[May 16, 2008]

Prospects shrink for Trimeris

(News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 16--A projected $3 million annual profit and a stock price of $6.95 per share are not what you would expect from a company whose future is a question mark.

But that's the scenario facing Trimeris, once one of the Triangle's most promising biotech companies.

The company, which once promised a near miracle drug for AIDS patients, is trying to lease its research lab in Morrisville and plans to reduce the number of its remaining employees from 10 to five by the end of the year.

What happens after that, analysts agree, depends on profits from the sale of its HIV/AIDS drug Fuzeon.

The large, institutional investors that make up Trimeris' board of directors would like to sell the company, analysts say. Martin Mattingly, Trimeris' chief executive, and members of the company's board are not commenting and did not return phone calls. It's a deal worth as much as $200 million, or about $9 per share, estimated Sharon Seiler, an analyst with Ladenburg Thalmann.

That the company should be in this situation would have been unthinkable eight years ago, when it was riding high on the promise of a breakthrough drug to treat HIV/AIDS.

Trimeris, which grew out of research at Duke University, was the area's first homegrown drug development company to seemingly hit the jackpot. It successfully partnered with a large drug maker, Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. It also was the first to bring to market a medicine it developed from scratch. And in one of the hottest U.S. biotech hubs, Trimeris remains one of only a handful of companies reporting profits from drug sales. At its peak, the company employed 150, and its stock traded at $79 a share.

Today the stock hovers at $6 to $7 per share -- still afloat because of the payments from Roche. The partners share profits from Fuzeon sales in North America. Trimeris receives royalties on Fuzeon sales in Europe.

An $80 million cash reserve that Trimeris has accumulated also helps keep up the stock price, Seiler said.

But after a four-year battle to boost sales, demand for Fuzeon has begun to drop. The drug has been plagued by side effects and high manufacturing costs, and is being pushed aside by new, powerful AIDS drugs. Roche has decreased its marketing support.

By next year, expenses to make and market Fuzeon could exceed profits from sales in North America, Dr. Steven Harr, an Morgan Stanley analyst, wrote in a research note.

In the first quarter, Fuzeon sales dropped 34 percent to $42.7 million -- down from $64.3 million during the same three months a year ago. U.S. and Canadian sales were $17 million -- down 42 percent.

With sales dropping, finding a buyer could be problematic.

A patent lawsuit against Roche and Trimeris also may scare buyers away.

The lawsuit, filed by Swiss drug maker Novartis in a Texas federal court, involves the mechanism by which Fuzeon blocks the virus that causes AIDS from entering and infecting cells. Talks are under way to settle the lawsuit, court records show, but in the meantime the company has dug into cash reserve to pay as much as $50 million to investors this year.

sabine.vollmer@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8992

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