Cancer expo to emphasize early detection

Could a bowl of minestrone soup or Manhattan clam chowder lower a
man's risk for prostate cancer?

The American Journal of Epidemiology reports that lycopene, an
antioxidant found in cooked tomato products, may contribute to a
decreased risk for the disease.

"Italian-Americans and those with a Mediterranean diet, which has a
lot of tomato sauce in it, have a slightly lower incidence of prostate
cancer than other American men," said Dr. John Martin, a urologist
with offices in Poway and San Diego's Hillcrest neighborhood.

Each year, about 200,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer. There
are about 30,000 deaths from the disease annually.

Martin is one of several physicians who will discuss ways to detect
and prevent cancer during Palomar Pomerado Health's Collaborating
Against Cancer expo from 5 to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow at Carmel Mountain
Ranch Country Club.

The expo will include information about the risks of colon, breast,
prostate, skin, cervical, lung and other cancers. Exhibits, free
health screenings, a panel discussion and nutritional information will
be offered. The cost is $25 per person. A buffet dinner is included.

Japanese and Chinese men also have a significantly lower incidence of
prostate cancer than American men, Martin said. However,
Chinese-American and Japanese-American men are diagnosed with prostate
cancer at the same rate as American men.

Though the theory has not been proved, Martin said researchers believe
the reduction in prostate cancer among Asian men may be due to a diet
rich in soy and low in animal fat.

Regular screening and early detection of the disease have resulted in
an increased ability to treat it, he said.

"Early detection means having at least an annual blood test and a
digital rectal examination. We recommend that for every man over the
age of 50 and every man over the age of 40 who has a (family) history
of prostate cancer. ... If your father had prostate cancer, you have a
three times greater chance of developing it than someone who does
not."

Kay Kimball, manager of the cancer resource center at Palomar Medical
Center, said the conference is designed to provide the public with
information about preventing lesser-known cancers.

"October is breast cancer awareness month," Kimball said. "We wanted
to take advantage of the attention that's placed on breast cancer to
also provide information on other cancers that don't have a highly
publicized month of their own."

According to statistics published by the American Cancer Society, a
little fewer than one in two men and a little more than one in three
women will contract some form of cancer during their lifetime, Kimball
said.

"It's just imperative that people understand what the risk factors
are, the signs and symptoms, and become proactive in screening," she
said. "People need to learn what kind of screenings they need, because
they don't necessarily get them if they're not aware and asking for
them."

A registered dietitian at the expo will discuss the link between
nutrition and cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, about
a third of the 570,000 cancer deaths expected to occur this year will
be related to nutrition, obesity and physical inactivity.

Each paid admission to the expo will include a copy of "The New
American Plate: Recipes for Healthy Weight and a Healthy Life," by the
American Institute for Cancer Research. A blood cholesterol screening
is available for an additional $15.

www.signonsandiego.com

Juniper Launches VoIP Protection System

The hardware/software combo provides intrusion detection and
prevention, and allows enterprises to respond individually to
denial-of-service attacks.

Juniper Networks has announced a network security solution designed to
defend voice over IP (VoIP) systems from session initiation protocol
(SIP)-based attacks.

The Dynamic Threat Mitigation solution brings Juniper's routers and
intrusion detection and prevention (IDP) systems with its service
deployment system (SDX) to create a single unified security solution.
The solution mitigates SIP-based denial of service (DoS) attacks and
worms by allowing enterprises and providers to identify and respond to
them individually.

Juniper's IDP system identifies potential threats to the centralized
IDP Manager, which generates requests for action to the SDX. The SDX
invokes the appropriate response, applying rate limits and filters on
traffic flows. In the event that the IDP system detects an actual
infection, the SDX policy server can quarantine and notify the
affected user, redirecting him to a captive web portal

"With more services being pushed across the IP network, it is
essential to also maintain increased levels of security and control to
ensure services delivered to the enterprise or residential customer
are not compromised," Juniper Networks senior marketing manager of
voice solutions Scott Heinlein said.

"Juniper's combined use of intrusion detection and prevention with our
service deployment system is a natural and very useful progression
that provides threat protection to the edge without disrupting the
customer's environment or installing new equipment at the customer
location."

