
UK's Oxford Biomedica sees first-half sales surging on strong order book
Oxford Biomedica, which provides contracting services to pharmaceutical firms, said it signed new contracts worth about 149 million pounds ($200 million) in the six months ended June 30, more than doubling from a year earlier, giving it confidence in both its full-year and medium-term targets.
Demand was particularly strong in late-stage programmes, allowing it to go ahead with planned capacity expansions to accommodate demand, the firm said.
Its shares rose more than 4% in early trading in London.
"With robust fundamentals in place and clear visibility into the second half of the year, we remain confident in our ability to deliver our full year guidance and achieve sustainable growth in 2025 and beyond," CEO Frank Mathias said.
For the first half, Oxford Biomedica expects to report revenues of about 70 million pounds to 73 million pounds, higher by 38% to 44% from a year earlier.
Analysts at JPMorgan said at the midpoint of 71.5 million pounds, revenue was 3% ahead of consensus.
The company, spun off from the University of Oxford in 1995, continues to expect full-year revenue of 160 million pounds to 170 million pounds, with core profit in low-single-digit numbers, against a loss, opens new tab of 15.3 million pounds last year.
($1 = 0.7448 pounds)
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Times
a few seconds ago
- Times
How drivers were sold a car finance compensation fantasy
Britain has narrowly avoided a costly car finance compensation free-for-all after a landmark court ruling derailed chances of a payout for millions of drivers. Claims lawyers had been bombarding consumers with adverts suggesting they may have been entitled to thousands of pounds in a scandal over hidden commission on car finance deals. The scandal had been expected to rival the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, which cost banks more than £38 billion. It was thought that nearly 15 million drivers could be entitled to payouts worth as much as £44 billion in total — although Friday's Supreme Court ruling means the numbers are set to be far smaller. Questions have now been raised over whether those using car finance really lost out and how many of them deserve compensation at all. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had tried to intervene ahead of the ruling — arguing that a colossal compensation bill for the industry would damage the economy and consumers. The Supreme Court ruled on three cases where consumers bought cars on finance and argued that they had been treated unfairly because they had not been told about commission involved in their deals — which ranged from £183 to £1,651. The court rejected two of the three cases, but upheld a complaint by Marcus Johnson, a factory worker from south Wales — because in his case the £1,651 commission in his loan was 55 per cent of the fee (including interest) on his loan over five years. 'The fact that the undisclosed commission was so high is a powerful indication that the relationship between Mr Johnson and the lender was unfair,' the court's judgment said. It leaves the door open to claims for compensation on deals that contained large amounts of commission, or where the commission model influenced what they paid. How much would be needed for a deal to be unfair is something that is likely to be decided by the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which said it would confirm if it would introduce a redress scheme before stock markets open on Monday morning. The FCA had been investigating finance deals that had used a model called discretionary commission, which incentivised dealers to give customers a worse interest rate on their loan. However, a judgment by the Court of Appeal last October opened the door to compensation claims by millions of motorists who had bought cars on finance, regardless of the commission model. Lenders appealed to the Supreme Court over the ruling. About nine in ten cars are bought on finance and £39.7 billion was borrowed on more than two million cars in the year to May, according to the Finance and Leasing Association, a trade body. The Court of Appeal had ruled in October that car dealers had a duty to make clear the nature and value of any commission paid to them to ensure that borrowers could give 'informed consent' before agreeing to a deal. Reeves was among those concerned about a claims free-for-all, with the Treasury reportedly drawing up contingency plans to shield lenders from having to pay out billions of pounds in compensation. The Treasury attempted to intervene in the Supreme Court case, arguing that a ruling had 'the potential to adversely affect the United Kingdom's reputation as a place to do business, with a consequent impact on economic growth'. In the meantime complaints about car loans to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), a body that solves disputes, have risen from 4,130 in the first three months of 2023-24 to 37,230 in the last three months of 2024-25. Most of these have been brought by claims companies and no-win, no-fee law firms that file complaints on behalf of consumers in return for up to 30 per cent of any compensation. These companies have swamped radio, social media and television with adverts that tell consumers they could be owed thousands of pounds. On Thursday the FCA said it had required 224 adverts from claims firms about car finance to either be taken down or changed. There had been highly speculative figures advertised for how much consumers could get back, it said, including compensation figures that did not make clear they covered multiple