Bottom Line: Scientist's Holy Grail

TO LISTEN to Chris Evans, the fast-talking young scientist behind Chiroscience, you would believe his company has discovered the Holy Grail of drug research - technology that offers the enormous rewards of successful drug discovery but whose wide application reduces the risks.

The fashionably dressed and entrepreneurial Dr Evans seems a million miles away from the traditional image of a scientist. He was also the founder of Celsis International, the biotechnology company that came to the market last July.

He is once again backed by an impressive team that includes Nowell Stebbing, a biotechnology pioneer with Genentech and Amgen in the US who then spent six years as general manager of research at ICI Pharmaceuticals, and John Padfield, the Glaxo manufacturing boss who will join Chiroscience as chief executive.

If the reality of Chiroscience is half as good as Dr Evans makes it sound, investors should make a purchase when the company floats next month.