Bioprogress is a stock I have been in and out of quite a few times since it floated in May but not much mention here on the Investors' Room. Does anyone else follow this stock. I see it is up 1.5p today and a few good buyers seem to have appeared.

Well I have had a dabble in this recently.
This is worth a read if you haven't already as it gives an excellent overview of the company.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/pjhxxx/BPRGresearch1.html

I'm not that impressed and think its over valued now, have taken profits at 48p, watch OXB for real excitement!

I'm impressed by the volume of buying in this stock and I would not want to sell in the face of the chart pattern, which is a steady and steepening uptrend with all the healthy pullbacks to higher lows on the way. Hold with a stop below 44p is my current view (IMHO).

There is a board for BPRG on advfn.com which has some good info on the company. In BPRG since 33p, believe it has potential to move further from current price, good recent volumes and trades. DYOR

fawner, agreed the A...N thread is useful - I see The Count! is accumulating a coffin-full of them!

Good news this morning

BioProgress PLC
20 October 2003


Press Release 20 October 2003

BioProgress plc

BioProgress announces the execution of a Letter of Intent with
FMC BioPolymer to exclusively license one of its new dosage forms


BioProgress plc (AIM: BPRG), a provider of innovative delivery mechanisms for
the pharmaceutical oral dosage markets, announces today it has executed a Letter
of Intent to enter into a global strategic alliance with FMC BioPolymer, a
division of FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC), a US based corporation with annual
revenues of approximately $2 billion.

FMC BioPolymer is a global leader in the supply of products and services to the
pharmaceutical and life science industries. The Letter of Intent announced
today is the culmination of several months of discussions and collaboration,
during which FMC concluded that BioProgress is developing technology that
complements and potentially enhances its current product portfolio. The
companies anticipate that a final contract will be completed during the fourth
quarter of 2003.

The Letter of Intent provides that, under the formal agreement, FMC Biopolymer
will acquire an exclusive worldwide license for the BioProgress NROBE(R) dosage
form, process, equipment and enabling technology. FMC BioPolymer will be solely
responsible for commercialisation of NROBE(R) systems and associated films.

The Letter of Intent enables BioProgress and FMC BioPolymer to collaborate on
the construction of a purpose-built pharmaceutical standard (cGMP) film
production facility, believed to be the first such facility in Europe and only
the second in the world, at the BioProgress site in Cambridgeshire UK.

Graham Hind, Chief Executive of BioProgress, said: 'NROBE(R) is a big
proposition for the pharmaceutical industry and it has the potential to change
the way drugs are delivered. While offering a tremendous long-term opportunity,
the NROBE(R) technology is the most challenging of our new dosage forms for a
small company like BioProgress to commercialise effectively. This is an
important strategic alliance for BioProgress as FMC BioPolymer operates
globally, has well established pharmaceutical experience and reputation, and
senior level relationships with major pharmaceutical companies.'

Commenting on today's announcement, David Simcox, General Manager of FMC's
Pharmaceutical business said: 'FMC BioPolymer is constantly looking for new
opportunities to develop and enhance its product and service offerings to
customers. NROBE(R) may revolutionise pharmaceutical dose form design,
providing the industry with a unique and effective new solid oral dosage form.'


- Ends -

Media Enquiries

BioProgress plc
Graham Hind, Chief Executive Tel: +44 (0) 1354 655 674
grahamhind@bioprogress.com www.bioprogress.com
Bankside for BioProgress plc
Henry Harrison-Topham / Heather Salmond Tel: + 44 (20) 7444 4140
heather.salmond@bankside.com www.bankside.com

Yes, I believe this is the next stage of the proposed deal mentioned in the 15th September RNS. The film plant is the most significant aspect as it was always the question how they would produce the film. Looks like FMC will finance it in exchange for exclusive rights to nRobe.

Just need these contracts to be finalised before investors can be assured and the price motors.

BioProgress announces the execution of a letter of intent to enter
a global strategic alliance with a major US pharmaceutical company

http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200311240835023956S.html

this one has caught the attention of many other investors (advfn board etc ) but has not really attracted interest on this board as yet.. i copy a article on this from below.. which explains more about this company .. the more you look into this ..the more you believe in it.. pse dyor . i hold some of these



BIOPROGRESS (BPRG)(55p) -A LICENCE TO PRINT MONEY?

The richest man in England is as far as I know, Hans Rausing. A great european philanthropist with a low profile.

From inside the packaging machinery industry, and as far back as 1965 one could see that Hans Rausing's business Tetrapak would be a world beater. But why? What has this to do with Bioprogress?