car loans and misleading claims that refunds were guaranteed. It said companies had been signing up consumers without their consent after they clicked on adverts. Philip Salter, a former FCA regulator now at the consultancy Sicsic Advisory, said: 'I haven't liked a lot of the claims company advertising. You've had a lot of companies arguing that time is running out, but the clock hasn't even started. It's been a bit of an unseemly scramble.' • Common sense has triumphed over compensation culture If there is to be compensation for consumers, it is expected that the FCA will announce a free redress scheme where lenders will contact those eligible, meaning consumers should not need to use a claims company. Gary Greenwood from the investment bank Shore Capital said: 'It's one of those things where if you go by the letter of the law of the previous Court of Appeal judgment, you're almost coming to the conclusion that commission is bad. But the problem is that if you look at the reality of what had happened, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of consumer harm that's gone on. 'So any sort of redress has got to come down to: has there been any consumer harm here, or are people just trying to claim money back on a technicality?' Greenwood said. Charlie Nunn, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, which runs Britain's biggest car finance lender, Black Horse, has denied the scandal was on the same level as PPI. 'Some 80 per cent of people need finance to buy a new car, and a large number of second-hand car buyers do as well,' he told The Times in January. 'We need a well-functioning motor finance industry that supports consumers.' The National Franchised Dealers Association, a trade body, told the Supreme Court that 'nobody goes to a car dealer with a reasonable expectation that it is acting without self-interest in relation to any of the products it sells'. The Supreme Court's judgment could have been the difference between lenders facing a compensation bill of £11 billion — for complaints about a specific form of commission — and £29 billion, according to Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, an investment bank. It could also have led to compensation claims about the sale of other financial products such as insurance where commission was involved but not properly disclosed. Consumers in turn could have had to foot the bill. Stuart Masson, the editor of the advice website The Car Expert UK, said that if lenders have to pay compensation to millions of people, car finance could get more expensive in the future as the industry tries to 'claw back' that money. 'That's not money they're going to find down the back of the sofa,' he told the BBC. 'They're going to have to get that back from increasing the costs of future lending, which won't just be on car finance. It could be on credit cards, it could be on personal loans, it could be on mortgages.' In January Reeves told bankers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: 'There is nothing pro-consumer about making it harder for people to buy an affordable car for their family.' Before the courts widened the scope of possible mis-selling, the FCA had been investigating a specific model of commission called discretionary commission. This is where the cut that lenders paid dealers was linked to the interest rate consumers were charged, incentivising dealers to charge borrowers more. This model was used in about 35 per cent of car finance deals, according to the FCA, before it banned the practice in January 2021. The FCA said consumers could have paid about £1,100 more in interest over a four-year £10,000 car finance deal because of this commission model — which is being used as the basis for many of the estimates around possible compensation. Salter, who worked on the ban when he was at the FCA, said: 'That previous Court of Appeal ruling surprised me. I think everyone knows that if they're buying a car the salesman's getting commission, don't they? But discretionary commission never felt right to me.' The FCA began its investigation in January last year on whether consumers had been properly told about the link between their repayments and the commission. The investigation was kicked off by two rulings by the ombudsman against Lloyds and Barclays last year, which ordered the banks to refund two consumers more than £1,000 each. The FCA is expected to set out its next steps, including whether there will be a redress scheme, within six weeks. Any scheme would be free and easy for consumers to use, it said, while the FOS is also free for consumers to appeal to. Rob Lilley-Jones from the consumer group Which? said: 'It's vital that finance firms are held accountable for mis-selling and if a large number of motorists are eligible for compensation consumers are likely to be bombarded with ads from claims firms offering to take on their case. 'Affected customers should be careful when enlisting the services of claims management companies as the wrong choice could lead to their case being poorly handled, losing a significant portion of the compensation in legal fees — or both.' Coby Benson from the law firm Bott & Co, which helped win the ombudsman's case against Lloyds, said the experience from PPI was that consumers could sometimes recover more money by going to court than through a redress scheme. He said: 'We would support a proactive redress scheme if it fairly compensated consumers. But we have doubts over the effective implementation of a scheme, because our data shows that about half of clients have a different address now to that which the lender had from the time of the agreement.'


