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Market Report: Bear raiders make profits on Proteome Science
By Michael Jivkov
30 April 2004


Bear raiders moved in on the biotech group Proteome Science yesterday and, given the stock's dramatic 19 per cent slide, they look to have made a packet. The raiders are believed to have noticed some time ago that there were a large number of private investors holding the stock via contracts for difference.

These allow investors to gain exposure to, say, 100,000 worth of shares in Proteome, but only put up a fraction of the money in hard cash. This means that private punters can turn a relatively small amount of money into a lot more. But it also means that when a position goes the wrong way for an investor he can quickly find himself nursing a large loss and being urged by the broker offering him the contract for difference to close his position and sell out.

This is what many private punters were forced to do yesterday as bear raiders pushed Proteome shares lower. And the further they fell, the more punters were forced to close their positions, which in turn pushed the group's shares even lower. They ended the day 21p lower at 88.5p.

Proteome's stock has halved over the past month but market professionals believe it is unlikely to fall any further, noting that nothing has fundamentally changed at the group during this period. Among them was Evolution Beeson Gregory. The broker reiterated its "buy" rating on Proteome and tipped newsflow from the company in the near future to help rally its shareshttp://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/story.jsp?story=516595

UK smallcap opening - Proteome Sciences rally after reports of CFD pressure
Fri 30 Apr 2004 08:33

LONDON (AFX) - Shares in Proteome Sciences rallied by 6 pct in opening
trade, having fallen 19 pct yesterday amid reports the stock was being squeezed
by trading related to a large spread-betting contract known as a contract for
difference (CFD).
According to the Daily Mail, market-maker Winterflood took out a CFD
contract with IG Index then marked the stock down to attract buyers. However,
buyers failed to materialise, the newspaper reported.
Other newspapers suggested that yesterday's fall had triggered margin calls
on holders of CFDs on the drug developer, who have been caught in a downward
spiral.
At 8.14 am, shares in Proteome were ahead 5 pence to 93-1/2.

Janus,

Thank you for your sensible posts. Made me think about several tiny shares I've been chasing recently and losing sleep over.

I aggree wholeheartely about NNN & co.

EVBG report 1st June

Proteome Sciences (PRM) Buy (unchanged)
Mkt cap: 139m Net cash: 4m Update Price: 116p
Slowly, slowly catchee monkey
Proteome is making good progress towards commercialization with both biomarkers and technology, although deals have been slower than anticipated. Mid-term this is an investment with significant potential.

An update meeting with Proteome Sciences last week confirmed our view that the business continues to make progress towards commercialization.

Although new deals have not materialized as fast as we would have liked we are confident that progress is being made with both the commercialization of biomarkers and the underlying technology. The broader trend within the pharmaceutical industry towards personalised medicine (for example the recent data on IRESSA) indicates increasing interest in biomarkers for both identification of patient groups and the targeting of new drugs. Proteome has significant expertise and good IP in this area.

The table on page 4 gives a broad indication of when announcements on commercial progress are now expected. As many of these deals take some time to negotiate we have broadly grouped time to newsflow into near-term (less than 12 months) mid-term (12-18 months) and long term (greater than 18 months). As can be seen from the table there is significant activity in many areas.

The two existing biomarker collaborations are also progressing well. The relationship with Biosite to develop a point of care test for stroke involves close collaboration between the parties. Biosite is expecting to launch a point of care test for stroke in the next 12 months. The panel has not yet been finalized; it may include public markers, and/or proprietary markers from Proteome or Biosite. Clinical trials of the final panel are due to begin shortly with submission to the FDA due by the year end.

The IDEXX collaboration on a pre-mortem BSE test is also progressing to plan, although the company has not released any additional information. Internally Proteome has turned its attentions to a human new variant CJD test with an eye on the blood screening market. The company has reached agreements to give it access to samples from CJD patients, this is key to the identification of markers and subsequently a test.

