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TWST: Shall we start with a brief introduction to Maelor (London:MLR.L) and your key activities today?

Mr. Appelbee: Maelor is a medical company that operates in niche specialist hospital areas. The company was started in 1992 and was floated on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange in 1997, so we’ve been operating as a public company for five years. We produce products both in the medical device area and in pharmaceuticals, and our first two products are available in the UK. The first one is OptiFlo™. This is a range of urethral catheter cleansing solutions which was launched in 1999 in the UK and is distributed via Bard, which is the largest distributor of urethral catheters in the world. OptiFlo now has 33% of the prescription market in the UK, which is pretty encouraging considering the product was launched at a price premium. A couple of weeks ago Bard launched OptiFlo in Italy, and we are in advanced negotiations with a couple of other companies about launching the product in other countries in the European Union this year. In the US, OptiFlo will be considered a drug rather than a device, and we’ve been talking to the FDA about what our strategy should be and they’ve made a few suggestions, so we’re just putting together a package to enable us to make an NDA in the US in the relatively near term. So that’s OptiFlo, and that’s been our principal source of income until recently. Our second product, Volplex®, is a pharmaceutical product. It’s succinylated gelatin and is used as a blood plasma volume replacement product in emergencies or where there’s a potential for a great deal of blood loss; in a surgical operation for example. This product was launched last October in the UK through Cambridge Laboratories Ltd, which is our distributor here, and we’re formatting the marketing application so that we can submit it in the rest of the European Union through what’s known as the Mutual Recognition Procedure. We have also signed agreements in Australia, South America and South Africa to distribute this product, and our local partner Arrow Pharmaceuticals in Australia has submitted a product license application just before the end of 2002. We’re hoping for an approval there within the next year, and the dossier is currently being translated into Spanish and Portuguese for submission in South America through our distributor, Ahimsa. Volplex is approved in South Africa and at the moment we’re just transferring the license to our new distributors down there, Adcock Ingram, who will be launching the product just as soon as we’re able to make that change.

TWST: Can you give an update on your products in clinical trials?

Mr. Appelbee: Firstly we have TendaGel™. This is an anesthetic lubricant gel, which will be used to facilitate the insertion of urethral catheters and cystoscopes, which are instruments used to diagnose bladder, urethral and kidney diseases. TendaGel is just completing its Phase III trial program and we’d be looking to submit the first product license application some time in 2003. The product with the greatest sales potential is our micelle formulation of propofol, the injectable general anesthetic. Our compound is aqueous, which makes it easy to mix with other products, and also makes it far more stable than all the current forms, which are emulsions.

TWST: Can you expand on that and outline the main objectives that you will be concentrating on during the next 12, 18 months?

Mr. Appelbee: Well, I was appointed in March 2002, and at that time what I saw was a company that was on the springboard and just about to take the jump into the big time. I see my job very much as moving this company from essentially an R&D company to a profitably trading pharmaceutical company; that’s my principle medium term objective. We have TendaGel coming on stream in the very near term, and with micelle propofol just completing its Phase I studies, which will clearly be providing us with income in the medium term, I believe those two products could see us through to profitability.

TWST: What are some of the important highlights on your financial sheets?

Mr. Appelbee: Clearly we are suffering along with everyone else with the current market sentiment, but we have not suffered as badly as most. We’re outperforming our sector because we have a good story to tell. Our cash position is obviously not strong, as anyone who will read our balance sheet can see, but it is not as bad as it may look because we do have some research and development tax credits due from the government, which we should be collecting in the next few months. We have also just recently announced a proposal to raise capital through a fully underwritten Placing and Open Offer. We have, subject to the EGM, secured £2.9 million (net of expenses) from current investors – a substantial achievement in what is a very difficult environment for raising funds.