Biocompatibles admitted it could have to raise additional funds if it cannot find

Biocompatibles admitted it could have to raise additional funds if it cannot find a partner soon. “This raises serious concerns about the group’s future and financial stability,” said one analyst. A spokeswoman for Biocompatibles said: “The board gradually lost confidence in Alistair Taylor … due to his lack of progress in securing marketing partners for Biocompatibles’ products.”
Biocompatibles’ shares have fallen from a peak of 1420p last year after it failed to tie up a marketing agreement with Johnson & Johnson, the giant healthcare group.The news, coming just before the market closed last night, stunned the City. Shares in Biocompatibles, the troubled healthcare group, crashed 43 per cent to 215p, wiping pounds 117m off its market value, after it announced the immediate resignation of Alistair Taylor, the group’s president and chief executive since 1993.

The value of shares in Biocompatible, the healthcare company, plunged by more than 40 per cent yesterday, after it announced that Alistair Taylor had resigned as president and chief executive. A company spokeswoman said he had lost the confidence of the board in his ability to find marketing partners for the company’s innovative products. The shares fell 160p to 215p, wiping pounds 11m off its market value. The board has formed a management committee which will be chaired by Jeremy Curnock Cook, ahead of the appointment of a new chief executive. In a statement the company said: “The management committee will focus on progressing on going discussions with potential commercial partners as well as reviewing the options for independent distribution of the company’s stents in some markets.”. Shares in Flextech rose 15p to 502.5p, though sources indicated the talks were at a “very early stage” and were just one of a number of potential ventures under discussion.
A push by Microsoft would throw down the gauntlet to British Interactive Broadcasting (BIB), the satellite venture part owned by BSkyB, and British Telecom, which aims to launch a service offering home banking, shopping and educational channels by the end of the year.Flextech has already launched a home shopping channel called Screenshop and plans a travel shopping channel in the spring, though in both cases customers have to use the telephone to buy goods or making bookings.. Microsoft, the global computer software giant, is considering a move into the emerging UK digital interactive television market which would represent a serious challenge to the planned offerings from satellite and cable operators.

It emerged yesterday that discussions were under way between Microsoft and Flextech, the pay television group which could see the two companies collaborate on a rival interactive service. Incomes Data Services said almost half of the 40 deals they had monitored were for 4 per cent or more, and two – covering IT staff at Barclays and House of Fraser employees – were in double figures.Still, figures from across the Atlantic yesterday, greeted with delight by President Clinton, left little doubt that the British economy is far weaker than the US.The American economy created 358,000 non-farm jobs last month, and in the latest three months has been generating jobs at an annual rate of 4.5 million. “Collapsing exports will produce very weak growth in the first half of 1998,” he said.Although this was the widespread view, some dissenters said the official figures were implausibly weak.There was some support for the minority opinion that there are still inflationary dangers in a report that pay deals are running further ahead of inflation this month. Some City analysts expressed doubt about the reliability of the figures, but most saw them as a vindication of the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision to leave the cost of borrowing unchanged.Michael Saunders at Salomon Smith Barney said interest rates had now reached their peak. Outside manufacturing, both electricity, gas and water supply and oil and gas production rebounded after a very weak November.A combination of falling exports as a result of the strong pound and slower growth in demand in home markets lies behind the depressing performance. Another monthly drop would put industry technically into recession, the definition of which is two successive quarters of declining output.The weakness went across the board in manufacturing, with monthly gains in only food, drink and tobacco and petrol refining. Official figures indicating that British industry is on the verge of recession explained the Bank of England’s decision not to raise interest rates earlier this week.