Catco Reinsurance Opport... Share Discussion Threads

[pres1] 24/9/2004 17:42

matthu
Thanks.
Lively board this, isn't it?!!

[matthu] 14/9/2004 21:39

Pres1 - the post you refer to quoted an analyst's estimate.

My own estimate (see e.g. post 190) put about £6.00 per share as the value of winning the dispute - and at that time (8 April) the share price stood at about £5.30.

So my current view is that £9 may be a very conservative estimate of the value of CAT were they to win the Humira dispute ...

[pres1] 14/9/2004 18:00

matthu
Thanks for the posts. I am a holder, but not deeply into the background, so they are useful.
Does your post of 18th May still stand? i.e. that if they win the price should move to £9 very quickly, but if they lose we're looking at £4 or so?
pres

[matthu] 13/9/2004 07:10

background interest:

Miracle cure that reveals ills of UK drug industry
Heather Tomlinson - Monday September 13, 2004 - The Guardian

It is a little known fact that British scientific brainpower lies behind the development of what is routinely described as a "miraculous" set of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis. With funding from the Arthritis Research Campaign, a medical research charity, work by Professors Tiny Maini and Marc Feldmann, from Imperial College's Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, won the prestigious Lasker award in the US last year. The team played a significant role in the early development of the drugs Remicade, Enbrel and Humira - compounds which have been found to dramatically improve the lives of about three-quarters of the rheumatoid arthritis sufferers who take them.
However, as the debate over the financing of Britain's biotech industry gathers pace, the development of these revolutionary new drugs is being held up as a saddening example of why the biotech industry here is failing.

What remains a success story for British science is quite the opposite for British industry. Just over $3bn (£1.7bn) was spent on this class of drugs last year, but almost all of the revenue is flowing into the coffers of American drugs firms.

Cambridge Antibody Technology, the UK biotech firm, receives a few million pounds each year after helping its big US rival Abbott Laboratories develop Humira, but even these payments are subject to a legal dispute. Celltech, the UK's largest biotech company, recently bought by Belgian firm UCB, still has an arthritis drug in clinical trials, but it is not expected to reach the market until 2007.

The scientists responsible, and their charity backers, receive royalties measured in the tens of millions, but Prof Feldman nevertheless describes this as "a very poor haul". Celltech blames its failure to deliver more rapidly on problems outside its control. The history points to a wider malaise in the UK biotechnology industry.

In 1984, Prof Feldmann and Prof Maini were interested in how small protein molecules called cytokines are involved in rheumatoid arthritis. The production of these molecules increases as a human body mobilises its defences against invading bacteria and viruses. In rheumatoid arthritis they are constantly at high levels around the painful joints.

Four years later the scientists made a breakthrough. They identified a molecule that reduced the amount of one particular cytokine, tumour necrosis factor (TNF), in samples from arthritic joints. Mice carrying a similar disease to arthritis were treated with these anti-TNF compound molecules and the swelling of joints eased.

Trials
By 1990 the scientists were sure they had a promising new way of treating arthritis. Fortunately, several pharmaceutical companies had already started making drugs that lowered the levels of TNF in the body - working on a false assumption that it would help patients suffering from blood poisoning.

The scientists first turned to Celltech, the only British UK firm with an anti-TNF drug, only to spend a fruitless year trying to get the firm to do trials with the compound on arthritic patients.

At the time, many drug firms and scientists remained sceptical of the development, mindful that TNF played an important role in the body's general defences against infection and it was therefore dangerous to meddle with it.

One of the professors' former PhD students, Dr Jim Woody, had just been appointed chief scientific officer of Centocor, an American biotech firm developing the anti-TNF drug now known as Remicade. He agreed to fund a trial on patients severely disabled by arthritis - and the results were dramatic.

"They went on to play golf, things they hadn't been able to do for ages," said Prof Feldmann. "There was a surgeon who hadn't been able to operate for ages. He went back to work."

By 1992 Switzerland's Roche, together with Immunex and Abbott from the US, had shown serious interest. Celltech also began trials, but some of its work fell by the wayside, including its main focus at the time, CDP 571. But Immunex's Enbrel (now marketed by Wyeth) and Centocor's Remicade (now owned by Johnson & Johnson) arrived on the market in 1999. Patients reported seemingly miraculous results.

Brenda Day, a 64-year-old from Stevenage, says she started developing rheumatoid arthritis in 1996 and went downhill quickly. She heard about trials of a new drug at Charing Cross Hospital, London, and in 1998 was admitted to the programme led by Prof Maini. "The first time I had the drug there was a dramatic improvement, it was a miracle really."

Although Celltech started clinical trials around 1993, it was only in the late 90s that the company geared up its programme, developing its new drug, CDP 870, which is now in trials. Finance director Peter Allen says it wasn't clear until much later than 1992 that the drugs would be capable of halting the disease in the long term.

Many former Celltech scientists also point the finger at their partner at the time, German drugs firm Bayer, which was interested in testing the drug for blood poisoning, but dropped it when this use failed.

But the American firms appear to have been ready to take the risk. "For something very innovative, Britain just wasn't ambitious enough," said Prof Maini.

[matthu] 10/9/2004 09:17

LONDON, September 9 (New Ratings) - Analysts at Canaccord Capital maintain their "buy" rating on Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT.ISE). The 12-month target price is set to 674p. (www.newratings.com)

[matthu] 08/9/2004 10:26

Humira action in the High Court due to start "late November", take about three weeks and end mid-December. So we could pencil in a start date of 22 November?

CAT-354, a potential treatment for severe asthma, is the fourth human monoclonal antibody to be taken into clinical trials by CAT and makes a total of 11 human antibody drug candidates discovered using CAT's technology that have entered clinical development.