Juniper's Dynamic Threat Mitigation solution is being demonstrated
today and tomorrow at the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo in
Los Angeles. It requires Juniper's M-series or E-series router, IDP
and SDX products, and is available today.

www.informationweek.com

DaimlerChrysler bullish on U.S. prospects

A day after its Mercedes division helped it to forecast-beating
results, DaimlerChrysler

said on Wednesday that new products would help shield its U.S. arm
Chrysler from margin-eroding price wars.

Slugging it out with badgered U.S. rivals General Motors Corp and Ford
Motor Co while trying to fend off foreign competitors in the world's
biggest car market poses a major challenge for Chrysler, but one it
has mastered so far.

Chrysler's third-quarter operating profit gained 43 percent to 310
million euros ($374.5 million) million unit sales and revenues both up
12 percent despite the toughest market conditions in living memory. It
also maintained its operating margin, excluding one-off factors.

In a conference call with investors, group Chief Financial Officer
Bodo Uebber acknowledged Chrysler had faced slight downward pressure
on net prices in the third quarter, but added the pressure had been
worse in the first half of the year.

"Having all our new products out ... we can compete even better in the
fourth quarter" in terms of the prices Chrysler can command, he added.

Chrysler has outshone its U.S. rivals thanks to hot models like the
Chrysler 300 sedan, Jeep Grand Cherokee and minivans with stow-flat
seats.

It recently launched the "Mega Cab" version of its big Dodge Ram
pickup and the Jeep Commander with three rows of seats. Uebber said 10
new vehicles were due in 2006. These include the Dodge Caliber
mid-size car and the Dodge Nitro crossover.

Chrysler's performance and a rebound by the premium Mercedes Car Group
division helped the world's fifth-biggest carmaker report late on
Tuesday that third-quarter operating profit rose 38 percent to 1.84
billion euros, beating analysts' forecasts.

MERCEDES ON TRACK

Uebber said Mercedes was on track to reach the goal of boosting its
operating margin to 7 percent by 2007.

Mercedes was making progress with plans to reduce costs, boost
revenue, ensure quality and revamp the loss-making Smart small car
business, which Uebber reiterated was due to break even in 2007.

Long the group's cash machine, the division has been dogged this year
by the strong euro, model changeovers, spending to fix quality
problems at Mercedes-Benz and losses at Smart, which has responded by
cutting staff and its model line-up.

The quality offensive meant warranty costs would now start to decline,
Uebber said.

Mercedes' third-quarter operating profit increased 43 percent to 436
million euros as new models came onto the market and it wrung out
efficiency gains, cementing a rebound that began in the second quarter
after a rare first-quarter loss.

Slides on the company website also cited challenges "for 2005 and
ahead," including an "intensely competitive car market, especially in
the U.S.," a further rise in interest rates, high oil prices and
translation effects from foreign exchange rates.

DaimlerChrysler's foreign currency exposure for 2005 is "nearly fully"
hedged at 95 percent, Uebber said. It uses a three-year rolling plan
for hedging, and Daimler had already executed initial hedging
contracts for 2008, he said.

He thought the burden from higher raw material costs would rise
somewhat next year, but not nearly as much as in 2005 compared to
2004.

Shares in DaimlerChrysler gained as much as 3.1 percent on Wednesday
after the German-American group posted surprisingly strong
third-quarter results after the market closed on Tuesday.

The stock touched a peak of 42.07 euros before easing back to 41.88 by
1030 GMT, up 2.7 percent, ahead of a conference call with analysts and
the media at 1130 GMT.

DaimlerChrysler stock has risen more than 18 percent this year, now
narrowly outperforming the DJ Stoxx European car sector index, and
trades at around 11.9 times estimated 2006 earnings versus 10.6 times
for arch-rival BMW.

Italian carmaker Fiat beat forecasts for group third-quarter trading
profit on Wednesday, while France's Renault releases third-quarter
sales figures later in the day.

www.today.reuters.com

European health officials assess preparedness for possible avian flu pandemic

European health officials end a three-day review Wednesday of the
continent's readiness to contain an influenza pandemic with fears
growing that bird flu is closing in on Europe's heartland.

World Health Organization and EU experts have been meeting in
Copenhagen since Monday to analyze the threat of the bird flu virus
mutating into a type that can be spread between humans.

At the start of the meeting, experts said Europe was better prepared
to contain outbreaks of bird flu than Asia because of better resources
and communication between countries.

The deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, which has killed more than 60
people in Asia, has been detected in birds in Romania, Russia and
Turkey, raising fears it could spread to the rest of Europe.

