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Marchington Infuriates City

The Lewis Legacy-Issue 81, Summer 1999 The C.S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing

After just a year Marchington walks away with 4.5mby Anthony Lugg Pharmeceutical Marketing, 10 November 1998

The latest news about an early player in the Lewis industry suggests that in 1998 he and his brother reaped a fortune by financial hanky-panky in the biotech industry.

…The biotechs continued to provide a mixed picture with a large number heading further south to hit new 1998 lows. These include Cantab, Core, Cottes, Medeva, Scotia, Shire and Xenova. But once again biotech has managed to infuriate the City. After British Biotec and Cortecs, it was the turn of [Anthony Marchingon’s] Oxford Molecular when it announced that it was buying the outstanding 80 percent of Cambridge Combinatorial for 12m [million] plus. Cambridge Combi, which makes libraries of drug compounds for drug development was only set up last year, and eyebrows were raised at the incestuous nature of the deal as it is run by Allan Marchington, brother of Oxford’s chief, Tony Marchington. After just a year in the business, Allan Marchington walks away with 4.5m, while shareholders of Oxford have seen their investment slump this year from over 280p to a low of 44p. While there is evidence that managements of blue sky stocks are adopting a more responsible attitude to issues such as accurate disclosure of price sensitive information and directors’ pay and benefits, in the wake of the British Biotech and Cortecs affairs – such disregard for big investors is not good for the biotech sector as a whole….

The famous (now infamous?) Tony Marchington began his adventuresome career in Oxford as Walter Hooper’s living partner, shared a lectern with Hooper in their 1975 trip to North Carolina, co-authored and appeared in Hooper’s Lewis film Through Joy and Beyond in 1977, and created the Lewis bonfire hoax letter that he sent to Christianity & Literature in 1978.