PPL has been involved in several major biotech advances. As well as cloning Dolly the sheep in 1996, it was the first firm to announce it had cloned pigs capable of providing organs for humans and worked on stem cells, which scientists believe can be coaxed into growing replacement organs.

But it came under fire from investors for spreading its interests too widely and suffered a string of setbacks.

PPL said in June that German partner Bayer AG BAYG.DE had decided to put on hold the two firms' plans to develop a lung drug from the milk of genetically modified sheep.

"That was unfortunate. But I think there's a feeling they tried to be all things to all men rather than focusing on one project," said Keith Redpath, an industry analyst at Panmure.

PPL said in a statement it did not have enough shareholder support to continue developing its one remaining project, a surgical glue called Fibrin I that stops bleeding.

Chief Executive Geoff Cook was stepping down immediately and KPMG Corporate Finance would help with the sale, it added.

HOLLOW VICTORY

PPL's break-up follows an extended period of financial uncertainty at Dutch rival Pharming PHAR.AS and the collapse of British biotech firms Bioglan and Weston Medical.

Panmure's Redpath said European biotech firms were no more prone to failure than U.S. rivals, but the industry seemed weaker because it lacked success stories on the scale of U.S. firms such as Amgen AMGN.O and Genentech DNA.N .

The biotech industry is younger in Europe than in the United States, and so has been less resilient to - and has had fewer resources to cope with - the plunge in investor confidence following the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000.

"Potentially it (PPL) had some ground-breaking technology," said Paul Scott from Willowdrive, a shareholder group that has campaigned for the firm's sale since last year.

"But none of it was going to be commercially viable for at least 10 years, and it clearly didn't have funding to see that through to fruition."

Scott was pleased investors would finally get some money back from the firm, but said it was probably too late to salvage much of its technology, as any buyer was likely to be attracted by its cash reserves rather than the remnants of the business.

"So much shareholder value has been frittered away and a substantial number of jobs have been lost. I wouldn't describe it as a victory," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

PPL posted a net loss of 12.8 million pounds ($20.6 million) in the six months to June 30 and said it had 11.4 million pounds of cash at that date.