Loquacious American ex-stockbroker Daniel C Montano wants to raise up to £15 million on AIM through broker Zimmerman Adams for CardioVascular BioTherapeutics.

Montano, who co-founded the company with German cardiac surgeon Dr Thomas Stegmann, says this will swell present cash of ‘around $8 million (£4 million)’ to give the company the 18 months needed to complete Phase II trials for therapies to treat heart disease, stroke, leg ulcers, bed sores and chronic back pain. But he happily reassures that ‘if the company is ever low on money we, the board, just loan it some money’.

Montano explains, ‘Half of all adults die from lack of blood flow to an organ, such as heart attack or stroke.’ The body grows new blood vessels (angiogenesis) when subjected to a trauma and now Stegmann has discovered ways to stimulate angiogenesis using protein therapy.

The CardioVascular prospectus shows Montano has a colourful history as a broker, having once been fined $100,000 (£50,000) and issued with an order by the National Association of Securities Dealers back in 1998 when it found he had ‘violated certain rules’, including ‘making improper references to prior recommendations, making exaggerated and inappropriate presentations of prior recommendations and making improper projections’. The order required he ‘permanently cease and desist from continuing and causing any further material misrepresentations and/or omitting to state material facts in the offer or sale of a security’.

CVBT points out that ‘none of the matters discussed above with regard to Mr Montano involved any securities of or transactions involving our company’.