JOBS LOST IN FIRM'S U.S. MOVE

DAVID ELKS

12:00 - 02 July 2003

A Medical research company has shut down its South Cheshire headquarters, despite winning 900,000 of orders for technology to help fight the deadly Sars virus. An undisclosed number of staff at Crewe-based Osmetech have been made redundant after the company transferred its research operations to America.

The news comes as the company reported a boom in sales of a blood gas analyser to China over the past month to monitor patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).
A spokesman for Osmetech, which employs 38 staff at the town's business park, said the decision followed a 2.2 million deal to take over pharmaceutical giant Roche's sensor division OPTI in March.
He said: "When they bought the company they also took on about 50 new staff involved in research and marketing.
"It was felt that Osmetech is still a fairly small company and having research operations split between the two sites was not efficient."

Following the move, the majority of research will now be conducted at OPTI's headquarters in Atlanta, while the company's registered headquarters has shifted to London.
This will enable the company to continue its listing on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. The executive directors will also be based in London.
The spokesman said that a number of workers in the North-West of England will remained involved in research while working from home.

The news comes as the company confirmed it had picked up 910,000 of orders for its equipment following the Sars virus outbreak in the Far East.
The handheld device cannot diagnose the virus, although it has optical sensors which can measure vital bodily conditions during treatment of its pneumonia-like symptoms. It measures blood gas, electrolyte and metabolite levels and can be used for measuring the oxygen saturation and acid-base balance in Sars patients.
Osmetech said this would be particularly useful in cases where treatment required the use of a ventilator for "supplemental oxygen" therapy.

The deal will help Osmetech, which is estimated by analysts Evolution Beeson Gregory to suffer losses of 3.2 million in the current financial year, push its way towards profitability. The orders received this month are already 10 times higher than the last financial year.

In January the company confirmed it had won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its sensor, which uses electronics technology to 'sniff' out bacteria which can cause miscarriages - a market worth between 900 million and 1.2 billion in the U.S.

The group cut losses by 20 per cent to 533,000 in the six months to January and is due to report its annual figures on July 30.

david.elks@thesentinel.co.uk

MB.,
OMH price did not drop compare to two days ago,what i`m not expect is : Bull
had`nt gain much ground since. rgds SBR.

Another negative day today. What is the prediction for results day tomorrow.

Regards

MB

Thanks for that og very informative site starting to understand things a little better now cheers windy

Results looking very healthy guys and plenty of buying going on today.

I'm surprised like SBR with the sells pre-results. This must have been short termers expecting a phenomenal short term profit like last time, selling out early due to uncertainty.

The good thing with this is that there should be few sells today which will should move the price into a new trading range.

og., refer to the company`s interim statement,i`m not convienced.what they `ve said we already knew! As an investor,i still kept 250k shares,will accum. more if they sign/bring in new contracts, as a trader, i`m out with a nice 40+% gains within 2 months. Best wish for you all. rgds SBR.

SBR, nice gain on the trading. From an investment point of view I think we are witnessing the start of OMH going places and with the new contracts which will come, 10p will be just around the corner.

OG

Og,agree about your point of view.This day, i try/learn to be a trading-investor rather than the oldday`s Buy& Hold investor! SBR.

I see there there approx 25m shares traded today how can you tell what was bought & what was sold.

Regards

MB

MB,

Click on the trades tab at the top of this page and type in the EPIC code for Osmetech i.e. OMH, you'll see a list of all the trades today.

There are always some unknown ones, if these are large and attract your interest you can see when they hit the market and look at the subsequent effect on the mid. price to work out if they were buys or sells. Some unknown trades are transfers between brokers and other deals which have no apparent effect on the trade price.

It was a close run match today with the buyers just in front of the sellers. I reckon most of the sellers (normally short term traders) will have got out today, so we should see a healthier rise tomorrow.

In the past OMH has normally been hyped up like crazy by short termers before results, who all sell immediately after the announcement or just before hammering the price right down. This announcement is different - the price actually went up - this means that the results were very good and show excellent potential for the future.

OG

Thanks OG for that. It was interesting. One thing that slightly concerns me is that the statement says that the second half of the year will be worse than the first half.
What are your views?
Where do you see the price in the next 6 months

Thanks

MB

MB,

The statement actually says:

"During the first half of the year, OPTI sales exceeded expectations at $5,582,000 (3,457,000), benefiting from approximately $1m of SARS-related sales to China early in the period and initial 'pipeline filling' sales to distributors. Although sales in the second half are not expected to continue to benefit from these factors, the underlying sales level for the full year should exceed expectations."

If the yearly sales are still going to exceed expectations then that is exactly what the market wants to hear. OMH have highlighted the reasons for the massive increase in sales in the first half and are very bullish about the full year figures. And what happens when the pipelines start to empty at all those new distributors? More sales.

I can see the price nudging up to around 7p in 6 months on the back of a bit more news/trading update/rumour etc. With news of new lucrative contracts this is likely to cause the price to soar to the dizzy heights of 10p and beyond.

