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must read - here it is again... make sure you all have read the article from The Australian before Monday:

GSK chief blows cold and now hot on Relenza
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Richard Gluyas - The Australian
November 12, 2005

THE Big Pharma boss accused of cruelling the global prospects of Australia's breakthrough anti-flu drug, Relenza, has had a sudden, late-life conversion.

GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier, 57, a member of the French business aristocracy and confidant of presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush, now says he can't make enough of the stuff.

"JP", as he is known in the investment community, said last month he had recently been approached by the Health Minister of an unnamed country who had offered to buy GSK's entire, 2005 production run for the drug.

The GSK boss then told analysts: "The typical order for Relenza is not a one-year order, it's a three-years order, because the Government's realised we're not going to be able to produce it on time.

"We just can't produce enough units (of Relenza) no matter what we do."









How times change, and what a difference fear makes.

News yesterday that the French Government had intensified its preparation for a bird-flu pandemic by increasing its Relenza stockpiling order from 200,000 to nine million units had a predictable effect on the share price of the drug's developer, Melbourne biotech Biota Holdings.

Biota, which receives a seven per cent royalty from GSK for Relenza sales, shot up dramatically, gaining 51.5c, or 36 per cent, from $1.43 to $1.945.

The French order alone is three times the global sales of the drug since its 1999 launch through to June 30.

The contrast with last July, when Biota shares were 45c and friendless, could not be greater.

A massive, Victorian Supreme Court damages claim against GSK, worth $308 million to $430 million, seemed to be the only way of generating a return from a drug hailed by scientist Gustav Nossal as a "remarkable Australian triumph".

But then bird flu intervened.

Biota still believes that GSK dumped Relenza, contrary to the terms of its licensing agreement, to concentrate on other priorities emerging from the marriage in 2000 between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham.

JP Garnier, who became CEO of the merged group in January 2001, can therefore be seen as Relenza's executioner and, in a sense, its latter-day saviour.

However, if JP is to fully redeem himself in the eyes of Biota and its shareholders, he will have to do a lot more than merely respond to demand and re-install production capacity for Relenza at GSK's Boronia plant in Melbourne.

Biota chief executive Peter Molloy said GSK should also back the drug with some real marketing muscle - something like the $US25 million-plus dished out in Relenza's 1999 launch-year. It was in 2001, according to Biota's legal case, that JP and his team took the knife to promotional expenditure, slashing it by 84 per cent.

Court-directed mediation between Biota and GSK took place this week, but Mr Molloy said he had nothing to report, other than enhanced confidence of a successful outcome, particularly after France came to the Relenza party.