Antisense to establish ADR program

Antisense Therapeutics (ASX: ANP) announced this week it would establish a level 1 American Depository Receipts (ADR) program in the US through the Bank of New York.

CEO Mark Diamond said the company expected the program to be up and running by the end of the year, allowing US investors to trade Antisense shares on the OTC market through depository receipts.

"We've thought very carefully about this activity and also about the timing," Diamond said.

According to Diamond, a lot of time has been spent in the US visiting potential investors in the company since Antisense listed a couple of years ago.

"They know Isis very well in the US and [understand] the advantages of the second generation antisense technology," he said.

Diamond said the initial reluctance of US investors to invest in an early stage foreign company like Antisense was changing as the company matured, with two projects in clinical trials. Antisense's initial targets, multiple sclerosis and psoriasis, were well received and understood by investors, he said.

"They've said we have become a more interesting prospect ... this was a big factor in deciding to establish the ADR program," Diamond said.

Another factor which Diamond hopes to leverage in coming months is the expected approval of Biogen Idec and Elan's monoclonal antibody drug Antegren, which targets the same molecule, VLA-4, as Antisense's drug. Diamond said based on a six-month expedited review by the FDA, approval could be announced in November.

And pioneering antisense company Isis Pharmaceuticals, a collaboration and licensing partner of Antisense, has also been generating good news recently.

Diamond says Antisense would wait until the time was right to expand into a level 2 ADR program, given the significance expense and accounting requirements of the process.

"We haven't set a specific timetable for a level 2 listing but the appropriate time point to consider this would be when data comes from our pivotal clinical trials of the multiple sclerosis and psoriasis therapeutics, so late 2005, 2006," he said.