Develope a new type of package which fulfils a universal need, and make sure its core is patentable. Design a machine to produce it and patent as much of that as possible. Then charge a royalty on every inch or gram of packaging material consumed by that machine.

In those days Hans Rausing's company took something like 2p per package for every hermetic carton which his machine formed round a vertical tube whilst still attached to the flat reel. Today fruit juice, milk, and many other products are packaged like this all over the world and noone satisfactorily circumvented the patents though manyb will have lapsed. That is why HR has left behind hundreds of millions of pounds worth of charitable foundations and trusts, scholarships, colleges. His benefactions give away tens of millions every year.


Patent cover

BPRG floated on AIM 22 May this year, is just entering the commercialisation phase of its own technology, protected by 15 patents, with 27 applied for, in the field of water soluble and bio-degradable films. Such protection extends to the formulation and coating of film(s), means for processing such films, combination of such films into composite products, and, machinery and processing techniques for their construction and application. The Company's current library of films extends to more than thirty types with extensive individual characteristics ranging from being resistant to blood but soluble in cold water, to multi-layer films that encapsulate liquids and or powders but which dissolve at selectable times and sites within the body.

Some market notes

ECO detergents have been around in a muted way for a few years but most biodegradable products in supermarkets require the sacrifice of a small price differential which environmentally insensitive shoppers will not pay. Although environmental concerns potentially create a huge demand for packages which eventually disappear, rollout of such films by the likes of Symphony Plastics, the UK leader, has been slow because of the premium cost, which has recently been resolved for biodegradeable polythene but is for the moment largely confined to waste sacks. BPRG's main product XGel will almost certainly have a very much quicker take-off. Provided that most of the patents hold, it is easy to imagine the company as one of the great performers of the next decade. XGel can be used to replace gelatine in the manufacture of capsules for oral dose pharmaceuticals, vitamins, minerals and food supplements, and the machinery to do this is designed and patented by BGPR. The US market alone for vitamins and supplements exceeds $10 billion. Several investors have noted the factor in common with Tetrapak

This market is world-wide and massive. BPRG's aim is to retire the use of gelatin entirely from the packaging world. Not only are there nearly two billion consumers Moslem, Hindu, Jewish , and all the world's vegetarians, who will be mightily relieved that they no longer need to ingest animal material rendered down from pigs and holy cows. The industrialised world will also be relieved to see that a potential vehicle for BSE - and more to the point - for the horrifying and disgusting vCJD disease - can now be eradicated.

Striking advances in productivity

Production engineers would be glad to see gelatine removed from the production process. The single, compact XGel machine is a vast improvement over the lengthy, multi-step manufacturing process currently required for gelatin. The slow warming, and the meticulous regulation of viscosity to control flow and accurate dosage require expensive floor space and capital investment in vats, mixing tanks, and critical temperature-control machinery. And a one hour drying time for XGel capsules saves on the 2 days required to dry gelatine - again economising on floor space and improving production flow, therefore operating efficiency. With most of the capital-intensive infrastructure eliminated, the XGel Film System makes in-house production a highly flexible and cost-effective reality. It is no surprise that despite the investment, over forty pharmaceutical factories have placed enquiries with BPRG

The new XGel machine has been used to make over 62,000 capsules per hour - towards the lower end of its full range, but still much faster than existing equipment. Even at this speed it is consuming 1m worth of XGel film per year.

A risk reducing endorsement

A first batch of fifty are envisaged and will be built under exclusive licence by the world leading pharmaceutical engineers Harro Hoefliger. That company employs around 350 staff at Allmersbach N E of Stuttgart in an area thick with small and medium size precision machinery builders, also the home of Daimler Benz, Werner und Pfleiderer, and Robert Bosch. HH is the nephew of Consul Hoefliger the talented and tenacious Schwab who built Hoefliger and Karg into one of the world's great packaging machinery companies before selling out in old age in the formation of Robert Bosch Verpackungsmaschinen.

So the licence to Harro Hoefliger is not just another business deal bringing in licence income. That HH should consider building and developing fifty of the machines is an endorsement of the XGel material and process, its fulfilment of real and substantial needs, and of the economics. These are all risk factors which would weigh down the share price during the next six months, but are now substantially underwritten by the calibre of the licensee. It is relevant that Harro Hofliger were the first supplier ever to receive a comparable award from Glaxo Smith Kline for ten years of outstanding collaboration and innovation. It is therefore only a small step to imagine that Glaxo SK has played a part in building that confidence.

