It's all good news at Protherics.

Nice - institutional buying, and today a good plug in the FT in Kevin Goldstein-Jackson's column:


"The best news of all was from Protherics. I had bought its shares for my Sipp in December 2003, paying 56.5p, and added to the holding by subscribing for more shares on a one-for-10 basis in a fundraising exercise at 48p per share in July 2004. The performance of Protherics has been lacklustre for much of the time since. On October 21 the share price was just 46p.

The original attraction to me of Protherics was that as well as its Digifab treatment for digoxin toxicity and its highly successful CroFab treatment for snakebites, the company had a number of products in its “development pipeline”. These included an angiotensin vaccine for the treatment of high blood pressure and CytoFab, a treatment for severe sepsis. I thought these developments looked promising with the potential to transform the company’s fortunes. On December 8 Protherics’ share price leapt to 81.5p with the announcement of the company’s interim results and, more importantly, news of a licensing agreement with AstraZeneca for the “global development and commercialisation” of CytoFab.

Protherics stated that the agreement had “a potential total deal value, excluding royalties, of approximately £195m to Protherics, including an initial payment” by AstraZeneca of £16.3m. In addition, AstraZeneca would “make a £7.5m equity investment in Protherics, to be paid in cash, at 68.24p per share” which means Astra Zeneca will own 4.3 per cent of Protherics’ enlarged share capital.

Payments “worth up to £171m” would be paid to Protherics “upon the achievement of milestones” in the development of CytoFab. All clinical development work for CytoFab would be undertaken by AstraZeneca. Protherics would also receive royalties of 20 per cent of net sales of CytoFab and receive additional payments in return for “the commercial supply of the product”."