avian flu, page-8

re: avian flu - darra read and weep fella...they havnt even got preliminary or partial results..just supposition..how do u reckon that would go down with the asx

also u tell me to educate myself...well i think im well informed and as a tip for u...go and have a look at the credentials and record of eG Capital...who are what they laughingly describe as a merchant bank.and who sponsored BDM to the market.....if thats not dodgy..ill go he...

From Today's SMH

"The Australian Stock Exchange is planning an overhaul of the way listed biotech companies communicate the results of their clinical trials to investors, with a draft proposal calling for a crackdown on puffy, incomplete and misleading statements.

The inspiration for the move was one of the best known speculative bubbles in Australian history, the mining boom of the 1960s and '70s. After the high-profile collapse of Poseidon and other resource plays, governments and regulators introduced rules controlling the release of price-sensitive information.

That system is to be used as a template for the present boom in the frothy biotech sector.

Proposed new listing and reporting rules being considered by the ASX would end cavalier reporting in which uninspiring results are beaten up into exciting releases that trigger a huge rally in a company's share price.

The ASX has been working closely with a select committee of biotech industry leaders for several months to produce a draft proposal to improve the sector's regulation. Under the far-reaching changes, biotechs would use a standard document to inform the market about the results of crucial laboratory trials. This would require them to publish not only raw data on experiments but also a comparison of the results with the objectives.

It is believed that several heavyweight biotech companies and respected industry experts have been furiously lobbying the ASX to implement such a rule, following concerns that many biotechs were issuing statements that lacked statistical rigour and were misleading. One industry insider, who declined to be named, said some biotechs consistently focused on small sections of a particular phase I or II trial so as to class a laboratory failure as a "success".

The radical reform would apply only to drug-discovery companies, splitting that sector away from medical device groups.

The set of draft proposals, which has been circulated to 15 industry experts, contains rules and regulations governing the actions of biotech companies before they release crucial laboratory data and dictating how statements to the ASX are to be written and composed.

The draft has two key thrusts. First, it requires a "wall of silence" from biotech companies as a trial nears completion, ending the common practice of chief executives or directors giving off-the-record chats to analysts, venture capitalists and institutional investors about the success of an experimental drug.

Second, and more importantly, biotechs would be forced to issue the complete raw data on a trial, enabling analysts and investors to gauge the success of an experimental drug.

"Sometimes biotechs make the public [ASX] release about the outcome of a trial so narrow they can call it a success even if it wasn't," said a biotech executive who has seen the ASX draft.

"In this way they are being less than truthful with the facts and it is this behaviour that we are trying to stamp out. They give a bad name to other biotechs that use proper scientific and statistical information to back up their ASX releases."

The ASX is expected to release the draft proposal for public discussion by March and to implement the new rules by the final quarter of 2004."