In the technology area we are expecting newsflow relating to both ProteoSHOP and some of the mass spectrometry reagents (including the Sensitizer family). The latter are proving more complex than initially anticipated with many options available to Proteome. In the ProteoSHOP area Proteome remains committed to long term value added relationships which extend beyond fee for service. These types of deals take longer to negotiate. Since the market for pharma outsourcing has been weak over the last 12 months (see our comments on BioFocus) it is perhaps not surprising that a deal has not been signed as yet. The outsourcing market is now improving with more discussions underway, and although pharma companies remain reluctant to commit to large collaborations we would expect smaller, exploratory, proof of technology type deals to be achievable. Once the technology is proven we expect these to translate into bigger contracts.

Proteome announced new data at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Meeting last week. The company has used its ProteoSHOP technology to identify novel phosphorylation sites and the kinases responsible for Alzheimers. This takes Proteome Sciences for the first time into high value identification and discovery of new drug targets using proteomics. The technology should now be used in the identification of potential drug targets in other disease areas. This paper shows the value of ProteoSHOP in drug discovery and we believe it will generate further interest and commercialisation opportunities from this technology.

Proteome continues to have a low cash burn rate. It reduces cash outflows further through grants and we expect initial milestones from both Biosite and Idexx to be achieved this year. This leaves the company in a solid cash position. The delivery of news flow will be key to driving the price beyond
the current level. The company will be active in this area over the next 12 months consequently we reiterate our buy recommendation. Final results from YE Dec 2003 are expected to be announced on 28 June.

Year end Sales (m) EBITDA (m) PTP (m) EPS (p) PER (x) Net Cash (m) Cash Burn (m) Revised?
12/02A 0.2 -3.5 -4.1 -4.0 - 4.3 3.4
12/03E 0.7 -4.3 -4.9 -4.0 - 6.3 3.7 No
12/04E 2.9 -2.0 -2.5 -1.7 - 3.4 2.5 No

Biomarker commercialisation

Therapeutic area Application Validation Licensed Product launch

Stroke POC Complete Complete (Biosite) Near term
High throughput Complete Near term
TSEs* Animals Complete Complete (Idexx) Mid term
Man Ongoing Mid term
Alzheimers Biomarkers Ongoing Mid term
Target Ongoing Mid term
Cancer Lung Complete Mid term
Lung vaccine Mid term Long term
Breast Complete Mid term
Oesphagus Complete Mid term
Neuroblastoma Complete Mid term
Organ Rejection Acute coronary Complete Mid term
Chronic coronary Complete Mid term
Renal Ongoing Long term
Metabolic Type II diabetes Ongoing Long term

Technology Commercialisation

Application Validation 1st Deal Follow-on deals

ProteoSHOP Biomarkers Complete Near term Mid term
Targets Complete Near term Mid term
Toxicology Complete Near term Mid term
Reagents Sensitizer Family Complete Near term
Antibodies Ongoing Mid term
guide to future performance.

Placing to buy more Intronn

http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200406040700144112z.html

Well Fidelity certainly have confidence in this

RNS Number:6207Z
Proteome Sciences PLC
10 June 2004


Proteome Sciences plc ("the Company")

Proteome Sciences plc was today advised that FMR Corp. and its direct & indirect
subsidiaries and Fidelity International Limited and its direct and indirect
subsidiaries and Mr Edward C. Johnson 3rd (A principal shareholder of FMR Corp /
Fidelity International Limited) have a notifiable interest in 9.861,382 ordinary
shares, representing 8.06% of the companies issued ordinary share capital.


This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END
HOLGUUCWQUPCGUU

Anybody apart from me still in these. Lovely rise over the last few days something in the wind ?

I was thinking about this 1 last month but then I forgot about it.

Just look what happened while my back was turned. Up 46%

I'm long on PRM and purely on the Chart, didn't even know what they did, (which might be a bit of a mistake), but the chart was screaming out BUY, so I took the plunge. Very dependant now on the results and if they have managed to secure deals to produce revenue. Without a deal they will probably need to find more cash next year and the SP will tumble once more. Will probably know more soon.

Regards

PTH