A new treatment for heart disease is being developed by Oxford company British Biotech.

The firm has linked with Biocompatibles, a medical device company that makes stents, the wire mesh used to separate blocked arteries in a procedure known as angio- plasty.

During such an operation, a balloon is inserted into a blocked artery and expanded to reopen it, avoiding the need for heart bypass surgery. The new treatment would mean coating the stents with Batimastat, an anti-inflam- matory drug developed by British Biotech, to stop the arteries closing again something that happens to a fifth of patients.

The procedure will soon be tried out on patients and the firm says a commercial launch could follow within a year.

If the technique is successful it would be a big boost for British Biotech, which hit problems in 1998 when it was accused of misleading investors by exaggerating the prospects for the drugs it was developing.

It cut its workforce by a third and aims to transform itself into a group with a "broad product pipeline". The results of a study of British Biotech's cancer drug marimastat are expected to be announced by the end of February.

It is the last hope for marimastat, once intented to be a blockbuster treatment for all types of cancer. Unless the results are positive, it is likely to be dropped by British Biotech.