topside still very heavy, page-3

Can anyone find out if what shares got a mention in this report??

Thanks

Some life science shares do well
By Rebecca Urban
March 3, 2005


Medical device shares are proving to be a thorn in the side of the Australian life sciences industry, their lacklustre performance during the December quarter holding back an otherwise buoyant sector.

An industry report by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that the listed pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors increased in value during the last three months of 2004, whereas an index comprising 26 medical device companies fell about 1 per cent.

Half of the 10 worst performing stocks during the December quarter were medical device companies, with Medical Corp Australasia winning the title of poorest performer. Shares in the company, which describes itself as a health care and medical products investor, fell 58 per cent.

SSH Medical, Occupational & Medical Innovations, ITL and SomnoMed were also among the worst-performing stocks - the reasons for their share price weaknesses varying from failing to meet milestones on time to negative cash flows.

The PwC report, called BioForum and released yesterday, shows that, despite volatility in the combined life sciences index increasing recently, it still outperformed the All Ordinaries Index throughout 2004. The life sciences index increased about 31 per cent compared to the 23 per cent rise of the All Ords.

Tony Stephen, a partner with PwC, said the strength in the sector was probably a result of companies producing promising clinical trial data and getting products approved for the market.

"That's very positive news and it's something that's appearing that we wouldn't have had to report on 12 months ago," he said.

All but one of the 14 clinical studies reported during the quarter were interpreted as a "favourable" result - however that includes Metabolic Pharmaceuticals, whose share price crashed after it unveiled results from its obesity drug trial, and Solbec Pharmaceuticals, which reported success testing its mesothelioma treatment in mice. It later emerged that five mice were used in the study - two of the animals died of cancer, two overdosed on the treatment and the lone remaining mouse went into remission