The first new generic drug is expected to enter the market by Christmas. Dr Bogie said although sales were likely to slip by around 15 per cent next year, the quota system would prevent a rush of lower-priced generics into the market.Dr Bogie was upbeat over other products “People should see that we are following our strategy I am not worried about our share price. However, three other generic companies, Johnson Matthey, Mallinckrodt and Ganes, have obtained licences. The obesity market is growing.”He warned that second half profits also depended on emerging competition for Methylphenidate, the group’s leading drug for hyperactivity, which grew sales by 6 per cent to pounds 54m in the half yearMedeva has more than 70 per cent of the US market for this quota-controlled and licensed drug. Dr Bill Bogie, chief executive, said sales of Ionamin had collapsed to pounds 7m in the first six months of this year from pounds 21m in the second half of 1996, and would be unlikely to recover in the short term after a warning from the US drug regulator last week linking anti-obesity pills with heart failure.
Analysts were surprised by the news on Ionamin and cut full-year forecasts for group profits from pounds 120m-pounds 132m to pounds 110m-pounds 115m.First-half sales of Ionamin, which was bought from Rhone Poulenc last year and has been sold in the US since 1959, were affected by destocking and competition.James Culverwell, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said: “Medeva had always said that Ionamin would be a wild card, but no one thought it would be this bad.” Analysts were also concerned about Ionamin’s prospects, given that Roche’s Xenical anti-fat pill, a safer breed of drug, could be launched shortly.However, Dr Bogie said he still expected growth from Ionamin “It’s not like we’ve bought a dead duck. Health fears over Medeva’s new anti-obesity drug, Ionamin, coupled with a warning about full-year profits, drove the share price in the UK’s fourth biggest drug group down by 13 per cent to 222p yesterday.

But ends with a sobering sculpture of a family in the 1990s who go for a dip in the sea, only to discover that their feet dissolve on contact with the water.. Not until the 1970s and 1980s has it begun to be replaced by designs influenced by Asian, African and Caribbean countries.The exhibition follows the discovery of the joys and pleasures of the sea, sun and sand. The final solution was the stripe, based on the navy uniform, and a compromise between the health-conscious and the modest. The stripe became the universal beach design, spreading from France to Britain and Belgium and across Europe.Eventually not only was it used on swimming costumes, but also to decorate anything from tents to parasols to beach balls and swimming bags.

However, as the wet T-shirt competition has shown us all, when wet, white tends to become transparent. Those concerned with health were adamant that it must be white, as any other colour was considered bad for the skin. However, the idea of spending a holiday or even a whole day at the seaside only really took off when people began swimming in the sea and the expensive resorts of the South of France as well as those in Normandy and Brittany began to attract large numbers.The introduction of paid holidays in 1936 and the development of trade unions also encouraged the build-up of more affordable seaside resorts.By 1964 one in three of French holidaymakers chose to go to the beach.As fashions changed and it became more acceptable to reveal all, or at least nearly all, so people could go to the beach in suitable dress; sunbathing, swimming and playing games became altogether more enjoyable pastimes and of course this step forward opened the door for the creation of beach fashion.However, the creation of the swimming costume posed some serious problems. Another sketch shows a woman who refuses to go into a beach hut to change because she is worried that she’ll come out looking like the tramp just next to her.The seaside became more attractive to the French as they became aware of the benefits to health of a stroll along the beach or an afternoon spent in a deckchair breathing in the fresh sea air. The French tended to consider their beaches as wild, barren and rather dull, and certainly not a place to be spotted by any fellow members of the haute societe.
They were a far cry from the chic and exclusive resorts of St Tropez, Cannes and Biarritz of today, where holidaymakers are rarely averse to being spotted.Our desire to strip down to next to nothing whenever we get the chance, and indulge in bodily pleasures of sea, sun and sand is all explained and illustrated at the exhibition of photographs, sketches, cartoons and collages, called “Vacances A La Mer” (holidays at the seaside) at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.The exhibition traces the development of the seaside culture in France, beginning with a delightful set of sketches showing 19th-century French families at the beach, obviously not yet aware of the pleasures of a trip to the seaside, and suffering considerably.

Until the middle of the last century it was not the chic Parisian bourgeoisie who headed for the coast to enjoy the pleasures of the sea, sun and sand but tramps, hunchbacks, the lame, deformed and generally undesirable, according to Flaubert. At the end of last month, the Indonesian foreign minister, Ali Alatas, threatened to stop buying arms from Britain if the Government attached conditions concerning human rights.. We shall be looking for opportunities to support local non-governmental organisations in East Timor and if possible projects supporting trade unions in Indonesia.”Indonesia reacts very sensitively to anything it perceives as interference in its internal affairs, and one diplomat predicted that Britain’s failure to make a pledge would be taken badly by Jakarta. But it seems clear that the large-scale projects supported by the Tories, including power stations and a controversial police training programme, are things of the past.In a written answer to a parliamentary question on Tuesday, Ms Short said: “Our existing support for sustainable forestry in Indonesia is likely to continue, with increased emphasis on benefits to poor people living in forest areas. Officials play down the significance of the annual variations, pointing out that long-term aid contracts made by the Conservative government will be fully honoured by Labour until they expire. But today, British officials will make no such pledge, to the surprise of some other foreign diplomats.
Under the direction of Clare Short, the Minister for International Development, British policy is undergoing a comprehensive review aimed at ensuring that aid goes directly to the poorest.At the same time, Indonesian dissidents and activists, together with British backbench MPs, are pressing for a suspension of aid to Jakarta on account of its poor human rights record.In 1995 Britain pledged pounds 96.6m at the CGI and last year the figure was pounds 13m.