More comment along the same lines. It ignores the rest (admittedly early stage) of the pipeline.
Xenova shareholders get jitters
By David Firn FT.com, 19:20 BST May 8, 2003
Shares in Xenova fell more than 18 per cent at one point on Thursday as investors got the jitters over the biotechnology group's dwindling cash position and continued delays to its lead product.
Recruitment of patients for key trials of Tariquidar, a lung cancer treatment, has been suspended since February when US drug regulators became concerned over the level of side effects.
David Oxlade, chief executive, said there was no evidence that the level of side effects was any higher than other cancer treatments and could have been caused by other drugs being used to treat patients in the clinical trials.
However, there would be no news on the drug's future before mid-year when the safety date would be reviewed by experts, making a launch before 2005 extremely unlikely.
Sam Fazeli, analyst at Nomura, said the shares had risen of late because investors had been speculating that there would be good news on Tariquidar.
After digesting Thursday's statement the shares fell as low as 15-1/2p before recovering slightly to close down 12 per cent, or 2-1/4p, at 16-3/4p.
Mr Oxlade said the group had cash and liquid assets of £12.9m ($20.6m) - enough for about a year's trading - but would make no decision on fundraising until the future of Tariquidar was clear.
"People speculate," he said. "You can't do anything about that. The reality is most investors would like to see what the situation is before they make a long-term decision."
Julie Simmonds, analyst at Evolution Beeson Gregory, said there were no surprises in the results statement but investors were worried that Xenova's ability to refinance or negotiate favourable terms in a merger both depended on Tariquidar.
"In this market, if this doesn't work, no one is going to rescue them," she said.
Pre-tax losses were down from £3.7m to £3.44m for the three months to March 31. A cut in operating costs offset a sharp rise in R&D costs and a 24 per cent fall in revenues, which were down from £2.79m to £2.12m. Losses per share were 1.9p against 2.3p. |