There are 144 known strains of avian flu, most of them harmless.

On Tuesday, the EU said it will ban the import of exotic birds and
impose stricter rules on the private ownership of parrots and other
pet birds. Last weekend, a parrot imported from Suriname died in
quarantine in Britain after contracting the H5N1 strain.

In Germany, officials said that preliminary tests on wild geese found
dead there came back positive for bird flu. And even though the fowl
died of poisoning - not influenza - further tests would be carried to
see whether they carried H5N1.

Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary were also testing birds found dead for
signs of bird flu, underscoring the extreme sensitivity of the issue
even though officials have urged Europeans not to panic.

The virus is hard for humans to contract, and most of the 62 people in
Asia who have died from the disease since 2003 were poultry farmers
directly infected by sick birds.

www.cbc.ca

Bridging the business-IT divide - experts show how

The reality is this: accountability for IT success should fall not
only on IT managers but more importantly on business leaders, said
Frank Koelsch, executive vice-president, corporate strategy and
research for Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont.

And by the same token, he said, CIOs must have an equally important
role in defining business strategy as the CEO.

Koelsch's views are echoed by Paul Williams, a trustee with the
Rolling Meadows, Ill.-based IT Governance Institute (ITGI) and author
of a book released earlier this month titled IT Alignment: Who is in
Charge? The book discusses strategies for business-IT alignment, and
provides guidance on the responsibilities of the CIO, CEO and board.

Research indicates that these are the issues being neglected by many
businesses. More than 50 per cent of organizations polled in a recent
ITGI survey lacked any formal structure to align IT investments with
business strategy. And fewer than 25 per cent engaged board members
directly in the IT strategy-setting process.

Business should actively involve IT to better understand the realities
of technology's capabilities and risks; and IT has to learn to think,
communicate and plan in business lingo, say both Koelsch and Williams.

"There are no IT projects; there are only business projects. That's a
baseline, so it's incumbent upon the business executive to include and
to drive IT initiatives as part of business initiatives, as part of
the business deployment process," said Koelsch.

He says business objectives and IT's ability to support these are
doomed if there is no business and IT alignment.

According to Koelsch, a common vision between both units is essential
to achieve agreement on issues such as: how much a project will cost,
how long it will take, what resources it will consume. "Often IT
managers are told they have to do something, at a certain cost, within
a certain time frame and deliver certain IT capabilities, all of which
are unrealistic."

Williams said companies should look at "buying IT" as akin to
embarking on a major business change initiative, in which IT plays a
significant, but not an isolated or discrete, part.

"One of the most common reasons for [IT] failure is a lack of
understanding of the way that the business [itself] needs to change or
adapt to benefit from the [IT] initiative," said Williams.

He said this business change component is rarely understood fully, and
is always more complex than anticipated. For this reason, he said,
business leaders need to be educated, not just on what IT can do, but
also on what it can't do -- and that includes bringing about [people
and business] change in itself.

IT managers have to be realistic and not have unreasonably high
expectations about the business benefits of a project. "Sometimes they
will have to downgrade business expectations."

Williams said businesses must work in full partnership with IT
departments (including third party outsourcers) to build reliable
metrics for project performance and ultimate success. These metrics
would consider things like active IT investment portfolio management
and the impact of risk on project performance and delivery.

"Business often sees IT as a 'magic box' solution in that all you need
to do is buy the [product], plug it in and miraculously it will give
you the [expected] benefits," said Williams. "We all know it cannot be
that simple. There needs to be a joint understanding that IT of itself
will never deliver benefit."

He said businesses must specify statements of value expectation that
are specific and measurable. "Too often the benefits are articulated
in soft terms such as improved staff morale or improved product or
service quality. These are too vague."

"Improved staff morale should lead to lower staff turnover and
therefore [support] quantifiable measures such as reduced costs for
recruitment or new staff training. Similarly, improved product quality
should lead to higher revenues and reduced costs for dealing with
returns.

"What needs to be understood, of course, is that all of this becomes
totally academic unless the value achieved is actually measured across
the life cycle of the solution. Without such measurement there can be
little accountability and minimal learning," Williams said.

John Sloan, senior research analyst at Info-Tech, says business
success comes from a combination of a CEO who wishes to "include and
drive IT" and a CIO who is an aggressive student of the business.
"It's equally important that the IT leader be able to speak the
language of business," said Sloan. "This needs to be a priority."

