sydney meeting, page-3

Okay - a whopping 7 attendees, including Hunter Hall and possibly 2 analysts, plus the balance of what I took to be 4 individual holders.


US Listing:

As we know, Nasdaq is in the pipeline, but what I heard today was thatit was more likely to be solely listed on Nasdaq, rather than a dual listing, like we have with Unilife (UNS) for example.

This tells me that they have investigated the options very seriously. They believe that to get serious/patriotic US investor backing, they need to be seen as breaking ties with Australia.

LANI:

I asked PC (assuming they go it alone) what he anticipates the cost of manufacturing to be in the US (it will be contract manufacturing). He said he could not divulge. So I reworded and asked what he understood the industry standard cost of manufacturing to be (I threw in 30% as an example). He came back with typically, 50-70% Gross Margin.

They have not totally ruled out Big Pharma interest, but obviously the value of LANI is far higher and it would probably not be of interest until it is at or through Phase III.

Exciting the market:

They understand that to be taken very seriously in the US, they need to be seen to have multiple irons in the fire. In the near term, in order to grab serious investor interest, they believe that it might be good to have a drug in the pipeline that is almost ready for market. It sounds like this is one of the Piper Jaffray recommendations. They are possibly on the lookout to partner/merge or otherwise, with a Biotech with such a product, but that does not have any trailing products. They believe that if they can find such a company, the two could compliment each other, because Biota has two products (LANI and HRV) that would be sitting 3 years or so behind. They said that to excite the market, it likes to see a solid list of pipeline products that are short-mid term - in other words, to know that there are multiple revenue generating products on the horizon. I cannot help but think of Gilead as a comparison.

HRV BTA-798:

If they decide to take it all the way through Phase III, it sounds like it will be lodged with the NDA around the same time as LANI.

I asked about competing products. They said there are none. They mentioned Pleconaril, which we already know about and said that it failed Phase III mainly because it was targeting Common Cold generally. They said that unfortunately, to target general use like this will not get through - hence they have to target a narrower asthma and acute respiratory market. They were very positive that HRV can go all the way. They said that BTA-798 was targeting a completely new market - PC called it "white space" and he believed that Big Pharma are unsure about how successful it will be. Biota believe the potential market to be far bigger than what Big Pharma anticipate and hence holding on to it into Phase III may be the way to go.

They talked about inflexion points in the SP. Next June/July is likely to be one such time - when the BTA-798 results are due.

PR:

Forget it. I told them that if they list in the US, they have to operate differently. They cannot just sit there and expect it all to happen. They obviously realise this. But until then, forget it.

East Hill:

They don't seem to think there is another agenda there. They may very well continue to increase their holdings, but as DL said, once they get to 19.9%, that becomes a takeover point. They believe they are just canny US investors who know about Biota courtesy of their Prolysis relationship and they are in early at a low price.

I may remember some more stuff, but apart from the above, it was stuff we all know.

The AGM might give the market a bit of a formal boost with info on plans for the US.

Also, don't expect great quarterlies from GSK or DS, but then, we are already well and truly aware of this.

That's it for now.