Previous NSEP Event

Building confidence in Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology stocks

January 23rd 2003, Four Seasons Hotel, London, 18:30

The event starts at 6.30pm (Registration from 6.00pm). The short talks and panel discussions last approximately 1¼ hours and will be followed by cocktails and canapes - the ideal networking opportunity.

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks have not shone in 2002, itself not a vintage year for share prices! There is very compelling evidence that pharmaceutical and biotechnology shares are significantly undervalued, but the question remains how to reassure nervous investors of this. The event will look at this problem and determine how both the individual company and the industry as a whole can rectify the situation. In a nutshell, the issue is how to continue to expand the understanding, on a global basis, of the critical role of pharmaceuticals and innovation, and the balance between innovation, intellectual property rights, and investor returns.

In particular the following issues will be examined:

• Reasons for the underperformance and what can be done about it:
• tougher standards, particularly from the FDA
• unfulfilled pipeline drugs i.e. Erbitux - have they spoiled it for the rest of us?
• the general malaise of the stock market following the dot com crash, September 11, Enron & Worldcom and a thousand and one other reasons
• Does the market need more corporate and clinical trial information and if so how to deliver this information
• How the decline in share prices opens other funding avenues (bonds etc) and how to raise finance in the current climate
• Should corporate focus be narrower or broader?
• Another spat of mergers - is bigger necessarily better?
• Why it matters that shares are undervalued
• Why pharmaceutical stocks will outperform the market in the long run and how to communicate this
• To float or not to float - pros and cons