Upside Seen For Celltech From Clinical Progress

UK company Celltech continues to assert its position as a leader in the emerging biotechnology sector, according to analysts Duncan Moore and Eric Hecht at Morgan Stanley. Noting that Celltech announced total six-month revenues from biologicals of L9.5 million ($14.4 million), up 30%, and L100,000 from ReoPro royalties (Marketletter May 20), the analysts say that the investment community is not critically focussed on financials at this stage of the biotechnology company's development.

However, they have slightly raised their share price target to reflect the clinical progress of Celltech's leukemia drug, a colcheamicin-linked monoclonal antibody in codevelopment with American Home Products, and the positive price guidance on the septic-shock product BAYX-1351, licensed for the UK, Ireland and France from Bayer, which is currently L2,000 per treatment versus the analysts' estimate of L1,300).