Gradipore shares drop after loss announced

Shares in Sydney-based biotech company Gradipore (ASX: GDP) dipped sharply yesterday after the company announced a $AUD7.9 million loss for the December half of 2002.

Gradipore shares shed 25 cents, to $1.51. The company said in a press release it had been hoping for significantly smaller loss, in the $4 million range, after "lumpy and difficult to forecast" conditions saw it record a first-half loss of $8.1 million.

The company reported that its diagnostics business unit experienced slow sales in the October-December quarter after delays in receiving several large anticipated orders.

But it has recorded record sales since the New Year, and diagnostics unit sales were now ahead of budget.

Last month Gradipore shares rose by almost 25 per cent, to $AUD1.44, after it announced it had demonstrated that its proprietary Gradiflow technology could remove both the normal and infectious variants of a protein associated with the deadly brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) from human tissue samples.

That result paved the way for researchers to develop diagnostic tests to detect infections caused by a class of mutant proteins called prions.

Prions are mis-folded forms of normal proteins in brain tissue, that can cause severe neurodegenerative disorders in mammals, including 'mad cow disease' in cattle, and scrapie in sheep.

Despite its last-half Gradipore's share price remains above the $1.44 reached after last month's announcement.

Gradipore's US-based CEO, Robert Lieb, said the company's goal was to increase revenue while containing expenditure.