All those who followed Relenza know Relenza is a much superior...

All those who followed Relenza know Relenza is a much superior product that did not bring the bacon home after GSK (in Biota’s words) threw out the baby with the bath water. And due to sheer good luck, the fear of a birdflu pandemic brought great opportunities for BTA to cash in on the pandemic stockpile market. GSK offered to settle the law suit for $100M with legal costs at the most opportunistic time to reap the pandemic sales. Peter Cook is an idiot not to settle. And after burning $35M in legal costs, Peter Cook settled for $20M without legal costs and after the Pandemic Stockpile market had crashed by more than 97% from $220.8M to $6.2M for which Peter Cook blamed the Northern Hemisphere Off-season. The fact remains that Relenza sales had plummeted 96% from the $158.2M June 07 same off-season quarter to the miserable $6.2M June 08 quarter.

IMMEDIATELY after the settlement, GSK started marketing PUT OPTIONS for Relenza. The tide has certainly turned! Both GSK and BTA’s announcements clearly show the royalties are paid only AFTER GSK had delivered Relenza to the client. Clients buying the PUT OPTIONS will only purchase the Relenza in a full blown birdflu pandemic. Is that good news for BTA shareholders?

The only tide that has not turn is Peter Cooks unblemished skill in wealth creation. Peter Cook had endeared himself with Orbital Engine shareholders taking OEC share price from about 70 cents to 10 cents in his 3 years as CEO.

Last year, on 30 Aug 07 there were a total of 894,666 executive options. This had ballooned by 336% to 3,006,614 in the 19 Sep 08 BTA announcement. Shareholders will be asked to reward Peter Cook with 976,300 free options in the coming AGM.

The only chance for success is to get rid of the parasites.