Speaking to the jury for the first time since the case began on

Speaking to the jury for the first time since the case began on Monday, Philip Hackett QC, for Mr Hipwell, said the prosecution’s claim that his client’s column had moved markets was “nonsense”.
“The prosecution would have you believe that the whole financial market revolved around two Daily Mirror journalists and a man sitting at some internet desk,” he said.While Mr Hackett acknowledged that Mr Hipwell had traded in the shares of several of the companies that he had tipped, he said this had “nothing to do with the value of the share”. “Patents will not stand in the way of producing the drug for mankind,” Franz Humer said, confirming that Taiwan had asked for permission to make the drug.Tamiflu remains a relatively small contributor to Roche’s overall sales, although it is likely to prove highly profitable. Tamiflu is the only pill that can treat the effects of the disease.The company said yesterday that “one-off” sales would continue into the last few months of the year at least, bringing total sales of the drug in 2005 to between Sfr1.1bn and Sfr1.2bn.William Burns, the chief executive of the company’s pharmaceuticals division, said: “We believe we have orders for a further Sfr200m to Sfr250m in the fourth quarter.”But the company tried to dampen the growing political demands that its monopoly on Tamiflu be stripped away.Roche has come under pressure to allow generic drug makers and governments to make their versions of Tamiflu, and Roche’s chief executive reiterated that the company would consider letting others make the product. Tamiflu sales more than doubled in the third quarter to 279 million Swiss francs, and analysts said the “Tamiflu bubble” could last for more than two years.
Roche shares, once the laggard of the European drug sector, have risen more than 40 per cent so far this year as governments send in orders for the drug amid fears of a global avian flu pandemic.

Soaring demand for Tamiflu, the anti-viral drug being stockpiled all over the world in case of bird flu, has sent sales at the Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche to levels well ahead of expectations. The starting point is higher in the case of inflation and lower in the case of output than previously expected. From a 9-0 vote it requires a significant shift in sentiment to get a move next month.”Richard Lambert, one of the leading doves on the committee, said yesterday the Bank’s forecast of a “sharp” acceleration in growth next year might turn out “too optimistic”. But he echoed concerns expressed by Mervyn King, the Governor, that oil could feed through to inflation.”The lesson from previous oil shocks is that it is critically important to prevent the initial impact of higher energy prices from being translated into second-round effects,” he told business leaders in Belfast.. Higher inward migration should lower pressure on pay, but high oil prices could hit profits and force businesses to cut back on investment in their productive capacity.Geoffrey Dicks, at Royal Bank of Scotland, said: “November is shaping up to be a far more interesting meeting. The major issue is the impact on supply capacity from higher oil prices and immigration. If high fuel prices feed through, the committee seems prepared to raise rates to avoid higher inflation.”But the minutes showed the discussion was very balanced, with every hawkish comment balanced by a more dovish observation: Output growth was “subdued” but the slowdown might not as bad as the official data shows; the impact of oil prices and inward migration on supply capacity could work in opposite directions; inflation expectations were “well anchored” but it was important not to be “complacent”.Many key issues were deferred until next month’s quarterly inflation report, leaving the door open to a major change to the Bank’s forecast that would justify a rate cut.

“We’ve had 10 days of pretty constant selling pressure,” Mike Lenhoff, at the stockbroker Brewin Dolphin, said “The FTSE is quite oversold now. The market fundamentals looked attractive at 5,500, and now it has fallen 5 per cent they are even more attractive now.”The gloom from Wall Street’s 1 per cent overnight fall was magnified by minutes of the October MPC meeting showing there was no discussion of a rate cut.The lack of talk of lower rates disappointed those analysts who believed the Bank would have to act soon to prop up growth.Laura Phaff, at the research firm CEBR, said: “Today’s minutes suggest there is little chance of a rate cut this year. Billions of pounds were wiped off share values as the FTSE 100 index fell almost 2 per cent yesterday – the 18th anniversary of the 1987 Black Monday crash.
The minutes of this month’s meeting of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee warned it would raise rates if soaring oil prices triggered a broad rise in wages and prices.”At present there was little sign the higher oil price was feeding through to wage settlements or inflation expectations, but if such effects were to take hold, the committee would need to run a tighter monetary policy,” it said.On Tuesday, US factory price inflation reported its biggest rise in 15 years, sparking fears of further rate rises and a sudden sell-off on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 closed down 96 points at 5,168, wiping out £24bn of shareholder wealth and marking the steepest percentage fall since May 2004.The market has fallen some 330 points since it hit 5,500 just 10 days ago But analysts said the decline was overdone. The London stock market suffered its worst fall in 17 months yesterday as a warning by the Bank of England over soaring oil prices added to mounting fears of higher interest rates to tackle a rebound in inflation.