City File: Drugs worry

MEDEVA, the troubled drugs group, will remind shareholders on Tuesday that it is looking for a new chief executive. Bernard Taylor - the former chief executive of Glaxo and no relation to the Martin Taylor who has just joined Barclays - needs to strengthen his board to restore investor confidence.

The half-year profits figure will be meaningless, as it will depend on whether the group has already written off its pounds 10m of extra stocks in its US IMS drug-delivery business. Assuming it has not, pre-tax profits will be about 20 per cent up on last year's pounds 17m. Analysts are predicting a full-year total of pounds 42m. But the market is fearing further bad news and the shares are a gamble at best.