OMH has always been that sort of share which could explode into blue territory any time. Lots of holders are waiting for exactly that time to happen before they even consider selling.

OG

MB,
what you got from the trade page refer to buy/sell volume is not a true picture at all!! If you want to see the true one ,you `ve to get a Level 2 quote. Other way to get around it,you can do your own homework:Construct an
OBV line yourself.A book call "the secret of selecting stocks for immediate & substantial gains"by Larry Williams may tell you some ideas you want /like to know. rgds SBR.

An interesting post from elsewhere today:

witten - 4 Feb'04 - 12:56


I have just now had a conversation with David Sandilands which I have found to be most encouraging. I asked about the UTI and he said that at the moment it was not at the forefront of their immediate plans. UTI would need further investment which OMH were not prepared to get involved in at the present time whilst there were and are far better and immediate commercial products to bring to the market during the next 6-18 months. OMH have done extremely well from the OPTI and intend to develop and market other products. The EVO estimates were based on the interims and they were not privy to any other information which could have led to their conclusions. Therefore any future deals would be in addition to these estimates. DS said that he would be most surprised if they did not do 15m per annum in 1-2 years time. They would always try to inform the market as to what was going on but obviously could not and would not inform the market in areas where the information was too sensitive in respect of their competition.
IMHO there is an extremely rosy period ahead. OMH are making decisions based on commercial feasibility and this I applaud wholeheartedly.


With thanks to 'witten'

Osmetech PLC
05 February 2004


Osmetech plc ('the Company')

Directors' Interests

The Company was informed on 4 February 2004 that on 4 February 2004, Mr James
White, a director of the Company, had purchased 220,000 ordinary shares of 1p
each ('Ordinary Shares') representing 0.04 per cent. of the issued share capital
of the Company at a price of 4.5p per share and that Mr. Gordon Hall, the
non-executive Chairman had purchased 110,000 Ordinary shares representing 0.02
per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company at a price of 4.5p per
share on the same date. Following this transaction Mr. White has an interest in
1,509,500 Ordinary Shares representing 0.26 per cent. of the issued share
capital of the Company and Mr. Hall has an interest in 763,946 Ordinary Shares
representing 0.13 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company.




This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

Will Mr Sandilands be the next one to buy after his bullish statement? If so, then OMH is starting to look like a company due for spectacular growth over the next couple of years.

Still chance to buy into this company at less than 5p, if it is good enough for the directors to buy at 4.5p it is good enough for me. I have bought this morning and am expecting a reasonable profit over the next few months.

From the "Investor's Cronicle"


OSMETECH - GOOD VALUE

Osmetech has been transformed by last April's $2.75m acquisition of Roche's OPTI blood-gas analysers. OPTI has fortified the business with a revenue stream, a decent product pipeline and a quality distribution network. Blood-gas analysers test the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, as well as the pH or acidity, to determine the effectiveness of the respiratory system. Due to the SARS outbreak, OPTI made $1m of sales to China, meaning total revenues of $5.58m far exceeded expectations. The extra business has allowed it to plough more cash into research and development. In all, five new product launches are expected in 2004, including a reusable device with 50 tests on one cartridge.
Osmetech is now targeting larger hospitals because they conduct more tests and use more high margin consumables. It will use OPTI's presence in the GP market as a launch platform for it's own device, an all in one test for the five most common vaginal infections. Brokers expect a pre-tax loss of 1.8m for the full year.


I/C VIEW - With OPTI on board, Osmetech could be a profitable business right now. Instead it has chosen to invest in it's future, ploughing the profits back into snazzy new products that will help boost it's 14% share of the near-patient market blood gas analysers. Come 2006 that strategy should pay off. GOOD VALUE.

only dirs keep on buying and share price stays above a 5.5p base justify the story-changed call,then the company will growths bigger,or swallowed up by a bigger fish! I `m a long term fan of this com., and i also like to trade the stock.,DYOR!DYOR! If my anticipation is correct,next level price range starts from 5-13p and soon be arrived. SBR.

sbr,

Volume still looks healthy and the post-results dip has quickly been wiped out, this suggests there is a good level of confidence in the company with lots of new buyers coming in. Looks like a steady rise to just under 5p, then a small dip and then a sustained push upwards into 8p territory. We'll soon be looking at "20p next?" messages on the BB's.

Quote from "prof" on iii:

"This share is ready to take off...all the signs are there....strong cash position, revenue on stream, PR campaign underway, future products due to be launched and the VIP5 waiting around the corner." - Exactly my sentiments as a long term investor.

Still plenty of short term trading opportunities also - best of luck.

OG

og,
I did an OBV on this stock just from Dec/03 till now,volume ok,in positive territory,accum. pattern in place,if price break 26/1/04 high & volume match or surpass its previous level,it is a very rosy picture then. As i mention before,when the firm establish its growth phase,we are in a big winner!
rgds SBR.