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To: wlcnyc who wrote (97093)	10/29/2003 3:37:18 PM
From: Findit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 208838

Bill regarding LSBC - this article may have something to due with price rise late today. Oct 29, 2003 (Messenger-Inquirer - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) --The next eight months are critical for California-based Large Scale Biology Corp. The biotech company, whose biomanufacturing division is based in Owensboro, has only enough cash on hand -- $11.3 million -- to last until next summer. But Kevin J. Ryan, Large Scale's president and CEO, and Robert L. Erwin, the company's founder and board chairman, told investors last week that they think the struggling company will turn the corner toward profitability in the next few months. Large Scale, founded in 1987, has been developing a number of vaccines, which it grows inside tobacco plants. But getting a pharmaceutical product on the market takes years of research and testing. And the economic downturn that began in 2000 has made it difficult for research companies to get the money they need to bring products to the market. The quarter that ended Sept. 30 marked Large Scale's smallest loss -- $4.3 million -- in the past 2 1/2 years, Ryan told investors. It was $6.8 million in the third quarter of 2002. Large Scale has several reasons to be encouraged, he said. n On Oct. 21, the company announced that an unspecified amount of money was included in the 2004 defense budget for the Genetic Reassortment by Mismatched Repair-Enhanced Acute Biowarfare Therapy Program. The funding would be used to initiate a collaboration with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. The program would use Large Scale's DNA shuffling and molecular evolution technologies to create therapeutic products that are more effective for biowarfare therapy. That agreement added enough revenue to keep the company operating for three more months, Ryan said. n And Tuesday, Large Scale announced "an exclusive collaborative agreement" with Schering-Plough Animal Health Corp. to evaluate several vaccines for control of viral infections in animals. Large Scale will produce trial quantities of vaccine using its GENEWARE biomanufacturing. Schering-Plough will evaluate the vaccines for "efficacy and safety in clinical models," the news release said. The agreement includes a research program and an option for Large Scale to "manufacture and supply vaccine products for clinical trials and commercialization" by Schering-Plough. Financial details were not disclosed. Ryan said other partnering efforts -- a key to the company's future -- "are proceeding very firmly." More, he said, will be announced "very, very shortly." Large Scale plans to begin producing research grade aprotinin at its Owensboro plant by spring, Ryan said. Aprotinin is a drug that can reduce the need for blood transfusions in patients undergoing heart bypass surgery by as much as 50 to 67 percent. Company officials estimate the market for research grade aprotinin at $20 million a year. Ryan said Large Scale expects to sell $4 million to $6 million worth during the second half of 2004. That will be enough money to keep the company operating through 2004, he said. Large Scale has been working for years on a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccine that is being produced in Owensboro and was expected to move into the third phase of clinical testing this year. It would be competing in a $1 billion market created by the 55,000 new cases of the disease diagnosed each year, the company said. But human testing of the vaccine can't begin until Large Scale finds a financial partner to help fund the remaining stages of development and then possible commercial production, company officials said earlier this year. The company is also working on a human alpha-Galactosidase A enzyme that's designed as a second-generation drug for the treatment of Fabry disease, a rare genetic disorder. Negotiations for a partner to help bring that drug to market are "very strong," Ryan said. The Navy has been working jointly with Large Scale and the National Institutes of Health to develop a way to take radiation-damaged bone marrow stem cells from people, clean them with Large Scale's tobacco-based technology and replant the clean cells into the victim's bone marrow. Ryan said he is "reasonably optimistic" that the company will have an announcement on its stem cell research within 30 days. Large Scale reported revenues of $1.2 million in the third quarter -- up $500,000 from the same period last year. Operating costs and expenses were $5.5 million -- down from $7.6 million a year ago. Keith Lawrence, 691-7301,klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com Version edited by News Service: To see more of the Messenger-Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to messenger-inquirer.com (c) 2003, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky. Distributed by KnightRidder/Tribune Business News.NewsProvided by COMTEX,