Proteome Sciences results in big news CJD + Stroke tests

Wow, we've got going a bit early this week. Sunday pm is usually pretty quiet.

Huge respect for Peter Snodgrass. Hope this doesn't sound condescending or ageist but I don't think there are many (almost) ninety year olds around who could argue their case with such lucidity and with such an intellectual grasp, let alone using the internet, a technology which only became available when he was in his eighties.

Great posts from others, too, today.

I just wanted to post a note of caution to those expecting another imminent licensing deal. We know that CJP said deals plural this year and the Company have said that the stroke and TSE research were the closest to commercialisation. We've had the stroke marker and must assume that the differential stroke marker is not quite ready as BioSite would no doubt have got that one too. So one of the TSE markers was probably chalked up for a deal before the end of the year.

As far as the cjd blood test is concerned I was quite taken by the article James Meikle wrote at the beginning of the month in The Guardian. Meikle, the paper's health correspondent, has been the UK journalist most clued-up about TSEs for a couple of years now and earlier this year he talked more than once about a blood test expected 'next year'. This is what he had to say in the article:

"Reliable tests for the human form of BSE, variant CJD, might not be available for three to five years despite earlier hopes they could be used to screen blood donations in a few months.

Translating promising laboratory research into cost effective monitoring for the fatal condition is proving difficult to the frustration of public health officials.....
Blood services are making contingency plans for a huge loss of donors when tests do become available, because they suspect people will not want to know that they have an inevitable fatal disease. But it is now understood that prospect of an appropriate test, expected originally by next year, have now receded."

It's not to say that Meikle is the oracle but he clearly had some information from a source he respected. And, of course, it's not to say that a commercial ante-mortem BSE test isn't imminent. I would just suggest caution on expectations in the immediate future.

Having said that, 2003 will, IMO, see a string of important announcements out of Cobham. Apart from those possibilities already discussed today PRM said three months ago that Xzillion's PST technology was ready and waiting and that strategic corporate alliances were being lined up with various pharmas, biotechs and diagnostic companies. And a licensing deal for Veri-Q's technology will no doubt be revealed soon.

As usual, patience will be required with PRM. Those looking for huge hikes in the share price may have to defer to those content with a rocky, but relentless, move northwards. Remember the mantra: adding value level on level, quarter by quarter.

Steve