................................................................

Note:
Alizyme and CAT are both based at Granta Park in Cambridge.
AZM currently have three drugs in PIII development and one in Phase IIb trials.
AZM market cap = £183m @ 127p
CAT market cap = £305m @ 737p

At the Interims presentation on 27/9/2004, AZM's CEO stated he expects AZM to be similar to Celltech (former) or Shire in two or three years time.

[matthu] 08/2/2005 09:47

The shares have been marked sharply lower, but only 18 k have traded so far (ignoring delayed reporting).

By Friday we will know whether Abbott is being allowed to appeal. If not, that should serve to bolster the share price Assuming they don't appeal, we know for a fact that 2nd quarter sales will be firmly up on last year.

I'm staying put.

[bungles] 08/2/2005 09:11

Looks like someone read this in today's Telegraph and decided to jump ship!

The Questor column
Edited by Philip Aldrick (Filed: 08/02/2005)

CAT has curiosity value

If anyone had any doubts who Cambridge Antibody Technology was, the CAT is now well and truly out of the bag.

The company is arguably the only British biotechnology business to have produced a blockbuster drug, and has managed to get its claws into giant pharmaceutical business Abbott, which didn't want to pay the full royalties that CAT was owed. The settlement will give CAT bags of cash, assuming Abbott doesn't win on an appeal. The $23.7m question now is what CAT is going to do with it.

Yesterday's first-quarter figures were as good as irrelevant to this question, with revenues of £2.7m. Revenues for the CAT/Abbott drug, a rheumatoid arthritis drug called Humira, are received in the second and fourth quarter of the year, so there was no news on that. The shares, which have risen massively following the Abbott judgment and a deal that the company has announced with Astrazeneca, fell 9 to 763½p. To put that in perspective, they've risen from 445p since August.

The company could use its windfall from the Abbott win to move towards sustainable profitability, or try to gather further deals.Until then, though, CAT's pipeline is opaque and there is a lack of short-term newsflow from its products. CAT is loss-making and risky, so not for the fainthearted, but the shares are worth holding if you want to see what happens next.