otcqx commencement date, page-6

Here is a great article from yesterdays Australian. For anybody who missed it. Explains clearly why you can buy. comPanies like AVH at a steep discount to their real value. So when you scratchyour head andd ask "if this is so good why is it so cheap"

Just reread this article.

"

IN the late 1990s and early 2000s, the heady dotcom days
when money was cheap and easy, about 100 biotech companies
listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Most shouldn't have done so.
These companies came to market too early and without
enough cash to support their long-term plans. They should
have remained private, perhaps in the hands of early stage
venture capital investment, but with a lack of depth or appetite for biotechs in the venture capital market in Australia a public listing was an understandable option.
Those that survived faced being ignored in the market as
most investors preferred to stick with sectors where they had made money before, or where they could see a return coming in a couple of years.

But some biotech companies, which have been researching and
developing their products for the past decade, are now well placed to achieve large-scale success, and investors to reap big rewards.
This year is set to be the year Australian biotechs come of age, and the disconnect between medical innovation and
commercialisation poised to change.
Not only is the biotech sector more mature, but major
pharmaceutical companies are looking at tens of billions of
dollars in loss in revenue as their drugs come off patent and become generic. A pharmaceutical company can hold the intellectual pr operty for a drug for only 20 years before
other companies can sell the same drug as a generic brand.
One example is US giant Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor,
which came off patent in November last year. Pfizer had
previously enjoyed more than $12 billion a year in sales.
But while big pharma needs to find new streams of revenue
growth, it has slashed early stage research and development
budgets. Companies are using their high levels of cash and
looking at the biotech sector to acquire, instead of develop, the next raft of new blockbuster drugs.

This shift in thinking by big pharma cannot be underestimated.
Companies need new products to continue to grow and be profitable, but instead of creating these products
themselves they are effectively outsourcing this job to the
biotech sector, giving the entire sector a massive shot in the arm.

In Australia, Acrux and Mesoblast are recent success
stories from the biotech sector. Amp( has a licensing deal with US pharmaceutical major Eli Lilly for the global marketing of Acrux's Axiron testosterone treatment. The deal is worth more than $1bn (by combination of upfront and milestone payments plus royalties).
Acrux paid its first dividend last year after product approval, of $100 million or 60c a share taxfree,
and plans to do so again this year: a nice reward for truebelieving shareholders.

Mesoblast has a deal with American biopharmaceutical
company Cephalon that gives Cephalon the rights to market
Mesoblast's stem-cell therapies for heart and nervous system conditions. The deal was worth $US300m to Mesoblast in an upfront payment and may be worth as much as $US1.7bn in future milestone payments.
These types of deals should make market watchers and
investors think twice about dismissing the biotech sector andconsigning it to the too-hardbasket.
Other companies such as Alchemia, Clinival, Genetic
Technologies, Pharm axis, Prima BioMed, Qrxpharma and Starpharma are all in strong financial positions and are close to, or have recently achieved, commercialisation with their products and programs.
Historically, Australia has an excellent record in the area of medical innovation through early stage research institutes, hospitals and universities; for
example, Melbourne's Monash University developed the world's first IVF program.
And Ian Frazer created the human papift omavirus vaccine
for cervical cancer. It was the first vaccine designed to prevent a cancer and is marketed globally by Merck & Co (as Gardasil) and GlaxoSmithKline (as Cervarix).
The company I head, Prima BioMed, is developing the world's
first therapy vaccine to treat ovarian cancer.
CVac is an immunotherapy vaccine that is administered postsurgery and post-chemotherapy to delay the relapse and control the metastases of the cancer. After three successful trials to date, Prima is about to start a
global, 800-patient phase III clinical trial. Professor Frazer heads Prima's scientific advisory board.
Prima BioMed is one of the biotech companies that has been
on the stock exchange for a decade. It completed a $41m
capital raising in the middle of last year, to fund late-stage clinical studies. 

Successful results from the phase III study will see the company well placed to achieve commercialisation in important global markets.
Companies with cash on their balance sheets are better placed to ride out market upheaval, but for biotech companies that are cashed up and are in the late stage of commercialising their products it is a time of great
opportunity.
It takes a lot of time and effort to become an overnight success, but the Australian biotech sector has never been better placed to become just that this year, and investors to be rewarded considerably."