Telegraph
a few seconds ago
- Telegraph
Ireland's ‘Viagra village' braces for Trump's tariffs
Nestled along Cork harbour, Ringaskiddy is just one of many Irish villages transformed by the arrival of America's giant pharmaceutical companies. The area has been nicknamed 'Viagra village' because Pfizer, the US drugs behemoth, manufactures the active ingredient for its erectile dysfunction drug at its site on the south coast of Ireland. Indeed, the combination of American investment and low corporation tax has fuelled Ireland's economic fortunes, bringing jobs and prosperity to the country over the past two decades. But for how long? With 15pc tariffs on EU exports to America, and an investigation by the US commerce department into overseas drug manufacturing, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the coastal area. On Thursday, Trump escalated his assault on drugmakers further, warning companies including Pfizer to lower prices for Americans by charging higher fees abroad, including in Ireland and Britain. In a letter to the heads of 17 pharmaceutical businesses, he urged them to 'negotiate harder with foreign freeloading nations' in a veiled jab at Ireland. It is hard to overstate the impact of US investment on southern Ireland. Cork is home to seven of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and more than 11,000 people are employed directly by the industry in the county. The village of Ringaskiddy boasts a raft of pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, from Johnson & Johnson to BioMarin, while Cork has around 190 multinational businesses. But tensions are rising. 'Will there be jobs in three years?' On a summer's afternoon, it's ladies day at Raffeen Creek Golf Club. The rolling nine-hole course and clubhouse was built by Pfizer just a stone's throw away from where it first set up in Ringaskiddy in 1969. As they enjoy tea and scones after a round of golf, friends Eleanor Crowley and Kay Desmond say that locals are wary despite the EU trade deal. Crowley, whose husband worked at Pfizer for more than 35 years, says 'there's no question' the region's pharmaceutical industry will be affected by tariffs. 'They're huge employers in the area and they're good quality jobs,' she says. Crowley adds that her grandson, who has just finished secondary school, is thinking about studying biological sciences. 'I'm wondering now, will there be jobs in three or four years?' she says. Desmond's son also works in the pharmaceutical industry, while his fiancée is employed by a whiskey company. 'They are a bit nervous,' she says. In the nearby coastal town of Crosshaven, where holidaymakers mill about the marina, Trump's tariffs remain at the front of locals' minds because of the impact on the region. Betty O'Halloran, who lives in the area, said the 15pc tariff on EU imports to the US is 'going to affect everybody'. 'Surely if [Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president], if the EU could have done any better, they would have and that Trump is so volatile that he could go back and put 30pc on,' she says. Down by the Ferry Boat Inn in Ringaskiddy, Bob Levis is also wary of the US president's wavering attitude. 'With Trump, you can't trust him. All right, it's 15pc tariffs now but sure he might change his mind and say he's going to up it for the pharmaceuticals.' The EU's agreement to buy $750bn (£570bn) worth of US energy products, including liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel have also left him underwhelmed. He says: '[The EU] did not want a trade war and I can understand that, but I think in their enthusiasm to get a deal I think they rolled over a bit.' Sarah Murphy, another local resident, says American pharmaceutical companies have brought a wealth of opportunities to the region, but fears are growing about site closures. 'We'll be lost without it and the workers will be lost without it,' she says. She cites the example of a friend who worked for ILC Dover, a US manufacturing group which supplies the pharma industry. They lost their job last year after ILC shut down its factory in Blarney, near Cork, and moved to Poland. It's a tale that many fear could happen across the region and for Ireland's economy the stakes could not be higher. 'We live or die by our competitiveness' Pharmaceuticals and the tech industry have driven much of the country's growth over the past half-century. The nation has fuelled its budget with corporation tax receipts from American companies, but these are extremely concentrated. Just 10 businesses are responsible for more than half of the country's corporation tax revenue. In a sign of the pharma sector's importance, the Emerald Isle exported €10.6bn (£9.1bn) in goods to the US in May – up 86.5pc from the same month a year earlier as companies sought to beat the tariff deadline. There are already fears that a slowdown is on the horizon. GDP fell by 1pc in the second quarter of 2025, and more pain could be around the corner. Such is the concern that Ireland's political class are starting to worry about the impact on local jobs. In the Cork suburb of Douglas, Jerry Buttimer, a Fine Gael TD who represents Cork South-Central, says: 'It's been a time of huge worry and tension for everybody. The pharmaceutical community and industry has been and is a pivotal part of the local Cork economy. 'We live in a volatile world where some actors use a bully pulpit to negotiate, to engage. The European Union, with its trading bloc, has taken a different approach.' Speaking outside Pfizer's Ringskiddy plant in the 'Viagra village', Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fáil MEP, remains hopeful after the trade agreement. 'The biggest fear of all was a protracted trade dispute where there was no end in sight, at least now we have a degree of certainty around the cost of the tariff and the impact that it will have and now companies can plan again.' As the final details are hammered out, locals are nervously waiting to see how the deal impacts pharmaceuticals. Kelleher makes the case that Ireland needs to remain 'an attractive option' for investment. 'We live or die by our competitiveness, that has always been the case since we started opening up our economy in the Sixties and Seventies.' Simon Harris, the Tánaiste and Irish foreign affairs minister, said on Friday that the Irish government had 'assurance from the US that pharma will not get a tariff of any higher than 15pc in the European Union'. He added that tariffs on pharmaceuticals will remain at 0pc until the US investigation into the sector concludes. It is expected to come to an end in two weeks. Yet trade tensions have a contagious effect that no drug can cure.


