How to pronounce “ofatumumab” is this morning’s poser.
Sometimes it is a relief to be a print journalist rather than a broadcaster, and that usually applies when covering pharmaceutical companies and their bafflingly obtuse names for drugs.
Ofatumumab, which sounds like a New Zealand sheep farm outpost, is in fact a treatment for auto-immune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, and drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline is selling it off to Swiss peer Novartis for up to US$1.03bn.
Ofatumumab already is marketed by Novartis under the brand name Arzerra as a cancer treatment, so the deal tidies things up nicely for both companies.
It is not often that graffiti artist Banksy features on the business channels of a well-known search engine but the fact he is prominently featured today probably tells you all you need to know about news flow on a typically quiet Friday.
The Bristol Post, no less, informs us that tickets to the “much anticipated” Dismaland exhibition by the Bristol-born street artist are set to go on sale this morning.
The exhibition, which riffs on the theme of a dystopian view of a well-known Mickey Mouse organisation, is based in Weston-super-Mare.
It is not often that Petroceltic International (LON:PCI) makes it on to the search engine’s top business stories list either, but having struck a blow against anonymous bad-mouthing on Internet bulletin boards, the company finds itself in the spotlight.
The company has secured a court order to have an allegedly defamatory anonymous blog removed from the Internet.
Wordpress owner Automattic has to take down the blog, according to the order, and it must also block further posts from the blogger.
Not only that, the court has also ordered that the anonymous blogger be identified.
Sector peer Rose Petroleum (LON:ROSE) is also in the spotlight, albeit on the web sites of stock market news peddlers rather than on the search engine sites, after it said it could be on the acquisition trail, targeting cheap assets.
The company said the “current environment provides significant opportunity to acquire quality assets with stable income which are non-core to other companies”.
It all sounds very Warren Buffett-like, buying assets when they are cheap rather than at the top of the market, but the shares are off sharply this morning.
Lastly, and continuing with the theme of subjects that do not often get the spotlight, if the public sector net borrowing (PSNB) numbers get you excited then you will be thrilled to learn that PSNB, excluding public sector banks, fell by £1.4bn in July from a year earlier, which means the budget is in surplus.
Companies coughing up tax receipts – we’re back to search engine companies again (or maybe not) – and government departments reining in spending were the reasons for the return to the black.