Considerations

I hope you now see the connection with Tetrapak, Hans Rausing's wealth, and the potential for BPRG. It depends on just HOW MUCH more economical are those non gelatine packs. The base material is more expensive than gelatine powder, but the manufacturing efficiency is very highly improved. Much of that advantage can be cashed in by the company provided it can protect and keep that relationship between machine and consumable; and protect its uniqueness. Current global suppliers of the soft gelatine capsules like RP Scherer Inc. and Banner Pharmacaps Inc, are not going to throw up their hands and vacate the market. Pharmagel have an urgent need to hold on to the market for capsule filling machinery. Perhaps BPRG is already negotiating to license such suppliers and turn them into collaborators rather than see them metamorphose into dangerous plagiarisers, patent infringers and competitors. BPRG say that processing XGel is tricky and only four convertors have the technical capability to supply. If true that will also support the share price.

Five Versions
In all BPRG have developed five versions of the XGel film system:

* NIM - for production of soft capsules for non -ingestible applications
* Swallow - for production of liquid filled ingestible capsules
* NRobe - for production of lightly compacted coated tablets
* TabletWrap - for replacing the coating processes employed by the production of tablets
* Septum - for the encapsulation of two non-compatible active ingredients in the same capsule separated by a membrane of XGel film

Reference sites:
Agreements have already been made with world-class companies :

* Peter Black Healthcare (the UK's leading vitamins, minerals and supplements manufacturer) took the first Xgel machine system last autumn in a 1m deal to cover machine and services with an additional contract for film. On 19 August it was announced that the firm has now taken delivery of a pilot scale TABWRAP machine. Another had just been despatched to a major US pharmaceutical company.

*The Spanish-based pharmaceutical company Farmasierra is just taking delivery of the first pilot scale NROBE machine which covers tablets with ingestible film.

*American based Bristol-Myers Squibb has signed for XGel Film System development and application trials.

* Procter and Gamble and Nestlhave agreements relating to innovative uses for the film.

* Boots Plc has an exclusive agreement for an undisclosed application, has production machines and is paying for all its specific development needs whilst leaving the IP with BPRG.

IP in non ingestible applications

BPRG also has important non-ingestible film developments: the world's most environmentally friendly feminine hygiene products the first to be awarded Canada's prestigious EcoLogo;, the first fully biodegradable and flushable ostomy system for the healthcare market; and a new generation of paintballs for the fast growing leisure market. BPRG has already developed and licensed its patented flushable and biodegradable ostomy pouch to Bristol Myers ConvaTec, the global industry leader in this market. According to industry estimates, the market for disposable ostomy pouches has a global sales value of $1 billion annually

Interim report
This week's interim refers to just six week's trading during which expenses of 411,000 were encurred. At flotation net cash left after expenses was3.5m Cash at the start of H2 was 2,657,000. Each of the contracts so far signed are for around 1m each so the outlook is hopeful that H2 will straight off be cash positive.

Final thoughts
Whilst considering all the above just imagine the demand in the Moslem and Indian worlds for animal and cow-free packaging in pharmaceuticals.

And to sum up just imagine the demand in established pharma companies for a system which eliminates the slow heating and tempering of gelatine before use, which avoids two days waiting for the packs to harden, drastically reduces floor space, and uses machines of much higher speed.

And who wants the smallest risk of that filthy vCJD disease.

Today's Constant Gainers and Losers
Kam Patel

MMO2, BioProgress, Lookers, Tullow Oil , Sutton Harbour, Cobra, Anite Abacus, Total Systems, 3DM Worldwide, Iomart, Image Scan, GW Pharma in focus

...............

Notable constant gainers over four days include BioProgress, which has put on 13.6% to 71p. On 24 November it announced signing a letter of intent to form a global strategic alliance with a major US pharmaceutical company. Bioprogress kept the name of the US company secret for commercial reasons, but said it is a global leader in the Over-the-Counter medicines product sector. It is anticipated that a formal agreement will be completed on or before January 31st 2004.

Just bought into these, look good for the future, does Stanelco pose a possible problem in the future?

AdieH
Yes-if Stanelco win the court case.rgds aj

...which seems unlikely, so much so that BPRG have managed to get very cheap insurance for the action - see the BPRG thread on ADVFN. In any event, it would only affect one of BPRG's 4 tablet forms, and not the one for which FMC look likely to be licensed (RNS 20/10.)

Looks good then aj

Thanks for the info chap, very happy chap at moment, already showing profit and only bought yest.

Placing and open offer 1 Offer Share for every 6 Existing Ordinary Shares @50p

http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200312030700417909S.html

What is the last date you can buy shares in bioprogress before you can qualify for the extra shares?

thanks

If you bought on the 1st you get them, if you bought after you dont. The record date was close of business 1/12/03.

Phew, just bought in on 1st, so I will be included ?