The focus should be on achieving a business strategy and creating
success measures. "IT and business can only see eye-to-eye on the
business value of IT if they both speak the same language. As this is
a business value discussion, that language should be a common set of
business value measures," Sloan said.

According to Sloan, IT governance has created the framework for
planning, measurement, control, execution and accountability. "Through
governance, the enterprise asserts its ownership of IT. The IT group
and business stakeholders start by agreeing on goals and how success
will be measured."

According to Sloan IT decision-makers should place a higher priority
on formal management systems that document a set of repeatable and
measurable procedures. "The biggest impact of formal systems is not so
much on the speed and efficiency of projects themselves, as on the
management of expectations. Repeatable and measurable procedures
provide benchmarks that everybody can understand and accept."

This process is often best led through a properly constituted and
representative investment committee, said Williams. One option is to
outsource this task to an independent investment office to avoid
internal bias and politics. "The outsourced service would not make the
final decisions, but would ensure proper, objective comparison of the
facts to enable an informed decision to be made.'

He said the CEO must ensure that decisions on IT-related investments
match the business priorities and -- through active involvement of the
CIO -- take into account skill and resource limitations.

"It needs to be made clear that IT is there to deliver the IT
component of key projects, but ultimately it is the business'
responsibility to deliver value from the total project. This needs to
be done in full partnership and shared accountability between the
business and IT," Williams said.

www.itworld.com

Cambridge Antibody Technology and Abbott Agree Regarding Royalties

England and ABBOTT PARK, Ill., October 26, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/
-- Cambridge Antibody Technology and Abbott today announce that they
have reached an agreement regarding royalties payable to CAT under a
licence agreement between the parties. Accordingly, the hearing
scheduled to start this week in the Court of Appeal will not take
place.

Paul Nicholson MD, Chairman, CAT, commented: "We are very pleased to
have reached resolution of this issue with Abbott. We can now
concentrate fully on CAT's business going forward. CAT is already
benefiting from Abbott's successful development and marketing of
HUMIRA(R) and we are hopeful of future success with ABT-874."

Jeffrey M Leiden MD PhD, president, Abbott Pharmaceutical Products
Group, said: "We are pleased to find a solution that benefits both
companies and resolves our differences."

Under the terms of the settlement agreement:

-- Abbott will pay CAT the sum of US$255 million, which CAT will pay to
its licensors, the Medical Research Council (MRC), Scripps Institute
and Stratagene, in lieu of their entitlement to royalties arising on
sales of HUMIRA from 1 January 2005 onwards.

-- Abbott will also pay to CAT five annual payments of US$9.375 million
commencing in January 2006, contingent on the continued sale of HUMIRA.
US$2 million from each of these payments will be payable to CAT's
licensors.

-- Abbott will pay CAT a reduced royalty of 2.688% from approximately 5.1%
on sales of HUMIRA from 1 January 2005. CAT will retain all of these
royalties. CAT will also retain royalties received from Abbott in
respect of sales of HUMIRA up to 31 December 2004, net of approximately
7.6 million pounds sterling which will be paid to its licensors. CAT
will refund to Abbott approximately 9.2 million pounds for royalties
paid from 1 January 2005 through 30 June 2005.

-- Abbott will also pay CAT a reduced royalty of 4.75% on any future sales
of ABT-874, from which CAT will pay a portion to the MRC and other
licensors (according to CAT's 1997 agreement with the MRC).

-- Abbott will capitalise and amortise the upfront payment, net of the
refund, and annual payments to CAT through the term of the agreement.
When this amortisation is combined with the revised royalty rate of
2.688%, the blended effective royalty rate is reduced from the
approximate 5.1% as previously instructed by the Court.

Application of the Safe Harbor of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains statements about
Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc ("CAT") that are forward
looking statements.

All statements other than statements of historical facts included in
this press release may be forward looking statements within the
meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These
forward looking statements are based on numerous assumptions regarding
the company's present and future business strategies and the
environment in which the company will operate in the future.

Certain factors that could cause the company's actual results,
performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the
forward looking statements include: market conditions, CAT's ability
to enter into and maintain collaborative arrangements, success of
product candidates in clinical trials, regulatory developments and
competition. We caution investors not to place undue reliance on the
forward looking statements contained in this press release. These
statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and we
undertake no obligation to update or revise the statements.

www.medadnews.com