CAT's fiscal nine-month loss widened to 28.4 million pounds, from a loss of 26.5 million pounds in the year-earlier period, as it increased spending to develop new drugs.

Net cash and liquid resources of £101.0 m at 30 June 2004 (v. £112.8 m June 2003).

Net cash outflow before management of liquid resources and financing: £20.7 m for the 9 mths ended 30 June 2004 (v. £19.0 m for 9 mths ended 30 June 2003)

[shirishg] 06/9/2004 09:35

Post removed by ADVFN

[waldron] 19/8/2004 17:56

NEW YORK, August 18 (New Ratings) - Analysts at Robert W Baird maintain their "outperform" rating on Caterpillar (CAT.NYS). The target price is set to $101.

Shares of Caterpillar, a global market leader in construction and earthmoving machineries, are currently trading at $72.48.

According to Robert W Baird's research note published this morning, Caterpillar's sales in key markets were healthy during the month of July. The company's sales growth, on a YoY comparison basis, moderated during the month, the analysts say. Caterpillar is expected to post robust sales in the forthcoming quarters, since the company's product sales are still in the initial stages of recovery, the analysts add.

Caterpillar's truck engine sales are likely to be in the double-digits during 2H04, the analysts state. The sales of the company's solar turbines are expected to recover considerably in the near term, the analysts say. The company's share price is likely to appreciate significantly during the forthcoming 12 months, according to Robert W Baird.

The EPS estimates for FY2004 and FY2005 are $5.70 and $7.20, respectively. The P/E estimates for FY2004 and FY2005 are 12.7x and 10.1x, respectively.

[matthu] 26/6/2004 12:49

ABBOTT PARK, Ill., June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott Laboratories
(NYSE: ABT) today issued the following statement:
The plan by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to
provide America's seniors with access to self-administered prescription
medicines through the Medicare replacement drug demonstration program
represents an important step in meeting the needs of Medicare beneficiaries
with serious or life-threatening diseases. Through the demonstration program,
patients will save thousands of dollars on new, innovative treatments that
they can administer at home.
Abbott is pleased that the demonstration program will cover medications
for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), including Abbott's self-injected biologic
treatment, HUMIRA(R) (adalimumab). The program will expand available
treatment options for thousands of patients fighting this serious and
potentially crippling condition.
Until now, under Medicare Part B, the only treatments available to many
Medicare patients were those administered in a physician's office. Under the
demonstration project, choice of treatment will not be limited based on route
of administration, and patients will have access to the most innovative and
convenient treatments.
... HUMIRA was discovered through a broad scientific collaboration between
Abbott and Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT).

full PR statement here:

(This should increase sales of Humira vs competitive products!)

[matthu] 18/6/2004 09:39

from www.medicalnewstoday.com

Medical Research Council scientist knighted, UK
18 Jun 2004

Dr Greg Winter - joint head of the MRC's (Medical Research Council's) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry, and Deputy Director of the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering (CPE) - has been knighted for his services to molecular biology.

Building on Nobel Prize-winning work by Cesar Milstein and Georges Köhler at LMB, Dr Winter's research has made pioneering contributions to unlocking the huge medical potential of monoclonal antibodies. It brings the prospect of customised treatments for cancer, transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and infections closer to reality.

Antibodies are produced in the blood to recognise and bind to invading foreign material, singling it out for destruction by the body's immune defences. In 1975 Milstein and Köhler devised a way to select and purify unlimited quantities of individual, or 'monoclonal', antibodies (MABs) from among the mixture of different antibodies produced in the immune response of laboratory mice. The profound medical implications and commercial potential of their groundbreaking work were recognised by the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.

MABs rapidly found many applications, including diagnosing viral infections; blood typing; tests for pregnancy and cancer; and purifying other therapeutic molecules, for example interferon. But the immediate therapeutic uses were limited because mouse-derived MABs provoke a strong immune response in humans. This rapidly inactivates them and can cause unpleasant or even dangerous side-effects.

Dr Winter's research has focussed on overcoming this obstacle to make MABs suitable for use in humans. He pioneered techniques to 'humanise' mouse MABs in 1986, and went on to develop the test-tube production of human antibodies.

Today, MABs comprise a quarter of all biotech products in clinical development, with more than half of them based on technology patented by Dr Winter.

In 1989 he and David Chiswell founded Cambridge Antibody Technology and this has led to a the development of range of human therapeutic antibodies, one of which Humira(TM) is marketed by Abbott for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In 2000 he and colleague Dr Ian Tomlinson set up a company, Domantis Ltd. (formerly Diversys) to develop commercial applications of single antibody domains, another invention that emerged from his laboratories.

The MRC receives royalties on Dr Winter's inventions, and has an equity stake in both Cambridge Antibody Technology and Domantis.

[crystalclear] 26/5/2004 14:49

I'm going out at 16:30
;)

[mikeatwork22] 26/5/2004 13:14

I'm back in at 514.45...

[matthu] 18/5/2004 21:02

More precise date here (Times Online)
CAT court battle set for November
By Ingrid Mansell

CAMBRIDGE Antibody Technology's battle to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments from its American marketing partner will be heard in the High Court in November.

The UK biotech group said its dispute with Abbott Laboratories over royalty payments for Humira, a blockbuster treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, would reach court on November 22, with the trial expected to last three weeks.

CAT, which specialises in developing drugs from human antibodies, revealed the court date as it reported a fall in pre-tax losses for the six months to March 31 from £18.8 million to £18 million, as its interim revenues more than doubled to £8.5 million.

The legal action against Abbott holds the key to CAT's fortunes. Analysts have said that if CAT wins the case, its share price could hit 900p, but if it loses the action, the stock could fall to less than 400p. Yesterday, the shares closed 23p lower at 511p.