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Penny Share Review 173

Monday 03 March 2003

Interim results from Farsight (FAR), formerly Ninth Floor, gets a brief mention in Saturday's Independent. The Company assured investors that the Group would return to profitability in the second half of the year following a loss in the first-half. At 9.57 the shares were unchanged from Friday's close of 0.88p.

Confirmation of Osmetech's (OMH) deal to acquire specialist blood analyser Opti from Roche for $2.5m came in Monday's Daily Express. It is expected that it will be "done and dusted within the month" and Roche will invest $1m in Osmetech, as part of the deal. Opti is anticipated to contribute $7m to turnover and Roche will sell and distribute the blood analyser device. The shares at 9.58 were up 0.08p to 2.65p from Friday's close.

Today's announcement from Oxford BioMedica (OXB) was previewed in the Financial Mail on Sunday. The newspaper revealed that the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (GTAC) had given ethical approval to "press ahead with the next stage of tests on the Company's cancer vaccine, TroVax." The vaccine is designed to stimulate a patient's immune system to recognise and destroy cancer cells. The announcement confirms that the Phase II trial is planned to start within two months and is aimed at placing TroVax alongside current first-line chemotherapy treatment and prepare it for a Phase III efficacy study. In order for this to happen, a short Phase II study is required to show that TroVax induces an appropriate response and it is this that has been approved by the GTAC. At 9.57 the shares had edged forward by 0.63p to 7.13p from Friday's close.

Staffing Ventures' (STF) fundraising features in some of Saturday's newspapers. The Daily Express noted that the Company is seeking to raise £1.3m through a placing of shares with a number of institutional investors including new shareholders JO Hambro and Rathbones, while the Independent reported the 100-for-1 share consolidation. At 9.58 the shares were unchanged from Friday's close of 0.5p.

Today's Announcements

The following companies, in which City Equities customers may have an interest, released announcements to the market this morning. These can be found by entering the relevant company name or ticker code in the search box on this site.

Cambridge Mineral Resources (CMR) - Option on exploration permit
Oxford BioMedica (OXB) - Trovax to enter Phase II

Look Out For This Week

3 Mar - UK Consumer Credit (Jan), Manufacturing PMI.
4 Mar - Oxford BioMedica (F), UK Nationwide house prices, Eurozone unemployment (Jan).
5 Mar - UK Service sector PMI (Feb)
6 Mar - UK Bank of England MPC meeting, Eurozone ECB meeting, US Productivity and costs (Q4).
7 Mar - US Non-farm payrolls (Feb), US Consumer credit (Jan).

Compiled by A McLintock

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