Telegraph
a few seconds ago
- Telegraph
The wealth tax isn't coming, but Labour has other daft plans to take your money
The Government is in trouble. Its inability to persuade backbenchers to accept even modest spending cuts means it badly needs to raise money to fill the gaps caused by its self-harming policies. Tax revenues have dipped below expectations due to poor economic growth, wealthy taxpayers are leaving the country and people are changing their spending and investment patterns. Its failure to make the savings it planned means it has to borrow more, but its year of governing has pushed the cost of borrowing up, too. Many on the left of the party saw an opportunity to pressure Rachel Reeves and have lobbied for a so-called 'wealth tax'. But now that Labour has more or less backed off the idea, what else do they have in store for us? A wealth tax was always a non-starter simply because it is so administratively complex it could not have been introduced before the next election. This would have meant yet more people leaving the UK, taking their wealth with them. Some property markets would see values fall, in turn damaging their potential to create tax revenues. The effect on the economy would be significant. No surprise then that Jonathan Reynolds, Business and Trade Secretary, has ruled out a wealth tax, describing it as 'daft' (which it obviously is) and saying that those demanding one should 'get serious' – meaning it will be left to Jeremy Corbyn's new party to campaign on. But taxation is not the departmental responsibility of Reynolds, so why then can't Reeves make a clear statement? Allowing the speculation to linger looks like a clear attempt to foster a deliberate and irresponsible distraction – that can only mean Labour Treasury ministers are working on other tax plans. To understand what Labour is likely to be planning it is best to examine proposals which have the support of CenTax, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Labour-supporting tax enthusiast Dan Neidle, of Tax Policy Associates, who says 'it makes much more sense to tighten existing taxes, such as capital gains tax and inheritance tax'. It was these groups, led by CenTax, which were successful in persuading Labour to adopt its disastrous assault on non-doms and Reeves's extension of inheritance tax to family firms and farms. The far Left agenda surfacing from them now is focused on raising capital gains tax. But the capital gains tax rises that have already taken place have, as predicted in these pages by many authors, resulted in significant lost revenue. Capital gains tax receipts fell 18pc to £12.1bn in 2023-24 on the year before, even as the annual tax-free allowance was halved from £12,300 to £6,000. Capital gains tax receipts in 2024-25 dropped a further 10pc. If the high-tax zealots do persuade Labour to increase capital gains tax to income tax levels, we can expect a much sharper fall in these receipts. Currently, nobody thinks Labour will be re-elected, meaning everyone would just hold on to assets (equities, properties, etc) for the four or so years Labour remains in power, causing revenues to dry up. CenTax and the other high tax enthusiasts want to charge capital gains tax on all assets at death, but that would result in a tax rate on death of over 54pc. The high death tax rate is the main reason non-doms and entrepreneurs are fleeing Britain. To make it even more punitive would be a significant act of national self-harm. Another idea being mooted is an 'exit tax', an exceptionally foolish idea. Look at what's happening in Norway, where a new exit tax is destroying the country's tech sector – tech firms can no longer attract international talent and capital. London-based Stani Kulechov, of major tech firm Avara, says: 'Every Norwegian tech entrepreneur I know is leaving or has already left.' France once had an exit tax but the negative effect on investment caused it to more or less scrap the policy. The French version came with a 15-year rule – those who left France would be taxed on certain shares or profits unless they kept them for 15 years. In 2018, the French government relaxed this limit to two years, making the tax largely voluntary. The Labour Government must learn from its own experience and from other countries that raising taxes does not always mean higher tax revenues. Ironically it was Dan Neidle who recently said: 'If you tax savings and investment, you get less of it. Less from people in the UK, less from people who leave the UK and less from foreigners. The consequence is a drop in growth.' For once Neidle is right, but is he a stopped clock or has he gone through a Damascene conversion to the low tax cause? Whatever it is, Reeves should look to reduce capital gains tax, allowing people to cash in on unwanted assets and generate revenues she badly needs.