Vatican-owned Nerviano prays for last-minute rescue

Nerviano Medical Sciences (NMS), the Milan-based biotechnology company owned by the Vatican, was hoping for a last-minute rescue package last week.

The company, which is owned by the Vatican through Congregazione dei Figli dell'Immacolata Concezione (CFIC), ran into financial difficulties at the beginning of the year.

In March a local government official in Milan said CFIC was no longer able to cover the costs of its research and could close this month. Staff were told there was no more money for salaries.

Unions representing staff at NMS were due to attend a meeting last Friday.

NMS owns one of Europe's largest oncology drugs research centres, which it inherited from Pfizer in 2004. In 2008 it said its 18 drug research projects were costing Euro 65m a year.

Its most advanced cancer drug, the aurora protein inhibitor danusertib, has successfully completed Phase I and II trials.

The governor of the Lombardy region, Roberto Formigoni, has promised to support any rescue plan.

According to Reuters, the banks have agreed to provide funding. The Italian bank UniCredit, which has already provided loan facilities to NMS, is the most likely source. However, the cash on offer is not considered enough to keep NMS viable. It has been calculated that the company needs €30m to finance its research until the end of the year and the same amount for the next four years. But Italian newspapers suggest the company needs a further €80m.

It remains unclear what CFIC intends to do. It agreed to invest a further €70m last year, but so far has only delivered €5m.

Umberto Rosa, NMS chairman, said every imaginable saving had been made and that some research programmes were now at risk.

"We are carrying out an assessment of the damage (from the lack of funding) done both in terms of our research programmes and our activity with third parties. How irreparable this (damage) is, is difficult to say; what is certain is that we cannot continue like this," he added.

NMS has partnerships with Pfizer, Genentech, Bristol-Myers Squibb and several biotechnology companies and academic institutions.

However, Rosa said he was "reasonably optimistic" about a rescue owing to the support from the Lombardy government.