http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,338478,00.html
The Guardian
Attacks force out biotech guru

Andrew Clark
Saturday July 1, 2000

 One of the most influential financiers behind
 Britain's biotech industry, Jeremy Curnock Cook,
 has resigned as head of Rothschild's International
 Biotechnology Trust amid a growing storm over
 his personal interest in some of the fund's
 investments.

 Mr Curnock Cook, 50, left yesterday "on medical
 advice" in the middle of a battle for control with a
 US firm, Millennium Partners. He said that he
 was "irritated" at "specious personal attacks"
 from the American company, which he believes
 have aggravated his long-term heart condition.

 "There is nothing hidden here - it is a simple
 issue," said Mr Curnock Cook. "They are choosing
 to personalise matters with an attack which I
 think is unneccessary."

 Millennium, a 10% shareholder, wants to
 liquidate the #290m fund and distribute the
 proceeds to investors. It wrote to shareholders
 last week accusing Mr Curnock Cook of a conflict
 of interests, after discovering that he held share
 options worth more than $750,000 in two of the
 biotech companies in which IBT has invested.

 IBT said that after a review of the situation, Mr
 Curnock Cook had agreed to give any profits from
 his options back to the trust. Mr Curnock Cook
 said: "It was always my view that the value of the
 share options would go through to the trust. This
 was never, for me, an issue. "

 The options, in the US firms Sugen and Cell
 Therapeutics, have exploded in value amid a
 resurgence in the performance of the drug
 development sector.

 Mr Curnock Cook was granted the options because
 he is a non-executive director of the two
 companies. Corporate governance guidelines in the
 US - unlike those in Britain - permit such
 awards to independent directors.

 Mr Curnock Cook's options have never been
 disclosed to IBT's shareholders. According to
 filings with the US Securities and Exchange
 Commission, he holds options in several other
 firms in which IBT has invested, including
 Targeted Genetics and Ribozyme - but their value
 is unclear.

 Mr Curnock Cook insisted his resignation from
 IBT had nothing to do with these disclosures: "My
 health has been troubling me for a while. One
 eventually listens to the very good advice one's
 been given. If you continue to roar around the
 place, you risk bits falling off."

 Millennium wants to break up IBT because its
 share price, which fell 3.5p to 254p yesterday,
 is well below the total value of its investments -
 313p a share. IBT argues that this is because
 some of its stakes are in early stage, unquoted
 companies, which cannot easily be cashed in.

 Mr Curnock Cook said: "Fairly predictably, if an
 arbitrageur wishes to undermine an investment
 trust, its first approach has to be to attack the
 management."

 A qualified microbiologist, Mr Curnock Cook is an
 ubiquitous figure in the drug development
 industry. He is the chairman of Biocompatibles,
 deputy chairman of Vernalis and also a director of
 Cantab Pharmaceuticals.

 Millennium has asked how he can devote attention
 to IBT when he sits on the board of 23 different
 companies. Mr Curnock Cook says that some are
 dormant, and that the true figure is in the
 "mid-teens".

 Shareholders will vote on whether to break up
 IBT at a meeting next Friday. AstraZeneca is one of
 the biggest investors, with 7%.