He is joining Protherics famed for its rattlesnake bite antidote Protherics shares were
Posted in General on 04. Oct, 2010
He is joining Protherics, famed for its rattlesnake bite antidote Protherics shares were up a penny at 59.5p. It hasn’t taken long for Dr Brown to “go plural” as it was only last week he picked up the first of his new non-executive roles, at Pharmagene, which supplies human tissue for drug research. Its shares were steady at 79.5p yesterday, while Acambis was up 9p to 359p ahead of annual results due this morning.Nestor Healthcare shares fell below 200p for the first time since last April. The group, the largest supplier of agency nurses to the National Health Service, had already warned that its 2003 profits would be disappointing thanks to the Department of Health’s concerted efforts to reduce its reliance on expensive temporary staff. Although Nestor shares closed down 4.75p at 199.75p, they traded lower earlier in the day and there was some relief the company was not as gloomy on the outlook as its sectormate, Reed Health, which issued a profit warning last month.
Reed shares were critical but stable at 78.5p.Shares in Hunting, the oil services group, were up 2.5p at 114.5p on hopes that results this week will reflect renewed oil and gas exploration activity among its customers.. Blackbird Leys, the Oxford council estate, has for years provoked lurid headlines about joy-riding, violence and thuggery. Yet Andrew Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has forgone the city’s historic centre and affluent suburbs to live right here in one of its most notorious districts. We like it here.”The cabinet minister says living in the heart of a working-class district provides him with a “touchstone” for what ordinary people are thinking – which is useful if you are in charge of a department distributing more than £100bn of taxpayers’ money a year, or 10 per cent of GDP.”It keeps me in touch with decent people round here,” he says. Its purpose was to provide information that would shape PR and marketing campaigns, but the findings help to explain why Atkins has been front-page news for so long.After analysing 1,029 articles in national and regional newspapers, Romeike concluded that book sales were directly affected by “a complicated mix of celebrity endorsements, statements from health experts and individual stories, including those of journalists”.
But, equally, the fuss Catherine Zeta-Jones made over Atkins, when she threatened to sue anyone who said she was on the diet, created just as many column inches in the press.Romeike did research between April and September last year to track media interest in the light of health warnings, the death of Robert Atkins, book sales and celebrity endorsements. The fact that the public thought she was a devotee contributed to media interest in Atkins, according to the research company Romeike Media Intelligence. It’s no coincidence that there has been a drop in our average circulation figures over the past six months when publicity over Atkins was at its height It has offered a one-stop solution for people. It negated the need to buy a health magazine.”The cult of celebrity is influencing diets. Jennifer Aniston’s name has been associated with Atkins even though there’s no real proof that she’s on it.”Whether she is or isn’t does not seem to matter. “My feeling is,” she says, “the interest in diet is only going to get hotter.